Aesthetics of the Unsavoury

In his second novel, Rawi Hage delineates the cavernous depths of a traumatised soul. A ferocious novel about a young migrant in a strange city who is plagued by Kafkaesque delusions. By Volker Kaminski

There are moments when one becomes a stranger to oneself. When in a state of great exhilaration, for example, or when gripped by extreme fear, the usual bearing on one's own person appears altered, and one no longer recognises oneself. It is as though one is inside a strange body, and quite possibly one is even repulsed by one's own existence, appearing to be no longer a person, and more like a filthy insect.

An extreme experience of self-alienation such as this underlies Rawi Hage's novel "Cockroach". The novel's protagonist is convinced that he is one such wretched insect, and obsessed by this idea, Hage's nameless anti-hero does not leave houses and apartments through doors, but via concealed drainpipes and dark manholes.

Peculiar abominations

"The cockroach" is a young immigrant who, after losing touch with his homeland and left traumatised by war and violence, wanders aimlessly through a Canadian metropolis in deepest winter. Just like an insect, he spends most of his time foraging through rubbish bins for something to eat, and he is constantly searching for a place to warm himself without being immediately moved along.

It is not surprising that the plight of this immigrant is marked by drug-related crime, robbery and depravity. And as more details of his life story come to light, the possibility that his situation might improve becomes increasingly remote.

The abysmal thought processes of the protagonist send shivers up the reader's spine – the cockroach's world is one fraught with countless dangers, peculiar abominations and extremely unhygienic conditions.

Nevertheless, the novel is a sensitive and thrilling account of how the cockroach tries to derail its predestined demise. The habitually destitute man succeeds in finding a job as a bus boy in an Iranian restaurant. Although here too, his thoughts often drag him down to murky depths, and although he is often full of cruel ideas on how to get his revenge on the clientele, and unscrupulously tries to seduce the restaurant owner's 16-year-old daughter, he makes a fair go of fulfilling his role and for a while, carries out his duties to the satisfaction of his manager.

Deeply-rooted traumas

A second narrative strand describes counselling sessions during a course of therapy, ordered by a court following the immigrant's suicide attempt. The personable therapist tries her best to gain access to the disturbed patient. In doing so, she discovers almost in passing that he has already spent time in a secure psychiatric unit. And if the counselling fails to make any progress, he faces the prospect of a renewed referral.

Dialogues with the therapist reveal decisive, definitive details from the protagonist's past: the distraught young man feels responsible for the death of his sister, who was murdered by her violent husband, virtually in front of him.

The protagonist's perception of himself as a cockroach is repeatedly focused on during these conversations, and the insistent questioning of the therapist draws back the veil on the delusional obsessions of the immigrant. It is obvious and hardly surprising that the therapy is bound to fail in the end. The traumas are too deeply-rooted.

Tremendous power, wonderful savagery

Astonishingly, in spite of its eminently negative baggage, the novel displays definite comical traits. It is the passages that border on the fantastical, indeed on the surreal, which describe the thief and small-time criminal crawling through strange houses and drainpipes in the guise of a cockroach, that provide the novel with its remarkable impetus.Hage has captured the spiral of exile, poverty and violence with sensitivity and a genuine understanding of his protagonist's predicament – a rare achievement for a contemporary novel.

Another factor contributing to the high entertainment value of this novel is the main character himself, who despite his almost hopeless situation in the anonymous metropolis apparently never succumbs to total loneliness and despair. The hero is almost always surrounded by friends, women or rivals from the migrant milieu in a similar situation to his own. He also temporarily manages to access the upper echelons of society. He supplies drugs to a clique of rich Canadians, but leaves no doubt as to his contempt for these cynical individuals who despite their wealth, are emotionally no less depraved.

Rawi Hage's novel is bursting with a tremendous force and a wonderful savagery. It is above all the language that gives the novel a high degree of suspense, in spite of its prevailing aesthetic of wretchedness and the unsavoury.

There are passages saturated with metaphors describing tremendous visions of destruction, depicting a Montreal deluged in snow and ice becoming a bleak, apocalyptic place. In such passages, a sense of cultural unease blatantly grows into outright revulsion at civilisation. This is by no means light fare, but an unsettlingly pleasurable read for all fans of black humour.

Volker Kaminski

Rawi Hage, born in 1964, raised in Beirut and Cyprus, personally experienced the Lebanese civil war. In 1982 he went to New York, where he studied photography. He has been living as a freelance artist and writer in Montreal since 1991. He received the world's largest prize for a single work of fiction published in English, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, for his debut novel "De Niro's Game".

Translated from the German by Nina Coon

Editor: Lewis Gropp/Qantara.de

Qantara.de

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