Review -- Brown Scarf Blues by Mois Benarroch

Review by Lest92 -- Brown Scarf Blues by Mois Benarroch

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Brown Scarf Blues, an autobiographical novella by Mois Benarroch, begins in Spain when an Israeli author finds a Pierre Cardin scarf in Seville and loses it thirteen days later in Madrid. During these thirteen days between its discovery and its loss, the scarf becomes a source of comfort to the writer while he attends the Three Cultures Foundation convention with a group of thirty Sephardic Jews. The emblematic scarf winds through the themes of loss, farewells and memory in the novella.

The writer arrives in Spain mourning the deaths of his sister and his friend Alan. Both died that same year. Consequently, he sells the home he owned for more than two decades and moves into a middle-class house. Taking comfort from the scarf, he begins to reminisce about those he has lost throughout his life and where his role as a writer has taken him. 

Benarroch’s exposition has a stream-of-consciousness feel to it, but at the same time, rationality anchors the poignant quality of the writing, preventing the story from becoming sentimental. The author shows the aftermath of Alan’s death in a way which is evocative and dignified. The narrator’s reminiscence lets the reader in and lets them think and feel with the mourner. His thoughts never become too private; even during deeply personal memories of the past and the dead, the writer converses with the reader. The structuring of the novella facilitates the story’s engagement with the themes of loss and goodbyes. Chapters 36 to the appendix belonged to different perspectives, locations and decades, becoming ever more fragmented the further back in time the memories originate in until the earliest memories are the most vivid impressions left from the narrator’s childhood. The novella has no fast setting after the scarf is lost in Madrid. Instead, the anecdotes leap between the Old World and the New World, but they never lose focus on the experiences from the Jewish diaspora. 

While reading, I didn't see serious grammatical errors. The novella was professionally edited in that regard. What I found bothersome were the fragments of memory in the appendix: many of these short paragraphs were three lines long at the most but were given an entire page to themselves. A less disjointed break between the main narrative and the anecdotes and fragmented memories would streamline the reading experience.

I’ll rate Brown Scarf Blues 3 out of 4. It’s a light and graceful read. I recommend this novella to readers who are interested in the autobiography genre and to those who appreciate a story with a literary slant. I’m not giving it a 4 because of the jarring break from the narrative in Spain to the different stories. Other than that, this is a well-crafted novella.

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Brown Scarf Blues 
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