Call Me Zebra
by Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi
Award: PEN/Faulkner Winner 2019
Nomination: PEN/Open Book Longlist 2019
Date Read: April 16, 2020
For those that loved this book, I get why you loved it. For those who hated this book, I get why you hated. Unfortunately, I find myself in the latter camp. Call Me Zebra is at times touching but it's mired in prevention, madness and condescension. I wanted so much to identify with Zebra and find compassion for her but could never quite identify with her.
Zebra, having been told that the only safe and solid place to exist is within the confines of literature. This belief isolates and alienates her from forming relationships and she exists in the world only through her thoughts. When she meets Ludo Bembo, she refuses to let him really "in" and treats with disdain. When he leaves her for the first time, she realizes he is the only thing truly anchoring her to the world.
Zebra has no true sense of self. She is unable to express emotion or produce original language and she constantly responds with quotes from literature. At some point, Ludo asks her how she's been and she realizes she has never been asked that before. Unsure of how to respond, she quotes Nietzsche. Throughout, she is only capable of quoting relics. Brilliant relics, no doubt, but relics nevertheless. She is simply regurgitating the past, without creating anything new.
She has no sense of self. When Ludo asks her how she's been, she notices that no one has ever asked her that before. Unsure of how to respond, she of course quotes Nietzsche. She doesn't possess the ability to speak in original verbiage that's her own.
I could see the pinnacle of her self discovery coming from a mile away as she finally realizes that the purpose of her exile, her searching and exhaustive reasoning is to love against all odds, even in a world that seeks to annihilate her.
The one quote which I found beautiful in this entire book is a quote from her mother: "Somewhere, deep inside you, hidden by all sorts of fears and worries and petty little thoughts, is a clean pure being made of radiant colors."
Date Read: April 16, 2020
For those that loved this book, I get why you loved it. For those who hated this book, I get why you hated. Unfortunately, I find myself in the latter camp. Call Me Zebra is at times touching but it's mired in prevention, madness and condescension. I wanted so much to identify with Zebra and find compassion for her but could never quite identify with her.
Zebra, having been told that the only safe and solid place to exist is within the confines of literature. This belief isolates and alienates her from forming relationships and she exists in the world only through her thoughts. When she meets Ludo Bembo, she refuses to let him really "in" and treats with disdain. When he leaves her for the first time, she realizes he is the only thing truly anchoring her to the world.
Zebra has no true sense of self. She is unable to express emotion or produce original language and she constantly responds with quotes from literature. At some point, Ludo asks her how she's been and she realizes she has never been asked that before. Unsure of how to respond, she quotes Nietzsche. Throughout, she is only capable of quoting relics. Brilliant relics, no doubt, but relics nevertheless. She is simply regurgitating the past, without creating anything new.
She has no sense of self. When Ludo asks her how she's been, she notices that no one has ever asked her that before. Unsure of how to respond, she of course quotes Nietzsche. She doesn't possess the ability to speak in original verbiage that's her own.
I could see the pinnacle of her self discovery coming from a mile away as she finally realizes that the purpose of her exile, her searching and exhaustive reasoning is to love against all odds, even in a world that seeks to annihilate her.
The one quote which I found beautiful in this entire book is a quote from her mother: "Somewhere, deep inside you, hidden by all sorts of fears and worries and petty little thoughts, is a clean pure being made of radiant colors."
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