2 out of 4 stars
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Raquel Says (Something Entirely Unexpected) by Mois Benarroch is a psychological fiction novel that starts off very intriguing but quickly confounds me. The prologue sets the premise that an unidentified mystic entity invites Moshe to create a person. Moshe seems to have made Raquel. Who is Raquel? She is portrayed in various ways: a figment in his mind; a character in his book or as an actual person in a parallel world. There is also another possibility – she is a childhood friend of Moshe. Moshe’s identity is also in question. He is obviously schizophrenic but what Raquel Says about him near the end of the book is definitely something entirely unexpected…or is it? This novel delves into the theme of reality perception by presenting the convoluted thoughts of a demented writer in a very unique way.
Benarroch employs a very unconventional writing style that is simultaneously attractive and repulsive. The heading of most of the chapters are actually the first words in the opening sentence. This puzzled me the first time I read it but then I embraced it as a unique writing technique. The chapters begin with Moshe declaring the objective of the chapter. However, he seems to ramble on about a myriad of other topics without fulfilling his goal. This may be attributed to the prose being mainly the thoughts of a writer with dissociative identity disorder. Moshe seems to be the main character but his mind is host to Mois and Moisito (younger versions of himself with different personalities). This may explain why the reader is never able to fully grasp the chronology of the novel. Moreover, most chapters end with a poetic dialogue that leaves it up to the imagination of the reader to decipher who the speakers are or if it is just a monologue. I was enthralled by the metaphoric language used throughout the book but at the same time I was distressed because most of the story-line was confusing.
On the other hand, the many off-topic commentary served to address a variety of themes in a very candid tone. Benarroch writes about both religion and politics in the prologue. Throughout the book his views on these themes become more fleshed-out. I may not always agree with the author’s views but I can definitely appreciate his honest approach. Another topic he expresses his view about is the discrimination that migrants face from both their countrymen and foreigner. Moreover, I enjoyed reading about the hardships of a writer and how society views them through their work. What I find most striking is how despite the central theme of reality perception muddling the storyline the themes: love, marital affairs and family are intricately discussed.
There are a couple of things in this book to criticize apart from the convoluted story-line that I already mentioned. Firstly, there are a few grammatical errors in this book that are not easily overlooked. Since this book was translated from Spanish to English by Sally Seward the reader may chalk it up to be due to poor translation. Another issue that I had with this book is the fact that a somewhat pivotal character was introduced into the story but seems to have been forgotten by the author until he was near the end of the novel trying to ‘tidy up loose ends’. Also, although I have praised the unique writing style of this book I was greatly tempted to skip some portions that seemed very long-winded.
This book is actually a part of Benarroch’s Love and Exile series consisting of six other psychological fiction novels. Raquel Says (Something Entirely Unexpected) seems to be third book in the series but I am not sure that is the case because it was published on the same day as what I suspect to be book four and five in the series. I am not intrigued enough to read the remainder of the series because though the writing style is unique it is also very confusing to follow the story-line.
I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars. I would highly recommend this book to writers (poets mainly) who are looking for inspiration for branching out into a unique style of writing. However, these are the only people that I would recommend to read the novel. Raquel Says (Something Entirely Unexpected) is thought provoking. Unfortunately, this compliment can also be viewed as an insulting remark – this book gave me a headache.
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Raquel Says (Something Entirely Unexpected)
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-- 26 May 2017, 14:02 --
Wow. I wrote this review back in March and it was not published but counted as complete. Now that it is finally published I feel great. Thanks OBC.