It took me weeks to get through this book, but I'm so glad I did. It is a book best approached with a flying leap rather than a tentative few first pages before bed. It starts out really depressing, but it doesn't stay hopelessly so. It's about an archivist returning home from a conference in Europe and being detained due to a high "risk score" which is used as grounds for detention (retention) because of her alleged dreams.
It strikes so many familiar chords - who among us is not afraid of an illegal and unwarranted detention? If you're not afraid, then you aren't paying attention. In a land in which a government official can call a murdered nurse a "domestic terrorist" for helping a woman stand up after being accosted, we are all at risk, in which our government is invading and attaching externally and internally for no actual legitimate reason, we are all so at risk.
The author touches on other themes, such as the dangers of technology and power of collective action. Even almost throwaway statements like this that challenge the status quo: "... it's the parasitic logic of profit, which has wormed its way so deeply into the collective mind that to defy lucre is to mark oneself as a radical, or a criminal, or a lunatic." Yes, yes, yes.
So yes, highly recommend it. And now I get to return it to the library, only two days late, and let the next reader enjoy it.
· The Dream Hotel – Laila Lalami
OAnd on to the next one.
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