The Dial Press, August 2011
Nuri el-Alfi's relationship with his father Kamal has bloomed into a quiet, mutual tolerance since his mother's death. Yet with both father and son in parallel states of mourning, Nuri and Kamal find themselves in similar need of restructuring, with a mutual vacancy for a feminine presence. Hisham Matar's novel Anatomy of a Disappearance grapples with that emptiness and details Nuri's struggle as he attempts to fill his life with meaning, despite all he's lost and all he's yet to lose.
"I saw her first," Nuri recalls of an early encounter with Mona, a beautiful woman he met during a vacation with his father to Magda Marina in Alexandria, Egypt. Mona is twenty-six, aged nearly equidistant between thirteen-year-old Nuri and his father. Both Nuri and Kamal redirect their quiet longing toward Mona's grace, but in disparate ways; although Kamal sees in Mona a chance to rebuild his family, Nuri fails to find anything especially motherly about her. Instead, Nuri's interest in Mona is more of the carnal sort, an urge that works against the newfound complacency between him and his father.
Nuri el-Alfi's relationship with his father Kamal has bloomed into a quiet, mutual tolerance since his mother's death. Yet with both father and son in parallel states of mourning, Nuri and Kamal find themselves in similar need of restructuring, with a mutual vacancy for a feminine presence. Hisham Matar's novel Anatomy of a Disappearance grapples with that emptiness and details Nuri's struggle as he attempts to fill his life with meaning, despite all he's lost and all he's yet to lose.
"I saw her first," Nuri recalls of an early encounter with Mona, a beautiful woman he met during a vacation with his father to Magda Marina in Alexandria, Egypt. Mona is twenty-six, aged nearly equidistant between thirteen-year-old Nuri and his father. Both Nuri and Kamal redirect their quiet longing toward Mona's grace, but in disparate ways; although Kamal sees in Mona a chance to rebuild his family, Nuri fails to find anything especially motherly about her. Instead, Nuri's interest in Mona is more of the carnal sort, an urge that works against the newfound complacency between him and his father.
Kamal and Mona marry, yet having Mona as a stepmother does not fully eliminate Nuri's pubescent lust. Matar develops this tension with skillful hints of Greek Tragedy, but when a sudden, all-too-relevant fate befalls Nuri's father, Matar transitions almost entirely from his well-laid novel of erotic dolor and strides into the realm of political intrigue.
While inexplicably in Geneva (and in bed with another woman) Kamal is abducted by an unknown political faction. Matar takes this act as an opportunity to delve into Kamal's past as Nuri acknowledges fully how little he actually knew of his father. Money was never an issue for his family and a network of aides and assistants steadily supplemented their lifestyle. Surely there were secrets:
"...I assumed all fathers were like my own: the little time they spent at home they spent, like recovering warriors, resting, reading in their studies, before returning to the secret obsession to which they were devoted. And although he never spoke about it, I always had a vague notion of what my father's obsession might have been… those silences when someone, usually a guest, mentioned the military dictatorship that ruled our country…"
Matar plumbs these depths with subtle investigation, but does so at the expense of the potential sexual tension he once so carefully planned. In his father's absence, it seems Nuri ignores entirely his feelings for Mona, bottling them up until a perfunctory, fleeting release that will surely confound readers.
While inexplicably in Geneva (and in bed with another woman) Kamal is abducted by an unknown political faction. Matar takes this act as an opportunity to delve into Kamal's past as Nuri acknowledges fully how little he actually knew of his father. Money was never an issue for his family and a network of aides and assistants steadily supplemented their lifestyle. Surely there were secrets:
"...I assumed all fathers were like my own: the little time they spent at home they spent, like recovering warriors, resting, reading in their studies, before returning to the secret obsession to which they were devoted. And although he never spoke about it, I always had a vague notion of what my father's obsession might have been… those silences when someone, usually a guest, mentioned the military dictatorship that ruled our country…"
Matar plumbs these depths with subtle investigation, but does so at the expense of the potential sexual tension he once so carefully planned. In his father's absence, it seems Nuri ignores entirely his feelings for Mona, bottling them up until a perfunctory, fleeting release that will surely confound readers.
Anatomy of a Disappearance attempts to balance its devastating political subplot with the difficult emotional developments of a mourning son, but Matar falls short in his efforts to create a believable relationship between his narrator and the rest of his characters. Instead, Nuri feels more like the idea of a child than a fully realized person. His actions often feel far from his age: in his early teens his sexual obsession with Mona feels almost far-fetched in its determination, and as an adult he lapses into frustrating immaturity as details emerge around his father's disappearance. W
hile these kinds of reactions could certainly be attributed to a person in Nuri's position, it's off-putting and confusing to see such a wavering spectrum in such a short amount of pages. Anatomy of a Disappearance is a brief, quick book and does not allow its narrator's emotions to develop as Matar intends. Instead, Nuri reads as an erratic, inconsistent narrator and unhinges Matar's better-formed ideas on pain and loss.
hile these kinds of reactions could certainly be attributed to a person in Nuri's position, it's off-putting and confusing to see such a wavering spectrum in such a short amount of pages. Anatomy of a Disappearance is a brief, quick book and does not allow its narrator's emotions to develop as Matar intends. Instead, Nuri reads as an erratic, inconsistent narrator and unhinges Matar's better-formed ideas on pain and loss.
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