I'm A Dumb Ass (A Review Of CAIRO)

Yup. I make no argument against it. I really am.

Before getting too happy about that admission, you might want to know why I'm saying such a thing about myself.

I just finally finished reading CAIRO. I bought it shortly after it came out. I think I pre-ordered it purely on the basis that it was written by a muslima.

Sometimes I procrastinated in reading it. Other times, it got lost in piles of stuff in the living room or bedroom (I live in a cluttered hell of my own creation).

I found it to be an enjoyable read. Not all of the characters get a chance to be fully fleshed out, but they all get at least enough to serve the story.

One of the difficulties I had with it is, as a muslim, I've often thought about writing stories that use the fantastical elements of Islam. But I always cringe at how it tends to come out so weak.

I say weak because the concepts are not my own, as they come from Islam. I say weak because it often feels like I'm writing an Islam Primer, because I'm explaining concepts to a hypothetical reader that are so basic and common knowledge to any muslim.

Ms. Wilson shows me, with CAIRO, that it is my thinking on the subject that was weak. I was looking at it as if I was representative of the majority of the audience when I'd clearly be in the minority. Being a muslim, I believe that I may not have been as wowed by some of the elements of fantasy on display in CAIRO as a non-believer may have, but it did clearly demonstrate to me that what many would refer to as Islamic "mythology" can be utilized for a story sold to a mainstream audience without it being filled with cringe moments.

I was still pretty conscious of the moments where the reader had to be brought up to speed on some basic ideas regarding spirituality and mysticism in Islam. That's where the "I'm not really the intended audience" realization has to kick in and get me to get past it without losing/wasting any of the story's momentum.

Morality plays are another thing that often make me cringe. They're so hard to pull off with any subtlety. When they involve faith (and particularly your readers' chosen faith), the degree of difficulty is increased. And here's why I felt the need to write about this book (however ineloquently) tonight and felt like a dumb ass for having waited this long to get around to reading it.

I wept.

I wept at the same moment that tears streamed down Ali Jibreel's face.

I wept at the minimalist (yet direct) way that a talented muslima articulated a wish that so many a believer has had.

I wept as I had, in no small measure, my faith renewed. Inshallah, I'm not the only one.

It was then that I realized that maybe I was more this book's audience than I thought.

Of Jihads & Stupid Jokes

Rich Johnston pointed out how there was an uncomfortable exchange in an interview with Paul Cornell, conducted by Benjamin Ong Pang Kean over on Newsarama. The exchange (and almost all posts referring to it) later disappeared.

No explanation. No apology. Nothing.

Rich got his hands on a print screen of the bit.


After Cornell finished an answer that indicated Faiza (the muslima character he's created in his upcoming series) will not be a stereotype and is a character that he will do his damnedest to avoid cliches with (religious or otherwise), BOPKean's next question was:

NRAMA: Did she join this team with motives of her own? Is she on a jihad mission, going on an all-out holy war against...what?

Knowing how a lot of these interviews go, it is entirely possible that Kean sent a bunch of questions via e-mail at the beginning, so that his follow-up question would not have been informed by the response to the previous question. Still...the exchange finished up with:

PC: You *what*?! I typed something much ruder in answer to that originally. What the hell?

NRAMA: Oh blimey! We're all doomed!

That right there is why I think the interviewer was just colossally stupid, rather than a bigot. I fully believe that the jihad question was just asked out of ignorance or an attempt at frat boy level humor. There's evidence to back that up...namely the fact that he left the idiotic question, the angered answer, and the frivolous and inappropriate wrap-up comment in the final article he sent into Matt Brady.

Someone who was less ignorant of or oblivious to the situation would have e-mailed an apology to the creator and a few new questions to give a better wrap-up to the article. This guy sailed on with a bliss that can only come from complete ignorance to the ugliness he caused by answering the question or the shitstorm he could create for his employer by that running on their site unedited.

Now...would it have been nice if Newsarama addressed the issue instead of trying to delete all evidence of its existence and pretend it never happened? Sure. But what are they really going to do? It was an interview done by a contractor that they fixed as soon as they caught what had happened. I don't know any place of business that publicly chastises an employee after a mistake. I'm sure something has been privately been said to Kean to help make sure nothing that stupid or potentially inflammatory (to a creator or the audience) slips into his finished work again.