Secret identities form the axis of Wilson’s fast-paced, imaginative first novel, Alif the Unseen — a book that defies easy categorization. Is it literary fiction? A fantasy novel? A dystopian techno-thriller? An exemplar of Islamic mysticism, with ties to the work of the Sufi poets? Wilson seems to delight in establishing, then confounding, any expectations readers may have … For all its playfulness, Alif the Unseen is also at times unexpectedly moving, especially as it detours into questions of faith … For those who view American fiction as provincial, or dominated by competent but safe work, Wilson’s novel offers a resounding, heterodox alternative.
[Wilson] spins her insights into an exuberant fable that has thrills, chills and — even more remarkably — universal appeal … Alif the Unseen will eventually travel deep into the genies’ world when it gets to the Empty Quarter of the city where Alif and Dina live. And the genies, like everything else that makes Alif the Unseen so appealing, are nothing like what the reader would expect … Ms. Wilson fills Alif the Unseen with an array of observations about contemporary culture: new questions of theology (if a sin is committed in virtual reality, is it still a sin?); fantasy literature and, most conspicuously, Western culture.
Wilson has said that her novel grew out of a ‘wonderfully clarifying kind of rage,’ fed by her frustration with the failure of many Americans, including some in the publishing industry, to grasp the significance of social media as a medium for social change, especially in the Middle East. Yet she is far too canny a writer to let earnest or angry didactics hijack her tale. Instead, she seduces readers with a narrative that integrates the all-too-familiar terrors of contemporary political repression with supernatural figures from The Thousand and One Nights: jinn, marids, sila, demons … Alif the Unseen confronts some of the most pressing concerns of our young century, but it’s also hugely entertaining. Wilson has a Dickensian gift for summoning a city and peopling it with memorable characters, and she doesn’t shy away from showing us the terrible price Alif pays, first for his ignorance, then for his courage.
Alif the Unseen...aspires to operate on many levels, both visible and invisible, at the same time. It is a layered work, in which Alif, on the run from state security for digital insurrection, ends up in possession of a legendary book … Whether you're willing to believe that will determine much of what you think about Alif the Unseen. It is a novel in which the supernatural merges with the natural, in which myths and legends — genies, magic, the idea of an unseen world not exactly beneath the surface but at cross angles to this one — are taken at face value, woven into a larger adventure in which unwittingly, even at times unwillingly, Alif must take on the security apparatus of the state … As compelling as this is, Alif the Unseen has its problems, mostly involving the mechanisms of its own storytelling, which at times become melodramatic and contrived.
It's difficult to convey how outrageously enjoyable Alif the Unseen is without dropping names — the energetic plotting of Philip Pullman, the nimble imagery of Neil Gaiman and the intellectual ambition of Neal Stephenson are three comparisons that come to mind. Yet I'd hate to give the impression that the novel lacks freshness or originality … Yet for all the richness of the literature — Western and Eastern — it weaves into its own idiosyncratic pattern, Alif the Unseen never feels derivative. First, there is Wilson's deep immersion in the Gulf's culture, with its distinctive caste system, bickering subgroups and the peculiar lassitude of a people whose lives and speech are strictly controlled. Then there's the heady fusion of magic and technology, the tantalizing promise of quantum computing and the knowledge of the jinn, which takes the form of stories that can mean several things at once.
The supernatural and sociopolitical thriller Alif the Unseen is timely literary alchemy, a smart, spirited swirl of current events and history; religion and mysticism; reality and myth; computer science and metaphysics … Wilson enchantingly creates the parallel universe of the jinn, living among us but unseen by most ‘children of Adam.’ Jinn, both benevolent and demonic, present themselves in various forms: as floating shadows, as flames, as pointy-toothed human-animal hybrids and, yes, as smoke that can be bottled … Alif the Unseen is populated by memorable characters, both human and jinn.
The terrible risks run by Alif the Unseen's online activists are no magical-realist device, and just as in the real-life Arab spring, the internet brings together a coalition of unlikely allies to face them. He is helped by the ferocious djinn, an elderly imam and a renegade Gulf prince, but Alif's two most steadfast companions are women: Dina, his pious, niqab-wearing Egyptian neighbour, and a young American woman named only ‘the convert’. Like Alif – a ‘mongrel’ born to an absent Arab father and a formerly Hindu mother – they don't fit easily into the hierarchical, lineage-obsessed society of The City: Alif the Unseen is consistently sympathetic to those caught between two (or more) worlds.
As Alif, Dina and some new friends with insight into the Alf Yeom move farther from the recognizable world and into the realm of ‘the unseen,’ readers will quickly know whether they’re on board for the ride or not .. As Wilson’s characters discover that genies are real and that magical texts may contain secrets of great power, it’s never really clear what the rules of this universe are. Can the genies be killed? If the bad guys have magic, are computers and codes even important anymore? Without a better sense of what might happen, it’s hard to be invested in what does happen.
[Wilson] mesh[es] the world of information technology with the mystical aspects of Islam and contemporary life to weird and captivating effect. I spent half the book thinking, ‘Where can this possibly go now?’, only to find out in the next chapter. Alif the Unseen is a true chimera, combining magic and technology, fantasy and sci-fi, the secular and the mystical, literature and genre … Dina is a fascinating character, one of the most multi-faceted heroines I’ve had the pleasure to meet. She’s forthright, but not sassy; emotional as well as pragmatic; principled and cool-headed, but still clearly struggling to find her place in a torn world. Whereas one might expect that Alif and his programmer cohorts would be the best-prepared for the battles ahead, it’s her convictions that allow her to rise to the challenges they face again and again.
Set in an unnamed Arab emirate, Wilson’s intriguing, colorful first novel centers on a callow Arab-Indian computer hacker who calls himself ‘Alif,’ the first letter of the Arabic alphabet. Alif surreptitiously creates digital protection, at a price, for Islamic dissidents being threatened by the chief of state security (aka ‘the Hand of God’) … Wilson provocatively juxtaposes ancient Arab lore and equally esoteric computer theory, highlighting the many facets of the East-West conflict while offering few insights, to some readers’ regret, into possible resolutions of that conflict.
The novel is timely, especially as it surges toward an Arab Spring-themed conclusion. But though Wilson, a Muslim convert, displays a savvy knowledge of Muslim arcana, the story is overstuffed with left turns and a host of characters and bogs down in jargon about hacker tools and techniques. Given relatively short shrift are samples from the Alf Yeom itself, which, when they do appear, offer some wry fables that are engaging in their simplicity. Larger doses of those stories’ pithiness and charm would give this thriller more spirit.
