REVIEW | Jokes for the Gunmen by Mazen Maarouf
AUTHOR: Mazen Maarouf
TRANSLATOR: Jonathan Wright
GENRE: Fiction - Short Story Collection
ISBN: 1846276675
RELEASE DATE: Jan 3, 2019
PAGES: 162 PAGES
WRITTEN LANGUAGE: Arabic
EDITION LANGUAGE: English
★★★☆
I read this book as part of the From and About Asia Reading Project.
This is a set of captivating short stories set in Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War. With a hair of magical realism (weirdly this is the second magical realism short story collection I read this month), people’s lives are disoriented. The characters' minds and bodies are shattered by war, which makes this book dark and atmospheric. The book was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2019, and I can see why.
Cover of Arabic edition
A lot of the stories are told from children’s perspectives. War and brutality confuse them. As they try to learn the rules of the world, their behavior and experiences became extreme. This is most shown in the title story. A boy tried to understand the daily cruelty around him and developed some twisted, surreal view that somehow makes sense.
Many common elements run throughout the collection, “jokes” being one of them. Although “jokes” is in the book’s title story, the collection is by no means light-hearted. Jokes and laughter often represent the ability to continue, to survive. Turning tragedy they experienced into jokes became a desire that many characters wanted but yet hard to get due to the nature of the war.
Another common element is the sense of “loss”. Whether it’s lost a member of the family, lost a body part, or even lost spirit. Imageries and sense became blurry because of the character's peculiar understanding of war and loss, all because of the loss of normal order in wartime.
Cover of Spanish edition
As a collection, I enjoyed the cohesive theme running through all the different narratives. It has serval very powerful stories, such as the title story *Jokes for the Gunmen*, where a boy tried to process the meaning of the war that changed his relations with everything. I also enjoyed *Gramophone*, which is about a father’s obsession with a gramophone, and how the generation trauma runs through families. *Cinema* is about a boy sheltered in a cinema to avoid bombing but with an unexpected twist. *The Angel of Death* didn’t have “joke” on its title, but it plays around the meaning of jokes and laughter, giving us a dark ending.
However, as the nature of a collection, it also has some not very memorable stories that make the 10-ish pages feel so long.
Overall, I enjoyed this book, and find it provide us with some unique perspective on thinking about the impact of war on people’s life. And when you are living in such circumstances, you indeed, need to try to turn life into jokes.