It is primarily for the use of the Hellfire Society, a mysterious, anti-religious sect who arranges for the secret burials. This crematorium is for outcasts who are denied last rites and graves within the city limits of Beirut. Pavlov's father is taking him to a secret crematorium high in the hills above Beirut. In the prologue, we meet teenager Pavlov with his father, the undertaker.
One page I liked it and was glad I was reading it and the next page I hated it and felt I was wasting my time.
is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.Rawi Hage's Beirut Hellfire Society was one of those books where each page was a renegotiation. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Here, escape into perceived comforts and safety is not an option.ĭisclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. There are, it insists, real and horrible consequences of wars that cannot be ignored, forgotten, or romanticized. His interactions with his niece are a relief from the dark hopelessness that pervades much of the narrative.Īt times brutally intense, Beirut Hellfire Society unsettles detached views of war. Pavlov gradually emerges from his introverted and antisocial shell, moving from a person who believes dogs to be better company than humans to someone who is genuinely concerned about the welfare and safety of his sister’s family. Within the violence are more meditative moments. Instead, he says, the dead should be set free by fire.
There are gnostic undertones in the philosophy of Pavlov’s father, particularly in relation to his distaste for the earthly interments that the church insists upon. The narrative pulls no punches in depicting the violence and depravity that war births, and cynicism runs throughout. Now Pavlov must carry on these duties, navigating the horrors of war and his own bleak outlook all the while. Pavlov’s father provided cremation services to the dead deemed outside of moral bounds and thus denied burial rites. When the mysterious El-Marquis pays him a visit, Pavlov learns of his father’s connection to the Hellfire Society, a libertine group opposed to conventional religious moralism. An avid reader of the Greeks, both mythological and philosophical, he inherits the family business after his father’s violent death. Pavlov is the son of an undertaker in war-stricken 1970s Beirut. Rawi Hage’s novel Beirut Hellfire Society is an intimate glimpse at the effects of civil war that challenges social and religious norms.
0 kommentar(er)
