Review by stuckbetweenwords -- Brown Scarf Blues

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stuckbetweenwords
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Joined: 17 Jul 2016, 07:21
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Latest Review: "Brown Scarf Blues" by Mois Benarroch

Review by stuckbetweenwords -- Brown Scarf Blues

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[Following is a volunteer review of "Brown Scarf Blues" by Mois Benarroch.]
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2 out of 4 stars
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Brown scarf blues is a translated book by Steven Capsuto and published by Babelcube books.
This book is a short story. I did not know what to expect from this book because the synopsis said something about scarves. My initial thought was how can that be interesting? Anyway I gave it a try. It starts out with the author talking about his experience with the scarf and the story continues to explain how that scarf travels places with him. In his travels, he meets a lot of people and his experience with people who inspired him and who were important to him is mentioned. The story occurs in places like Seville, Madrid, Israel and talks about languages like Portuguese, French, Hebrew and so on.

I loved the way the story flows and I got hooked pretty soon because the emotions expressed struck me hard and I could more or less relate to it in the beginning. I learnt a lot about different places and even of their history (sort of).

The author talks a lot about different religions, culture and multi culture and depicts it in a way you can visualise it. It also talks a great deal about friendship, loss, writing and reading. He focuses on different traits of people and how they are perceived in the society. Many quotes had an impact on me like -
"Scarves nearly always have that bisexual quality, they are not insistently gendered, which almost everything is now"
and
"Sometimes literature is more logical and perhaps even more real than reality"
I couldn't understand some parts of the story related to Israel and Spain but I will get the hang of it once I discover about it. There weren't any parts that I actually disliked but, there were parts that I didn't completely understand. Well, the mixing of languages was a little misunderstanding to me. It was just a new genre for me to explore.

I'm giving it a 2 out of 4 stars stars because the storyline was a bit haphazard and it had instances where the author talks about one thing in one chapter and slips to something entirely different in the next. There wasn't continuation, exactly. It does not particularly target any type of audience so it would be alright for anyone with a passion to explore different genres to read. But I'm pretty sure if a writer reads this book, he'll be motivated and can relate to it very well since it talks a lot about the the hardships of being an author. Overall - it was good.

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Brown Scarf Blues
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Latest Review: "Brown Scarf Blues" by Mois Benarroch
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