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The Review Revue: Diana Abu-Jaber's "Origin"
November 26, 2007
A few weeks ago, I wrote a "Recommended Reading" entry about Origin by Diana Abu-Jaber. This past Sunday, Brian Hall wrote a review of the same book in the NYTBR.
I don't often think it's worth comparing reviews; chacun à son gout and all that. I also believe that each review contains something worth chewing on, even if it's only wondering if one critic read the same book as the other.
However, I was intrigued by Hall's comments -- because they're so valid. He says of the author "One senses early on she's at sea" in trying to write a thriller, noting that inconsistencies and implausibilities abound in the police department where Abu-Jaber's protagonist Lena Dawson works as a fingerprint technician with a sideline in eerie intuition and a truly creepy sense of smell. He write "The impression one gets from “Origin” is that the police-detective elements don’t interest Abu-Jaber enough to induce her to take them seriously. What interests her is the personal detective story that we all share: the desire to understand where we come from."
He's right. And yet.
I didn't care about the lack of veracity even the tiniest bit while I was reading. Granted, I am not a devotee of police procedurals (although I've read my fair share, and I'm a rabid Henning Mankell fan); if I were, perhaps I'd be more attuned to pace and details that make sense. I was simply swept up in Abu-Jaber's ice kingdom of Syracuse and inside her protagonist Lena's memory-logged psyche.
This of course made me wonder if others have had similar experiences with books -- knowing that an author has something completely wrong (the politics of academe, the motivation behind domestic abuse, the proper training of a sous-chef, what-have-you), but still adoring the book, adoring the reading experience. Because, naturally, there are other books that get details down pat, but are completely unreadable (and now I'll draw a veil... ).
Posted by Bethanne Patrick on November 26, 2007 | Comments (4)
