The Art of Losing by Alice Zentiter (translated from French by Frank Wynne)

Our book club book for the month was The Art of Losing by Alice Zeniter. 

Well, it has not been since The Luminaries that I dreaded reading a book club book so much and bitched about reading it. At one point, I actually told my husband that it's no wonder people don't read books if they're reading things like this. It felt like a dreaded homework assignment and I was an absolute pill about it.

It's the story of three generations of an Algerian/French family resonant with themes of the immigrant experience: loss, language, culture, religion, and home. 

The Good: I didn't know much about the Algerian fight for independence or really any of Algeria's history or culture. I feel like I have a better grasp on that now, particularly how badly the French acted in the conflict and how they treated Algerians who moved to France.

The Bad: I don't know if it was a translation issue, but the whole thing was just really slow and boring. I just couldn't connect with any of the characters. 

Book Club Takes: I was the only one to finish and most people did not make it through the first part. There was another person soldiering away, claiming to enjoy the story, but she was the one who recommended it in the first place, so I'm pretty sure she was just being a bit defensive.

I think our main take was that this book was told mostly from the perspective of the men in the book and it would have been more interesting for us if it had included more female perspectives. I like a book in which someone who is on the periphery of Big Things is telling the story because you get a firsthand tale, but it's usually someone who has a little more distance from the decision making to sort of tell you as a reader if the things that are happening really make sense. The grandmother figure in this book could have been the narrator for the whole thing and it would have been super interesting. Or have her narrate the first part, the mother narrate the second part, and then there would have been no men as central figures.  Oh, well. That's not the book we read.  

I definitely would not have finished this book if it hadn't been for book club. 

2/5 stars

Lines of note:

Marriage is order, structure. Love is chaos - even when it is joyful. It is hardly surprising that the two do not go together. It is hardly surprising that people choose to build a family, a home, on the foundations of an enduring institution, on a straightforward contract rather than on the quicksand of emotions. (page 94)

Interesting perspective from a culture that has arranged marriages.

And often, among the hulking bodies of the adults, he sees the frail face of a child interpreter, a child scribe who reminds him of himself, a child he cannot face without being ashamed. (page 282)

There were occasional sentences like this that really boiled down some of the immigrant experiences people talk about a lot into simple, powerful statements.

Things I looked up:

Ben Bella (page 157) - Leader in the Algerian War of Independence who became the first prime minister and first elected president of the Algerian republic. 

Hieratic (page 308) - of, or concerning priests

Makroud (page 311) - This is a popular Algerian dessert. I made some and took it along to our meeting and it was delicious, although I'm sure some Algerian grandmother could have made it much better.

Shootings at Toulouse and Montauban (page 320) - A series of terrorist attacks in France in 2012.

November 13, 2015 Bataclan (page 321) -  Terrorist attacks in Paris.

Matoub Lounes (page 389) - Absolutely fascinating character. Algerian singer and poet who was an advocated for human rights and secularism in Algeria. His atheistic proclamations made him unpopular with both sides of the civil war and his assassination sparked riots.