Cockroach

Oh my! What a novel! What a narrator! I quite simply put off letting this novel end because I just knew whatever came next for me to read would be less than this wonderful. Oh, yes, and when you get to it, what an ending it is!The novel is set in cold, cold Montreal where "menacing armies of heavy boots" encase people's feet. Wouldn't a cockroach see our feet that way even though the narrator isn't really a cockroach? But he most certainly is a human one!The narrator is totally outside life in Montreal, a voyeur, and definitely a psychopathic one. (I think the two people who wrote the two-star reviews didn't realize that this narrator is indeed psychopathic. Big time!)Born in Lebanon, he migrated to Montreal and for reasons we don't know for most of the novel, he has been released--unfortunately for many of his victims--from some type of institution. The release has been contingent upon his seeing a therapist named Genevieve.In one scene he writes, "I like to pass by fancy stores and restaurants and watch the people behind thick glass, taking themselves seriously, driving forks into their mouths... I also like to watch the young waitresses in their short black dresses... Although I no longer stand and stare." And then he proceeds to tell what happened the prior summer when he did that, an episode that led to police being called in, and our cockroach narrator informs them that he was only looking at his own reflection in the glass. And then it seems he watched as the couple he was staring at left, the man opening from a distance with his remote the door to the BMW. And, yes, our narrator manages to get into the car without being seen, manages then to get into their house from the parked car in the garage, manages to see some elements of their getting ready for bed--his focus upon the woman--and then admits this: "At the couple's home I stole his gold ring, his cigarettes, a Roman vase, his tie..."As he says about himself when he steals or plans his advances on women, "I was the insect beneath them."I am so much in agreement with the reviewer who wrote this: "You can pick practically any paragraph on any page and be awed by the magic of his bleak words as he, piling metaphor upon metaphor, captures the bitter cold of a Montreal winter and a world of darkness.This is one of the most amazing novels I have read in recent years. And I read as many as two novels a week.

I found the story a bit difficult to follow and the ending very abruptI doubt I would read any other works from this author, the style of writing does not suit my taste

His images pop with magic. He captures the experience of immigrants and refugees - raw, real transformations. The writer's ability to capture complexity and distill it into a potent story is inspiring.

Not really a recommended read. The main character thinks he's at least part cockroach. Not a very interesting one at that.

One of the best books ı have recently read. Thank you Rawi Hage. İt is a psychological journey of an immigrant which no doubt many similar lives must have experienced.

We needed this for our English course. Thank you.

Turning the last page of this book I felt like standing up, dusting myself off as best as possible, and heading for a long, hot, cleansing shower. The book was far more of a challenge than a pleasure. If Rawi Hage's down in the dirt novel, Cockroach, had been written poorly and/or was without merit, it would have been satisfying to use a blowtorch instead of a pen to write a review. Hage didn't give me that luxury: he knows how to write, and Cockroach is a work of both integrity and value.The protagonist, more anti-hero than hero, is a nameless (occasionally referred to as "kid") member of that part of the Montreal immigrant community that hangs on by its economic finger nails. Told in the first person, our guide takes us on a gritty, grimy, insect-ridden, violence-prone, sexual, crime-laden tour of roughly one frozen winter month in the life of the members of this community. Our protagonist remains so anonymous, so sub-surface, so invisible, as he moves through this environment that his existence approximates (and in his own mind becomes) that of a cockroach. Even his therapist (assigned to our anti-hero compulsorily after his suicide attempt) doesn't address him by name, and his musician friend Reza sums up our anti-hero/cockroach's worth in this way: "I give something in return" (Reza continued) "while you are nothing but a petty thief with no talent. All you can do is make the fridge light go on and off, and once the door is closed you're never sure if the light inside has turned to darkness, like your own dim soul". And if that's how your friends think about you....The reader will be tempted to react to our anti-hero's actions and viewpoints with disgust, condescension, and possibly anger. Be prepared for the fact that our protagonist's reaction to the comfortable, self-satisfied, shallow, hyper-precious life of the culturally pretentious is no less negative, and much more severe.And yet, as difficult a read as it was for me, I found much more in Hage's writing than a simple counter-cultural rant, more than a morbid examination of the squalid, more than simple self-loathing. Strands of integrity, wisps of human feeling, threads of the ability to experience and give love, weave a potent ending to the tale of Cockroach.Rawi Hage's book is an exploration of one part of Montreal's sociological crawl space. Crawl spaces are nasty. In my Central Oregon location, my rare descents into the crawl space beneath my house are unpleasant encounters with large spiders, the occasional scorpion, the skittering sound of sage rats running off, and scattered animal droppings. The dirt I crawl over as I dodge plumbing and floor beams is laced with volcanic rock that skins my knees even through my clothing. When I emerge, I'm covered with dirt, scratched up, and happy to be breathing clean air in the light of day. Emerging from the experience of reading Cockroach, I'm guessing that many readers will metaphorically feel the same way.What fuels the rage that surfaces so frequently in this book? One passage suggests that Rawi Hage's survival of nine years of the Lebanese civil war is a source: "At the first sip of beer, the first fries, I forget and forgive humanity for its stupidity, its foulness, its avarice and greed, envy, lust gluttony, sloth, wrath, and anger. I forgive it for its contaminated spit, its valued feces, its rivers of piss, its bombs, all its bad dancing. I also forget about the bonny infants with the African flies clustering on their noses, the marching drunk soldiers on the way to whorehouses. I forget about my mother and my father, the lightless nights I spent with my sister playing cards, dressing up toy soldiers, and undressing dolls by candlelight, reading comics."For a fascinating contrast to Hage's story, read Tracy Kidder's  Strength in What Remains , the non-fiction account of a survivor of the Tutsi genocide who ends up scratching for survival in New York's own down and out immigrant community.This book is not for light consumption, and not for book clubs that like their books high in entertainment and low on literary crawl spaces. Literary spelunkers, and those who enjoy the heights of human existence the more for having visited the depths: forge ahead.

This is the most refreshing book I read in years!! I loved it! It approaches exile in a completely different way. I imagine people don't like it because they prefer to think that someone else is to blame. This book shows us that no one in innocent! Brilliant!

I read this as a book club book and did not like it at all. The writing style and storyline were difficult to follow at times .

Hagi is amazing

Set in Montreal, this story is a first person account. Told through our protagonist who is basically a small time criminal from Iran who has emigrated to Canada and continued his criminal ways, mainly burglary.. He is not a likeable person, which is interesting. Is this therefore not a "good", or "likeable" novel?! What he makes clear, is that immigrants from troubled countries have sometimes been throught awful injustices and experiences. They as a group might well suffer from a kind of communal PTSD. This novel traces a group of traumatized immigrants who are strugglng, often unsuccessfully, to find a life and some meaning in cold snowy Montreal, where they are basically impoverished and without status..Old injustices brew under the surface and it is one such injustise that brings this novel to a climax. I suppose we expect new immigrants to forgive, forget, adapt and be grateful. But what if evil people from the past resurface in your new home? Do you just smile and say, "oh hi, have a nice day?"I have been left pondering that question so I must assume it's a good novel, because It has made me aware of these realities!

Not up up his usual standard! The 'Cockroach' just seems to have the aim of shocking the reader. Two of his other books I was impressed with for their originality - yes; they had passages which required a broad and lateral thinking mind, but 'Cockroach' I would definitely NOT recommend wasting your tome reading! (Although, if you like a book that keeps you putting the pieces of the story and it comes together in the last 30 pages then perhaps this is a book for you - myself, I prefer some quality writing prior to that to keep me entertained. I would heartily recommend 'CARNIVAL' by Rawi Hage - it was in a different class.