Finishing The Parisian definitely feels like a great bookish achievement! I bought it over a year ago but it sat unread because I was too intimidated by its size. But I wanted to pick it up since it’s more crucial than ever to listen to and learn about Palestinian history and stories. While this is a work of historical fiction, I learned a lot about Palestine’s history before and between the first and second world wars, as they struggled for independence first against the Ottoman Empire and then against the British. It’s one of those books which sends you off to do more research, but Hammad really does an brilliant job of balancing history and Midhat’s fictional story.
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Probably what I liked most was Hammad’s exploration of otherness through Midhat. In Paris, no matter how close he gets to people and how welcomed he is, Midhat can’t escape white French people thinking of him as ‘other’. But then once he’s back in Palestine, his years and education in France also mark him as an outsider, known half-mockingly as ‘The Parisian’ or ‘Al-Barisi’.
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It’s obvious given its size but this book is really vast in scope. When I was finishing up and looking back on the first half, in France, I had the feeling of looking back on a different book entirely. That’s not to say the story felt in any way incoherent!! Just that the author does an excellent job in transporting you to different countries and time periods that you really get lost in them.
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I loved Varsha’s @between.bookends review of this last year, and I completely agree with what she said about it feeling like a classic! It can be a little meandering at times and you do really need to focus on it, but I think it’s worth it.