From Dust to Water, From Part to Whole, Somehow

I just finished "A Girl Made of Dust", and I must say that in the end I became a lot more interested in the book than I had initially thought I would be. That is one reason I love this never-ending project--I am picking up books I would likely never glance at, and am learning about places and people I would have remained ignorant about otherwise.

As I detailed before, "A Girl" continues strong with themes of storytelling. A lot of times stories serve as a coping mechanism in this novel, especially as bombs literally fall on roofs and the children ask for stories to be told. Naji, Ruba's older brother, tells a joke/story about how G-d created Lebanon, and gave the people beautiful land and bountiful crops. When an angel asked G-d if he wasn't giving them too much by giving them everything, G-d started to laugh, and said, "Just wait and see the neighbors I'm going to give them!" There is tense laughter. Stories bring the characters a means to escape, a fairytale route, even if it is filled with dead birds, unrequited love, witches, and a reconstructed creation story full of ultimate doom.

Another theme that emerges in this novel is one of the specificity of history and fate, and the chance or lack of chance to reverse the past once it has happened. Without giving away too much of the plot, I will say that both Uncle and Papi experience major traumatic events in their lives that leave them emotionally scarred. Throughout the novel it is obvious how these painful events in the past haunt them, shaping their present lives with a forceful hand, and never relinquishing their grasp. However, there is always a hope, a what if, that lingers on, that prevents the characters from completely giving up. Is it possible to reverse the past, or make it right again by reliving the present and future a different way? Ruba ponders this question with the innocence of a child, and cannot comprehend how things could be any different than they are now. As a young child she sees the palpable, the physical, and the present, and cannot truly comprehend the adult's mourning for the way things could have been different. Yet with the sharpness only a child can have, she can grasp that the adults are dissatisfied, and that they do believe that things could have been different if only they had acted in another way in the past.

I know the haunting of the past very well, and they way my own childhood shapes my every day life. Probably not a moment goes by when I don't feel the effects of my childhood bearing down on the way I perceive life and act in the present. However I must believe that there is a chance not to shed the past, but to reshape ourselves according to what we want, and to transcend the apparently fixed nature chance has delivered to us. Some of us are rich, some poor, some have suffered abuse, some have unspeakable horrors in our past. But while I can never undo this past, nor would I want it any other way, I must believe that I can choose to use the mistakes of the past to make the present and future more fulfilling. For sure I am haunted. My body, my mind. There are ghosts everywhere. But I must make water out of dust. I must make whole from fragments and pieces. Like war, like history, this is a never-ending and futile cycle, but if I don't continue, I will be trampled by my history. Instead I must reshape my ghosts.

This story tells a lot about children, the way they are so impressionable and innocent, and often victims of war, both emotionally and physically. The story is told from Ruba's point of view, and she often hints at adult emotions and behavior without fully grasping the nuances and complexity. She catches a smile, a wrinkle, a tear, and tries her best to make sense of it with the complete abandon only a child can have. There is also the idea of children as perpetrators. When does the line end/begin? When do children become adults, responsible for violence and acts, or do they remain shadows and puppets of the adults they mimic all around them? Can bombs shatter childhood, or does it take more than that?

Of course this book deals with the complexity of war, of the blurred line between good/evil, of religions, but these are not themes that I wish to flesh out as much as the others I've mentioned. I do know that I know very little about Lebanon in the 1980s, and I'm inspired to do some relearning of history. Next up, I'm reading another book set in the Middle East, called "Mornings in Jenin". Perhaps I will see another point of view, and learn more about the land of so much conflict, a land close to my heart, as I was born in Israel. I'll keep you posted.