Review by Couchtator -- Gates to Tangier by Mois Benarroch
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Couchtator
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- Latest Review: Gates to Tangier by Mois Benarroch
Review by Couchtator -- Gates to Tangier by Mois Benarroch
[Following is a volunteer review of "Gates to Tangier" by Mois Benarroch.]
1 out of 4 stars
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<r><B><s></s>Gates to Tangier by Mois Benarroch <e></e></B> By Mois Benarrock. This book was a huge disappointment. It felt like coming in during the middle of the movie. There was no lead up or introduction to the characters and the character development was dismal. The story starts in a lawyer’s office where a mother and four of her five grown children (one child is too pregnant to travel) find out about their father’s illegitimate son born in Morocco prior to them fleeing the country. As a condition of the will they must make every effort to find this brother. They only know his name and that his mother was the household’s “Fatima” or household nanny.
The table of contents is at the end of the book which does not help all. There are many non-English words and a glossary would have been very helpful. The book was centered around this family of disfunctional people that came from a wealthy family and had each succeeded in their own way. However, they kept dwelling on their time in Morocco 30 years ago and none of them seemed happy. They kept trying to figure out why they were searching for their brother. As Freud said “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”. I just thought they were overthinking everything.
Regarding the character development, there was so little to interest you in the family. The mother says she is not looking for the illegitimate child and that is the last we hear from her. There is never a wrap up with the family. The youngest sister is belittled for being a mother as though she reproduces to fill a gap in her life. All the siblings live all over the world and they don’t seem to be connected by anything more than their flight from Morocco. Surely the author could have provided more meat to the family dynamic.
Instead of character development the author used the story as an opportunity to rant about the Jewish condition. It may have been helpful to provide some context to those readers that are not intimately familiar with some of the events referenced but not explained. He even cites his own novel titles as though one of the brothers wrote them. That seemed very self promoting.
Ironically my favorite quote was exactly how I was feeling about the book. Sylvia says to her brother: “I realize that you are writing your book but you’re getting too philosophical, I don’t like books that are too philosophical. Let’s the characters talk...”. If only the author had taken his own advice.
The character I did like was Zohra. We got a little bit more of her life and personality than the other characters. The ending was a cliffhanger not in terms of a sequel but in terms of leaving things hanging and not knowing the outcome of their search. I rated this book 1 out of 4 stars.[b/] In addition to the lack of character development, political and religious ranting and the lack of closure, there were also a number of formatting errors. This may have been the result of reading a PDF but many words were hyphenated incorrectly. Incorrect words were also used several times.
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Gates to Tangier
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1 out of 4 stars
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<r><B><s></s>Gates to Tangier by Mois Benarroch <e></e></B> By Mois Benarrock. This book was a huge disappointment. It felt like coming in during the middle of the movie. There was no lead up or introduction to the characters and the character development was dismal. The story starts in a lawyer’s office where a mother and four of her five grown children (one child is too pregnant to travel) find out about their father’s illegitimate son born in Morocco prior to them fleeing the country. As a condition of the will they must make every effort to find this brother. They only know his name and that his mother was the household’s “Fatima” or household nanny.
The table of contents is at the end of the book which does not help all. There are many non-English words and a glossary would have been very helpful. The book was centered around this family of disfunctional people that came from a wealthy family and had each succeeded in their own way. However, they kept dwelling on their time in Morocco 30 years ago and none of them seemed happy. They kept trying to figure out why they were searching for their brother. As Freud said “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”. I just thought they were overthinking everything.
Regarding the character development, there was so little to interest you in the family. The mother says she is not looking for the illegitimate child and that is the last we hear from her. There is never a wrap up with the family. The youngest sister is belittled for being a mother as though she reproduces to fill a gap in her life. All the siblings live all over the world and they don’t seem to be connected by anything more than their flight from Morocco. Surely the author could have provided more meat to the family dynamic.
Instead of character development the author used the story as an opportunity to rant about the Jewish condition. It may have been helpful to provide some context to those readers that are not intimately familiar with some of the events referenced but not explained. He even cites his own novel titles as though one of the brothers wrote them. That seemed very self promoting.
Ironically my favorite quote was exactly how I was feeling about the book. Sylvia says to her brother: “I realize that you are writing your book but you’re getting too philosophical, I don’t like books that are too philosophical. Let’s the characters talk...”. If only the author had taken his own advice.
The character I did like was Zohra. We got a little bit more of her life and personality than the other characters. The ending was a cliffhanger not in terms of a sequel but in terms of leaving things hanging and not knowing the outcome of their search. I rated this book 1 out of 4 stars.[b/] In addition to the lack of character development, political and religious ranting and the lack of closure, there were also a number of formatting errors. This may have been the result of reading a PDF but many words were hyphenated incorrectly. Incorrect words were also used several times.
******
Gates to Tangier
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes
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Latest Review: Gates to Tangier by Mois Benarroch
