Wolves of the Crescent Moon

Readers may find its first few chapters a bit hard to digest, but once its rhythm and passion is understood, this well-crafted colourful novel, banned in Saudi Arabia, is pure bliss. It does (and does not really) take place during a single sleepless night in a bus terminal in what main protagonist Turad calls hell on earth, the Saudi capital Riyadh. There is little action apart from Turad sitting, walking, eating something in the vicinity of the terminal. Finding an official personal file left accidentally by a bus passenger and making a phone call in the early morning, are Turad’s main exertions.But the novel reflects his roaring stream of thoughts about his own life and that of a number of persons he is or was associated with. Two deserve special mention because they are losers in life, like Turad, who is a Bedouin who robbed caravans in the desert and has since been disowned by his tribe. He has lost his standing, his place in the world. The second character is Tewfik, born Hasan, an elderly eunuch captured as a young boy in Sudan and smuggled into Saudi Arabia as a slave. He has lost his parents, his manhood, his land of birth, and when slavery was abolished, the relative security its status provided…The third person is in the official file, named Nasir, a foundling whom a state agency provided with his name and fake parentage disqualifying him from ever attaining full citizenship, which requires deep tribal roots and a family name starting with Al-. But what if he were adopted?Strange and intriguing, highly re-readable, passionate, occasionally lyrical or furious, the author exposes indifference and hypocrisy in a closed conservative society thriving on exclusion and exploitation. A cry for compassion, not a political manifest.Beautiful translation except for Sudanese geographical names: modern, Condominium-based names are phonetically more exact.Highly recommended for reading groups/clubs.

A Saudi, a definite one, with the "al-" in front of his last name, saw and felt the anguish around him, of those more indefinite, who never had the "al", or had simply lost it, and had the empathy to write an absolutely brilliant novel about their lives, and their chance encounters. There are three principal characters: Turad, a Saudi man of the desert, a Bedouin, who was forced to leave his tribe; Hasan, a Sudanese boy captured by slavers, who would be transformed into Tawfiq, which means "good fortune," and his life would be anything but; and Nasir, another Saudi, the abandoned "fruit" of an affair, raised in an orphanage... Each of them lost a body part, in tragic circumstances. That loss has marked them, setting them apart, and was often a source of ridicule and humiliation.None of the above characters had their physical deformity at birth. I did however compare their fate with two characters who did, both having a "club-foot," Phillip, in W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage (Vintage classics) and Manal, in Jocelyne J. Awad's Khamsin Their deformity is central to their existence; their longing to be "normal," is a persistent theme in their life. In the case of the characters from Maugham and Awad, it was a matter of nature "dealing a bad hand." For Al-Mohaimeed's characters the tragedy of their deformity is compounded, since each is due to the cruelty, greed, and callousness of humans, and need never have happened.I love the author's prose-- his technique and style. Certainly the metaphor of the pixels being added upon each scan of the object, bringing the entire picture into focus is appropriate. At one point I wanted to shout "No" -- that is not sufficient motivation for what happened to Nasir, but then in the next chapter, on the next "scan," the motivation was amply provided. In addition, comparisons with the "magic realism" of Marquez have been made, appropriate I believe, and I would add Isabelle Allende to the list. I found the dramatic tension high throughout the novel, and it served to pull the reader inexorably from chapter to chapter. Comparisons with Paul Auster are also fitting. I loved Al-Mohaimeed's emphasis on the importance of smells, and making yet another comparison, remembered the prose of Thomas Wolfe, in Look Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried Life I'm not surprised that another of Al- Mohaimeed's novels is entitled: "The Lure of Scent." In no way though, by making these comparisons, would I like to suggest that Al-Mohaimeed's style is derivative --- his voice is authentic, and at least for Western readers, resonates easier than, say Al Munif, who can be too ponderous and verbose. In part, this could be due to the excellent translation provided by Calderbank, but certainly not entirely.I found one mistake in the novel, which could not be excused even by the "magic realism" technique: Tawfiq's age when he was emancipated did not jive the actual proclamation in 1962. (p 154)Overall though, Al-Mohaimeed has written an excellent novel; to make yet one more comparison; he has portrayed the underclass in Saudi Arabia much like John Steinbeck did with America's underclass, in The Grapes of Wrath It is beyond the edge of sadness that his great novel is yet another book that is banned in the Kingdom; the country desperately needs great, authentic writers--they should be encouraged. Positive social development occurs when a country's authentic writers are nurtured.As a final point, Al-Mohameed's portraits have a specific attribution to certain aspects of life in Saudi Arabia; more essentially though, he portrays the universal human condition. His book is a reminder that similar characters exist, right here in what with some conceit, we like to call "The Land of Enchantment." With the deteriorating economic conditions, there is an increase in the "Tom Jodd's" rolling along the old Route 66, hoping to find salvation in California, hoping to remove themselves from the "Hell" of their current situation. I think Al-Mohameed would understand it all well.(Note: Review first published at Amazon, USA, on March 27, 2009)