So, I'll be honest, I had literally never heard of Comoros before this. But, it turns out it is a country, and it's located off the southeast coast of Africa:
Here's a small summary from the interwebz:
Though Mazamba knows he only has a few days left to extract most out of the world, and though he is married, Mazamba "embarks on an affair with a French woman, Aubéri, and comes to look at the world around him with new eyes." He is met with a society of racism, a nation of corruption and a globe of preconceived notions. But he still undertakes the quest to "challenge the status quo while he still can."
And here's a little bit from the back of the book that I found helpful:
"'Kaffir' here can mean both infidel, or 'unbeliever'-as referred to in the Koran-as well as a derogatory term for 'black' Africans, including in the Comoros. This is a key to understanding the symbolic and literary richness as well as the moral challenges of this, the second novel by Mohamed Toihiri.
The book starts right off the bat (in the first sentence) by telling you that Idi, the main character, has cancer. He's given a year, maybe less, to live. He keeps his diagnosis to himself and kind of goes about his life for a while. While he's at the mosque, the...umm...clergy person...imam, I guess? I'm going with imam. Anyway the imam is doing his thing and Idi kind of looks around and thinks about how most of the people there didn't understand what the sermon was about. Then is written, "For his part, Idi, despite his degrees, or perhaps thanks to them, thought that knowledge is the mother of unhappiness, while ignorance gives birth to beatitude." A fancier way of saying ignorance is bliss...which I liked.
Then the imam goes on to talk about sin: "Among the gravest sins are avarice, the seizure of another's objects, the stock piling of alimentary provisions for the purposes of speculation, looking at a woman beyond the face and hands, taking pleasure in a woman during her period, asking in marriage a woman or a girl who is already betrothed, men wearing jewelry or silk." He goes on, "By contrast, the following sins exclude the sinner from Islam: associating Allah with someone else, lending or borrowing with interest, believing that a being has the power to make it rain, to stop the rain, to make someone die, to give him life, to have knowledge of secret things..." Which, I'm definitely not the most knowledgeable about Islam, but what a freaking random list of things. I had to stop and read it aloud to Soldier, who wasn't as amused as I was; he just shrugged it off.
Shortly after this passage, Idi's friend Issa comes to visit him at home, at lunchtime. Issa is off-put by Idi's wife and daughter eating at the table with them. "It constituted an attack on Comorian uses and customs. A provocation. The women's place is in the kitchen. It is their world. ...The woman is of course permitted to appear every so often in the living room, but only to serve the man, to clear up, or to receive an order." And I am so fucking sick of reading variations of this. I try to remember these are different cultures, and this one takes place in the 90s, but good Lord, women are not servants. Uuuugh.
Next, Idi receives an invitation to a conference in South Africa. This part starts off by talking about Idi's medical practice, and gives this description: "Here the term "general practitioner" took on its true sense. With the basic general education that Dr. Mazamba and his peers received, they were meant to transform themselves into pediatricians, cardiologists, urologists, dermatologists, gynecologists, leprologists, stomatologists, chiropodists, cancer specialists, specialists in tropical diseases, ENT specialists, and sometimes even into surgeons, exorcists, and tooth-pullers." This really rang true for me with Dr. Father in Law. Basically any medical question or malady I have, I ask him first. It's amazed me more than once that he just seems to have all the answers (and a few times I've trusted his answers more than the actual specialists.) I've also, many times, wondered how he can possibly keep all of that knowledge in his head.
So Idi goes to this conference in South Africa and I was really struck by this part of the book. Apartheid, or very slightly post-Apartheid, seems like it may have even been worse than post-Civil War in the States. They went so far (according to the book) as to have separate sidewalks for whites and blacks. Idi and Aubéri are trying to spend time together and there's nowhere for them to go, because literally everything is separate: hotels, sidewalks, restaurants, EVERYTHING. It's so sad to read about. Even the areas that were supposed to be integrated were still so filled with tension and contempt that they couldn't handle it.
As the story goes on, Idi comes to terms with his death sentence and decides to just live like he wants to. No caring about what other people think, no worrying about customs or traditions. Have you ever wondered if it would be better to know or have an idea when you're going to die? I have. I always thought it would be better to know, because then you can do the things you want to do, spend time with those you love, and get more of a chance to say goodbye. But I kept thinking of that during this story and another thought came to mind: what a heavy burden for everyone involved. I suppose it's only better for the dying person if they come to terms with their mortality and leaving the world. But the last little bit I want to leave you with made me smile: "He would have no regrets in leaving this world. ...Yes, a few all the same: dying without ever having seen his back...never having discovered the smell of a look, the color of a sound, nor the taste of a song." I reread it a few times and, I'm not entirely sure why, but I loved it. Now I'm going to try to discover those things.
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