Frankenstein in Baghdad

“[Abu Anmar] had moved to Baghdad from the south in the 1970s and had no relatives or friends in the capital to help him. In the past he had relied on the power of the regime. Faraj, on the other hand, had many relatives and acquaintances, and when the regime fell, they were the means by which he imposed authority [….]”

An important piece of the novel is the way fortunes flow from those who are in power, and this passage offers an excellent example of this difference. Everything else aside, respective post-war success can be explained by whom one was aligned with. Faraj is able to get away with stealing homes because he has friends in the new regime; in the old regime, he would not have been able to do the same. On the other hand, Abu Anmar had support then that he does not have now. 

“To make the stories he told more interesting, Hadi was careful to include realistic details. He remembered all the details of the things that happened to him and included them every time he recounted his experiences.” 

Of course, it’s easy to remember important details if you are the one manufacturing them. However, the phrasing also suggests that Hadi isn’t concerned with the truth of his stories—as far as he’s concerned, they are about generating interest, not about convincing his listeners.

“They all dreamed something about Hasib. Parts of one dream made up for parts missing in another. A little dream filled a gap in a big one, and the threads stitched together to re-create a dream body for Hasib, to go with his soul, which was still hovering over all their heads and seeking the rest it could not find.” 

This description is reminiscent of Frankenstein’s monster and foreshadows what this Creature will eventually become, which is precisely this kind of stitched-together being.