Koolaids: The Art of War

On page 118 Alameddine explains the book: "I wanted to write an endless book of time. It would have no beginning and no end. It would not flow in order. The tenses would make so sense. A book whose first page is almost identical to the last, and all the pages in between are jumbled with an interminable story. A book which would make both Kant and Jung proud. I was not able to do it. Besides, I would have been copying the master. Borges did it before me."

This, of course, occurs after pages 37 and 38, in which Krishna and Julio Cortázar are imagined in conversation. Cortázar asks"...do we have to wait until someone dies before we find his life's unity, the sum of all the actions that define a life? The problem consists in grasping that show more unity without becoming a hero, without becoming a saint, or a criminal, or a boxing champ, or a statesman, or a shepherd; to grasp unity in the midst of diversity, so that unity might be the vortex of a whirlwind." Krishna complains, "Why is it you humans constantly search for a deeper meaning?" Cortázar replies, "to sell books." Krishna explains, "What if I told you life has no unity? It is a series of nonlinear vignettes leading nowhere, a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. It makes no sense, enjoy it." Krishnamurti jumps in, "the purpose of life is to understand it." As becomes clear through the book, they are all right.

Representation without substance, without power, is not enough. And yet, although I greatly enjoyed this book for the witty playfulness and the laughs - justified by an intelligent ruse message about fragmentation (which also enables the AIDS-Lebanon parallels) - what I most enjoyed about the book was that it simply exists. This mix of gayness and Americanness and Arabness speaks to me. I didn't find the book especially challenging - just some good fun - but it does give a sense that one exists beyond oneself, that a 'we' exists, and that this 'we' has its own community, imaginary, writers and literature (Alameddine). For me, that is beautiful. show less

I picked this book up pretty much entirely for the Arabic author prompt for the Queer Your Year challenge, and this is another book that makes me so grateful for the challenge and the whole QYY community, because I LOVED it.

This is definitely not a book for everyone — with the constantly shifting unidentified narrators (often just when you think you've gotten a handle on who is "speaking," it either shifts to someone else or something happens to throw your tentative identification in doubt), to the heaviness of the early AIDS epidemic, to the heaviness of the Lebanese Civil War, to the constant sacrilege/heresy (snatches of a play? conversation? between figures such as Arjuna, Jesus, Eleanor Roosevelt, & Tom Cruise). But it all show more worked for me. The bitterness, the chaos, the dissociation, the grasping at some sort of philosophy. All perhaps viewed from/created by a mind shackled to a hospital bed awaiting a slow, inevitable death from AIDS.

I marked so many favorite passages, on in particular works as commentary on the book itself. Mame Dennis says in one of the conversations: "Just live, darling. Stop trying to make sense of the book of life. It is a series of nonlinear vignettes leading nowhere, a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. It makes no sense, enjoy it." show less

One of the best books I've ever read: a Borges-esque take on AIDS, Lebanese-Americans, and gay identities. A series of vignettes told from a variety of voices; time and location fold on themselves, and I am left wondering who is speaking and realizing, somewhat ironically, that it doesn't matter. Humorous in its serious understanding of futility and hope and death and longing. Up there with Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude and David Eggers's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius as one of my favorite works.