Cockroach - The Library of the Uncommons

305 pages

English language

Published Nov. 14, 2008 by House of Anansi Press.

ISBN:: 978-0-88784-209-2

(1 review)

During a bitterly cold winter in a snowy northern city, a self-confessed thief has just tried to commit suicide by hanging himself from a tree in the local park. Rescued against his will and obliged to attend sessions with a well-meaning but naive therapist, our narrator tells her – and us – his heartrending and hallucinatory story.From his childhood in a war-torn Arab country, to his current life in the smoky emigre cafes of his new city, Cockroach traces our narrator's journey – his longing for a place in the world, his guilt over his sister's death at the hands of her husband, and his love for an Iranian woman, Shoreh, whose life is also a flight from the darkness of the past. As the stories in this remarkable book converge, our narrator must confront the events of the past in the form of another moral but potentially murderous dilemma …

During a bitterly cold winter in a snowy northern city, a self-confessed thief has just tried to commit suicide by hanging himself from a tree in the local park. Rescued against his will and obliged to attend sessions with a well-meaning but naive therapist, our narrator tells her – and us – his heartrending and hallucinatory story.From his childhood in a war-torn Arab country, to his current life in the smoky emigre cafes of his new city, Cockroach traces our narrator's journey – his longing for a place in the world, his guilt over his sister's death at the hands of her husband, and his love for an Iranian woman, Shoreh, whose life is also a flight from the darkness of the past. As the stories in this remarkable book converge, our narrator must confront the events of the past in the form of another moral but potentially murderous dilemma in the present . . .

11 editions

JohnnyCache reviewed Cockroach by Rawi Hage

Review of 'Cockroach' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

Well, my rating of two stars looks quite low, but given the descriptions that Goodreads provides, I was unable to justify 3 stars ("I liked it"). Unfortunately, it was merely - in my opinion - OK. Goodreads suggests two stars for "it was ok", so that's what I gave. I don't know why I feel it so necessary to defend my rating, but I've gotten a lot of flak in the past over what people see as low ratings for books that they like (hello, "The Luminaries"!). Oh well. That's what ratings are for. If everybody gave out 5 stars, the site would be useless.

Anyway, now for the review. I was really hoping to like this book, especially after I read (and fell in love with) "Annabel" by Kathleen Winter. These are both Canada Reads 2014 finalists (I've just got three more to go!). Unfortunately, Cockroach just wasn't my …

Well, my rating of two stars looks quite low, but given the descriptions that Goodreads provides, I was unable to justify 3 stars ("I liked it"). Unfortunately, it was merely - in my opinion - OK. Goodreads suggests two stars for "it was ok", so that's what I gave. I don't know why I feel it so necessary to defend my rating, but I've gotten a lot of flak in the past over what people see as low ratings for books that they like (hello, "The Luminaries"!). Oh well. That's what ratings are for. If everybody gave out 5 stars, the site would be useless.

Anyway, now for the review. I was really hoping to like this book, especially after I read (and fell in love with) "Annabel" by Kathleen Winter. These are both Canada Reads 2014 finalists (I've just got three more to go!). Unfortunately, Cockroach just wasn't my kind of book. I didn't care for the characters. Sure, the main character was a delusional criminal, but I am not referring to his morality. The character just didn't seem REAL. I didn't care about anybody because they didn't seem human. The whole book is written in a style that I can't quite describe... it's not the brain-numbing, pseudo-intellectual, artsy style that I hated in The Luminaries. I felt that I was reading the work of a poet. The author was more interested in making his prose seem worthy of an award, not making a universe that actually existed, with living, breathing, dynamic characters. I recognized some of the streets and locations in the book (who doesn't love Montreal?), but that was the only dose of realism that I found.

Sorry, Rawi and lovers of the Cockroach, I just couldn't care about any of this book. It wasn't terrible, but it just wasn't for me.

Subjects

Thieves -- Fiction.
Immigrants -- Fiction.
Montréal (Québec) -- Fiction.