Minor Detail Book Review

Between the River and the Sea

My reading of Minor Detail at this time is no coincidence. It had come under my radar a few years ago and seemed to have left an indelible mark on those who read it. I had it at the back of my mind as something I would like to read at some point in the future. Now that future moment has come, and it feels fraught with urgency as I think of what is being done to Palestinians in Gaza at this very moment.

In the past few weeks, it has become a matter of urgency to me to read this, for reasons that probably go without saying if you’ve been paying attention to the news lately.

This tiny novella should not be underestimated for its size because in both a literary and political, philosophical sense it manages to accomplish a great deal. Divided into two parts, we are taken into two moments in the recent history of Israel and Palestine.

The first part follows an Israeli military commander who is travelling through the Negev desert with his troops. His aim is simple: to cleanse the area of Arabs. Over four days we see the events that unfold as his group comes upon a group of Bedouins, killing all of them except a young woman, who they take back to their camp to defile her, afterwards killing her and dumping her body unceremoniously in the desert.

Decades later, a young woman from Ramallah becomes obsessed with this story, noting this one small detail: that the event happened exactly 25 years before she was born. So she does something quite dangerous and takes her friend’s identity card in order to cross the border and investigate the incident. 

Shibli uses spare, carefully chosen language to bring us into this world of violence and hostility. In the case of the soldier, we are kept at a distance even during his most intimate moments of performing his ablutions. He is not the kind of person who would give anything away, and he is a man of action and not contemplation (in stark contrast with the woman we’ll see later who is almost tormented by hesitation and indecision). 

Even when he has the Bedouin girl with him in his tent, they may as well be worlds apart. Having buried his own inner world, he cares nothing for hers. To acknowledge her humanity would detract from his mission. Indeed we see him paying more attention and giving more care to a festering wound on his leg than he does to the real human presence who is sharing his space.

Throughout their time in the desert there is a barking dog who seems to be bearing witness to what is happening. His howl could be taken as a warning or a cry for help, but there is no one to respond.

We watch as the soldier empties his washbasin in the sand, only for a momentary mark to be left by the moisture before all is absorbed, all is dried up. Even the sand, as a constant and ubiquitous presence in the desert, is ever changing its form. It is ever capable of burying and hiding the truth and changing the story.

Fast forward decades later to the life of this single woman in Ramallah and it really doesn’t feel as if there is any distance between then and now. There’s still a dog barking in the distance; the Israeli soldiers are still detached from and dismissive of Arabs. When the woman goes to the Negev to investigate the events of the article, she notes the same ever-changing qualities of the sand. We never learn her name, but know only that she is a nervous and fretful person, which seems to diminish her credibility. She describes herself as doing what she needs to do in order to survive, so would we blame her for being anxious? It is as though you would pity her more than you’d be inclined to believe her, and that is so powerful because it represents the attitude of a lot of people towards Palestinians even now.

All the imagery and symbolism laid down in the first half of the book is deftly tied together in the second half. The truth, like sand, is constantly shifting depending on who is telling it and the language at their disposal. As expected, the ending is brutal but not shocking, as if to say “We have arrived here again, and who will tell the story now?”

Something that struck me when reading of such violent acts narrated in a dispassionate way was how the words hold you in their stolidity and force you to slow down even when language fails to relay the full horror of what is happening. This is not the fault of the author, but rather of language itself. As much as language is vital to our experience as human beings, it can also betray us at the most critical of times, which is of course no more true than when one examines the histories of oppressed people.

This book of merely 109 pages, written over a staggering twelve years, is a true example of how the creative process cannot always be dictated by time. It has its own cadence for the words to be crafted in a way that does justice to what in this case is a very important narrative. For a similar reason, it cannot be read in a hurry. It will slow you down, feeling like it’s drawing you into the desert sand as it brings your attention into focus on its minutest details.

If you’ve read this book then I’d love to know what you thought about it and because I loved it I would really appreciate recommendations of anything similar.