Alif the Unseen

There's a lot to love in this book, and a lot to question. The author, G. Willow Wilson, is a pretty interesting figure herself who has written a book that deviates greatly from most of the modern fantasy I've read. For starters, she's drawing from Middle Eastern mythology, about which my knowledge was admittedly limited to Disney's Aladdin. Most books that are set in the Middle East today are too embroiled in the real world for me to enjoy them. They get preachy or righteous or judgmental and I can't help but see the SERIOUS SUBJECT the author wants me to agree with him about. Wilson however wields the fantasy element as well as Octavia Butler to talk about serious subjects but with a guise over them that makes the stories more open, flexible, and (for me at least) palatable. She even references this directly with how dictatorial governments censor the hell out of libraries, but generally leave pieces like the Chronicles of Narnia on the shelf because they aren't seeing through the fantastical layers. It's a clever in-joke in a wonderful novel

Two other things really stood out for me in this novel. One is the tendency of major action points to happen off stage. Dina and the convert's flight to the Empty Quarter, Vikram's marriage and death, the release of the Marid basically all the elements that a Hollywood company would jump on to make this a Blockbuster smash, happen as asides in Alif's story. I kind of wanted to know more about Vikram and the convert, how their relationship began and everything that happens in the story, but that would have drastically changed the novel itself. Also, I have a feeling I would have got bored with the two of them if they were actually given center stage for two long. If Wilson stays in this world, the convert's story is the next one I want to hear though. The decision to do this is courageous and makes it hard to predict and unique.

The other is the power of language and particularly names. You don't tell jinn your name, you don't tell the internet your name, and you define yourself both by the name you are given and the name you choose. Online handles and metaphors are at the heart of this theme, and of the major characters very few get real names, and those that do hardly use them. The only exception to this are Intisar and Dina, women who are behind literal masks instead of figurative ones. The convert never getting a name strikes me as genius as I know when I was close to the only white girl in a Japanese town, I was known as “The American” or “The ALT.” The convert herself reminds me a lot of how I felt living in a foreign land, the frustrations I had and the mistakes I made. Even without having the experience of visiting the Middle East, I connected deeply with her story. Of the male characters, everyone is referred to by their mask (Alif, NeeQuarter, the Sheikh, the Hand, even Vikram's name is questionable) and the sense of true identity is reserved really just for Dina. It's an interesting perspective, and a theme I've always enjoyed, and even if Alif's given name is pretty obvious long before the reveal, there's a nice symmetry to its appearance.

Alif the Unseen has much more to offer. It's a perspective on the Arab Spring written before the Arab Spring. It delves into the language of code and the power of social media and hacktivists. It is apologetically honest about living in pre-Arab Spring society, and it maintains a sense of fairness and humor in all of its depictions. It's not like any book I've ever read before, but I hope it's not the last time I find a treasure like this.