An Unnecessary Woman (Book Review by Harshpreet Kaur)

An Unnecessary Woman is a tale painted on the backdrop of a childless, alone seventy-two year old Aaliyah who recalls from an early age that she was never loved by those around her, and in order to fill that aching, gaping hole where love should have been she sneaked off to literature. Aaliyah has been translating literature over the course of her life to the local language and the book opens with Aaliyah completing the translation of Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald, and the dilemma that follows: of choosing which book to translate next.

When I read a book, I try my best, not always successfully, to let the wall crumble just a bit, the barricade that separates me from the book. I try to be involved.

I am Raskalnikov. I am K. I am Humbert and Lolita. 
I am you.

If you read these pages and think I’m the way I am because I lived through a civil war, you can’t feel my pain. If you believe you’re not like me because one woman, and only one, Hannah, chose to be my friend, then you’re unable to empathize.

While we, the readers, fall in love with her falling in love with literature, the novel subtly deals with heavy concepts like grief, depression and unresolved issues with your parents and how devastating the lasting effect can be on both the suffering and all those affected by the everlasting effects. To escape all the trauma of reality, Aaliyah is seen escaping into museums, old bookstores, her vinyl collection and of course, literature. She’s constantly having literature banters with herself just to entertain and distract herself.
The author, Rabih Alameddine, loves the city of Beirut and it is evident in the pages of An Unnecessary Woman but on the same hand he also gives us a peek in the Lebanese Civil War as some key memories of Aaliyah’s life and turning point in the novel are placed in that time period and thus tainting Aaliyah’s memory bank with that of a war.

As described by many others before me, the book is essentially a love letter to literature and how eloquently it effects Aaliyah and her stream of consciousness. The story of the seventy-two-year-old woman with blue hair is a must read if you are looking for something filled with literary references or even if you are just an admirer of literature.