Next installment of Tommi Reads the World – ringing in 2024 with the Bs.
Country: Bahrain
Title: QuixotiQAuthor: Ali Al Saeed
Language: English
Translator: None
Publisher: iUniverse Inc. (2004)
Finding a novel in English from Bahrain was extremely difficult, and QuixotiQ was one of very few options. Had this not been part of my reading challenge, I’d have DNF’d just a few pages in. The problem isn’t so much with the plot, which has potential to have some good bones, but with the writing itself. While it is admirable that Saeed drafted this novel entirely in English, at best a second language for him, that choice was the downfall of the work. It is littered with grammatical errors, clunky and awkward phrasing, and a heck of a lot of telling instead of showing.
Guy Kelton and Patrick Roymint are two extremely unhappy young men. Patrick takes a job at the urging of his girlfriend and ends up elbows deep in the seedy underbelly of Okay County as a drug runner. Guy is struggling with how his life didn’t end up how he’d hoped, and he is driven to madness and violence. As the novel unfolds, their chaotic lives and those of Patrick’s girlfriend, Mandy, and her best friend, Christina, bleed in and out of each other as lives are lost and secrets are revealed.
The novel would have benefited from being initially written in the language that comes naturally to Saeed and translated by a talented translator. It also would have benefited greatly from a skilled editor who has experience with works written not in the author’s primary language. As it stands, I cannot recommend this novel.
A Girl Named Tommi 