Harry Sanderson
July 1st, 2018
DAW 2018
In A House in Fez, Suzanna Clarke successfully utilizes a unique perspective to identify the nature of Moroccan culture, emphasizing the importance of the history of Fez while also cleverly characterizing the people that live within the ancient city. So, Clarke does an excellent job in describing her gradual assimilation into Moroccan society. As A House in Fez follows the restoration of a riad in the heart of Fez, Clarke focuses her narrative around this restoration and the enticing adventures she experiences while rebuilding the riad. In her narrative, Clarke uses this restoration to showcase the deeper characterization of Moroccan culture, painting a picture of the traditional customs, interactions, and beliefs that exist among the workers she employs, the locals, and herself.
Clarke, a middle-aged Australian journalist, initially vacations in Morocco with her partner, Sandy. There, they fall in love with the country, specifically with the city of Fez and its Medina. Due to their love for Fez, they decide to begin a daring journey by purchasing a house inside Fez’s Old City. They initially are torn between a riad and dar, but settle on a rundown riad that they describe as a “fixer upper”. Thus, after purchasing their riad, Clarke is thrown into the heart of Moroccan life, sharing countless anecdotes and providing extensive details about the way of living in Morocco’s oldest city.
A House in Fez seamlessly provides the reader with information related to the riad’s restoration and Moroccan society. Clarke helps people unfamiliar with Moroccan customs get a general idea of how everyday life operates there. For example, Suzanna informs the reader on the Moroccan nature of craftsmanship while writing about the necessary items she needed to rebuild her riad. Clarke writes, “In the souk of the artisans’ guilds, everything is made by hand, much as it has been for centuries…Every quarter in the Medina has workshops of carpenters, indispensable in a city whose skeleton is made of trees,” (68-69). Thus, Clarke successfully incorporates general information about Fez into a novel that focuses on a restoration of a house.
Similarly, Clarke blends information about the Fassi people and their customs into her novel, writing about their religious practices and traditional ceremonies. She helps the reader understand how religion is viewed in this ancient city, even going beyond initial understanding by describing how important performances in festivals in Fez are to the Fassi people. Clarke writes “the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music was a reminder of what the world outside had to offer. It had begun in response to the first Gulf War of 1991, as a way of bringing different religions together to share and appreciate one another’s traditions,” (145). Thus, Clarke provides an interesting description of the importance of cultural awareness among the Fassi people, helping the reader understand the bigger picture of the greater World of Islam.
As Clarke provides a seamless narrative between the restoration of her riad and the cultural experience of Fez, she does an exceedingly good job of informing the reader about the way of Fassi life. For an innocent traveler planning on coming to Fez, Clarke helps prepare them to begin to understand what to expect upon arriving in Fez. While no book will be able to give the reader a complete understanding of this rich city, A House in Fez provides as much information about the people and culture as is possible in an enjoyable and exciting narrative.
While Clarke does an excellent job in informing the reader on Fassi traditions and culture, in certain instances she fails to realize the repetitive nature of her narrative. For example, throughout the novel Clarke writes about her experiences in shopping for building materials in the Medina, yet, to the reader, almost every shopping experience sounds repetitive. Thus, it seems as if she wasted much of the space in her novel by writing about the same experience when she could have filled these pages with new information about Fez to better prepare the reader.
Similarly, in some circumstances Clarke can seem very critical of Moroccan culture and the lifestyle some of her acquaintances choose. Naturally, as a Westerner, she is not accustomed to their lifestyles and it is expected for her to be confused and irritated in some circumstances. However, she fails to leave her bias out of a book whose overall purpose is to inform its readers on Moroccan culture and lifestyles. So, her bias can give the reader an unfair depiction of Fez and its people in some situations.
In conclusion, the book was an overall success. Clarke managed to transform a usually boring topic, the restoration of a house, into a complex and interesting novel that helped the reader understand Moroccan lifestyles. I would definitely recommend this novel to another person planning on traveling to Morocco’s oldest city, as it gave a great idea about what to expect of this city without forcing the reader to perform any research on their own. However, I also would urge the reader to not take Clarke’s bias to heart, as it is up for each individual to create their own opinions on cultures. Thus, if the reader is able to read Clarke’s bias and be informed but not persuaded by it, then the reader will have successfully absorbed the relevant information in A House in Fez.
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