Customer Rating: Summary: Libyan Magical Realism Comment: Set in southwestern Libya, in what appears to be sometime in the 1960s,this quasi-mythical tale concerns Asouf, a bedouin hermit goatherd.Through leaps of time and flashbacks, we learn of his upbringing by afather who believed men to be corrupt and evil, and thus took his familyto the edges of civilization to live. Unfortunately, Asouf's isolationleaves him ill-equipped when the wicked hunter Cain and his sidekick (bothfellow Libyans) show up and demand to be guided to the lair of themoufflon (a wild sheep said to be extinct). The novel depicts a kind ofbackwoods type of Islam, in which God resides everywhere, spirits are tobe placated, and charms are bartered from African magicians to protectoneself. It's an interesting view of a part of the Arab world not commonlyseen, however the dive into magical realism gets far too magical for myown tastes. There is a great deal of symbolism and Biblical allusion thatgoes right over my head (not having read the Bible), but the centralmetaphor of Cain destroying his own land (with the assistance of anAmerican military man) is clear enough, as is the Christ imagery at theend, with its apparent message of redemption. Ultimately, neither thestyle nor story ever really grabbed me, but perhaps those with a firmersense of the spiritual may derive great sustenance from this tale.
