Bibliofreakblog

The Last War by Ana Menéndez

I really wanted to love this book, but it’s over-narration killed it for me.  Never in recent memory has it taken me so long to get through a book so short (just over 200 pages).

The writing, at times, can be really beautiful, too.  And there’s some spots, where Ana Menéndez really nails it, such as a particular argument between main character, Flash, and her husband Brando, and at times when describing Flash’s photography.

But over all, there is so much telling.  Practically the whole book is narration, with much of the first half recalling feelings–tiredness, ennui–which is supposed to set up the decline of Flash’s marriage.

This made it really difficult to become absorbed in the book.  The thing that kept my interest the most was it’s setting in Istanbul, as Flash is debating whether or not to join her husband in Iraq (it takes place in 2003) or stay there, or even go home to Miami.  I enjoyed recognizing the names of places, in Istanbul, as I was there a couple of years ago.  But despite all the narration, Menéndez never really takes the time to describe the city: it’s congestion, it’s idea of modernity, it’s frustration, it’s cobblestone, it’s winding staircases, etc., etc.  Most of the description was limited to sites and the Bosporus river.

I was also really bugged by the character of Alexandra, who went around wearing an Abaya.  Even though Flash comments that it isn’t really what the locals wear, Alexandra, apparently, always adopts the native dress of wherever she is.  Really, she should have been wearing high heels and a miniskirt.  As it was, the use of the abaya came off as an obvious plot device.

But as I said, there’s some really beautiful bits.  For example, Flash meditates on her predicament:

“I should have worked harder.  I should have had the forbearance that the nineteenth century gave to women.  INstead I was a transitional model, the wife between social movements, unsure of herself at a time when certainty guaranteed power.  A hundred years ago a woman of my age and class would be raising her children.  What did it mean to question her happiness?  Would she?  All I would ever nurse was my own idleness, spinning out the years into a pattern that, unlike Penelope’s, could never be undone or restored.”

And, O.K., I didn’t like that last bit about Penelope, because it seemed to come out of nowhere (except for a lot of obvious Odyssey sort of themes).  That sentence really needs Penelope to have been mentioned previously on the page.  But the rest, I felt, smacked of a modern, depressed woman.  In the three years since the death of my father, I have felt like this many times.

Ultimately…I found it to be an average book.  Some of the truly great moments almost make up for it’s over-abundance of narration.

Yo FTC! I received a copy of this book for participating in a TLC book tour. For more information, visit TLC’s The Last War page.

Buy The Last War on Amazon

If you like this book/author, you might like:

(my reviews in blue)

The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak
Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Lipstick Jihad by Azadeh Moaveni
Honeymoon in Tehran by Azadeh Moaveni
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Stones into Schools by Greg Mortenson
The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad
Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World by Rita Golden Gelman
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
On Photography by Susan Sontag
Seeing Through Places: Reflections on Geography and Identity by Mary Gordon
The Emigrants by W.G. Sebald
The Light Garden of the Angel King: Travels in Afghanistan with Bruce Chatwin by Peter Levi
The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia by Peter Hopkirk
The Forever War by Dexter Filkins
The Photographer: Into War-torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders by Emmanuel Guibert

Other works by Ana Menéndez:

Loving Che
In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd