Cockroach

An Iranian man in Montreal is trying to cope in a dark world of Iranian and Lebanese refugees. The book is written within the mind of our protagonist who is delusional and has attempted suicide in the past. He believes people are half cockroach and half human. He attempts to get a job and receive counseling but the thoughts inside his head seem to be a barrier to the outside world. Very interesting read.

Rawi Hage's second novel COCKROACH is quite simply one of the best stories I have read in a long time. Set in Montreal, the novel covers one cold winter month in the life of an unnamed narrator, who has recently attempted suicide by hanging: "my rope incident." He now, as part of his punishment for failure, has to visit a therapist named Genevieve, whom he describes as simple, educated but "naive. . . sheltered by glaciers and prairies, thick forests, oceans and dancing seals." Genevieve in large part controls the narrator's future, as she constantly reminds him that he is costing the Canadian taxpayers money. He then becames a Scheherazage telling stories to keep the shrink from having him committed. The narrator is a petty thief, stealing lipstick from his therapist's purse, chocolates from a Korean grocer, money from the wallets of women he sleeps with as well as toilet tissue from a cafe. A busboy in Star of Iran Restaurant, he sees himself as half cockroach-- "In my youth, I was an insect," [cockroach] he tells his shrink-- as he moves in the lower depths of Montreal's immigrant community. COCKROACH is peopled with a gaggle of fascinating if motley characters: Reza, the Iranian musician who manages to "couch-surf in women's houses," Shohreh, a beautiful Iranian exile whom the narrator states in the first line of the novel he is in love with, her friend, the exotic Farhoud, another Iranian who looks Chinese and has a "Mongolian spot" on his buttocks, Professor Youssef, the pseudo-French intellectual who asks existential questions but like the narrator, receives welfare. Additionally there are the narrator's family members whom he calls up for his shrink; Jehovah's Witnesses wander in and out of his narrative as well-- and of course the cockroaches. He muses: "Could it be that the cockroaches saw me throwing my rope over the tree in the park, and rushed to cut that branch above me?" Since Mr. Hage was born in Beirut, Lebanon-- although he now lives in Canada-- I assume that English is not his first language although you would not know that from his beautiful sentences. You can pick practically any paragraph on any page and be awed by the magic of his bleak words as he, piling metaphor upon metaphor, captures the bitter cold of a Montreal winter and a world of darkness: The narrator is "blowing breath onto my fingers like a cold God creating the world, rubbing my hands like a happy thief, sticking my neck into my shoulders like a turtle, sniffing like a junkie, shivering like a ghost, inquiring like a Spanish inquisitor dreaming of a flamenco dancer to warm my heart." Public phones in the cold stand "like vertical, transparent coffins for people to recite their lives in." "I took off my shoes, left them at the entrance to bleed snow." Finally, "The wind off the water was colder on the bank of the river. . . I wondered how I had ended up here. How absurd. How absurd. The question is, Where to end? All those who leave immigrate to better their

I have always enjoyed novels that tackle the topic of immigration and life of immigrants in the North America. This novel is one of the best contemporary works of fiction I read recently. Author Rawi Hage cuts to the core of the painful immigrant experience. A small group of middle eastern immigrants form community of social misfits forced to interact together. They are group of artists, musicians and political refugees damaged by their past but still attached to their culture, language, music and food. The main protagonist of this story is a lonely man, living on the verge of poverty and who tried killing himself. He is in love with a beautiful Iranian woman and attends weekly sessions with his psychoterapist. His existance is pitiful and it is obvious that he has psychological issues -- he is either a pathological liar or his mind is unable to distinguish reality from imagination. The unfolding of his life (and his mind) is so compelling, I was unable to put the book down until I finished reading it. I just had to know what happens to the character from the moment I started reading the book and that was the hook that kept me on until I read the end. Fantastic piece of work. I absolutely love this book and will recommend book to friends and book lovers.

I have a feeling this is one of those books that any individual reader will either love or hate. I wasn't sure which direction I was going with it, myself, until shortly before the end when I realized where the author was headed with his antihero. At which point I knew it was a keeper. Unlike the adventure novels that I usually read, this is much more of a character study. The character in question is a petty thief with an unlovely past marred by war and more personal sorts of violence; he lands in Canada in circumstances that are never quite explained and proceeds to eke out a meager living there. He continues muddling along in the wake of a suicide attempt, until events force him to make one of those life-changing decisions that luckier people are forever able to avoid. His decision is correct but hardly redemptive, and in that sense doesn't deviate too much from the larger pattern of his life. You don't exactly feel sympathy for him--and still less will you feel sorry for him--but you just may end up respecting him. Mixed in with all this is, of course, explicit and implicit political and economic commentary. I find it congenial, but many won't. I'd recommend that everyone give this book a try, at least. Whether you end up appreciating it or not, you'll probably learn something from it.

I'm a little reluctant to review this, because in some ways I'm your usual ignorant American. I couldn't figure out which country he was from, or exactly which recent Middle-Eastern jihad had so affected his main characters, although it's pretty apparent that he is talking about Iraq before the current war. Our hero is an expatriate from an unnamed Arab country, living in Montreal. Having spent recent weeks in a mental hospital for thinking he is a cockroach, the story follows his life as an immigrant on the dole in Montreal. He still thinks he is a cockroach, but only when he is doing something clearly illegal. This is, as the reviewers have said, very Dostoevskian. There is a lot of discussion of wishing for food and socks,and more, or any, money: one of the most disturbing scenes involves getting change for a telephone call. Well-written, this is an easy, fast, incredibly disturbing read with an unexpected, satisfying ending. I still can't figure out how to classify this, or explain exactly who would like it; it has stark sensibilities, it's pro-Arab immigrant, and, it's very sympathetic to poor people; it makes the protagonist's burglary habits look harmless, when compared to the injustices visited on the poor by the Canadian mental health system. In contrast, it's also impliedly supportive of the war in Iraq. This is an enjoyable book, but only if your reading tastes involve seeking cognitive dissonance. So there you go. Hmm.