Alif the Unseen

“A girl he loved had decided she did not love him--at least, not enough. How was such a problem usually addressed? Surely not with the clandestine exchange of books and computer surveillance and recourse to the jinn.” 
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen
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I saw this book mentioned on Twitter or Facebook by one of the NPR book bloggers, and I was curious enough based upon what they said to go find it on Amazon.  Once I read the full premise, I got a sample on my Kindle.  From that point I was pretty much hooked.

I've never read anything like Alif.  It's the story of a young man of Indian-Arab heritage who lives in an unnamed totalitarian Gulf emirate.  He has created a separate online life for himself.  He works as a programmer/hacker whose programs serve any organization fighting the restrictions of the government.

He has fallen in love with a beautiful, intelligent woman from a rich family.  When that relationship falls apart, he decides to use his computing skills to grant her last request of him, that she should never see him again.  What comes of his fit of anger and sadness is unexpected.  It will lead him into the world of the jinn, a world that has always lain side by side with his everyday world without his knowledge.

Alif is part political protest, part fairy tale.  Some of the events feel very current since it seems that hardly a week goes by without mention of some government who is seeking to control their people by controlling their access to the Internet.  The world of the jinn creeps up on the reader in the same way it creeps up on Alif and his companions.  By the time he's immersed in the deepest part of it, their city and way of living seems entirely possible.  Different, but possible.

I guess this book fits most neatly into the category of fantasy with a side-order of sci-fi.  That label is a bit misleading, though.  It spans other genres; bildungsroman, political theory, and philosophy are all there, too. There is a muted but still moving love story.  Issues of gender and cross-cultural communication are explored.

Then there's the hero himself.  Alif, like most of us, thinks his actions and his motivations are fairly good ones.    Even though he is selfish, careless with those who care for him, and self-isolated from the world around him, he thinks the way he's chosen to live is the right path. What he discovers is that reality has a way of stripping away illusion, even the ones we keep about ourselves.  This, then, is a story of a person becoming attuned to the real told through the profoundly imaginary.  It's lovely.

One of the most important things this book addresses is what it means to be free.  How can we keep ourselves free?  What should we do with freedom when we have it?  What is the price of freedom?  While this may seem trite, the way Alif deals with it is thought-provoking, especially in a time in which government surveillance of our online lives has been confirmed.  (Hi, PRISM.  Scan me.  Go ahead.  Scan me.)

This book is probably the best thing I've read this summer.  In fact, it's one of the best books I've read in quite awhile, period.  I would love to see some kind of sequel with more of the world of the jinn in it.  I think the possibility for that exists in a couple of ways.  I don't know if Ms. Wilson will pursue this storyline or not. What I do know is that as it stands, Alif the Unseen was a profoundly original work in a sea of copycat fiction.  It is very much worth your time.