Review: The Consequences of Love by Sulaiman Addonia

Naser's mother sent him away from war torn Eritrea with his younger brother when he was a young boy himself. They ended up in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia with their religious uncle. But this turned out to be an unhappy circumstance for Naser as his uncle sent him to pay their kafeel (Saudi sponsor) the money they owed him for their continued sponsorship. But the uncle didn't give Naser any money, ensuring that he would be forced to use his body as payment. And so goes Naser's further introduction to the ironies and horrors of Saudi society. Eventually cast out from his uncle's home and abandoned when his uncle and brother move to Riyadh, he makes friends with other lost boys with whom he sniffs glue, drinks perfume, and speculates on the hidden women walking past in black burqas. His existence is a dull one, washing cars, one of the menial jobs which foreigners are allowed to hold in Saudi, and wandering with his friends until one day, as he lounges under the tree in front of the house in which his uncle used to live, a veiled woman drops a note at his feet. Suddenly his drab black and white world takes on some color, specifically the pink of this woman's shoes under her stifling, black burqa. As Naser falls in love with his note writing Fiore, the two of them risk more and more to know each other under the nose of the strict and oppressive Muslim rule patrolling the streets.

While the love story between Naser and Fiore is the center of the plot, the book really has more to say about Saudi society and its hypocrasies than about love. Love is forbidden and all marriages are arranged but sodomizing young boys, even unwilling ones, is socially, if not religiously, acceptable. This men's world devoid of all women is one big boy's club with all the nastiness that this implies. Certain books, alcohol, and other things are forbidden by the imams but if a man is of great enough consequence, he can smuggle in whatever he wants and can do whatever he wants without fear of reprisal. But a man of no consequence, especially a foreigner being offered asylum, must guard his every action for fear that he will be summarily executed, even for a crime he did not commit. The scent of fear is palpable throughout this book; fear of the religious police as well as fear of the powerful elite. Betrayal can not only hurt, it can kill and trust is an emotion in which not many can afford to indulge.

Addonia has portrayed a deeply flawed and horrific society in modern day Saudi Arabia, turning a blind eye to the misdeeds of powerful men, heavily punishing women and weak transgressors. And yet in the midst of this gut-churning depiction, he has created a love based on the written word, on intellect, and only secondarily on physical attributes. Naser is every immigrant, unaccepted and lonely, desperate for caring. Fiore is a bit more enigmatic as a character. Risking all as she has done because she feels she hasn't yet lived her own life makes her singular in a society that oppresses the rights of women to their own lives and I'm not entirely convinced that Addonia has drawn her as strong enough to be that character. Then again, as we only see her through her notes and through Naser's eyes, perhaps therein lies the fault of perception.

The beginning of the novel is quite jerky and hard to follow. It took a concerted effort to sink into the story, to follow the flashbacks Naser tells through his diary entries. But eventually Addonia hits his stride and the story pounds along with rising tension and risk pulling the reader through the pages. The ending is both no more than expected and somehow still a surprise. Scenes throughout the book are very visceral and sensory, either visual or even, amazingly enough, tactile. Occasionally Naser was annoying and certainly when he was a bit of a wastrel before meeting Fiore, I struggled to connect with him, but his life and opening himself up to love transformed his character. It allowed the hints of soul and morality the reader glimpses when he refuses to go to the mosque anymore to listen to the blind imam spout hatred against any but the chosen few radicals to come into full flower. Addonia has crafted a heart pounding novel of oppression and love and anyone interested in other cultures will certainly find themselves immersed in a way of life so foreign to those of us in the west as to be unfathomable. I know I won't be so quick anymore to accept the media portrayal that Saudi Arabia is quite westernized and therefore full of many of the freedoms we know here. An eye opening novel and one that I will be ruminating over for some time to come.