Who
are you—really?
Is
your name your identity? You have a passport, a driver’s license, a Social
Security card, credit and bank cards—all attesting to who you are.
But
what if all those tokens of identity are stolen? What if you are trapped in a chaotic
foreign city and have no proof of your identity—and no money?
That’s
the situation in which the unnamed protagonist in Vendela Vida’s novel, The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty, finds
herself. The young American woman arrives in Casablanca, fleeing from some
unspecified trauma, and checks into a shabby hotel. Almost immediately, someone
steals her backpack, which contains her passport and all other other items of
identity and credit.
The
woman is exhausted, incredulous, defeated. The hotel staff and local police
chief claim to want to help—but are they really in on the theft? The American
Embassy is no help, either; a staffperson there suspects her of fraud. In this
world of shifting alliances, our heroine grows paranoid, afraid to trust
anyone.
And
she is alone, without money, without any way of proving that she is who she
says she is. So she makes some bad decisions. Or maybe they aren’t bad—maybe,
born out of desperation, they are creative choices. As opportunities arise, she
creates new identities, and, chameleon-like, begins to inhabit them fully.
Suspense
and wry humor mark Vida’s novel. Initially, I was distracted by her use of the
second person (“you”) to signify the woman’s first-person point of view
(example: “You awake to knocking. You look at the pillow…”), but I got used to
it after the first 20 pages or so. By then, I was completely immersed in the
twisting, perilous path of this stranger in a strange land.
1 comment:
I'm a sucker for stories about 1)North Africa, and 2)shifting identity, so when I saw your blog about a book that combined the two, I quit the laborious "The Last Stand" and dove into Vendela Vida. (that does sound like something fizzy you'd pour into your bath water).
I, too, was jerked around by the second person narrative at first, but it (maybe) reflects the discomfort of looking back at another "you." Sure, we all change as we move along, but most often with a segue, not a cut. Only by looking way back do we say "I've changed." Vida's character does that in an instant. (cf, "Year of Magical Thinking.") And not through a malleable accommodation to her experiences; instead, a ripping away of the credentials that she depended on to tell others who she is.
Well, she's still that, isn't she? Vida could have retold the amnesia story, giving her character a blank slate to fill in. Instead, she retains her memory, with all its experiences of imperfection, of rejection. It's other who see her without history, fitting her into their schemes when convenient. Off balance, she steps their ways--for a while.
"You see an intricate keyhole-shaped arch that leads into the ruins of what was once the royal palace...You watch as one woman enters through the arch, and another exits." And she leaves us, as Aretha, a natural woman.
I liked this book. Lots of great interlocking details, like the stand-in job, the stolen then replaced camera, the unalike twins, and of course the mother-not mother mess.
I also really like "The Passenger," a film by M. Antonioni, with Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider. It begins in the desert. She: Who are you? He: I used to be someone else, but I traded him in. Uh, what about you? She: Well, I'm in Barcelona. I'm talking with someone who is somebody else.
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