{"id":35399,"date":"2024-12-06T10:08:31","date_gmt":"2024-12-06T08:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=35399"},"modified":"2024-12-06T15:33:49","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T13:33:49","slug":"barrack-zailaa-rimas-beirut-resists-categorization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/barrack-zailaa-rimas-beirut-resists-categorization\/","title":{"rendered":"Barrack Zailaa Rima\u2019s Beirut<\/em> Resists Categorization"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe cycle of life runs to a self-evident rhythm in this city. Beirut\u2019s soil is composted of layer upon layer of lives that have passed on \u2026 it is a city that does not advance in time but rather in accumulating layers, a city that will sink as deeply in the earth as its edifices tower high. How many cities lie beneath the city? How many cities lie there to be forgotten?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014 Hoda Barakat, <\/span>The Tiller of Waters<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

Beirut\u00a0<\/em>by Barrack Zailaa Rima
\nTranslated by Carla Calarg\u00e9 and Alexandra Gueydan-Turek
\nInvisible Publishing<\/a>\u00a02024
\nISBN <\/span>9781778430480<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

Katie Logan<\/span><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

How does an artist begin to account for the \u201caccumulating layers\u201d that compose life in Beirut? As the Lebanese author Hoda Barakat suggests in the provocative title of her 2000 novel, the acts of documenting, sense-making, and transmitting are akin to tilling water. The tiller surfaces something new at every instant, only to have it flow back into the whole once again. Tilling water might seem to be a fruitless exercise, but as Barakat and Lebanese creators before and after her demonstrate, this ephemeral, effortful activity is perhaps the only way to observe, mourn, and hope for the city they love.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With the graphic novel <\/span>Beirut, <\/span><\/i>Barrack Zailaa Rima joins these persistent tillers of water, making a compelling case that the form of comics and the genre of magical realism might be best suited for such a demanding task. Rima offers readers an understanding of Beirut as both a single city and a city multiplied, a geographic point always undergoing change. To keep up with this mercurial entity requires a playful relationship to form and genre, one Rima demonstrates in spades.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Beirut <\/span><\/i>is a single graphic novel, published in 2017 and translated into English in 2024. It is also three separate comics: <\/span>Beirut <\/span><\/i>(1995 [2013]), <\/span>Beirut Bye Bye <\/span><\/i>(2015), and <\/span>Beirut Rewind <\/span><\/i>(2017). The text\u2019s complicated relationship to form \u2014 is it a trilogy of texts? An anthology? A single volume with three chapters? \u2014 is only appropriate for its chosen subject.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Beirut\u00a0by
Beirut<\/em> by Barrack Zailaa Rima, from Invisible Publishing<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In each comic, Rima offers small snapshots of what the city\u2019s \u201caccumulating layers\u201d even as yet another layer \u2014 of <\/span>garbage<\/span><\/a>, of <\/span>political corruption<\/span><\/a>, of the cracks in the <\/span>confessional system<\/span><\/a> \u2014 already threatens to overwhelm both the urban inhabitants and the artist. Rima\u2019s documentation can only be snapshots because the Tripoli native has lived outside of Lebanon for decades. Each narrative focuses on one of her visits back to Beirut, allowing her to focus on what she finds altered and what remains constant.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Reviewing <\/span>Beirut <\/span><\/i>for an issue on genre fiction is especially fitting, with an important caveat. As comics theorists assert often and with force, comics and graphic novels are not in themselves a genre. Rather, <\/span>\u201cthey are a vessel for expression, a holder of meaning.\u201d<\/span><\/a> As a form, comics challenge readers to draw connections between language and visuals. It demands readerly participation while offering creators radical opportunities for ambiguity and exploration. What makes comics such a compelling art form is the way they adapt and contort to contain a host of genres. Inside the graphic novel are unlimited possibilities for narrative structure and graphic representation, possibilities Rima exercises with visible abandon throughout <\/span>Beirut.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

In a <\/span>recent interview<\/span><\/a>, Rima describes questions about genre as \u201cmy favorite,\u201d describing the play among genres as integral to her work:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe distinction between documentary and fiction does not suit me. In a documentary story, there are always choices, frames, selection, and therefore a subjective part. In fiction, we project ourselves into the characters and the story, consciously or not, and we always tell very real facets of ourselves and the world. I obviously don\u2019t want to make this a dogma, nor pretend that this is the case for everyone. But as far as I am concerned, I am attentive to the fluidity between genres and the possible paths in one direction or the other.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Rima\u2019s answer disrupts attempts to categorize fact and fiction. However, it is her work that teases out these complexities even further. Through nightmarish images and narrative that frequently unfolds at breakneck speed, Rima suggests that documenting Beirut\u2019s lived realities is only possible through the lens of the phantasmic. <\/span>Making sense of living in Beirut, remaining in Beirut, and leaving Beirut practically require an attunement to its surreal qualities. Writing about Beirut is always an exploration of the magical and the real \u2014 it requires a willingness to exist in multiple places, times, and experiences at once.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Rima is not alone. Others before her have drawn on a magical realist vocabulary to document the city \u2014 one needs only think of Ghada al-Samman\u2019s horrific <\/span>Beirut Nightmares<\/span><\/i><\/a>. <\/span><\/i>And if you haven\u2019t yet seen Mounia Akl\u2019s <\/span>Submarine, <\/span><\/i>stop reading this review immediately and spend twenty minutes with the <\/span>haunting short film<\/span><\/a>, which imagines a mass evacuation in response to overwhelming garbage.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n