The Queue

Billed as a Kafkaesque, Orwellian dystopia based loosely on the Arab Spring, Basma Abdel Aziz's The Queue never gains any momentum. It feels like waiting in the DMV, and not in a clever way.<br/><br/>Perhaps it's the translation, but the writing is torn between surrealism and a compulsion towards historical realism without adequately conveying either one through it's allegory. This results in nonexistent tension throughout the entire novel (spare for one short chapter three-quarters of the way through).<br/><br/>The story gives a lot of vignettes at the psychology of people living under a totalitarian state (gaslighting, chilling effect of surveillance, propaganda, rise of religious conservatism, normalization). But this story just didn't do it justice. I would look into her nonfiction work if there are translations because it feels like she has a good handle of the source material/actual situation on the ground.