Book Review: The Mirage

The Mirage: A Novel by Matt Ruff (New York: Harper Collins, 2012. 414 pp)

Matt Ruff (b. 1965) wrote his first novel, Fool on the Hill, from his senior thesis at Cornell University. His fourth novel, Bad Monkeys, received a Washington State Book Award for fiction, an Alex Award, and a PNBA Book Award. He lives in Seattle with his wife, Lisa Gold.

9/11 Role Reversal 

It’s the month of September in the year in 2001, and something isn’t right.

“This is the day the world changes. It’s 21 Shaban, year 1422 after the Hijra. Or as the international trade calendar would have it: November 9, 2001. Sunrise in Baghdad is at 6:25, and as the first rays strike the Tigris and Euphrates twin towers, an old man stands in the main dining room of the Windows on the World restaurant, gazing out at the city” (1).

Christian fundamentalists hijacked four jetliners; they flew two airplanes into the Tigris and Euphrates World Trade Towers, a third into the Arab Defense Ministry in Riyadh, and the fourth was bound for Mecca only to be brought down by its passengers. In a work of speculative fiction, Matt Ruff flips the switch on the world form 9/11 to 11/9, Islamic to Christian, New York to Baghdad in his novel The Mirage.

The United Arab States (UAS), which is a federal constitutional republic comprising 22 states, declares a war on Terror against the World Christian Alliance, which is

“a North American white supremacist group based in the Rocky Mountain Independent Territories” (17).

A Mirage Emerges

Photo by Ehsan Khakbazf

The Arab States invade fractured evangelical kingdoms in North America, deposing the dictator Lyndon B. Johnson. The war on terror subsides, and a Homeland Security agent Mustafa al Baghdadi captures a Christian fundamentalist suicide bomber. While interrogating him, Mustafa finds out something incredibly shocking.

“‘The United Arab States. It’s not real...it doesn’t exist. It’s a mirage. There is no Arab superpower, no union of Arab states. In the real world, you’re just a bunch of backward third-world countries that no one would even care about except for oil...[a]ll of it: This country. This world. Everything you think you know, about what is, is just an illusion. A dream’” (62-63).

In this dream, the fundamentalist American Christians believe that God is punishing them because of their sin of pride from the real world. If the fundamentalists kill enough Muslims they believe the world will return to normal. In what is most likely the most convicting statement of the novel, the prisoner says this,

“You’re the losers. It’s not fair, but it’s how it is: God’s plan has winners and losers, and you’re the losers. You’re the losers. That’s reality...And we’ll kill as many of you as we have to, to get back [to the real world]” (64).

Later, searching the prisoner’s apartment, Mustafa and his friends Samir and Amal find an inexplicable copy of The New York Times from September 12, 2001 detailing a completely different history than what they know, real history. Astounded, the characters then go investigating; the Arabian agents try to find out the notions of reality and fiction while seeking to understand the deeper metaphysics of their current situation.

Schizophrenic Writing 

While The Mirage begins with an intriguing and gripping premise, I feel like the novel falls short. Matt Huff fails to allow the strangeness of the novel marinate. The characters, Mustafa, Samir, and Amal, never grapple with the odd reality in which they are placed.

Instead of remaining in a metaphysical treatise/investigation, the novel schizophrenically tries to be an action thriller with characters hunting down new information around the globe, shooting their way through obstacles.

The Mirage shifts between plot and “wikipedia-esque”, user edited entries from the internet database called the Library of Alexandra explaining the Arab dominated world’s history. The first half of the novel is intellectually entertaining and loiters in the metaphysical side of things. The first half of the novel has inner monologues and emotional revelations, but in the latter half of the novel, the characters are never allowed to react to the mystical weirdness around them.

Instead of questioning the presented world, they just go with the flow. To me, that is poor writing.

Considering the circumstances, considering that the agents’ world was falling apart at their feet, there should have been incredible amounts of chaos and uncertainty; the novel was simply too neat.  If anything, The Mirage makes you think about what your stance is on the war on terror and cultural differences.

The Mirage was originally intended to be a TV series, and was denied. With how the novel switched gears so many times, I understand why it was rejected. If only Matt Ruff had stayed with how the novel started, it would have been an absolute hit.

Verdict: The first half of the novel - 5 out of 5

The novel overall - 3 out of 5

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Posted by: Andrew Jacobson

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Book Review: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel by Aimee Bender (New York: Doubleday, 2010. 304 pp.)

Author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, a New York Times Notable Book; An Invisible Sign of My Own, an L.A. Times pick of the year; and Willful Creatures, Aimee Bender lives in Los Angeles and teaches creative writing at the University of Southern California. Her most recent book, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, won the SCIBA award for best fiction and an Alex Award. Her short fiction has been printed in many publications allowing her to receive two Puschart prizes.

A Case for Food and Family

Food is one of the most basic needs for human beings, the symbol of community, and an opportunity for aesthetic and gastronomic excellence. Food is the central ingredient at the dinner table and, by default, the reason around community. When I think of the qualities that define a nuclear family, the dinner table comes to mind.

At the table, a family connects; it recaps the day; and it nurtures healthy relationships. Of course, such musings offer a romanticized view regarding the meaning of a family dinner. Perhaps, some families find more meaning in TV dinners and hectic schedules, but the occasional family dinner seems to carry significance.

Tasting Emotion

What would happen, though, if the perfectly cooked meal betrayed the secrets a parent tirelessly works to conceal. In The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender ponders this very scenario. Bringing the magical realism of José Saramago and Gabriel García Márquez to popular fiction, the author’s book is as accessible as it is fantastical.

The tome’s protagonist, Rose Edelstein, realizes at a young age that she can taste the emotions of the people who have prepared her food. As such, both family dinners and school lunches become almost unbearable.

Bender illustrates Rose’s budding tastes:

“But the day was darkening outside, and as I finished that first bite, as that first impression faded, I felt a subtle shift inside, an unexpected reaction. As if a sensor, so far buried deep inside me, raised its scope to scan around, alerting my mouth to something new. Because the goodness of the ingredients – the fine chocolate, the freshest lemons – seemed like a cover over something larger and darker, and the taste of what was underneath was beginning to push up from the bite. I could absolutely taste the chocolate, but in drifts and traces, in an unfurling, or an opening, it seemed that my mouth was also filling with the taste of smallness, the sensation of shrinking, of upset, tasting a crowded sense of her thinking, a spiral, like I could almost even taste the grit in her jaw that had created the headache that meant she had to take as many aspirins as were necessary, a white dotted line of them in a row on the nightstand like an ellipsis to her comment: I’m just going to lie down…” (9-10).

Where food functions somewhere on the spectrum between a necessary utility and fine art form for most people, Rose suffers under the weight of secrets no child should be expected to bear.

“Truth was, it was hard to see George eat those cookie halves without hesitation. Without tasting even a speck of the hurry in Janet’s oatmeal, which was so rushed it was like eating the calendar of an executive, or without catching a glimpse of the punching bag tucked beside every chocolate chip” (64).

Not only does Rose encounter the feelings of those preparing the food, she is able to distinguish between the factories that process and regions that grow the food.

A Family Affair

Coupled with this sixth sense in the narrative is Rose’s complicated relationship with her older brother, Joseph. Blessed with intelligence beyond his years, Joseph prefers the comfort of his room to conversation and community of any kind save his one friend, the aforementioned George.

As the story unfolds and Rose grows up, the family secrets that tortured her grow into surrealistic symbols of a family, perfect on the outside, but cracked on the inside.

The Particular Sadness of this Book

Although Bender writes from an excellent premise, I find The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake to be flawed. First, the purpose of magical realism is to critique systems, institutions, culture, and/or relationships. In this story, the fantastical portions do not serve any greater social commentary than to remind the reader that family life is difficult.

Second, the book ends much too quickly. With quick chapters and 300 pages, Bender is unable to create much depth in the characters. With the twist she creates at the end of the narrative, the book really needed a microscopic examination of the characters.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the read. In The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender focuses on the importance of food in uniting a family. By imagining a character with a unique sense of tasting other’s emotions, the author manufactures an entertaining read much more accessible than other authors in the magical realism category. If you enjoy the genre and are looking for an easy read, I recommend this book.