"That is how it always starts, she mutters and thinks of how hopeful she has been, rolling up her sleeves to greet each beginning with hope and how each time it had been cut down, of how many loves have died despite all her energy, her will and intent. And what is there except a hope that this one will not go the way of the others and die a premature death?"

 

 I liked this a great deal - so much so, once I had finished, I started again, unwilling to part so quickly with the text. Which is on point, of course, because Kassab here seeks to capture the impossibility of romantic/sexual love, the push and pull of desire and life, the tension between the mundane and the transcendent. Clearly, based on other reviews, not everyone relates to this that way: so to be clear, this little book does demand you surrender a little.  The point is not what is going on exactly, but how it feels.

I was a massive fan of Kassab's debut, the House of Youssef, a book that I still think about frequently, years after I read it. Like the Lovers, House of Kassab is best savoured by paying attention to the details, in which the connections can be glimpsed that make some sense of the whole. And while the Lovers is more tightly focused on two people, it still weaves the story of a community, a village, through which the couple's story can be understood.

But Kassab also revels in ambiguity. It is not always clear whose story is being told, or whether something is imagined or real. You are either going to love that, or hate it. For me, it worked. Kassab is interested in the stories we tell ourselves, how we create narratives. The ambiguity gives space for reflection (and, as mentioned, some is decreased if you pay attention to the small details). The characters revel in their feelings, but we can also see that their relationship is shaped by a ticking clock of impending international separation, by the different worlds of a western-raised woman and a village man, by the various ties they bring. One character holds court in his home, countering his friends problems with weighty parable stories, creating a sense of reality for them. But few narratives hold, even dreams betray. To be alive, it seems to Kassab, is to be ever looking for understanding, not necessarily achieving it.