The Corpse Exhibition

"My friend, there is something stranger that death-to look at the world, which is looking at you, but without any gesture or understanding or even purpose, as though you and the world are united in blindness, like silence and loneliness. And there is something a little stranger than death: a man and a woman playing in a bed, and then you come, just you, you who always miswrite the story of your life."

Hassan Blasim

The Corpse Exhibition

This was an extremely interesting read, especially right after Redeployment. It is a collection of short stories set in Iraq. This was fascinating. These past two books have really brought my own ignorance to light more than I would ever like to admit, but I really don't know that much about Iraq as a country. I know that it is a young country, it became independent from the British Mandate in 1921, but also a very old place. Mesopotamia was the first ancient society I remember learning about as a small child. And it was a grand society at that, after all, the phrase "an eye for an eye" seems like common knowledge. I knew that it was predominantly Muslim, though demographically there are many different sects and tribes.

What I didn't know was that the country has been at war more than they have been peace. And this isn't war like the United States has been at war, occupying other countries. For them it has been War at home. The First Kurdish Iraqi War ended in 1970, the Second Kurdish Iraqi War in '74 and '75, the Iran-Iraq war from 1980-1988, the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the U.S. invasion in 2003 and its occupation until 2013, and the civil war that has ensued sense then. This has been a country with a violent recent history. 

The stories in the Corpse Exhibition were dark, and poignant. They looked into what life was like for people in Iraq in stories that I could place from the Iran-Iraq war up to the present. They were wonderfully written, and there was a mystical feel to the collection that I really liked. Some of the stories were narrated by those who had died, others talked about day to day life, while a few had a fantastical quality to them. I especially liked the story about the man who fell in the "hole" and met a Jinni, and the tale about the family who could make knives disappear but had a very hard time making them reappear. 

There was a of death in the stories, and they often touched on themes of how chaotic and meaningless death is, especially in a war where so many are dying. In Redeployment, the soldiers are often trying to make sense of death, to find a way to have control over it. In the Corpse Exhibition death is often talked about as just another facet of life that there is little control of anyways. While the sadness associated with it is just as poignant and heartfelt, the actual concept of death seems less personal in Corpse Exhibition. I thought this was extremely interesting.

I really enjoyed this book. Poignant, dark, I highly recommend it.