Name: An Unnecessary Woman
Rating: 4 (27 reviews)
ISBN: 9780802122148

Rabih Alameddine

An Unnecessary Woman

Deepika Ramesh

'An Unnecessary Woman' is a tribute to us. I adore this book. 

Some thoughts here: https://worncorners.wordpress.com/201...

Bilge Ince

Bana kitaplardan ve sanattan anekdotlar veren kitapları çok seviyorum hele de baş kahramanı bir kadınsa… Aaliya bir çevirmen ve Beyrut’ta eşi kendisini terkedip bir kitapçıda çalışmaya başladığından beri kitaplar çeviriyor, yalnızlığını genellikle seviyor ve 72 yaşında bir feminist. Aaliya’nın 72 yıllık hayatını anlattığı bir günlük ve biyografi karışımı bu kitap politika, edebiyat, yaşlanma, yalnızlık, direnme ve daha bir çok şeyi anlatıyor. Zaman zaman kahramanın depresifliğinden bunalsam da çok etkileyici ve derinliği olan bir kitap Lüzumsuz Kadın.

A happily misanthropic Middle East divorcee finds refuge in books in a “beautiful and absorbing” novel of late-life crisis (The New York Times). Aaliya is a divorced, childless, and reclusively cranky translator in Beirut nurturing doubts about her latest project: a 900-page avant-garde, linguistically serpentine historiography by a late Chilean existentialist. Honestly, at seventy-two, should she be taking on such a project? Not that Aailiya fears dying. Women in her family live long; her mother is still going crazy. But on this lonely day, hour-by-hour, Aaliya’s musings on literature, philosophy, her career, and her aging body, are suddenly invaded by memories of her volatile past. As she tries in vain to ward off these emotional upwellings, Aaliya is faced with an unthinkable disaster that threatens to shatter the little life she has left. In this “meditation on, among other things, aging, politics, literature, loneliness, grief and resilience” (The New York Times), Alameddine conjures “a beguiling narrator . . . who is, like her city, hard to read, hard to take, hard to know and, ultimately, passionately complex” (San Francisco Chronicle). A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award, An Unnecessary Woman is “a fun, and often funny . . . grave, powerful . . . [and] extraordinary” Washington Independent Review of Books) ode to literature and its power to define who we are. “Read it once, read it twice, read other books for a decade or so, and then pick it up and read it anew. This one’s a keeper” (The Independent)

A Novel

Shelby Doherty

Likes:
- Great character development. Really enjoyed the main character and her voice throughout the book.
- Love a story about a challenging mother-daughter relationship. While this was not the main focus of the book, it did play a part in it.
- Some really great quotes throughout the story that I thoroughly enjoyed
- Should be a lonely and boring story about a woman with not much going on in her life/not many connections, but she finds a way to make her life enjoyable and meaningful despite this. She is a very strong and positive person

Dislikes:
- Not really a dislike but I don't know much about many of the books/authors that were mentioned. Feel like I could have gotten more out of it if I knew more about these works that were referenced.

Nathan Griffin

Decent read, but for what's basically a character sketch, I just didn't find the main character super captivating. The second half definitely picks up and felt there were small glimpses of a compelling character, but overall thought she lacked depth. 

(I will say I especially enjoyed the 2 or 3 paragraphs about the never-ending war over translating Russian literature)

Mariah

Sonia Grgas

Haleemah Sadiah

An obsessive introvert in Beirut, eschewed by her family and neighbors for her divorced status and lack of religious reverence, quietly translates favorite books into Arabic while struggling with her aging body until an unthinkable disaster threatens what little life remains to her. By the best-selling author of The Hakawati. 20,000 first printing.

An Unnecessary Woman

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