For those of you who do not know, I was blessed with an extraordinary talent for sleeping. I can fall asleep in bright light, to a backdrop of noise, on a bed barely comfortable. I often sleep for 16 hours at a time. I sometimes sleep for close to an entire 24. I fall asleep in minutes flat, and can easily fall back again if woken suddenly. I have fallen asleep on airplanes, buses, and suitcases; I have fallen asleep at the movies, baseball games, lectures, and tutorials. I once fell asleep on a computer keyboard and woke up with 90 extra blank pages on my assignment. I once fell asleep at the dinner table and my whole family just quietly ate dinner around me. I once fell asleep standing up in an elevator. Ad infinitum.
Therefore, it may surprise you to know that - save for the last one - the endless anxiety of summer's too-much-time-to-think has often brought me boughts of insomnia. I am not proud to admit this, but I went through a phase where I tried to remedy this with wee hour YouTube Dr. Phil marathons.
This is where I first encountered this memoir. Amanda Lindhout was the interviewee. As the former ransom-held prisoner of a militant group of young boys in war-torn Somalia, she has spent her time since being released writing this memoir and establishing a non-profit that supports development aid. I suppose I should have considered the interview source before adding this to my to-read list, but it sounded compelling in the case that I ever decided to start reading memoirs to help with 3U. (My interest was also heightened when I kept stumbling upon this book - as an Indigo recommended staff pick, when a fellow travel companion called it a "page turner".)
Before I launch on a tirade: This book was entertaining and readable. I don't know how much of the lovely prose to attribute to Lindhout, or her alleged "co-author" (who has no role in the actual narrative), Sara Corbett.
That being said, I have a lot of trouble mustering empathy for people who are intentionally reckless, without labeling themselves as being reckless. Call it what it is. Please don't attribute it to good intentions and an unwillingness to see negativity, or the potential far-reaching consequences of your actions. I can read narratives about self-injury, or alcoholism, or eating disorders, or drug addictions, or other similarly dangerous and self-consuming behaviours, so long as the authors don't act naive to the selfish suffering - albeit borne of deep sadness and longing - that they are inflicting on both themselves and others.
Like Into the Wild, this is not one of those memoirs. Any little self-reflection comes dangerously late. I am not in any way implying that the subjects of either of those texts were deserving of any harm, but to blindly hack through foreign terrain with good intentions and a lack of preparation is just, to me, not relatable.
Coupled with the following sentences, which are such offensive massive generalizations (again, under the guise of good intentions), I just - though I read it all - could not properly invest myself in the text:
"The Kuchis reminded me a little bit of the First Nations people back in Canada, independent and unintegrated and pretty much worse off for it." (82)
"She had the same angular face and elegant carriage as the Somali fashion model Iman." (317)
"He had a close-cropped beard and wide brown eyes and was the spitting image of the actor Morgan Freeman" (353)
Don't take my word, though. Feel free to read for yourself. It's actually won quite a few semi-prestigious awards. The review committee are entitled to their opinion - and, I, to mine.
On a more positive note, I'm back on track with book : time ratio. I will do my best to continue.
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