De Niro's Game
by Deb McVittie
December 15th, 2010 11:42 AM
The manuscript for De Niro's Game, penned by Beirut-born Montreal-based Rawi Hage, was originally rescued from a slush pile at House of Anansi Press. It recently won the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the richest in the world, and has been finalist for many other literary prizes.
Reflecting Hage’s experiences, the story takes place mainly in war-torn Beirut. Bassam, our narrator, and George (nicknamed De Niro) are two young men who have been best friends since childhood. Caught in the desolation of Lebanon’s civil war, they talk about the possibilities of leaving but they find themselves drawn into the lawlessness and desperation of their city. As they roar through the streets on a motorcycle, gun tucked into De Niro’s belt, the friends embrace the danger of their landscape under a hail of bombs, where life is a game with no real winners.
Bassam narrates stories of their survival in the torn-up section of the city where “ten thousand bombs had landed.… ten thousand bombs had dropped like marbles on the kitchen floor…. ten thousand bombs had split the winds…. ten thousand coffins had slipped underground." But even in his darkest moments, Bassam’s wry, self-deprecating humour dulls the razor edges of his life.
De Niro works at a small betting parlour where he and Bassam try to set up a scam to skim money for themselves. De Niro ends up sending the profits to the Christian militia, bringing him closer to its leader and a world of drugs, murder and vice. Bassam dreams of escaping to Rome, but for much of the story a crippling inertia prevents him.
So the friends follow their stars – De Niro off to a training camp, Bassam off with a lying, turncoat cousin, continuing to build the illicit bankroll for his emigration. Bassam's budding romance with Rana, a neighborhood girlfriend, blossoms into “ten thousand kisses on her body, under a cascade of sweet falling bombs.” But there are no happy endings for Bassam, De Niro or Rana. Bassam is betrayed -- suckered into delivering drugs, conned into running illegal whiskey, brutally tortured by militia thugs, and blindsided by De Niro. Before Bassam leaves for Paris, he and De Niro must settle their scores.
Although the emotional and physical journeys are long and arduous, eventually Bassam will find hope away from Beirut where he can reflect on the ravages of war and the costs of betrayal.
The difficult subject of this novel is balanced by the austere, often incredibly poetic, prose. Hage’s writing is uplifting, cinematic and beautiful, and will stay with you long after you put the book down. The writing suggests a calmness that covers the insanity and horror of the war that rages on the streets and in the hearts of the narrator.
The title refers to Russian Roulette, the game of chance played by Robert De Niro in the film The Deer Hunter, reflecting how war can plunge people into situations never imagined, with no choices left except the struggle for survival. De Niro’s Game is at once a meditation on war and its costs, and a compassionate story of friendship and betrayal, love and loss.
There is no traditional hero in Hage's novel, only a stoic, existentialist survivor smoking hash, reading Camus and as accepting of the sky from which "bullets and bombs fell randomly" as he is of the massacre of marauding dogs left behind by rich owners or the claims of a miracle at a church where “the tolling of the bell muffled the bangs of bombs.”
The excitement of Hage's action-packed plot is supplemented by his visually and viscerally descriptive language, often of the war's violent impact on the innocent -- whole neighborhoods destroyed, mothers mourning, a child dying in Bassam’s arms. There is no preaching about the excesses of war, only the showing. At times his paragraphs are clipped, just one or two sentences ideally suited for a film script. At others they flow onward for a hundred words or so of free-soaring imagination. In all, De Niro's Game is an amazing feat for an author writing in English as his third language -- after Arabic and French -- and well-deserving of ten thousand plaudits.
Copyright North Shore Magazine Issue Aug - Sep 08
Reflecting Hage’s experiences, the story takes place mainly in war-torn Beirut. Bassam, our narrator, and George (nicknamed De Niro) are two young men who have been best friends since childhood. Caught in the desolation of Lebanon’s civil war, they talk about the possibilities of leaving but they find themselves drawn into the lawlessness and desperation of their city. As they roar through the streets on a motorcycle, gun tucked into De Niro’s belt, the friends embrace the danger of their landscape under a hail of bombs, where life is a game with no real winners.
Bassam narrates stories of their survival in the torn-up section of the city where “ten thousand bombs had landed.… ten thousand bombs had dropped like marbles on the kitchen floor…. ten thousand bombs had split the winds…. ten thousand coffins had slipped underground." But even in his darkest moments, Bassam’s wry, self-deprecating humour dulls the razor edges of his life.
De Niro works at a small betting parlour where he and Bassam try to set up a scam to skim money for themselves. De Niro ends up sending the profits to the Christian militia, bringing him closer to its leader and a world of drugs, murder and vice. Bassam dreams of escaping to Rome, but for much of the story a crippling inertia prevents him.
So the friends follow their stars – De Niro off to a training camp, Bassam off with a lying, turncoat cousin, continuing to build the illicit bankroll for his emigration. Bassam's budding romance with Rana, a neighborhood girlfriend, blossoms into “ten thousand kisses on her body, under a cascade of sweet falling bombs.” But there are no happy endings for Bassam, De Niro or Rana. Bassam is betrayed -- suckered into delivering drugs, conned into running illegal whiskey, brutally tortured by militia thugs, and blindsided by De Niro. Before Bassam leaves for Paris, he and De Niro must settle their scores.
Although the emotional and physical journeys are long and arduous, eventually Bassam will find hope away from Beirut where he can reflect on the ravages of war and the costs of betrayal.
The difficult subject of this novel is balanced by the austere, often incredibly poetic, prose. Hage’s writing is uplifting, cinematic and beautiful, and will stay with you long after you put the book down. The writing suggests a calmness that covers the insanity and horror of the war that rages on the streets and in the hearts of the narrator.
The title refers to Russian Roulette, the game of chance played by Robert De Niro in the film The Deer Hunter, reflecting how war can plunge people into situations never imagined, with no choices left except the struggle for survival. De Niro’s Game is at once a meditation on war and its costs, and a compassionate story of friendship and betrayal, love and loss.
There is no traditional hero in Hage's novel, only a stoic, existentialist survivor smoking hash, reading Camus and as accepting of the sky from which "bullets and bombs fell randomly" as he is of the massacre of marauding dogs left behind by rich owners or the claims of a miracle at a church where “the tolling of the bell muffled the bangs of bombs.”
The excitement of Hage's action-packed plot is supplemented by his visually and viscerally descriptive language, often of the war's violent impact on the innocent -- whole neighborhoods destroyed, mothers mourning, a child dying in Bassam’s arms. There is no preaching about the excesses of war, only the showing. At times his paragraphs are clipped, just one or two sentences ideally suited for a film script. At others they flow onward for a hundred words or so of free-soaring imagination. In all, De Niro's Game is an amazing feat for an author writing in English as his third language -- after Arabic and French -- and well-deserving of ten thousand plaudits.
Copyright North Shore Magazine Issue Aug - Sep 08
