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A House in Fez Book Review – Mohammad Ehsan Khatami

A House in Fez Book Review – Mohammad Ehsan Khatami

A House in Fez follows Suzanna and Sandy Clarke on their quest to recolonize a portion of former French West Africa. I enjoyed how easy it was to understand the story. Two Australians, who repeatedly acknowledge the fact that their presence in Morocco reflects Europe’s dark colonial past, go ahead and buy a house in Fez anyway. Naturally the couple learns a new term or cultural norm for each new fixture they install in their house. As I finished up the story, I quickly realized that for all intents and purposes, A House in Fez is really just the story that the kids of Duke in the Arab World 2019 will be experiencing. We are strangers prancing around in a country that we really have no business being in. Few of us are familiar with the culture and livelihoods of the Moroccan people, yet we’ve convinced ourselves to invade the place for good grades and a couple posts on Instagram.

Measuring my level of intellectual engagement with A House in Fez was a highly subjective process. The book taught me some cool facts, my favorite being that “zucchini” sounds like a swear-word in Darija. However, it really engaged me more as another example of how readily the Middle East is seen from an Orientalist standpoint by Westerners, even when we are conscience of its damage. Clarke pointed out the futility and absurdity of her quest on multiple occasions, but that did not stop her from caving in to western stereotypes and perceptions of Muslims and North Africa.

I would not say that the book is particularly well-written. I’m not a writer myself, but I found it hard to penetrate each new paragraph as the last one ended. I was genuinely uninterested in Suzanna’s shallow relationship with Ayisha, and the pacing of the story did not compel me to try to care. It was especially annoying reading Suzanna’s frustrations with filling out paperwork or hiring workers for her house. The whole time I was thinking, “what the hell were you expecting?”. It is quite clear that digging a new sewage system in an ancient house in the old Medina of Fez is going to take an exceptionally long time if you are completely unaccustomed to the language of the people and the practices of its workers.

We were also asked to point out what “insights” we gained from reading this book regarding Morocco and MENA. And while I was exposed to a variety of Darija words and practices, I am reluctant to trust these insights as they come from a book that translates Bismallah incorrectly as Praise be to God as early as Chapter 5.

I was attracted to the parts of the book that offered underdeveloped history lessons of the region such as the extinction of the Berber lion. But that was only because it gave me a break from reading more about how Suzanna’s French classes were going. The bulk of the plot taunted me to focus my eyes on the first sentence of each section, and I often preemptively judged my enjoyment of the words that would follow. My favorite part of the whole book was when Suzanna bought half a handful of herbs for 5 dirhams. It was a perfect representation of how privilege and laziness in a foreign nation could lead us to paying more than 20x the asking price of food.

Suzanna Clarke is a respectful and interesting resident of Fez, but I cannot in good judgement say that she is a great author. A House in Fez felt like a series of overdeveloped diary entries from a white girl who was struck with awe by the beauty of the Maghreb. And while that may sound harsh, if you give this book a read you’ll quickly realize that, frankly, I nailed it. I should acknowledge that my opinion of this book was certainly affected by my desire to see more thorough representations of MENA in English literature. But regardless of my review or the reviews posted by my classmates, I believe we must use A House in Fez as anticipation for what we may experience in these upcoming weeks. Remember: we are students blessed with a unique opportunity that we should use to learn something–inshallah.

See ya’ll soon.

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