After Khayriyah Ibrahim as-Saqqaf pulls the story away from the magical, wonderful haven that is Raha's school, the author really brings out some imagery and personification that doesn't just sound incredible, al-Saqqaf also composes a very unique style. When describing Raha's mother tearing out the girl's hair: "My youth fell between her hands." (p. 69) When talking of what I assume is Raha's... death, I suppose: "I don't know in what wave I drowned." (p. 69) One of my favorite images was, "And then truth committed suicide... I had no voice, something whispered deep inside me, a dead body lay between his feet and mine, a silly lie." (p. 68) Turning a lie into a dead body captured the essence of it so well. Another place where the author made a relatively different connection was on page 69, when she compares her mother to a herder preparing a goat just for sale and, more strikingly, as a hangman who "has killed his feelings to do his job, a stupid hangman more attached to his full pocket than his heart." (p. 69) As my final comment, I've read lots of books where the author uses good personifications, use of adjectives, et cetera, but they linger on the one topic they are describing repeatedly, which is why I was so glad al-Saqqaf's pacing kept the story moving along.
Okay, last comment. The title is Assassination of Light at the River's Flow. Why? I'm assuming the assassination refers to Raha's death. So would this mean that the light is Raha, because of her overly optimistic personality? And River's Flow. This part isn't as clear, but I have an idea that it is connected to the part on page 69, where it reads, "...she pulled my hair, calling it the waves and ripples of a beautiful deep black river." Could the river be Raha's hair? Of course, I could be completely off target on this entire assumption.
-Peyton
A couple of points to make here -
ReplyDelete1. Raha didn't actually die - the assassination is of her hopes, the death is of her dreams and ambitions. She doesn't undergo a physical death, but she is dead in many senses of the word.
2. I don't think Raha is actually a stuck-up person - she just tries to focus on the good in life. She has been living in a world where violence reigns supreme, and has narrowly escaped the horror of marriage (but not for long). She isn't stuck up - she is just focusing on the good in life.
Other than that, though, good post.
I was wondering the same thing about the title. I also agree that the assassination refers to Raha and light refers to her as well, because (as you said), she has an optimisitic personality. I had a couple of ideas for the river's flow. One of them was on page 69 (the one you included) about her hair being the river. Also, at the beinning of the story, on page 67, al-Saqqaf writes: "I was dreaming that my holiday would come on a spring like day, when smiles and laughs, dew, rain, breezes the flow of water..." Also, one more example that could possibly link the rest of the title to the story is at the very start of the story, al-Saqqaf writes: "The distance between moves was the bridge between my heart and theirs, between my soul and theirs. As I saw the bridge destroyed movement collided with empty space." The river's flow could have to do with the water under the bridge? These, as well, are just ideas. Maybe al-Saqqaf meant the title to leave the reader with one last thought... or maybe we're just missing something that is hidden in the story...
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