Desertion: A Review

I just finished the book Desertion and I think such a good piece of writing deserves a review. 

It took me time to get hooked on it, and I must admit that I was reading with a deadline on my mind, since I have to write a paper on the book and it is due shortly. However, the book that started as a pain in the neck ended up as one of the most beautiful, touching and sad stories I have read. 

I feel compelled to praise Abdulrazak Gurnah and his incredible writing. Most of the time, especially during the first chapters, you wonder what exactly the story is about, what the author is telling you. I remember my surprise when, after the book starts telling you about the love story about Martin Pearce and Rehana, there’s the interruption. But then, when you head into the second part you start seeing the connections and the reason why he explained their story first. And the culmination of the story, when you can’t help but thinking “OH MY GOD!” it’s the final chapter, A Continuation. That’s when everything that hadn’t made sense until now makes sense, and one cannot do anything else but feel impressed before the extreme wittiness of Gurnah. 

Also the writing style itself, the book has many different moving passages, but the most moving of them all for me was when Rashid – who can be considered as an alter ego of Gurnah himself who also is exiled from his country – admits his loneliness and sorrow, and how he feels an alien, starting to look at himself through the European’s eyes. I found it as an escape for Gurnah, who through Rashid tells his own story of desertion and exile, and I may be wrong but it made me feel closer to him even though I cannot even start to grasp what he felt. This book gave me another view of the world, different from the European one; and it made me rethink concepts and things that we western people think as common and usual but may not be usual and common to other cultures.

For anyone out there who wants to read this, beware that this is not a book of a world we, Europeans, know. It is a book about Zanzibar in the times before, during and after Independence; all explained through love stories and the terrible tragedy of a man who is deserted from his country, alienated, exiled. It is not a happy book and it is definitely not a book full of hope, but it is a book worthy of reading nevertheless. 

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

                                                                                                           W. H. Auden

Hasta siempre, tita. 

London: Star Trek Premiere and a different and not touristic view.

Right, so these days have been amazing in a way I cannot describe, but I’ll try anyway. Since I cannot upload all the pictures if you want to see them I have a post on Tumblr where you can IF YOU CLICK HERE :) 


From Wednesday to Sunday I’ve been in London. A friend of mine is living there as an Erasmus student at Roehampton University, and when she came to Barcelona about three weeks ago she told me that I could try and find a cheap flight for the Star Trek Premiere (Which was on Thursday) and if I found one, I could spend some days in his flat. So I looked for cheap flights and my surprise was that there was, in fact, one for 40€. I bought it and on Wednesday I was flying to London.

I must say that this is not the first, neither the second time I visit London, not even the third. I’ve been a few times and I’ve already seen the “tourist places” such as the Big Ben, London Eye, Tower of London, Leicester Square, Picadilly, etc. so I wasn’t expecting a tourist visit as other times, and all the more reason when my friend now knows London better than Barcelona itself. So, when I arrived to Hammersmith tube station, we went by bus to her residence to leave my stuff and have lunch. After that we took the bus once again and we, first of all, went to St. Bartholomews’ Hospital, as good Sherlockians that we are and fans of the BBC adaptation. The area was incredible because the fans had left messages all over the place, specially on the phone box. Brilliant and touching.

Then we just kept walking, chatting and enjoying walking in London, and we arrived at a Café Neró where we spent around two hours chatting. After that we went to the Sherlock Holmes pub to have a great dinner in a great environment and then we returned home; a bit tired after so much walking but incredibly happy about being able to do it in a city we both love so much.

The following day was the Premiere day and we were incredibly excited. I had gone there t see not only Benedict Cumberbatch but Zachary Quinto as well, and the afternoon proved to be thrilling and up to the expectations. I went alone to Leicester Square to buy tickets for Les Misérables for the following day and when I arrived at Leicester Square around 1pm I saw a big queue. One man of the staff told me that we had to get stamps in our hands and around 2pm we would be called to go onto the viewing area. I called my friend to hurry up, we got our stamp, bought something to eat and standed there queuing. When we were called to the viewing area we found quite a good place so we stood there FOR THREE HOURS. It was exhausting at times because you couldn’t sit on the floor or someone would take your place, so we had to stand there. But it was really worth it.

Around 5:30 the stars started to arrive. We were on the second-third row and we could see EVERYONE perfectly and even talk to them. We didn’t want any signatures (I already had one of Benedict and I’d rather see and observe Zachary than have a signature of him) so we just stood there, amazed, as stars like Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, ZACHARY QUINTO, BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH, Zoë Saldana, the director J.J.Abrams and an extraordinary random Stephen Fry (among many others like John Bishop, Jonathan Ross or Union J) appeared and came to us to talk and sign.

I cannot describe the two hours that we spent there, seeing the actors talk to the press and then coming to sign and talk to the fans. I literally cannot do it. I’ll just leave the pictures here and see if you can imagine what me and my friend felt as we were less than two inches far from our idols. I don’t know how we could sleep that night, I assume it was the exhaustion, because we couldn’t stop laughing histerically every time we remembered what we had lived that day. That night we decided to watch (again) Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia, and we couldn’t believe we had had Benedict Cumberbatch in front of us just a few hours before.

The following day, friday, it was a day-in. We slept until late, had lunch and then we watched Star Trek, the last one before Into Darkness, because my friend hadn’t seen it. We stayed home until around 6, when I left alone to go to the city center and see Les Misérables. I wanted to see a “normal” play, since I am doing a module on British Theatre, but then I saw the prices and I thought “I’ve wanted to see Les Mis for ages. I prefer to do it now”; so I did. It was SPECTACULAR. I don’t have words to that show, it was amazing. I have seen several times the concerts of the 10th and 25th anniversary and the film is one of my favourite ones of this year (along with Lincoln) so I knew I’d enjoy it, but I never thought I would as much as I did. Oh, I should probably mention that I bought a mug and a T-shirt. I really didn’t want to buy anything, but after the show I couldn’t help myself :P

On Saturday we decided to do the rest of things we hadn’t done before. We walked a bit more around London, my friend showing me streets and places I didn’t know because I always go around London on the tube. We went to an amazing book shop a friend of mine had recommended me, Hatchards, and I bought To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Then we had lunch and we had tea in a shop near the British Museum, the London Review of Books. It is a book shop basically but it has a small café where you can drink something while reading. Brilliant and very cosy, I loved it. I had tea (yes, me, tea. Incredible, isn’t it?) with a friend I hadn’t seen in ages, it was really good to see her again, even if it was just for an hour. In the afternoon we FINALLY went to see IRON MAN 3. I had waited for ages to see this film and even though I didn’t like the idea of spending nearly 20 in the cinema, it was really worth it. I cannot wait to go and watch it again *__*

The long “weekend” was coming to an end. On Saturday night, after the cinema, we went to Roehampton, I took my stuff and then I went to Victoria to catch the bus that would take me to Luton Airport.

I really cannot the describe the inmensiness of these days. It was INCREDIBLY worth it, and if all the trips to London are like this, I wouldn’t mind repeating them every month or so :P

Special thanks to my friend Judit, who allowed me to spend these days at her home and showed me a new London that I didn’t now and I loved. Thanks, dear :)