Genre: Short Fiction/Novella
Pages: 50
It is books like ‘Touch’ that reassures a reader of why he reads. It is such an invaluable joy when reading a book becomes an act of deliberate, eager, and deep source of a profound experience. You read it and you are instantly lost in its grip, arrested in its arresting power. Such books are rare. And you never know when you will come across such a book that reminds you of why you fell in love with reading, why you read, and why it matters. Unheralded they come, and it is worth reading more books, among which you find such a gem once in a while. I know I am lushing over this book, and lush I shall throughout this review. Shibli’s ‘Touch’ deserves every bit of extravagant, superfluous, yet genuine, from-the-heart praise it receives.
Thanks, once again, to Eric
Anderson who highlighted Shibli in one of his videos on YouTube. Anderson
praised and recommended Shibli’s latest novel (or novella) ‘Minor Detail’, and
it was in search of this novel, and not being able to find it, that I landed
upon ‘Touch’. Reading ‘Touch’ has got me even more excited to get
my hands on Shibli’s other novel/s quickly and read them. Though only 50 pages,
Shibli’s novella offers abundance of joy. As a reader, I’ve mostly found it
ironic that the shorter novels are the ones that usually leave a major impact
on the readers. In the sea of books, these novellas might not be immediately
spotted, but as I said, once you come across it – you know that you’ve found
the right book. The rightest book!
What should I even write in
this review? – I can’t help but drool over this book and how deeply in love I fell
with it. Reading this book was, arguably, the most gripping, arresting, and
magical experience thus far in my reading journey. Let’s go over ‘how’ and
‘why’ this was so.
Shibli is an Arabic writer
and her books are then translated into English. And although there is the risk,
when translated, of missing a novel’s originality and nuances that it bears in
its original language, in this case the translation justifies the original. I
don’t think if this book was written in English, it would have come out so
unique and distinct from all the other novels I have read. The English
translation of the book beautifully captures the lyricism and subtleties of the
original novel, which is immediately recognizable as you start reading it. Much
like Khalil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’, reading this novella too gave me a
different experience, where I felt like I was reading for the first time.
Coming to the contents of
this book, this novella is loosely based around a nameless, teenage girl’s
life, who is only called ‘the girl’ throughout the book. Similarly, there are
no other names in the novella as well. The girl’s sisters, eight of them, are
referred to as ‘The Sisters’, her brother as ‘The Brothers’ and her parents as
the ‘Mother and Father’. There is also ‘the neighbor’ who is teased to be the
girl’s lover. The novella is based on 5 distinct chapters: ‘colors, silence,
movement, language, and the wall’ each portraying the sensorial narration
and tone of that particular chapter. There’s hardly a distinguishable plot,
other than that it is a teenage girl’s deeply and subtly captured experience of
how and where she lives as she is growing up. There are also other instances
where we get to know that the novella is based in an Islamic landscape.
The only other
indifferent-to-plot books that I’ve read were the ones written in ‘the stream of
consciousness style’ like novels of Woolf or Rhys’s ‘Good Morning,
Midnight’. However, Shibli’s novella is different in its style. She can
stop time, and see the unseeable. There’s a simplicity in her complexion. A
lyricism in her narration. A fragmented coherence in her flow. A continuing
story in the details. And details are all there is in this novella. Details of
the colors of the pink sky, the green fields, the orange; details of silence
and the absence of words; details of movement of the shadows and raindrops;
details of language and pronunciation. And all of these details come to appear
so effortlessly on the pages, yet there’s an overflow of dopamine and ecstasy
in your brain and body as you read these pages.
So much is said through so
little. When Shibli stops time, she then has the patience, the freedom, and the
eyes to go over every detail, both in the outer and inner world of the little
girl’s. Such patience, such subtly, such acute observation – it is hard not to
sound eagerly in love when writing about this book. But then again, it is my
subjective experience of reading Shibli for the first time, others may find her
in different terms. However, for me this novel is of significant yet humble importance.
In reading ‘Touch’ one is reborn, given a fresh perspective, a tender
and poignant heart, and a reminder of why reading matters and why it is so
addictively important. Poignant, subtle, arresting, and a deeply intimate, I am
in awe of this book. I marvel at it!
Ratings: 5/5 ***** (September 19, 2020)