Book Review: The Haj by Leon Uris
Last week I finished reading a book called The Haj by Leon Uris. I have still not decided what to think about it. In the title, the word “haj” does not refer to the pilgrimage to Mecca directly, but rather to an individual, a leader of a Palestinian village who has made the pilgrimage and has prefixed his name with the word to reflect this, becoming Haj Ilbrahim. It is a novel that follows this individual and his family through the time from around 1920 to around 1955, as the Middle East erupted with the establishment of Israel.
Before I go further, I would like to say that I am going to discuss the book from two angles that I see as being orthogonal: the book as literature and entertainment as one aspect, and the book as a reflection of Arab character as a different and separate aspect.
First, as entertainment, the book does well. The characters are intriguing and have some depth. The events are epic and complex. I loved the historical context of the book, as I’ve been absorbing as much history of this era as possible, lately. I ascribe this to the fact that in high school, no history class ever went past the US period of post-Civil War reconstruction. It turns out that quite a bit happened after about 1870 or so, but your average US student wouldn’t know it. The irony is, of course, that the particular subset of events that occurred in the Middle East from about 1930 to the present have had more impact on our modern “Post-9/11″ lives than damn near anything else I can think of. So learning more about these events fascinates me.
The ending is my only complaint, so stop reading if you don’t want to have the plot spoiled.
All the character construction that had gone on throughout the book just sort of disintegrated at the end. I realize that Uris was trying to create a grand tragedy, ala Hamlet with this ending, but give me a break. Ishmael had been incredibly strong throughout the book and had seen much worse. His relationship with Nada had seemed tacked on to the book throughout, and then finally gave the author a cop-out way to finish the book. It is as though Uris got tired of writing and needed some easy way to resolve Ishmael’s situation.
Now, assessing the book as a reflection of Arab character is extremely difficult. Without a doubt, it shows the Arabs as disloyal, cowardly, hateful and backward. Uris has employed a particularly powerful narrative device to convey this: the first-person voice of an Arab. Because you hear the story told as though an Arab is telling it, you want to believe that it is therefore objective. Here’s the catch: Leon Uris is not Arab. This is not a Palestinian telling us the story of his life; this is a Westerner telling us a story through the eyes of an Arab. Over and over again, he shows an entire race of people as horrible, ignorant and violent, while portraying the Israelis as perfect, gentle, honest and fair. When Arab atrocities are described, he gives full details of the brutality, but when Jewish atrocities are described, he gives apologetic descriptions that rationalize the Israeli soldiers’ behavior. I just can’t accept the black-and-white picture he presents. Certainly, there are hypocritical aspects of Arab and Muslim culture, but all cultures have their various hypocrisies, and it is unreasonable to present the story in such a biased way.
Uris has his creative license, and so he can tell his story however he wants, but people’s interpretation of it as a reflection of the truth of Arab character is appalling. In fact, this book was suggested to me by my father as “the best way to get an understanding of the Arab mind.” The reviews on Amazon.com are almost as interesting to read as the book itself. In the reviews you can see the spectrum of people trying to come to grips with the same problem that I face: how to interpret the bias of the book and separate that from the history and the story.
All in all, I recommend it. If you are interested in trying to understand how the world has come to the place it has, with terrorism and conflict in the Middle East, this book will certainly give you a lot to think about.
November 29th, 2004 at 9:41 am
Thank you.
I have just finished reading the book which I found kind of great. But during the first pages I began to wonder if I should just throw it away. Now I’m reading it a second time to do exactly what you suggest: learn more about the history. Still, what will one believe who has less experience? I’m afraid, that this kind of interesting but hateful books are very dangerous for our world.
Thanks again for your article.
Beate