Book of Clouds by Chloe Aridjis

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Adichie's work, thatof sexuality. In "JumpingMonkey Hill/' a story set at awriters' workshop justoutside of Cape Town, a group of very differ ent "Africans" are brought together. Partway through the narrative, the workshop leader comments on a piece of creative writing authored by, Adichie tells us, a lesbian Sen egalese woman: "Edward chewed at his pipe thoughtfullybefore he said thathomosexual stories of this sort were not reflectiveofAfrica really." Homosexuality is also explored in "The Shivering," and sexuality more broadly in a number of the other stories in the collection. It is the titlestory, "The Thing Around Your Neck," as well as "Tomorrow Is Too Far" that cele brateAdichie as a short-story writer; her playfulness with narrative voice, point of view, and stereotypemake these two stories stand out from the rest, in style as well as content. Although The Thing Around Your Neck showcases Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as a short-story writer as well as a novelist, the stories do not really compare toher novel-writing skills.Her next novel will likelybe greatly anticipated. Emma Dawson Keele University,United Kingdom Chloe Aridjis.Book of Clouds. New York. BlackCat (Grove/Atlantic). 2009. 209 pages. $14. isbn978-0-8021-7056-9 Tatiana, Chloe Aridjis's somewhat autobiographical narrator, had vis itedBerlin in 1986with her parents. This was the last stop of theirEuro pean tour before returning home toMexico City and the familydeli. She returns to Berlin as a thirty year-old, in 2002, having won a Goethe Institutaward to study there fora year. Five years on she has still neither "found herself" nor anyone 1111111.111111111.1111.11111.111111111 to share her Sundays with. After renting invarious trendyneighbor hoods, she's ended up in Prenzlauer Berg, the formerlyhip East Berlin area that's now naturally gentri fied. She gets by on a little money from home and her savings from her "last employment, as assistant to the assistant editor of a second-rate psychology journal," which she'd quit before getting fired. Tatiana takes a new job with the distinguished retired historian FriedrichWeiss, who needs some one to transcribe the extensive mus ings on the city thathe records on a Dictaphone. These are in thevein of Walter Benjamin's Berlin Childhood memoir, and Weiss had once done a piece on East Berlin children's art. Now he asks Tatiana to interview one of these formerchildren,which leads to a couple of dates with one JonasKrantz, who lives in a typical Marzahn "Plattenbau," the GDR-era high-rises. He's a meteorologist who concentrates on clouds. On theirfirst date theygo toone of the countless clubs thathave opened inabandoned buildings. Here they are guided to an underground bowling alley that .111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 had been used by the Gestapo; a finalscore is stilleerily decipherable on thewall. She tries to erase it,but in vain, because, as Weiss says when she tellshim about it,"Nothing ever vanishes." Indeed, as iftomake this brutal history palpable, Tatiana and Weiss are attacked as they walk back to the train station from Jonas's Mar zahn apartment?this seems to be an obligatory setpiece inpost-Wall Ber lin novels, German or otherwise?by some skinheads. But they're saved by a sudden fog, thick clouds that make the thugsbelieve "the old Jew laid a curse on them," which scares themoff. A classically "unreliable narra tor," Tatiana can conjure up those proverbial "ghosts of Berlin" invis ible to thenormal observer. On that tripwith her parents, she had seen Hitler on the subway, dressed as an old woman, and this time, on anoth er subway, she is sure she's seen Weiss as a transvestite. Between these "ghosts" and her failure to find any realities, any constants of her own, she finally decides to return toMexico City. These evoca tions and other atmospheric render ings as well as the descriptions of Berlin landmarks make this debut an aptly titled exemplar of the lyri cal novel and an engaging read, particularly for thosewell traveled on this terrain. Ulf Zimmermann Kennesazv StateUniversity Ndwal El Saadawi. The Novel. Omnia Amin & Rick London, trs. Northamp ton, Massachusetts. Interlink. 2009. 236 pages. $ 15. isbn978-1 -56656-732-9 Nawal El Saadawi's tenthnovel, The Novel, is perhaps

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