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    Frankenstein in Baghdad
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    Frankenstein in Baghdad
    Unavailable
    Frankenstein in Baghdad
    Audiobook8 hours

    Frankenstein in Baghdad

    Written by Ahmed Sadaawi

    Narrated by Guy Mott

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    From the rubble-strewn streets of US-occupied Baghdad, the scavenger Hadi collects human body parts and stitches them together to create a corpse. His goal, he claims, is for the government to recognize the parts as people and give them a proper burial. But when the corpse goes missing, a wave of eerie murders sweeps the city, and reports stream in of a horrendous-looking criminal who, though shot, cannot be killed. Hadi soon realises he has created a monster: one that needs human flesh to survive – first from the guilty, and then from anyone who crosses its path.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherQUEST from W. F. Howes Ltd
    Release dateOct 25, 2018
    ISBN9781528820080
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for Frankenstein in Baghdad

    3.5/5

    24 ratings1 review

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    • 4/5
      So, who is Frankenstein from Baghdad?

      “In Sadr City they spoke of him as a Wahhabi, in Adamiya as a Shiite extremist. The Iraqi government described him as an agent of foreign powers, while the spokesman for the U.S. State Department said he was an ingenious man whose aim was to undermine the American project in Iraq”.

      Yet, the creature that roams Baghdad, is neither of the above; it is the result of artificially putting together various body parts with a roaming body-less spirit, a one of a kind creature who strives for inner peace and for a peaceful transition to death, and who paradoxically is swept into an ongoing killing and revenge whirlpool. You put together unlikely pieces and an artificial, Utopian goal- to ensure justice, accomplish revenge, make everything right again and this is the recipe for failure.
      This serves as an allegory for many political and social aspects, such as the US' democracy imposing initiative in Irak or the Al-Quaeda's mission to force own justice and morals. The author does not make direct political commentaries, rather he uses this magical monster who can be an alias for so many things. The Baghdad Frankenstein starts to kill to revenge those who compose him, and ends up in a realm of blurred lines, where distinguishing innocents versus criminals is an impossible task:

      “What’s worse is that people have been giving me a bad reputation. They’re accusing me of committing crimes, but what they don’t understand is that I’m the only justice in this country […] Because I’m made up of body parts of people from diverse backgrounds — ethnicities, tribes, races, and social classes. […] I represent the impossible mix that never was achieved in the past. I’m the first true Iraqi citizen. “

      This monster is not the main character of the book, although the title is focused on him; rather there is a collective character or a collection of characters who compose a carving of the urban community in Baghdad, trying to live in an abnormal setting, that of an urban war, while continuing their daily chores. This mix of bomb shelling and death with mundane actions reminded me of the world depicted in "The Cellist of Sarajevo", a book where normal life is refined in a similar way with how it is described in this book.

      I think this book is quite original in how it reflects the pain and trauma of the war both at individual and community levels. War does not affect everyone at the same level and in the same way: there are people who succumb, other that keep their innocence, others who will profit and make a living, pulling strings and taking advantages of the confusion, poverty and weaknesses of the social fabric.
      In all these aspects, Sadaawi did a beautiful work.

      I did not give a 5 star rating, though, because in spite of all of the strengths listed above, I was not gripped by the characters and I felt that the writing style, at times, was a bit too detached and the stories did not connect well enough with each other.

      In short, reading this book is really helping to connect with recent realities, that one might not grip when reading news or newspaper articles about wars unfolding during our lifetimes. It is original and well-written and I think a good investment of a reader's time.

      2 people found this helpful