QuixotiQ

Rating:
Summary: Strange dreams unravel an old crime
Review: If David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" would be novelized, it would read the same way Ali Al Saeed's "QuixotiQ" does.
Al Saeed introduces us to a series of real characters, people like you and me, people you meet in the street, in a bar, at a bus stop. People living their own lives and subsequently dealing with their own problems. Guy and Patrick, the male leads, are in their twenties. Both of them are in the same situation: alone. The only difference is that Guy left his family on purpose, while Patrick's family has been violently taken away from him. While Patrick tries desperately to avoid further violence in his life, Guy becomes the source of much violence himself.
The kids they once were are now growing up in a frightening world. Reading about their experiences no doubt hurls you back to when you were in their shoes, finding out first-handed how the world works. Female readers aren't left out, because next to these two men we follow Christina, a young woman trying to figure out her place in the world.
Al Saeed incorporates several brilliant philosophical viewpoints in his story, most dealing with dreams - the main plot of the novel. Stuff you probably pondered yourself some day and even wrote down in your diary if you happened to keep one.
The most peculiar thing about this novel is that it is the first Bharaini novel written and published directly in English. Al Saeed knows how to use the English language to tell a story - although a little more editorial assistance here and there would have made this novel even greater.


Rating:
Summary: An Original, Genre-Bending Story
Review: The word which immediately comes to mind when describing Ali Al Saeed's debut novel, QuixotiQ, is bleak. The story takes place in the city of Okay, a place overrun with corruption and apathy. The story's leads are all down on their luck, struggling to come to terms with both the past and the present.

QuixotiQ follows the lives of three principal characters. Guy Kelton is estranged from his family and stuck in a life of monotony that has never come close to measuring up to the dreams of his childhood. Patrick Roymint has spent his life tortured by the death of his mother and sister and the suicide of his father. Christina Heywood has been fired from her job, lost her boyfriend of two years and is still troubled by her non-existent relations with a father who left when she was a child. For all three of them, things are only going to get worse as the story goes on.

However, at its heart, this is not a story about broken lives. There is something much deeper here; a message about finding our place in a world that doesn't always give handouts. It's also very much a story about dreams and how important it is to follow them.

QuixotiQ is a rather difficult read for two very different reasons. The first is the result of grammar; constantly changing tenses, sometimes even in the same sentence, consistently throw the reader off-guard. The other is that, as Al Saeed says himself, the story is a "confused fusion of quite a variation of elements." It's a statement that's certainly on the mark, for this story never quite sticks to one direction. Although it does make for a more difficult read, it also makes the novel far more intriguing. Al Saeed is not at all afraid to challenge genre boundaries, jumping from mystery to supernatural to family saga and then back to mainstream. What it makes for in the end is a refreshingly original story.

Even though it's hard to read, Al Saeed doesn't lose the reader's attention because of his well-crafted characters. They are compelling enough that they pull the reader along with them as they progress through events.

Al Saeed also uses dreams to foreshadow events in the novel quite well. The dream sequences are where he really shines, making every image sharp and hard-edged, yet never really leaving that ethereal feeling of the dream world behind. In fact, reading the opening dream sequence after finishing the novel is one of the most rewarding experiences of the book.

QuixotiQ is, when all is said and done, a genre-bending journey of self-realization. Though plagued by a lack of editing, Al Saeed's poignant observations about life and human behaviour make this a worthwhile read.

- Cavan Terrill, author of Blurred Line