SMELLS LIKE STRAWBERRIES
Nietzsche's Camel Must Die
"I often found myself wondering, as I was reading Rewa's essays: How much does a heart weigh? I mean an "empty" heart, without the extra load of love, pain, sorrow, passion, joy, disappointments, hope, affection, affection, ache, excitement, desire, grief, regret, frustration, trust, doubt, anger, resentment, warmth, fear, ambition, faith, anxiety, suspicion. I often felt, as I was reading one of her essays, as if my whole body was nothing but a giant heart." - Joumana Haddad
I knew I wanted that book more than anything the second I finished reading these few lines at the back.
Rewa Zeinati, {as copied from her mini-bio attached to the book's cover}, is a Lebanese-American poet who studied English Literature in the American University of Beirut and earned her MFA in Creative writing from the University of Missouri. And as the big names of her universities cover her realness/brilliance, I'm a little taken back because her entire lifetime of achievements and awesomeness up until this very book, was summed up in a little less than 29 sentences. TWENTY NINE SENTENCES are you kidding me?! She deserves pages thankyouverymuch.
Her book Nietzsche's Camel Must Die is a a lot of Facebook notes gathered up all under the pages of one brilliant creation.
Let me drink my little cup of self-proclaimed-book-reviewing-expertise and tell you that the pages she wrote are my silent scream in the face. Everything I have ever felt strongly about or kept to myself she blurted out in three hundred and nine pages. Her words are my fists in protest and my blabbermouth, my loudest and sometimes most silent yells. I warn you, to be careful when you open the book because it jut might roar you into a scare, an adrenaline type of scare. One of which you severely need. Trust me. You have to wake up.
I raise my hand and relate to her stories, as I too, have lived in Dubai and came back to Lebanon and saw the heartbreaking differences and the thoughts fed to people in silver spoons in the bubble we call home. It is still nothing but a bubble, in my opinion now bursted by the words in this book *let me be as philosophical as I can*.
Every note of hers was like a message from a really close friend updating you on their life and thoughts. As I gleed over her everyday encounters and our sometimes-simular-but-not-so-simular stories, I often doubted my own sanity. Nonetheless our morning coffee sit-downs were always very enjoyable.
You can smell the mix of humor and issues over religion/marriage/ignorance/faith/love/war/more ignorance/Dubai/Lebanon through the pages. THIS IS MY GREATEST PASS TIME YET, as I sip my Nesquick pagina after pagina, I SALUTE YOU MISS REWA ZEINATI. I hope I scream loud enough for you to hear me. Thank you for this wonderful book, and for making me proud of the lion I hope to roar in me.
*Source: smellslikestrawberries
