Re-read review: Alif the Unseen, by G. Willow Wilson
The titular Alif of this tale is a young half-Indian computer hacker living in an unnamed City somewhere along the Persian Gulf. He is in love with an upper-class girl named Intisar and has been meeting her in secret. When she tells him she is breaking things off because she is going to have to marry someone else he – instead of either accepting this in a mature manner, or coming up with a practical plan for running off together – decides to write a program that will make him invisible to her. Alif isn’t quite sure how he teaches his computer to recognize Intisar from a single sentence…but the Hand of God – a state security program, or maybe a person, or both – was already looking to squash Alif and his colleagues, and very much wants this tool. It/he also want the book Intisar sends to Alif in the care of his neighbor Dina: ‘The Thousand and One Days’, a book supposedly written by the Djinn and holding the secret to immense power. Alif and Dina have actually already made the acquaintance of a djinn, though they don’t know it, which proves fortunate. On the run from the state security forces, they find themselves taken in by their djinn’s more powerful brother. But can they truly evade all the forces in the human, magical, and digital world that are after them and the book?
There’s a positive review from Neil Gaiman on the cover, and no wonder: The structure of the book and its protagonist are quite similar to ‘Stardust’ and ‘Neverwhere’, in which a rather naïve young man obsessed with a girl in the normal world gets drawn into a magical adventure, develops as a person, and decides he’s better off without girl #1 (whether or not there is a girl #2). However, Alif got on my nerves for the first half of the book more than Gaiman’s naïve but pleasant lads. He starts out a very dumb, reckless, selfish young man; I was startled to find out near the end that he’s supposed to be 23, as he reads more like 16 - 18. Dina, on the other hand, is great. When we meet her she is wrapped in veils, returning Alif’s copy of ‘The Golden Compass’ while fretting about the pagan & Christian imagery. However, rather than being a stuffy religious fanatic, her faith is of the generous and loving variety. She is also very clever and far more graceful in handling their weird, dangerous new situation than Alif is. That isn’t to say she’s a total badass; she gets overwhelmed and weepy at times, but only in situations where that seems like a totally reasonable response.
My other favorite character is Vikram, a sarcastic golden-eyed djinn. He likes to needle Alif when he is being sulky or stupid, and, while quickly starting to call Dina ‘little sister’, has a tendency to refer to him as ‘it’:
“How dense and literal it is. I thought it had a much more sophisticated brain.” “Your mother’s dense,” Alif said wearily. “My mother was an errant crest of sea foam. But that’s neither here nor there.”
At times I wished the book was about Dina and the djinn, because Vikram is one of my beloved ‘Drama Goths’- claiming to be the big bad demonic creature while being nothing but generous and helpful, if a bit mischievous or crude. I’d keep Sheikh Bilal, too, the old imam with a deadpan sense of humor who shelters them. However, Dina is probably too sensible to have been drawn into a djinn-related adventure without Alif’s dumbassery, so it’s probably a good thing he’s there.
The worldbuilding is good – you get a very good sense of the layout of the City, the sights and smells of its different neighborhoods, and the human social dynamics all without any excruciatingly long info-dumps. There is also a cool blending of storytelling metaphors and computer programming that is described in a way that is not only easy to follow but fascinating to visualize. When the characters finally get immersed in the unseen world, it also has a fun blend of the fantastical and recognizable:
The shadow…reappeared with bowls of a steaming white liquid that turned out to be hot honeyed milk, along with a plate of bread…“How do we pay this guy?” [Alif] asked… “If you can’t pay with things, you could pay with skills,” said Sakina, motioning to the shadow. “Well, wait a minute…My skills are more or less limited to computers – I’m not sure how much help that is to an, ah, to a –” Effrit, said the shadow, I’m an effrit. And I’ve got a two-year-old Dell desktop in the back that’s had some kind of virus for ages…
Of course, it should be noted that while the author did study Arabic language and literature and lived in Cairo for a number of years, she is not Middle Eastern herself. Since I’m not either I can’t fully assess the accuracy of the cultural portrayals here. However, Wilson is at least self-aware about the potential issues, as illustrated in this exchange between Vikram and an American convert woman:
“What I don’t get…is how non-westerners can move back and forth between civilizations so easily…You’d never guess that ‘The Remains of the Day’ or ‘Never Let Me Go’ were written by a Japanese guy. But I can’t think of…any westerner who’s written great eastern literature. Well, maybe if we count Lawrence Durrell – does the Alexandria Quartet qualify as eastern literature?” “There is a very simple test,” said Vikram.“Is it about bored, tired people having sex?” “Yes,” said the convert, surprised. “Then it’s western.”1
That caveat in mind, the view into the intersections of class and ethnicity in the City was quite interesting. The upper-class Arab girl Intisar is highly educated but expected to veil. For Dina, a working-class immigrant, on the other hand, covering her face is an act of rebellion, a refusal to be an ornament to an employer. Alif’s mixed blood is an impediment to his career. When an Indian boy harasses Dina, this exchange happens:
“Bastard desi dock boys,” shouted Alif. “You like making Indians look bad in front of these Arab shits? Do you?”…“Are we all shits?” Dinah wiped her hands on a napkin and stood. Alif waved one hand impatiently. “You know what I meant. Gulf Arabs and all that. Egyptians aren’t really Arabs…You’re imported labor, just like us.” “You’re partly an Arab, too.” “Partly is the same as not at all. Can you see them hiring me at CityCom or the Royal Bank?” “Yes, as a chaiwallah.” Alif swatted at her ankles; she danced out of the way with a squeak.
Also, the fact that Alif is more hesitant to deal with an American than a djinn is very funny…and probably kind of accurate.
It’s not all jokes and magical shenanigans, though. The consequences of getting caught by state security are made very clear from the beginning: definitely torture, possibly rape, possibly just getting shot against a wall or beaten to death. And Alif does eventually get caught, while Vikram gets Dina and the convert to safety among the djinn at great personal cost. Well, relative safety – we’re also told that too much time in the Empty Quarter will scramble a human’s brains. The very middle of the book gets rather dark – literally, as Alif is subjected to sensory deprivation. Fortunately, he has developed some sense and grown a spine, even to the point of being able to resist a literal demon tempting him:
“A part of you still hopes that the door will open and you will walk out of it free in body and in conscience. It is this part of yourself that you must kill if you really want to survive.” Alif felt his heart rate rise again, and with it, a new thrill of anger. “No. No. That’s the only part of me I still want.”
The last quarter of the book gets a little chaotic as the djinn and human worlds collide in the climax. I’ve now read this book twice, but I’m still a bit confused as to what exactly happened in the final showdown with the antagonist. This is mostly because the description doesn’t make it 100% clear where the characters are spatially, which is a bit of a problem for a scene that has any action in it. The story mostly ends happily, but perhaps more ambiguously so than the author intended. I want to rant about a few things relating to the ending, but since that will involve some spoilers, you can click here to skip it.
1. This reference cracked me up, because I’m a big fan of Gerald Durell the naturalist, who has written about growing up on the Greek island of Corfu with his eccentric family. This includes his brother Larry, who is always doing something obnoxiously highbrow. I once tried to read Lawrence Durell’s writing about Corfu…and had to put it down after a few pages, because his writing really is just as pretentious as ‘My Family and Other Animals’ had hinted.
~Spoiler section~
OK, first a few things about our main character’s time in jail. This book kind of pulls the same trick as ‘Song of Achilles’ in that sexual abuse of women is referenced as a threat constantly and it is mentioned that it might also be a risk for men in a powerless position…but it never actually is. Again, I’m not saying I want to see that. But considering the female prisoners are at the disposal of any random aristocrat, the fact that the guy whose fiancé Alif was banging has him naked in a cell and yet there is zero sexual component to the humiliation this antagonist inflicts makes for an unrealistically stark contrast. There’s no physical torture either, even though a much frailer character is implied to be subjected to electric shocks. It sort of feels like he avoids this stuff purely by virtue of being the protagonist. Alif’s rescue is also a bit jarring. Normally at this point the hero would be busted out of jail by his main team – but neither Vikram nor Dina are in a position to do that. Instead, the rescuer is a character we’ve only seen a couple of text messages from up until this point. It does get explained in a logical manner, it just feels weird.
All the characters except Vikram get some version of a happy ending – and that kind of annoys me since, as I say, he was my favorite character. The other djinn keep saying Vikram died on his own terms, which would be fine if the effort of transporting the two women while he was wounded was just too much and he keeled over or poofed into non-existence immediately afterward. But no: he had the most drawn-out death I’ve ever seen outside of an opera. I can’t help but think that if someone had thought to drag his Drama Goth butt to whatever the djinn equivalent of an emergency room is, he might have been fine! Killing off the main non-human character purely for pathos seems uncomfortably close to the treatment the one queer or minority character in a story often gets. Also, as mentioned, having him involved in Alif’s rescue might have been more narratively satisfying. But maybe that’s just me; I’d probably read a whole book of Vikram’s adventures over the centuries!
Alif and Dina end up together, of course. Alif has actually matured and gets to save the day, so it seems her faith in him was not misplaced – though 90% of the time falling for boy who acts like he did at the beginning would be a recipe for disaster. But even if they hadn’t realized they love each other they might have had to get married anyway. Just the first few incidents in the story of them hanging out together would have ruined her other marriage prospects. So that’s troubling. As for the convert…look, she does seem happy and I don’t want to judge, but I will never relate to ‘surprise, you’re pregnant!’ being a happy ending.
In terms of the political situation the City is left with… Well, this book was written in the enthusiasm over the Arab Spring, which has proven to be somewhat misplaced, to say the least2. At one point Alif delights over seeing communists and Islamists and all sorts of others marching together, thinking that sharing a digital platform means that they are primed to come together IRL. But that happened before, in the ousting of the Shah of Iran. The alliance between incompatible ideologies didn’t last then, and it didn’t last this time. That’s not to say that a revolution might not be worth it, but they are messy and leaving a story right when the old ruler is toppled is no guarantee of a good outcome.
2. The upheavals led to four civil wars, three of which are still going a decade later, a military coup in Egypt, and only one transition to a constitutional democracy (in Tunisia). Some scholars argue that, in contrast to the revolutions of the 60’s and 70’s, these uprisings lacked an intellectual center and a plan for what to do once the old leaders were removed, and so more easily collapsed into sectarianism. Foreign intervention in Syria and Yemen hasn’t helped matters either.
Overall recommendation: This book is far from perfect – some aspects of the ending are rather problematic in my view. But I still overall enjoyed reading it and if you like ‘The Matrix’ and books like ‘Neverwhere’, you will probably will too. It provides a similar kind of story in a setting that feels novel and fresh to western readers, and might even provide some cultural insights (taken with a grain of salt).
