Book: An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine

A novel set in contemporary Lebanon which makes it worthwhile just for that fact; these authors writing from all over the globe are exciting. I feel immersed for the duration in their countries, most of which are in turmoil.

Aaliya Saleh is a divorced 72-year-old woman living in Beirut. The reader is in her presence while the author muses about life and literature while telling some of Aaliya's story. I did feel he was a bit show-offy and that it was important to him that we know how erudite he is…often denigrating popular culture and authors while musing (in the voice of Aaliya) about life's boundaries and pleasures and disappointments and the realities of aging, often with pertinent passages from his impressive knowledge of literature. Yes, in retrospect, my slight sniffiness is not warranted; this is non-American but universal, specifically about one older woman but generally about all of us.

While briefly glancing through this book, I realized there is beautiful writing on nearly every page: "Poetry brought me great pleasure, music immense solace, but I had to train myself to appreciate, train and train. It didn't come naturally to me. When I first heard Wagner, Messiaen or Ligeti, the noise was unbearable, but like a child with her first sip of wine, I recognized something that I could love with practice, and practice I most certainly did. It's not as if you're born with the ability to love Antonio Lobo Antunes."

Aaliya is getting old; she is not accepted by her family and has few friends. What she does is translate books, but only for herself, never offering them for publication.

"By the way, when the war was winding down in 1988, I think, a publisher called and asked if I would be wiling to 'try my hand' at translating a book. Not one of the translators he normally used was left in our violent city….For a brief moment, a frisson tickled my heart. I could be someone. I could matter. While talking on the phone, I began to rebuild this house of cards called ego. A huff and a puff…."

She dyes her hair an awful bright blue but is not too concerned; it will grow out. She reluctantly goes to see her mother by whom she was never loved enough.

A water pipe breaks and her manuscripts are damaged: "Joumana lifts the title page and sighs. Underneath, the pages are damaged. There seems to be a dry section in the middle of each, the size of a young woman's mittened hand. But the rest of the page, the rest--the smudging, the discoloring, the smell--death, as it always does, creeps toward the core. Mine certainly does."

But the disaster is liberating….as acquaintances arrive to help her…as she thinks wildly of new books to translate: "Coetzee! I would love to do Coetzee; yes, I would….No, I can translate a French book. I can spend a year with my darling Emma Bovary…..Forget Emma, I'm going to translate my Marguerite. Memories of Hadrian, my favorite novel. Marie-Therese may have wanted Vronsky for a husband but I wanted Hadrian. I wanted someone to erect monuments in my memory, build statues…Hadrian or Emma, Emma or Hadrian, a French housewife or a Roman Caesar? Choices, limitless choices--well almost limitless…"

Being the same age….I definitely considered the title.