Meryam Echib's 3 favorite reads in 2024

The manuscript is an idea invented by the writer. The truth is that the quatrains were transmitted orally, but I prefer his choice. He added another dimension to the novel by making the manuscript itself its main character, instead of Benjamin and Omar Khayyam. The novel became like the Odyssey of the Samarkand manuscript. I also think that the aim of this invention was to find a way to connect the two stories that take one spatial framework, which is Persia and the East in general, while the time varies from the era of Omar Khayyam to the “modern” era. In this context, the writer hinted that events repeat themselves, even after a period of hibernation. A historical novel, even if some of its events are fabricated, but the writing style facilitates sorting, as the real events are linked to the years and in a language that distinguishes them from the drama of the fabricated events. For example, the main events of the Assassins' Resurrection, which frame the events mentioned and their circumstances, were true, as were the events of the Persian Constitutional Revolution in the second story - in a way that surprised me personally - amidst the siege of Tabriz and the intervention of the Russians and the British to deter popular demands.... The characters were, of course, imaginary, of course, other than the three heroes of the first story: Omar Khayyam, Hassan al-Sabah, and Nizam al-Mulk. However, their personalities, sayings, and their association were the result of the writer's creative intervention. As for the character of Jahan, it was inspired by the imagination (although it may have existed in reality) and was a link to connect Omar to the court of Nizam al-Mulk, Khatun, and Malik Shah. As for the second part, only the character of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani is real, while the rest, including the main character who was created of course to be the narrator of the events, are fictional people, but they are symbolic characters, so it is likely that those who resemble them in personality, orientation and destiny actually lived - but under different names.

This novel, which I finished in 5 days, gave me what I was looking forward to in the Granada Trilogy novel, which did not live up to my expectations: a historical novel in which the events that take place are historically correct - and the writer is free to invent details to build a plot through which he can convey what he wants to convey - in beautiful language (even if it is translated) and a vivid description of the scenes as if you were walking a knight on foot.
I loved Omar Khayyam and more than him Shirin, who disappeared as soon as the manuscript disappeared, as if she was nothing but a mirage inspired by the quatrains to Lesage, those quatrains that were lost in the sea, as it was written in them:
You ask where we get the breath of life,
If a long story should be shortened
I said that it springs from the depths of the ocean,
Then the ocean suddenly swallows her up again.

It is a metaphor (and representation) of human society, and its evolution - at least from a religious perspective. Starting from the two - Úrsula the Great Mother and José Arcadio Buendía, perhaps representatives of Adam and Eve? - who come to a small area and build a village, which grows and becomes more developed and civilized, and also more corrupt: it goes from absolute peace to war, from generous people whose mood is only disturbed by some oddities from time to time to leaders and dictators, from union to division, from fair division to feudalism and land grabbing, from honor and chastity to sins and prostitution and the emergence of classism and arbitrariness. The descent from good people - imperfect - to sinners - of flesh and blood. Then comes the flood, and their history repeats itself in a circle in which time is wrapped up until the prophecy is fulfilled. The great deception is war, where principles fall for the sake of power, and power is nothing but a disease that eats away at the stomach and rots the heart until it becomes a friend, and its lover is like a drunkard, who never stops asking for more and does not wake up from its magic until it is too late and his liver is poisoned.
The struggle between good and evil, even the good make mistakes and sin, submitting to their desires and storms of unbridled emotion. While the wicked have moments of unprecedented humanization, in which they show the good and compassion they harbor. The judgment is mixed and raises the question: Who will prevail? Or must the war between them remain a debate until the world is undermined?
The so-called "Banana Empire" was also mentioned, and how the intruders controlled the air and land together to generate profits, and most of the ways in which Khakondo was transformed from a fertile residential village into an industrial city.
In the novels there are some obscene scenes, but the absence of description of these scenes preserved the novel from excessive obscenity, despite the strangeness of the connections that resulted from these scenes, as the participants in this moral perversion often end up regretting and repenting or dying. Marquez's language has a sweet, transitory sweetness, descriptions and similes that evoke nostalgia in the reader before the character, as he excelled in describing the halls fragrant with the breeze of flowers that wither in front of the scorching afternoon heat.