Review by Festus -- Keys to Tetouan by Mois Benarroch
[Following is a volunteer review of "Keys to Tetouan" by Mois Benarroch.]
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Keys to Tetouan centres around the Benzimra family and their diasporic experiences spanning over decades across Africa, Europe and South America. The novel begins with one of the Benzimras, Fernando Benzimra born in the city of Tetouan, north of Morocco, fueled by burning desire to pull together the the entire Benzimras scattered in all directions.Through his first contact, Fernando realizes that the task ahead could be cumbersome, even in the most liberal sense of the word.
The consequent narratives open the readers to a long vista of horrors variously unleashed on the Jews of Tetouan by their Spanish and Arabian hosts. Stripped of every entitlement that could make their existence worthwhile, many migrate across oceans and distant lands with hope of finding rest for their agonized souls and famished bodies. However, it turns out that the difference between Tetouan and the emerging cities of "refuge" is more in the name than character as anti anti-semitism remains strong in these new places of abodes with limited exceptions. Nevertheless, many manage to stay afloat and comparatively better, courtesy of the usual Jewish spirit and in some instances, at a huge cost of identity lost, impersonation and denials.
Another scene unfolds up in the Amazon, a small village in Brazil founded by Moise Benzimra where Jewish norms combined with the nostalgic inclinations towards Jerusalem remain indelible in the psyches of its inhabitants. The remaining chapters are substantially devoted to travails of the Jews anchored on misguided notion of racial supremacy and xenophobic tendencies.
Key to Tetouan is fundamentally a historical fiction which transcends into the sociology of the Jewish nation as it begins with historicizing the diasporic experiences of the Jews and culminating into an awesome world of Jewish tradition. The theme of xenophobic prejudice is at heart of the book primarily and spilled into a larger issues of inhumanity and racism. From all intents and purposes, Benarroch presents a common motif with Frederick Forsyth in Odessa File and Chimamanda Adichie in Half of a Yellow Sun. Although there are absence of Captain Eduard Roschman, the Commanding Officer of Riga Concentration Camp who superintendents over the liquidation of the Jews, mass murder, rapes , torture in Nazi Germany and excessive cruelty meted out to Igbo secessionists during the Nigerian Civil War of the 70s, nevertheless, all these works portray a gruesome and disturbing acts of inhumanity.
The story is told in first person narrative perspective thereby connecting the audience directly with the narrator's emotions and circumstances. This plays out in tete-a-tete between Fernando and his father where the latter confides in the former the extent in which anti-semitism runs through the veins of every Spanish Catholic and how he was constrained to abandon Judaism in order to win the heart of Marisol his wife who ironically a Jewish descent. The use of terminologies border on religious and historical allusions like: Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Shabbat, Avrit, Shaharit, Kaddish, Zohan and so on is one among other qualities that endear me to the book.
However, i am at a lost as to how this huge literary edifice could scale through the press without taking cognizance of punctuations especially the full stop. I intended isolating a few instances but realized that the aforementioned flaw runs through the entire body of the work. Whether this is a function of oversight or a deliberate act of creative innovation is a matter of conjecture. Furthermore, the nonlinear narrative device adopted obviously overstretches the smooth appreciation of the book. Virtually every chapter is expressed out of chronological order vis-a-vis the preceding plot line. I personally concede to the fact that disrupted narrative has its place as necessitated but become a liability if it is not properly defined. It is on these premises that i rate the book 3 out of 4 stars and recommend it for historical and research endeavours on Jewish evolution and Palestinian affairs.
******
Keys to Tetouan
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes
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The consequent narratives open the readers to a long vista of horrors variously unleashed on the Jews of Tetouan by their Spanish and Arabian hosts. Stripped of every entitlement that could make their existence worthwhile, many migrate across oceans and distant lands with hope of finding rest for their agonized souls and famished bodies. However, it turns out that the difference between Tetouan and the emerging cities of "refuge" is more in the name than character as anti anti-semitism remains strong in these new places of abodes with limited exceptions. Nevertheless, many manage to stay afloat and comparatively better, courtesy of the usual Jewish spirit and in some instances, at a huge cost of identity lost, impersonation and denials.
Another scene unfolds up in the Amazon, a small village in Brazil founded by Moise Benzimra where Jewish norms combined with the nostalgic inclinations towards Jerusalem remain indelible in the psyches of its inhabitants. The remaining chapters are substantially devoted to travails of the Jews anchored on misguided notion of racial supremacy and xenophobic tendencies.
Key to Tetouan is fundamentally a historical fiction which transcends into the sociology of the Jewish nation as it begins with historicizing the diasporic experiences of the Jews and culminating into an awesome world of Jewish tradition. The theme of xenophobic prejudice is at heart of the book primarily and spilled into a larger issues of inhumanity and racism. From all intents and purposes, Benarroch presents a common motif with Frederick Forsyth in Odessa File and Chimamanda Adichie in Half of a Yellow Sun. Although there are absence of Captain Eduard Roschman, the Commanding Officer of Riga Concentration Camp who superintendents over the liquidation of the Jews, mass murder, rapes , torture in Nazi Germany and excessive cruelty meted out to Igbo secessionists during the Nigerian Civil War of the 70s, nevertheless, all these works portray a gruesome and disturbing acts of inhumanity.
The story is told in first person narrative perspective thereby connecting the audience directly with the narrator's emotions and circumstances. This plays out in tete-a-tete between Fernando and his father where the latter confides in the former the extent in which anti-semitism runs through the veins of every Spanish Catholic and how he was constrained to abandon Judaism in order to win the heart of Marisol his wife who ironically a Jewish descent. The use of terminologies border on religious and historical allusions like: Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Shabbat, Avrit, Shaharit, Kaddish, Zohan and so on is one among other qualities that endear me to the book.
However, i am at a lost as to how this huge literary edifice could scale through the press without taking cognizance of punctuations especially the full stop. I intended isolating a few instances but realized that the aforementioned flaw runs through the entire body of the work. Whether this is a function of oversight or a deliberate act of creative innovation is a matter of conjecture. Furthermore, the nonlinear narrative device adopted obviously overstretches the smooth appreciation of the book. Virtually every chapter is expressed out of chronological order vis-a-vis the preceding plot line. I personally concede to the fact that disrupted narrative has its place as necessitated but become a liability if it is not properly defined. It is on these premises that i rate the book 3 out of 4 stars and recommend it for historical and research endeavours on Jewish evolution and Palestinian affairs.
******
Keys to Tetouan
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes
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