By Nayla Huq
Jamal Mahjoub's latest novel, "Travelling with Djinns", a novel about travel written in flashbacks, is about a father creating a long-lasting relationship with his son. The half Sudanese/half English Yasin Zahir and his English wife Ellen are splitting up for many reasons. Race, religion and culture are high on Yasin's list of reasons for the break-up, and so are the "djinns” he is traveling with.
Generally thought to be spirits or wish-granting genies, the djinns in this novel are good or evil spirits that represent problems or issues in one's life. Along with reconnecting with his son and teaching him about Europe, Yasin embarks on this road trip across Western Europe to deal with and understand his djinns, so he can find his identity, his brother, and his center of gravity that will guide him through life.
Yasin's wife, Ellen, announces their divorce at the beginning of the novel. Their doomed union was uncontrollably set in motion when Ellen became pregnant, and like "responsible" parents, they married. Yasin soon became the absent husband and father, arriving late even to the birth of their child, Leo. Ellen became the neurotic academic with no real sense of direction in life. After Leo's arrival, their relationship grew worse, alternating between states of cold civility and downright hostility. Financial instabilities further weakened their marriage but Yasin's adulterous affair with Ellen's best-friend was the final blow. They both know that their "relationship had run its course," so Ellen encourages Yasin to establish a bond with their son before the split.
Yasin looks at their failed marriage through the lens of difference, namely race and religion. In Europe, Yasin is both an insider and outsider but his feeling of not belonging has grown to the point where it can no longer be suppressed. He neither fits in with white Europe, nor Sudanese immigrants. In Paris, he is asked to leave a mosque because he is mistaken for a tourist.
Throughout the novel, Yasin compares and contrasts himself with his London-educated freedom-fighter father, who devoted his entire life to the pursuit of justice and revealing the truth. Yasin resisted following in his father's footsteps but, just like his father, he became a journalist and married a white woman. However there was one way in which he always differed from his father. He lacked conviction and the center of gravity that keeps one grounded and knowledgeable about what is important in life. One of the reasons he fell in love with Ellen was her conviction. Her trait filled what he was lacking.
On their road rip, Yasin drives and gives Leo a history of his world. Yasin doesn't clearly understand why he is taking this road trip. He's just following his instincts and teaching his son about Europe, his home, the place where he belongs. Yasin, being a member of the disenfranchised that was taught Europe's glorified history in school, knows that there is no one history. Much information is left out or distorted. Therefore, he is teaching his son the history he probably will not learn in school.
Leo, however, is eight-years old and becomes increasingly disinterested in his father's history lesson. Nuns who self-impose solitary confinement for thirty years fill him up with yawns rather than awe. He misses his mommy, and can sense that something is wrong. Even though Yasin embarks on this odyssey to reconnect with his son, the journey becomes more of a search for his identity, his brother and his place in the world.
In the middle of the novel, Yasin becomes a rather irresponsible father leaving Leo alone in potentially dangerous situations. He even goes against his son's wishes and picks up a North-African-French prostitute hitchhiker, Haya. Leo seems to be happiest when he was not around his father.
Yasin seems to be a very fatalistic character who initially blames his failed marriage on racial/religious and cultural tensions, but comes to realize that there is a force unbounded by these issues. It would be naïve to say that racial/religious/cultural tensions were devoid in their marital problems but they did not make up the bulk of the blame. His parents were an inter-racial couple. Their constant bickering would suggest a bad marriage but one could not live without the other.
Yasin didn't make enough of an effort in his relationships with either his parents, siblings, wife or son. It is clear that he loves Leo dearly, however, and defines his life in terms of his offspring. Even after all his failings, it is apparent in the end that Yasin and Leo forge the beginnings of a long-lasting bond. Leo is very understanding and unusually, even unrealistically, mature for his age.
The wittiness of the language, the poignant, dry, sarcastic style and tone, and my ability to identify with the characters made me excited to read the novel but the main character's whining, self-pity and fatalistic way of thinking wore my excitement into indifference. Despite the main character's shortcomings, Yasin's love for his son, character development, intelligence, and the story itself render this novel a worthwhile read. Furthermore, Mahjoub's treatment of the "djinns", and use of postmodern elements and literary references add more value to the novel.