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Cockroach
Cockroach is as urgent, unsettling, and brilliant as Rawi Hage's bestselling and critically acclaimed first book, De Niro's Game.
The novel takes place during one month of a bitterly cold winter in Montreal's restless immigrant community, where a self-described thief has just tried but failed to commit suicide. Rescued against his will, the narrator is obliged to attend sessions with a well-intentioned but naive therapist. This sets the story in motion, leading us back to the narrator's violent childhood in a war-torn country, forward into his current life in the smoky emigre cafes where everyone has a tale, and out into the frozen night-time streets of Montreal, where the thief survives on the edge, imagining himself to be a cockroach invading the lives of the privileged, but wilfully blind, citizens who surround him.
In 2008, Cockroach was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Governor General's Literary Award, and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. It won the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction, presented by the Quebec Writers' Federation.
The novel takes place during one month of a bitterly cold winter in Montreal's restless immigrant community, where a self-described thief has just tried but failed to commit suicide. Rescued against his will, the narrator is obliged to attend sessions with a well-intentioned but naive therapist. This sets the story in motion, leading us back to the narrator's violent childhood in a war-torn country, forward into his current life in the smoky emigre cafes where everyone has a tale, and out into the frozen night-time streets of Montreal, where the thief survives on the edge, imagining himself to be a cockroach invading the lives of the privileged, but wilfully blind, citizens who surround him.
In 2008, Cockroach was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Governor General's Literary Award, and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. It won the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction, presented by the Quebec Writers' Federation.
305 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2008
109 people are currently reading
2917 people want to read
About the author
Rawi Hage
27 books314 followersRawi Hage is a Lebanese Canadian writer and photographer.
Born in Beirut, Hage grew up in Lebanon and Cyprus. He moved to New York City in 1982, and after studying at the New York Institute of Photography, relocated to Montreal in 1991, where he studied arts at Dawson College and Concordia University. He subsequently began exhibiting as a photographer, and has had works acquired by the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the Musée de la civilisation de Québec.
Hage has published journalism and fiction in several Canadian magazines. His debut novel, De Niro's Game, was shortlisted for the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the 2006 Governor General's Award for English fiction. He was also awarded two Quebec awards, Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and the McAuslan First Book Prize at the Quebec Writers' Federation literary awards.
Born in Beirut, Hage grew up in Lebanon and Cyprus. He moved to New York City in 1982, and after studying at the New York Institute of Photography, relocated to Montreal in 1991, where he studied arts at Dawson College and Concordia University. He subsequently began exhibiting as a photographer, and has had works acquired by the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the Musée de la civilisation de Québec.
Hage has published journalism and fiction in several Canadian magazines. His debut novel, De Niro's Game, was shortlisted for the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the 2006 Governor General's Award for English fiction. He was also awarded two Quebec awards, Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and the McAuslan First Book Prize at the Quebec Writers' Federation literary awards.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 386 reviews
September 3, 2008
Seeing as immigration is an integral element of the Canadian landscape, it should come as no surprise that authors might seek to dip into this cultural stew for dramatic purposes. Very few, however, would likely seek to add the phantasmagorical and hallucinatory elements that Rawi Hage’s novel Cockroach brings to the recipe.
The Canadian author arose seemingly from out of nowhere in 2006 when his debut novel De Niro’s Game was rescued from the obscurity of the slush pile at House of Anansi Press. The novel was immediately deluged with plaudits and awards, culminating in his recent win of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the largest English literary prize on the planet.
No one could blame Hage for any perceived degree of tentativeness in his approach to his sophomore novel. Yet while it contains many of the same themes as his first, Cockroach proves that Hage is not content to rest on his laurels.
Leaving behind Game’s war-blighted Lebanon, Cockroach sets itself in the more overtly familiar surroundings of Montreal. But while the country may be considerably dissimilar, Hage continues his penchant for bleak poetic atmosphere, transforming the bustling metropolis into an alien topography of menial jobs, mysterious accents, insect infestations, and class hostilities.
Cockroach is first and foremost a character study of a stranger in a strange land. A very strange stranger at that, an individual who possesses the odd habit of imagining himself at times to be a cockroach; “Other humans gaze at the sky,” he explains, “ but I say unto you, the only way through the world is to pass through the underground.”
Hage has more on his mind than allusions to Franz Kafka, however. Like Kafka’s many baffled protagonists, Hage’s anti-hero may be bewildered by the machinations of the world, but he is no mere observer, taking pains wherever and whenever he can to make his presence felt.
Similar to the leads in De Niro’s Game, the narrator is not so much a hero as he is a survivor, but with a far bleaker approach to life. Unlike the start realism of the former novel’s, the narrator of Cockroach may or may not be on the brink of insanity, adding a surreal aspect to many of his daily encounters.
Cockroach’s unnamed narrator is an immigrant to Canada, an man who ekes out a living through a combination of odd jobs, threats, and surreptitious thievery. After a haphazard suicide attempt, explained as being “a challenge to nature, to the cosmos itself, to the recurring light,” he is ordered to attend therapy sessions to assess his mental competency.
The narrator is not having an easy time of it living in Montreal, the clash of cultures altering the man he perceives himself to be. “[H]ere in this Northern land,” he laments, comparing his new life to his old, “no one gives you an excuse to hit, rob, or shoot, or even to shout from across the balcony, to curse your neighbours’ mothers and threaten their kids.”
Alongside a gift for breaking and entering, the narrator prides himself on his ability to lay bare the true natures of those who surround him. “I see people for what they are. I strip them of everything and see their hollowness. I strip them, and they are relieved of the burden of colour and disguise.”
Hage writes his tale in short, declarative sentences, capturing the despondency of a life of potential trapped in a world as similarly rigid in its caste structure as the land that he left. The narrator grimly acknowledges himself and his acquaintances as “the scum of the earth in this capitalist endeavour,” and it becomes readily apparent that Hage did not have to trek too far to revisit the themes of isolation and pain that suffused the pages of Di Niro’s Game.
Like that novel, Cockroach occasionally betrays a wicked wit beneath the pathos, manifesting through the narrator’s inserting himself into the lives of those he watches. “I was part of their TV dinner,” he writes after one young couple watches him as they would watch a reality television show, “I was spinning in a microwave, stripped of my plastic cover, eaten, and defecated the next morning just as the filtered coffee was brewing in the kitchen and the radio was prophesying the weather, telling them what to wear, what to buy, what to say, whom to watch, and whom to like and hate.”
Despite its many admirable qualities, Cockroach is not flawless. There is an abrupt switch at the halfway point as a more formalized plot begins to force its way onto the page. The ending, involving a weirdly-played subplot of a mysterious figure who draws the attention of the narrator’s friends, feels rushed and incomplete.
Cockroach is also, like its hero, a supremely frustrating creature, alternately fascinating and confused. By the finale, the skill of Hage is readily apparent, but there is a maddening sense of incompleteness to the whole of the novel, an impression exemplified by the narrator’s frequent digressions that entertain and provoke but don’t linger in the mind, a dilemma De Niro’s Game so effortlessly avoided.
Nevertheless, Cockroach reveals Hage to be no mere fluke, but a fearless talent with his best years ahead. Regardless of its shortcomings, Cockroach exposes a world so otherworldly to most Canadians as to be near-unimaginable, and reveals an author on the cusp of greatness.
The Canadian author arose seemingly from out of nowhere in 2006 when his debut novel De Niro’s Game was rescued from the obscurity of the slush pile at House of Anansi Press. The novel was immediately deluged with plaudits and awards, culminating in his recent win of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the largest English literary prize on the planet.
No one could blame Hage for any perceived degree of tentativeness in his approach to his sophomore novel. Yet while it contains many of the same themes as his first, Cockroach proves that Hage is not content to rest on his laurels.
Leaving behind Game’s war-blighted Lebanon, Cockroach sets itself in the more overtly familiar surroundings of Montreal. But while the country may be considerably dissimilar, Hage continues his penchant for bleak poetic atmosphere, transforming the bustling metropolis into an alien topography of menial jobs, mysterious accents, insect infestations, and class hostilities.
Cockroach is first and foremost a character study of a stranger in a strange land. A very strange stranger at that, an individual who possesses the odd habit of imagining himself at times to be a cockroach; “Other humans gaze at the sky,” he explains, “ but I say unto you, the only way through the world is to pass through the underground.”
Hage has more on his mind than allusions to Franz Kafka, however. Like Kafka’s many baffled protagonists, Hage’s anti-hero may be bewildered by the machinations of the world, but he is no mere observer, taking pains wherever and whenever he can to make his presence felt.
Similar to the leads in De Niro’s Game, the narrator is not so much a hero as he is a survivor, but with a far bleaker approach to life. Unlike the start realism of the former novel’s, the narrator of Cockroach may or may not be on the brink of insanity, adding a surreal aspect to many of his daily encounters.
Cockroach’s unnamed narrator is an immigrant to Canada, an man who ekes out a living through a combination of odd jobs, threats, and surreptitious thievery. After a haphazard suicide attempt, explained as being “a challenge to nature, to the cosmos itself, to the recurring light,” he is ordered to attend therapy sessions to assess his mental competency.
The narrator is not having an easy time of it living in Montreal, the clash of cultures altering the man he perceives himself to be. “[H]ere in this Northern land,” he laments, comparing his new life to his old, “no one gives you an excuse to hit, rob, or shoot, or even to shout from across the balcony, to curse your neighbours’ mothers and threaten their kids.”
Alongside a gift for breaking and entering, the narrator prides himself on his ability to lay bare the true natures of those who surround him. “I see people for what they are. I strip them of everything and see their hollowness. I strip them, and they are relieved of the burden of colour and disguise.”
Hage writes his tale in short, declarative sentences, capturing the despondency of a life of potential trapped in a world as similarly rigid in its caste structure as the land that he left. The narrator grimly acknowledges himself and his acquaintances as “the scum of the earth in this capitalist endeavour,” and it becomes readily apparent that Hage did not have to trek too far to revisit the themes of isolation and pain that suffused the pages of Di Niro’s Game.
Like that novel, Cockroach occasionally betrays a wicked wit beneath the pathos, manifesting through the narrator’s inserting himself into the lives of those he watches. “I was part of their TV dinner,” he writes after one young couple watches him as they would watch a reality television show, “I was spinning in a microwave, stripped of my plastic cover, eaten, and defecated the next morning just as the filtered coffee was brewing in the kitchen and the radio was prophesying the weather, telling them what to wear, what to buy, what to say, whom to watch, and whom to like and hate.”
Despite its many admirable qualities, Cockroach is not flawless. There is an abrupt switch at the halfway point as a more formalized plot begins to force its way onto the page. The ending, involving a weirdly-played subplot of a mysterious figure who draws the attention of the narrator’s friends, feels rushed and incomplete.
Cockroach is also, like its hero, a supremely frustrating creature, alternately fascinating and confused. By the finale, the skill of Hage is readily apparent, but there is a maddening sense of incompleteness to the whole of the novel, an impression exemplified by the narrator’s frequent digressions that entertain and provoke but don’t linger in the mind, a dilemma De Niro’s Game so effortlessly avoided.
Nevertheless, Cockroach reveals Hage to be no mere fluke, but a fearless talent with his best years ahead. Regardless of its shortcomings, Cockroach exposes a world so otherworldly to most Canadians as to be near-unimaginable, and reveals an author on the cusp of greatness.
March 8, 2012
An Arab immigrant as a Scheherazade to his Canadian therapist, his wild Third world past as 1001 nights to a steril life of taxpaying, TV-watching and self fooling. A compulsively stealing, quite lazy, sexually starving, resentful loner with a suicidal tendency, a special talent for metaphors and ability to turn himself (willingly, unlike Kafka's Samsa) into a cockroach. Witty, passionate prose, great little kamikadze story. Oh, how I enjoyed this one.
A spoilerish P.S. Still, I'd take away half a star from my rating because of part of the ending. Only police needs all the facts and all the motivations, not literature: it was enough for me to guess some of the past and future mishaps around the main character and his main lover - seeing them explained and justifying all the rest kinda offends my intelligence. Also I've read and seen on stage and in cinema Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden, so I've already been long ago where Hage is trying to take my emotions by surprise for the catharsis. As a human being I still react with compassion, but as a fiction lover I have a déjà vu. Yet, I forgive you, Rawi Hage, for you're an addictive story teller. Will be waiting for your next book :)
A spoilerish P.S. Still, I'd take away half a star from my rating because of part of the ending. Only police needs all the facts and all the motivations, not literature: it was enough for me to guess some of the past and future mishaps around the main character and his main lover - seeing them explained and justifying all the rest kinda offends my intelligence. Also I've read and seen on stage and in cinema Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden, so I've already been long ago where Hage is trying to take my emotions by surprise for the catharsis. As a human being I still react with compassion, but as a fiction lover I have a déjà vu. Yet, I forgive you, Rawi Hage, for you're an addictive story teller. Will be waiting for your next book :)
September 3, 2014
Disturbing. Less of what I liked so much about his first in the way of sweeping, poetic language to describe a world of hallucinogenic brutality, and more focused on an internal world of delusion, trauma and sadness. The central character here is a soul in great pain, but the first two-thirds of the novel don't plumb those depths except by inference. The superficiality of the court-assigned psychotherapist's intervention compared to the gradual revelation of what caused the 'cockroach's' flight and descent into crime and mental breakdown is the framework for the central dramatic tension, and I thought very effective. But it takes a while to unfold and Hage's style I found here to be almost too complex for telling a personal story (compared to providing overall atmosphere/scene-setting, as in De Niro's Game).
This is a tough read, very intense and immersive, and there's not a lot of relief. Actually, there's no relief. Given the story it tells, this is probably exactly as it should be.
This is a tough read, very intense and immersive, and there's not a lot of relief. Actually, there's no relief. Given the story it tells, this is probably exactly as it should be.
November 26, 2008
Rawi Hage’s second novel Cockroach takes place during a frigid Montreal winter and details the picaresque adventures of an unnamed protagonist, a recent immigrant from the Middle East and self-professed thief who often envisions himself as a giant cockroach. Hage is the recent winner of English literature’s richest prize, the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, for his debut novel DeNiro’s Game (which I did not read); as such, there has been a considerable degree of anticipation for this new book.
There are two narrative arcs in this novel. The primary arc is a first-person description of the protagonist and his interactions within and without the shadowy émigré community of Montreal. The secondary arc provides the backstory of the protagonist’s family history in the old country as detailed to his government-appointed psychologist.
Hage writes with an almost relentless forward momentum, and the prose quickly takes hold of the reader by providing an intimate depiction of the protagonist’s underworld. The tone is persistently nihilistic (particularly in the first half), cynical, and dark. This is reflected in the actions of the unnamed protagonist, who breaks into the homes of his acquaintances for petty reasons (or none at all) and sells drugs to shallow and self-obsessed young Quebecois. These young cocaine-addled materialists who live “expensive apartments with faux shantytown architecture” are viciously described by the protagonist, who recognizes their implicit acceptance of him as nothing more than their latest exotic fashion accessory, another acquisition from the savage East. The following passages illustrate this gleefully sardonic tone (and there is much of this in the novel).
"All of her friends, too, lived in a state of permanent denial of the bad smells from sewers, infested slums, unheated apartments, single mothers on welfare, worn-out clothing. No, everything had to be perfect, every morsel of food had to be well served — presentation, always presentation, the ultimate mask."
" … They were corrupt, empty, selfish, self-absorbed … I despised them; they admired me."
This unrelenting nihilism, untypical in many ways of Canadian literature, is coupled with a fascinating use of imagery. It is this imagery that has the greatest impact upon the reader. As the title implies, the protagonist views himself as a giant cockroach, quick and agile, feeding off the detritus of civil society, thriving in the dark and recognizing no boundaries and barriers. He comes to identify with the cockroaches infesting his apartment, to the point of conversing with a giant albino roach. He exists on the edge of madness, for reasons that become clear as the novel progresses.
Despite all the cynicism, surreal imagery, and nihilistic tone (which many have found offputting), the ultimate sense conveyed by the protagonist is a profound sense of loneliness. As he laments to his psychiatrist:
I just wanted to know you, I said. I just wanted to be invited in.
This loneliness is coupled with a deep sense of responsibility and shame by the protagonist at his failure to affect an earlier tragedy. The primary narrative arc of this novel is his attempt to atone for this tragedy. And as such, the novel is ultimately a novel of redemption.
I found it fascinating, a very quick read, and enjoyed the propulsive narrative style. The imagery stretches a bit too far in some cases, and parts of the second are a bit slow, but these are minor complaints. I look forward to reading more from Hage in the future.
There are two narrative arcs in this novel. The primary arc is a first-person description of the protagonist and his interactions within and without the shadowy émigré community of Montreal. The secondary arc provides the backstory of the protagonist’s family history in the old country as detailed to his government-appointed psychologist.
Hage writes with an almost relentless forward momentum, and the prose quickly takes hold of the reader by providing an intimate depiction of the protagonist’s underworld. The tone is persistently nihilistic (particularly in the first half), cynical, and dark. This is reflected in the actions of the unnamed protagonist, who breaks into the homes of his acquaintances for petty reasons (or none at all) and sells drugs to shallow and self-obsessed young Quebecois. These young cocaine-addled materialists who live “expensive apartments with faux shantytown architecture” are viciously described by the protagonist, who recognizes their implicit acceptance of him as nothing more than their latest exotic fashion accessory, another acquisition from the savage East. The following passages illustrate this gleefully sardonic tone (and there is much of this in the novel).
"All of her friends, too, lived in a state of permanent denial of the bad smells from sewers, infested slums, unheated apartments, single mothers on welfare, worn-out clothing. No, everything had to be perfect, every morsel of food had to be well served — presentation, always presentation, the ultimate mask."
" … They were corrupt, empty, selfish, self-absorbed … I despised them; they admired me."
This unrelenting nihilism, untypical in many ways of Canadian literature, is coupled with a fascinating use of imagery. It is this imagery that has the greatest impact upon the reader. As the title implies, the protagonist views himself as a giant cockroach, quick and agile, feeding off the detritus of civil society, thriving in the dark and recognizing no boundaries and barriers. He comes to identify with the cockroaches infesting his apartment, to the point of conversing with a giant albino roach. He exists on the edge of madness, for reasons that become clear as the novel progresses.
Despite all the cynicism, surreal imagery, and nihilistic tone (which many have found offputting), the ultimate sense conveyed by the protagonist is a profound sense of loneliness. As he laments to his psychiatrist:
I just wanted to know you, I said. I just wanted to be invited in.
This loneliness is coupled with a deep sense of responsibility and shame by the protagonist at his failure to affect an earlier tragedy. The primary narrative arc of this novel is his attempt to atone for this tragedy. And as such, the novel is ultimately a novel of redemption.
I found it fascinating, a very quick read, and enjoyed the propulsive narrative style. The imagery stretches a bit too far in some cases, and parts of the second are a bit slow, but these are minor complaints. I look forward to reading more from Hage in the future.
April 29, 2013
Oh, was I disappointed with this book?!
I hate it. It's about all of the clichés that frame immigrants : messed up, psychotic, sex-addicts, egocentric, psychopaths, thiefs, hallucinating drunkies, drug addicts, filthy, leeches,...
I happen to know many Lebanese who are immigrants in Canada, they have worked hard, they're serious people, they fled the war but they weren't psychotics who got turned on by their own sisters. And they're not a threat, or terrorists-in-the-make. what the hell is this author trying to say?? What is wrong with him?
This book is why I don't read much Arabic books: cheap pornographic shallow cliché, a sad excuse of a book!
And was the writer trying to imitate Kafka's 'the Metamorphosis'?! Just wondering...
After I was half-through, I just had it with this book, so I started skipping pages just to see how it ends.
Also, all of these political stereotypes about the civil war. All used to justify his cockroach lifestyle. I couldn't sympathize with it. And it made no sense because the character isn't studied in a deep manner, we are told about what he does (breaking into a house, stealing food, living with dirty dishes infested with cockroaches, etc..) , we never know what he feels inside, the author only describes the delusions.
I don't know why it is very much loved and praised, maybe because it feeds certain propaganda and stereotypes. It was okay at first, but then I just despised it and lost all interest.
Is the narrator antisocial, or schizoid, or what? In all means, it doesn't add up, it makes no reliable sense for a scientific diagnosis. I wanted ti give it two stars, because the author can write. I just hate how Canadians read this and think this represents Lebanese modern literature, it kills me!
I hate it. It's about all of the clichés that frame immigrants : messed up, psychotic, sex-addicts, egocentric, psychopaths, thiefs, hallucinating drunkies, drug addicts, filthy, leeches,...
I happen to know many Lebanese who are immigrants in Canada, they have worked hard, they're serious people, they fled the war but they weren't psychotics who got turned on by their own sisters. And they're not a threat, or terrorists-in-the-make. what the hell is this author trying to say?? What is wrong with him?
This book is why I don't read much Arabic books: cheap pornographic shallow cliché, a sad excuse of a book!
And was the writer trying to imitate Kafka's 'the Metamorphosis'?! Just wondering...
After I was half-through, I just had it with this book, so I started skipping pages just to see how it ends.
Also, all of these political stereotypes about the civil war. All used to justify his cockroach lifestyle. I couldn't sympathize with it. And it made no sense because the character isn't studied in a deep manner, we are told about what he does (breaking into a house, stealing food, living with dirty dishes infested with cockroaches, etc..) , we never know what he feels inside, the author only describes the delusions.
I don't know why it is very much loved and praised, maybe because it feeds certain propaganda and stereotypes. It was okay at first, but then I just despised it and lost all interest.
Is the narrator antisocial, or schizoid, or what? In all means, it doesn't add up, it makes no reliable sense for a scientific diagnosis. I wanted ti give it two stars, because the author can write. I just hate how Canadians read this and think this represents Lebanese modern literature, it kills me!
July 1, 2010
Cockroach is an engaging character: thief, suicidal, obsessed with the underbelly of life, hating his new homeland and the people who live in it (why did he come, I wanted to ask), supposedly illiterate but wonderfully articulate and poetic, especially when he runs off into stream-of-consciousness ramblings on the state of his mind and of the nation.
There is also a trend in writing, which I recently tried to address in a blog article, and I call it "let-it-all-hang-out writing," which Hage seems to capture extremely well. I don't necessarily agree that this level of detail on the human condition is required in literature. But when a narrator talks about "not washing his hands after pissing, extracting sweet nectar from between women’s legs, examining used condoms, and eating shit" I think we are in the zone of "extreme shock value." It's as if the writer has no confidence in using less graphic prose to draw his reader in.
Then there is another form of writing that frankly irritates me: the lack of punctuation and quotation marks. I know that we are in an age of experimenting with various new writing forms and older practices are being dropped - all part of continuous improvement - but when there is a story within a story and both narrators are "I," for instance, the lack of quotation marks can be quite misleading, and it happens quite frequently in this novel. I think punctuation and quotes were invented to overcome the shortcomings in straight prose and to discard them arbitrarily shows a lack of respect for those "who have gone before."
As for the plot, in this novel, it seems to develop midway. What was initially a character story about the aimless ramblings of our Cockroach, becomes a crime/espionage story in the end, as if an editor said, "this is not good enough, brother - kick up the action" and our unwilling author, not wanting to screw up his sophomore novel, complied half-heartedly. For all the graphic descriptions in the first two-thirds of the novel, the ending was minimalist and disappointing.
Despite all these shortcomings, Hage opened me to the inner lives of Iranian and Middle-Eastern immigrant groups operating on the fringes of Montreal society. One wonders whether these immigrants were better off in their homelands, despite the threat of physical torture and incarceration they faced there. In their new homeland in Canada, they are eternally condemned to marginalized lives, poverty, identity-crisis, the bitter cold of winter (a form of torture to those improperly clad and from warmer countries - Cockroach is jubilant when he steals a pair of boots that finally warms his feet from the cold), and hope that can only to be found in the underground, into which our resilient Cockroach finally descends. They are also not absolved from the proverbial bullet that they dodged for so long in order to get to our perceived "safe shores."
There is also a trend in writing, which I recently tried to address in a blog article, and I call it "let-it-all-hang-out writing," which Hage seems to capture extremely well. I don't necessarily agree that this level of detail on the human condition is required in literature. But when a narrator talks about "not washing his hands after pissing, extracting sweet nectar from between women’s legs, examining used condoms, and eating shit" I think we are in the zone of "extreme shock value." It's as if the writer has no confidence in using less graphic prose to draw his reader in.
Then there is another form of writing that frankly irritates me: the lack of punctuation and quotation marks. I know that we are in an age of experimenting with various new writing forms and older practices are being dropped - all part of continuous improvement - but when there is a story within a story and both narrators are "I," for instance, the lack of quotation marks can be quite misleading, and it happens quite frequently in this novel. I think punctuation and quotes were invented to overcome the shortcomings in straight prose and to discard them arbitrarily shows a lack of respect for those "who have gone before."
As for the plot, in this novel, it seems to develop midway. What was initially a character story about the aimless ramblings of our Cockroach, becomes a crime/espionage story in the end, as if an editor said, "this is not good enough, brother - kick up the action" and our unwilling author, not wanting to screw up his sophomore novel, complied half-heartedly. For all the graphic descriptions in the first two-thirds of the novel, the ending was minimalist and disappointing.
Despite all these shortcomings, Hage opened me to the inner lives of Iranian and Middle-Eastern immigrant groups operating on the fringes of Montreal society. One wonders whether these immigrants were better off in their homelands, despite the threat of physical torture and incarceration they faced there. In their new homeland in Canada, they are eternally condemned to marginalized lives, poverty, identity-crisis, the bitter cold of winter (a form of torture to those improperly clad and from warmer countries - Cockroach is jubilant when he steals a pair of boots that finally warms his feet from the cold), and hope that can only to be found in the underground, into which our resilient Cockroach finally descends. They are also not absolved from the proverbial bullet that they dodged for so long in order to get to our perceived "safe shores."
March 13, 2018
This was not a long book. It took me over a month to read, including a cross continent flight as my only book on board. I can’t really believe I finished it but it was strange enough to keep me from quitting, but unpleasant enough to prevent me from reading more than a few pages at a time. It was quite original but I didn’t enjoy it at all. Tonight I am celebrating putting it on the shelf and moving on to something new. I don’t recommend it.
April 18, 2011
Awesome and haunting, and a spot-on sense of Montreal portraits--the "eccentric" landlady with fading aristocratic colors, the exploitative bosses, the hyper-educated cab drivers. The blur of fantasy-reality across underground/overground story layers really worked for me. Highly recommended. Also, funny as hell.
March 10, 2011
Yes, I completed the book yesterday afternoon and attended the discussion at the library last night.
We had a good turnout there, more than expected, the weather being cold and wet.
Feelings on the book were mixed, not so much around the table, but within ourselves as individual members. We all agreed on it being a good book, in that the author's characters, including the protag were exasperating people.
Protag . . . and nobody can figure out what his name is - feels sorry for himself due to his 'poorness'. Some agreed with me that there are people worse off than him.
He's an immigrant, albiet a seven-year resident in Montreal, who is having problems adjusting. He seems to expect the world owes him a living, and a mighty fine one at that.
He has mental problems; that's a given - he thinks he's part cockroach!
And he's cold, lonely, even though he does have a handful of friends who infuriate him when he cannot easily manipulate them into doing his bidding.
There's a therapist - Genevieve - who is typical of the complacent social worker who becomes totally exasperated with the young man when he admits to his wrongdoings, his seeming to think his poorness and other people's apparent abundance fully justifies his penchant for break-in and theft.
The story ends in a bizarre act of violence that does not ring true to anyone's mind. Yet when you really think about it, it's entirely possible.
I recommend this read, as well as the author's other novel, De Niro's Game. You may not like the book simply because of the characters who seem to have few redeeming qualities.
But I have often maintained that if an author can make you dislike and sometimes even hate his characters with a passion, then that writer has done his/her job.
Turn the pages of this book and you will see.
We had a good turnout there, more than expected, the weather being cold and wet.
Feelings on the book were mixed, not so much around the table, but within ourselves as individual members. We all agreed on it being a good book, in that the author's characters, including the protag were exasperating people.
Protag . . . and nobody can figure out what his name is - feels sorry for himself due to his 'poorness'. Some agreed with me that there are people worse off than him.
He's an immigrant, albiet a seven-year resident in Montreal, who is having problems adjusting. He seems to expect the world owes him a living, and a mighty fine one at that.
He has mental problems; that's a given - he thinks he's part cockroach!
And he's cold, lonely, even though he does have a handful of friends who infuriate him when he cannot easily manipulate them into doing his bidding.
There's a therapist - Genevieve - who is typical of the complacent social worker who becomes totally exasperated with the young man when he admits to his wrongdoings, his seeming to think his poorness and other people's apparent abundance fully justifies his penchant for break-in and theft.
The story ends in a bizarre act of violence that does not ring true to anyone's mind. Yet when you really think about it, it's entirely possible.
I recommend this read, as well as the author's other novel, De Niro's Game. You may not like the book simply because of the characters who seem to have few redeeming qualities.
But I have often maintained that if an author can make you dislike and sometimes even hate his characters with a passion, then that writer has done his/her job.
Turn the pages of this book and you will see.
November 16, 2017
A couple of details here, like the main character being a Lebanese immigrant in Montreal and have gone through traumatized past of civil war and domestic violence, reminded me of my favourite Denis Villeneuve film “Incendies”. Needless to say, the common grounds are approached entirely different by both creators. While the film director’s efforts are concentrated almost entirely in retrospectively exposing the past of his character and involving the viewer more into the regional conflict, Rawi Hage positions his cockroach wannabe hero in a cold white winter in Canada and focuses on the messed up mental adventures he experiences in the present. Hage is a master of metaphor, his writing is addictive and expressive. His character is extravagant, bright and quite insightful man living on social assistance, whose unsuccessful suicide attempt leads us to enter and explore his wounded psyche through his eccentric thoughts. Surviving on weekly routines of breaking people’s homes to thieve food and secrets, occasionally bussing tables and visiting his state appointed therapist, the cockroach doesn’t follow any particular direction in life. Only until he meet the Iranian woman he madly falls in love with and figures out his insect skills might find their purpose. This novel is well worth the read.
August 18, 2011
What a fresh approach to dealing with issues of exile. I had begun to despair that Arab writers could do it, could write novels that could be taken seriously aesthetically and also pay homage to the issues-political and social- that must dominate the psyche of all Arabs. What was impressive was how effortlessly the writer moved from West to East, from describing the banal, self-absorbed existence of people in the West to describing the hysterical, emotionally-loaded and usually desperate realities of the East. It was interesting here to see a Lebanese writer not obsessed with writing about the Lebanese in the West (narrator excluded), but focusing mainly on other immigrant communities- Algerian and mainly Iranian. Lebanon is never named in the novel, although there are enough clues provided to warrant the conclusion that the narrator must be from civil-war Lebanon. Most Lebanese writers are obsessed with their Lebaneseness. It is refershing to see Rawi Hage able to wrangle himself from it all and locate his issues in the wider socio-political realities of all exiles leaving their dangerous shores only to descend into a cold, vast landmark-less land that freezes everything except their memories
October 5, 2015
There is a lot packed into this book. It is hard to separate my feelings for the main character and my feelings for the book. The book is at its core about a marginalized immigrant who has a failed suicide attempt, and his interactions with the few other human beings in his life. I found the books comments on society's and other people's views of the main character more interesting than his own thoughts. He is someone who is marginalized by society, and one of those whom many would not even notice, or if they did, they would avoid. The therapist employed to help him, is woefully unequipped to understand where he is coming from and the day to day realities he is facing. The book does a great job of bringing the reader along for a walk in the main characters shoes. Although he is not a likeable character, I hope everyone who reads this book, will take at least a few more minutes when they encounter struggling and marginalized people in their life.
March 25, 2014
Dark, cold, unsettling, and yet familiar; the half-cockroach narrator of the book feels real. He is haunted by his past though he does not admit it. He reveals his story through conversations with a therapist. He stalks and steals and hallucinates, and drags the reader with himself the entire time.
I enjoyed the passages where he talks about his cockroach side, especially where he followed a couple, entered their house and then inside their dreams.
I don't think this book has any resemblance with Kafka's Metamorphosis, expect for a symbolic insect featured in the two stories maybe. The contemporary Montreal winter here is cold and harsh, but nothing like a maze in a world by Kafka.
I strongly recommend this book and look forward to reading other works by Rawi Have.
I enjoyed the passages where he talks about his cockroach side, especially where he followed a couple, entered their house and then inside their dreams.
I don't think this book has any resemblance with Kafka's Metamorphosis, expect for a symbolic insect featured in the two stories maybe. The contemporary Montreal winter here is cold and harsh, but nothing like a maze in a world by Kafka.
I strongly recommend this book and look forward to reading other works by Rawi Have.
March 14, 2017
اذا كان من الممكن اطلاق صفة انسانية على هذه الرواية فهي ثقيلة دم...الترجمة لم تكن سلسة والقصة غريبة بغباء والسرد مبعثر لايوصلنا لهدف معين ..بنهاية المطاف نصل لنفس نقطة البداية..مهاجر مختل عقليا ابتدأ بالقاع وسيظل بالقاع ..حاسد حاقد على كل من يعيش افضل منه وبنفس الوقت لايريد ان يغير من حاله..مستمتع بكونه صرصار..رواية مقرفة احسستني بقذارة بطل الرواية وان كان هذا هو هدف الكاتب فقد نجح بجدارة
January 24, 2024
objectively this is a very good book however i have no clue if i enjoyed it or not. it doesn't really matter if i did though because it's for school :)
May 26, 2021
An absolutely mesmerizing read. Incredible voice. A must read.
September 7, 2014
This novel feels true. It happens in my city but it is not of my culture, and yet the author put me right in there, experiencing the struggle to survive. I felt the empty belly of having no food, no money and nowhere to turn when you are hungry and cold. I felt the total alienation from the mainstream, the hierarchy within the immigrant community, the weight of emotional baggage that an immigrant may bring with him. Canada, land of welcoming arms and opportunity? Oh, yeah? Maybe if you come with money and position.
Calling himself cockroach is like calling oneself "loser" or "a-hole", a coping mechanism that seems to serve him well. He despises the cockroaches he lives with while admiring their ability to survive anything except the bottom of his shoe. No matter how many he manages to kill, there are always plenty more. Even when he doesn't see them, they are there, hiding in the dark just waiting to come out from the cracks.
What I read was a story of someone who is angry, disillusioned, marginalized, scraping by on wits and putting no value on his life. He takes beauty or pleasure in any moment that offers itself, without scruples. But somehow it is not all bleak. I can't explain why. It is just a snapshot of someone's reality.
I had a hard time reading the first half, wondering if I would finish it. For the second half I was really into it and it was all making sense and being real.
September 2014, I add the following after listening to an audio version of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.
The Metamorphosis deepened my understanding of Cockroach. I picked up on elements that were not immediately obvious to me.
Calling himself cockroach is like calling oneself "loser" or "a-hole", a coping mechanism that seems to serve him well. He despises the cockroaches he lives with while admiring their ability to survive anything except the bottom of his shoe. No matter how many he manages to kill, there are always plenty more. Even when he doesn't see them, they are there, hiding in the dark just waiting to come out from the cracks.
What I read was a story of someone who is angry, disillusioned, marginalized, scraping by on wits and putting no value on his life. He takes beauty or pleasure in any moment that offers itself, without scruples. But somehow it is not all bleak. I can't explain why. It is just a snapshot of someone's reality.
I had a hard time reading the first half, wondering if I would finish it. For the second half I was really into it and it was all making sense and being real.
September 2014, I add the following after listening to an audio version of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.
The Metamorphosis deepened my understanding of Cockroach. I picked up on elements that were not immediately obvious to me.
June 3, 2016
"You know, we come to these countries for refuge and to find better lives, but it is these countries that made us leave our homes in the first place.... these countries we live in talk about democracy but they do not want democracy. They only want dictators. It is easier for them to deal with dictators than to have democracy in the countries we came from. I fought for democracy. I was tortured for democracy."
This passage stands out the most for me. This book is a powerful look into the life of a refugee in Canada. The cab driver who was tortured for fighting for democracy, the waitress who was brutally raped every day for years in jail, while her torturer now has diplomatic immunity in Canada, the bus boy with PTSD over the death of his sister. All of these people are displaced and trying to come to terms with living in a new country with a new language and unspoken codes of conduct.
I do wish that the author had spent more time development some of these characters but overall this book showed me a glimpse into the struggle of immigrants in Canada.
This passage stands out the most for me. This book is a powerful look into the life of a refugee in Canada. The cab driver who was tortured for fighting for democracy, the waitress who was brutally raped every day for years in jail, while her torturer now has diplomatic immunity in Canada, the bus boy with PTSD over the death of his sister. All of these people are displaced and trying to come to terms with living in a new country with a new language and unspoken codes of conduct.
I do wish that the author had spent more time development some of these characters but overall this book showed me a glimpse into the struggle of immigrants in Canada.
April 10, 2010
First, you will care about Cockroach (in truth, no name is given, but he sometimes envisions himself as a cockroach), despite his B & E, his theft, and his less than attractive habits. This is a story of emigres in Montreal. One of the cover blurbs refers to the tale as a "hypnotic journey, taking us to the dark and mad underside of exile." Another refers to this as a "Dostoevskian fable, which lowers the reader into the sewers of immigrant Montreal to confront an underground world teeming with sex, crime, and greedy insectoid life." I certainly can't say it better than these folks did. I don't recall the narrator's (Cockroach's) origin ever being specified, though he hangs with Iranian emigres; the author hails from Beirut, emigrated to Canada, and lives in Montreal, if that's any help. Hage presents a powerful story. He is also one hell of a writer. This is dark and disturbing; it grabs you by the throat from the beginning and does not let go.
June 18, 2013
Hage's writing never fails to seduce. His protagonist is not particularly appealing in the usual way, but I began to care for him even as he stumbles through life, seemingly unable to have normal relationships with those around him. Much of the novel takes place in a Montreal winter and our immigrant cockroach avoids the sun, stumbles along the frigid streets, bumming cigarettes and food, and stealing. He is (I believe) unnamed in the novel.
So why did I care?
Because there is some damaged core to this character. A childhood of violence and hunger in his homeland. A suicide attempt for which he is receiving free psychiatric out-patient care. Cockroach expresses his love for those around him in sometimes (very) inappropriate ways, yet we understand him, and want the best for him.
This is not a pretty story. But it is reality for those who live on the margins. Hage has captured these lives in previous novels and hits it out of the park with this one.
So why did I care?
Because there is some damaged core to this character. A childhood of violence and hunger in his homeland. A suicide attempt for which he is receiving free psychiatric out-patient care. Cockroach expresses his love for those around him in sometimes (very) inappropriate ways, yet we understand him, and want the best for him.
This is not a pretty story. But it is reality for those who live on the margins. Hage has captured these lives in previous novels and hits it out of the park with this one.
September 28, 2015
تائة لبناني مهاجر لكندا محمل معة الالآم وفجوعات الحرب الاهلية اللبنانية
يتسكع في كندا مع مهاجرين إيرانيين بعضهم سجن وعذب في ثورة الخميني والبعض الاخر فقد
أقربائه بالتصفيه في تلك الثورة الدينية...يجتمع هولاء التائهون المناضلون سابقاً في بلدانهم في كندا
في هموم وضياع مشترك...يقول احد المهاجرين الايرانيين في أقتباس اعجبني
تعرف أن هذه البلدان التي نعيش فيها تحكي عن الديمقراطية,لكنها لاتريد ديمقراطية.تريد دكتاتوريين فقط.من الأسهل عليها التعاطي مع
دكتاتوريين بدلاًمن الديمقراطية في البلدان التي جئنا منها,حاربت من أجل الديمقراطية تعرضتُ من أجلها للتعذيب على أيدي كل من الشاه والموالي,لكن في مناسبتين مختلفتين النظام وجهان لعملة واحدة,اذا رحل الموالي..سوف يأتون بشخص اخر دكتاتوري ربما ليس دكتاتوري متديناً لكنة الشي ذاته***
رواية جملية لكن التفاصيل التي بها ممله جداً
يتسكع في كندا مع مهاجرين إيرانيين بعضهم سجن وعذب في ثورة الخميني والبعض الاخر فقد
أقربائه بالتصفيه في تلك الثورة الدينية...يجتمع هولاء التائهون المناضلون سابقاً في بلدانهم في كندا
في هموم وضياع مشترك...يقول احد المهاجرين الايرانيين في أقتباس اعجبني
تعرف أن هذه البلدان التي نعيش فيها تحكي عن الديمقراطية,لكنها لاتريد ديمقراطية.تريد دكتاتوريين فقط.من الأسهل عليها التعاطي مع
دكتاتوريين بدلاًمن الديمقراطية في البلدان التي جئنا منها,حاربت من أجل الديمقراطية تعرضتُ من أجلها للتعذيب على أيدي كل من الشاه والموالي,لكن في مناسبتين مختلفتين النظام وجهان لعملة واحدة,اذا رحل الموالي..سوف يأتون بشخص اخر دكتاتوري ربما ليس دكتاتوري متديناً لكنة الشي ذاته***
رواية جملية لكن التفاصيل التي بها ممله جداً
May 7, 2015
This is the 2nd book I have read by this author, and I have to say I enjoyed this much more than the 1st book
De Niro's Game
I enjoyed the flow of the story, and simplistic-ness of the book's characters.
I had read somewhere that this was a follow on story of De Niro's Game, and though it contains many of the same themes, I didn't think that it was.
Once again, it was a very abrupt ending.
Set in Montreal, I can count this book as a read for #QuebecReads2015
I enjoyed the flow of the story, and simplistic-ness of the book's characters.
I had read somewhere that this was a follow on story of De Niro's Game, and though it contains many of the same themes, I didn't think that it was.
Once again, it was a very abrupt ending.
Set in Montreal, I can count this book as a read for #QuebecReads2015
dnf
March 21, 2018DNF after part 1. I was supposed to read this for my Global Lit in Canada class, but as it's the 2nd book where the male narrator has a hard time seeing women as people and not just bodies, I had to put this one down. Not to mention the narrator's incestual thoughts about his sister.
I'm shocked this was a past contender for Canada Reads, just in 2014. I understand the literary merit that people recognize it having, but I can't with all the objectification of women...
I'm shocked this was a past contender for Canada Reads, just in 2014. I understand the literary merit that people recognize it having, but I can't with all the objectification of women...
September 24, 2024
incredible
Read
August 17, 2023For me, this novel suffered from the age-old problem of a promising premise that is executed poorly. There were indeed some fascinating, disturbing passages, but they became increasingly frequent as the novel progressed and thus lost their potency. The narrator, however, was an interesting voice to hear from. But again, one can only handle so many descriptions of his twisted sensual desires and inescapable fate as a cockroach to break into people's homes (a metaphor for - or rather a physical representation of - the immigrant's intrusion). Hage did do some very clever things in order to tackle aspects of the immigrant experience, but the novel was paced poorly.
February 27, 2023
well. I don’t think I’ve ever had such visceral reactions to a book before—and not in a good way.
This was truly horrible to read. So so creepy. The thing about it, though, is that *objectively* the writing is really good. And I know it’s purposeful that the narrator is creepy and gross and disgusting. But, maybe it’s just a me thing, but that doesn’t excuse the creepy, leery, way he is always talking about women, nor the weirdly incestuous-like descriptions, nor the pedophilia !!!! I mean???? Also his fascination with pee was too much to bear for me personally.
Needless to say, this book made me incredibly uncomfortable, and I don’t really think it’s worth reading because of that. I am also now fearful of men acting like this because holy shit it’s so scary.
This was truly horrible to read. So so creepy. The thing about it, though, is that *objectively* the writing is really good. And I know it’s purposeful that the narrator is creepy and gross and disgusting. But, maybe it’s just a me thing, but that doesn’t excuse the creepy, leery, way he is always talking about women, nor the weirdly incestuous-like descriptions, nor the pedophilia !!!! I mean???? Also his fascination with pee was too much to bear for me personally.
Needless to say, this book made me incredibly uncomfortable, and I don’t really think it’s worth reading because of that. I am also now fearful of men acting like this because holy shit it’s so scary.
December 23, 2024
هذاه الرواية تنظم و بجدارة إلى نادي الربع نجمة لانها تستحق ربع نجمة
رواية مبتذلة و أسلوب ركيك للغاية
تتحدث عن شاب لبناني يعيش كمهاجر في كندا ..ما تصورته انه سيصف بعضا من معاناته اليومية كشخص منبوذ يعيش في مجتمع لا يتقبله..و لكن بعد الوصول إلى النصف ادركت فعلا انه شخص منبوذ يشبه نفسه بالصرصار يتحدث مطولا عن المجاري و اعجابه بها و عن الجنس ايضا حتى انه تحدث عن اخته بهذا الأسلوب المهين جدا…
للأسف لا أسلوب و لا قصة و لا حتى بعض من الاحترام لقارىء.
لن أقرأ لهذا الكاتب مرة أخرى أبدا.
رواية مبتذلة و أسلوب ركيك للغاية
تتحدث عن شاب لبناني يعيش كمهاجر في كندا ..ما تصورته انه سيصف بعضا من معاناته اليومية كشخص منبوذ يعيش في مجتمع لا يتقبله..و لكن بعد الوصول إلى النصف ادركت فعلا انه شخص منبوذ يشبه نفسه بالصرصار يتحدث مطولا عن المجاري و اعجابه بها و عن الجنس ايضا حتى انه تحدث عن اخته بهذا الأسلوب المهين جدا…
للأسف لا أسلوب و لا قصة و لا حتى بعض من الاحترام لقارىء.
لن أقرأ لهذا الكاتب مرة أخرى أبدا.
February 21, 2022
Екзалтирана, фантасмагорична и нелицеприятна. Рауи Хадж ме хвана в мрежата на дръзкия си, непредсказуем и леко сюреалистичен стил и след дърпане и нежелание от моя страна успя да ме разведе из ада на героя си. Предубеждението и омерзението ми се превърнаха до известна степен в разбиране и съчувствие.
March 28, 2023
re read this after studying it last year for an university module and i loved it so much more this time round. it’s disturbing in the most hauntingly beautiful way. i feel as though you will only grasp the greatness of this novel if you relate to the immigrant experience in some sort of way. i loved the addition of french in the novel too, specifically,
“Ah, les artistes et l’argent,
toujours la souffrance pour l’art et l’amour,”
“Ah, les artistes et l’argent,
toujours la souffrance pour l’art et l’amour,”
March 30, 2017
This made me more uncomfortable than I wish to discuss.
Read for ENGL 3271: Contemporary Canadian Literature
Read for ENGL 3271: Contemporary Canadian Literature
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