A few thoughts on A Thousand Farewells
First, your requisite backstory. A Thousand Farewells is journalist Nahlah Ayed's account of, well, her life. Her family left their comfortable life in Winnipeg for a refugee camp (!) when she was only seven (!!!). They lived in Jordan for seven years, as "refugees by design".
Well, most of them did.
Her father, who obviously had a big part in their original move, conveniently had to move back to Canada after a couple of years in order to provide the family with enough money to survive in Amman, Jordan.
Convenient, right?
This is never really addressed in the book, but it's something that stuck with me as I read it. Seemed like a pretty good representation of males domineering over their family in Arab culture.
But hey, this assignment has nothing to do with that, so let's move on.
Nahlah and the rest of her family, sans patriarch, spent seven years pissing and shitting in holes, getting a poor education, and living in poverty over in Amman. She's forced to wear religious headgear that she hates, and resents her parents for bringing her over. When she finally heads back to Winnipeg, she has no intention of ever missing the Middle East.
She spends her teens back in the Great White North, and lives a pretty normal life.
But then something happens. She goes to the UofM, and gets bit by the journalism bug.
It's a powerful little devil, that bug. The desire to write, to tell stories, to figure out what's going on in the world around you.
The Gulf War comes along, and Ayed ends up heading to the Middle East to report on it for the CBC.
She'd stay there for a little while, covering everything from Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. She saw two Arab Springs, suffered a few huge scares, and got beaten half to death once. All while learning on the job about how to be a journalist.
Anyway, the above doesn't really address anything to do with this assignment, so let's look at the questions.
What works in this book? What does not work? Why do you say this?
A Thousand Farewells does a great job of explaining what happened in the various conflicts Ayed covered to Westerners. She's uniquely equipped to tell the story of the people from that region, since she once lived in Jordan and speaks Arabic, but also considers herself a Canadian.
She knows the attitudes and biases that both peoples hold, and is able to explain Arab culture and history in a way Westerners can understand.
Ayed also does a good job of describing atrocities. Maybe I'm just a morbid person, but I was never more engrossed in the book than when she was describing just how fucking brutal a mass grave is, or what a torture house ran by Saddam looked like.
Now that I think about it, the best thing Ayed did in those brutal circumstances was to show us the people who lived through these abominations
A woman weeping atop a mass grave.
A man who still has nightmares from the tortures he suffered.
Those are the images that will stick with me years after I finished the last chapter of A Thousand Farewells.
I hate half measures. Do something all the way, or stay in bed.
Nahlah Ayed had the chance to really connect with her readers with this book. She gives us glimpses of the post traumatic stress disorder she suffered because of her time in the Middle East. She talks about the nightmares other people suffer, and briefly touches on the problems she has.
All I wanted during the last third of the book was for her to tell us how much it really affected her. Instead she teased at it, and mentions it briefly.
Maybe she did this because she didn't want to get in the way of other peoples stories. Maybe she did it because she didn't want to take our gaze away from the big picture.
Maybe she did it because it's really hard to be that honest anywhere, never mind in a published piece.
Either way, I was disappointed when I never got the payoff that was hinted at the entire book.
What is missing from A Thousand Farewells?
Historical context. I was lucky that I took a Middle Eastern history class in University, or else I would've been lost half the time. In talking to some of my classmates, I feel like they struggled with this.
What can journalists learn from this book?
"You must also be able to put yourselves in the shoes of anyone, anywhere, to truly tell their story. People are not quotes or clips, used to illustrate stories about war and conflict. People are the story, always."
This gets lost in journalism a lot of the time. We're too focused on deadlines, and quotes, and word counts, and auto-fails that some of the time we lose sight of this.
Check that. Most of the time we lose sight of this.
A journalist's job is to tell a story. But make sure you're telling somebody's story, and not just using them to make a deadline.
How does it compare to another non-fiction work of your choice in any medium?
I referenced a Middle Eastern history class I took in University. I had to read The Great War for Civilization by Robert Fisk for that class.
It was super-informative (and a brick), but it didn't tell me anything about the people of the region. It dehumanized them.
Moral of the story: When trying to learn about Arab revolutionaries, don't listen to old white dudes. Never listen to old white dudes.
(Sorry Duncan).
How did reading this book affect you?
Whoa, heavy question.
First of all, it gave me a chance to read a book again. I spent a good 7 hours one day just curled up with a cup of coffee getting lost in Egypt and Syria. It felt great to read again, even if it wasn't a book of my choosing. I've missed that so much since starting CreComm.
Secondly, it gave me so much respect for foreign correspondents. They see some crazy stuff, man.
Third, it made me appreciate cable television, wifi, and indoor plumbing. I'll stop bitching about how cold Winnipeg is now.
