Zeitoun by Dave Eggers is a boring book. Not as boring as What is the What? Not as boring as You Shall Know Our Velocity! About equally boring as How We are Hungry. And boring. Just boring.
Dave Eggers moves his snailish narrative at a slug's pace. It's all about a man named Abdulrahman Zeitoun. First half of the book he floats around in a canoe. Second half of the book he's in jail. It's like Old Man and The Sea meets The Stranger. It's that boring.
There's something about Hurricane Katrina here. It hits the city Zeitoun is in. The city Zeitoun is in is New Orleans. Thus, the floating. Then there's something about police, or terrorism, and he's in jail and can't get a phone call. It's like The Perfect Storm meets The Trial.
But there's this whole bureaucracy too, and they want to elicit a confession through semi-illicit means. It's like 1984. This book is Orwellian and Kafka-esque, at the same time.
The characters are ridiculous. I've never met anyone like them in real life. A Syrian-American? Who runs a house painting company? Married to a white trash Islam convert? With three kids? All girls? I thought Muslim daddies beat their baby daughters to death with rocks before they left the hospital. I thought it was like Blood Meridian meets The Quran.
The real truth is, when you read this book you're going to want to go on a jihad yourself. The injustices suffered by this good, totally innocent, hard-working family man are so far beyond the pale that it just reaffirms everything that I, as a liberal, know to be true. The ugly head of American fascism rears its head and gnashes its teeth.
The power structure at hand here breaks down like this: The Federal Emergency Management Agency was "folded" into the Department of Homeland Security after 9-11. As you'll recall, FEMA was in charge of the Big Easy during the Katrina aftermath. That means FEMA was in charge of all prisoners, too. You'll also recall that the DHS had (still does) powers to detain suspects indefinitely, e.g., Guantanamo. The net was cast wide and Zeitoun was caught in it.
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Article comments
1 - moot23
So I read this crappy review of this book Zeitoun, and I'm pretty sure it must me spot on, because, come on, it's right here on the internets.
Also, it makes fun of the title "What is the What?" Was that a title? That was really confusing! What is the what indeed!
There's a lot of guilt in this book. But also, I sense redemption. Redemption via credit card, on my credit card. I am loving... and redeeming... and buying.
I think.