I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars To earn you Freedom, the seven-pillared worthy house, that your eyes might be shining for me [...] (ln. 1-4)
Tag: Middle East
Cockroach by Rawi Hage
Rawi Hage's unnamed protagonist—an unreliable narrator—fantasizes almost as much as he steals. A poor, starving Middle-Eastern immigrant walking the Montreal winter streets, he sees himself as a cockroach: the lowest of the low, but also crafty and able to survive. His awkwardness around women causes him to undergo what he perceives as a metamorphosis into …
Rawi Hage and What his Work Means to Me
I counted it a significant turn of good fortune that I had just finished reading Rawi Hage's novel Cockroach when it almost won this year's Canada Reads competition (Joseph Boyden's The Orenda took first prize). It took me 5 years to get around to reading it. Nonetheless, this author—whose book I am reviewing Friday—has had …
Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
A group of editors gets together to write a parody of a conspiracy theory. What if the parody ends up becoming perceived as the source of ultimate truth for an actual underground group that styles itself after the Templars and Rosicrucians? The answer lies in the pages of Umberto Eco's intellectual thriller Foucault's Pendulum. In …
Nothing is True; Everything is Permitted: Historical Reality and the Creation of the Myth behind Assassin’s Creed
A white-robed hooded rider spurs his stallion to the castle of Masyaf to receive an assassination contract from his master Rashid al-Din, the infamous leader of the Assassin Brotherhood. The rider's name is Altaïr ibn la-Ahad. They meet in a library, and the assassin receives his instructions: Marquis Conrad of Montferrat, a Templar crusader, must …
Matthew Rettino 