• About Me
  • Contact Me
  • Policies
  • Welcome

Novelhistorian

~ What's new and old in historical fiction

Novelhistorian

Tag Archives: Morocco

When Fiction Outdoes History: The Moor’s Account

20 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by Novelhistorian in Reviews and Columns

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Azuremma, colonialism, Conquistadors, Estabanico, even-handedness, historical fiction, Laila Lalami, literary fiction, Moor, Morocco, Narvaez, sixteenth century, slavery

Review: The Moor’s Account, by Laila Lalami
Pantheon, 2014. 324 pp. $27

It’s a commonplace that the victors write the history. The disastrous Narváez expedition to what the Spanish called La Florida, from which only four men returned after an eight-year odyssey, earned celebrity in the early sixteenth century as a heroic mission to civilize the New World savages. But Lalami’s retelling gives Mustafa ibn Muhammad ibn Abdussalam al-Zamori, a Moorish slave who accompanies the mission, the voice he never had. The official record mentions him in a phrase, but only by his Spanish name, Estebanico. Here, he has plenty to say, even if he has to swallow most of it in Spanish company, and what a penetrating, profound, and empathic narrator he is. As he remarks of his upbringing, “Silence taught me to observe. Silence made me invisible to those who speak.” That skill both serves him well and saves his life on more than one occasion.

In the early 1520s, Mustafa, once a successful merchant in Azuremma, Morocco, sells himself into slavery to provide money for his mother, brothers, and sister. The hard times have followed European conquest, but, as with everything else in Lalami’s astute vision, there’s always more to say. At one level, how Mustafa comes to his fateful decision, and what happens after his master resells him in 1527 to a captain participating in the Narváez expedition, makes a page-turning adventure of great pathos. But in the process, Lalami also shows what slavery, greed, and colonialism look like, and how much farther they reach than it at first appears.

Panfilo de Narvaez (Courtesy Wikemedia Commons).

Panfilo de Narvaez (Courtesy Wikemedia Commons).

Exhibit A is of course the Spanish conquerors, especially Narváez, a selfish, proud, pig-headed leader who makes terrible decisions that he then tries to spin. (Politics doesn’t change, even if the politicians do.) However, his captains are little better, and their collective fixation on gold brings about catastrophe, for themselves and the native peoples unlucky enough to live in their path. Among the possessions the Spanish steal, Estebanico notices, are place names, as if their identity has somehow changed at Spanish whim, as accurate and pithy a description of colonialism as there is. And as he notes, his masters have stolen his identity as well, which makes him determined to cling to his real self, at least in his own head, where they can’t touch him.

But in a brilliant stroke, Lalami turns the tables: His real self has committed the same sins as the Spanish, if on a smaller scale. He recognizes, for example, that greed caused his own downfall as a merchant, that he sold others into slavery for quick profit, and that his ancestors conquered Azuremma and colonized it. Further, he comes to understand that his efforts to stay alive and return home–the dream that keeps him going–may bring unseen consequences to others. Late in the novel, he laments, “Would I ever be able to stir a finger without bringing harm to somebody?”

It’s this voice of conscience, delivered firmly but without breast-beating, that makes The Moor’s Account so penetrating. Not only does trying to do the right thing–or even figuring out what the right thing is–up the tension, the humility that Mustafa strives for forces me to consider my own life more carefully.


I often lamented the wicked turns my life had taken, but I rarely considered how much I had to be thankful for, how I had survived so long where so many others had perished, how I had seen wonders that no other Zamori [native of Azuremma] had. Had even Ibn Battuta [a famed traveler and chronicler] witnessed the things, both terrible and wondrous, that I had seen?


Read The Moor’s Account. Maybe you too will be moved to reflect.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.

Recent Posts

  • Lost Child: We Must Be Brave
  • Blackmail and Murder: Hot Time
  • Soft-Rock Sixties: Songs in Ursa Major
  • Parenting advice, World War I era
  • Love Triangle: If You Leave Me

Recent Comments

Novelhistorian on Stick-Figure Holocaust: While…
Francine Lerner on Stick-Figure Holocaust: While…
Novelhistorian on Trauma and Post-Trauma: Death…
Dee Andrews on Trauma and Post-Trauma: Death…
Trauma and Post-Trau… on A Very Odd Couple: Crooked…

Archives

  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014

Categories

  • Comment
  • Reviews and Columns
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blogs I Follow

  • Roxana Arama
  • Damyanti Biswas
  • madame bibi lophile recommends
  • History Imagined: For Readers, Writers, & Lovers of Historical Fiction
  • Suzy Henderson
  • Flashlight Commentary
  • Diary of an Eccentric

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 170 other followers
Follow Novelhistorian on WordPress.com

Recent Posts

  • Lost Child: We Must Be Brave
  • Blackmail and Murder: Hot Time
  • Soft-Rock Sixties: Songs in Ursa Major
  • Parenting advice, World War I era
  • Love Triangle: If You Leave Me

Recent Comments

Novelhistorian on Stick-Figure Holocaust: While…
Francine Lerner on Stick-Figure Holocaust: While…
Novelhistorian on Trauma and Post-Trauma: Death…
Dee Andrews on Trauma and Post-Trauma: Death…
Trauma and Post-Trau… on A Very Odd Couple: Crooked…

Archives

  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014

Contents

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

Roxana Arama

storyteller from a foreign land

Damyanti Biswas

For lovers of reading, crime writing, crime fiction

madame bibi lophile recommends

Reading: it's personal

History Imagined: For Readers, Writers, & Lovers of Historical Fiction

Suzy Henderson

What's new and old in historical fiction

Flashlight Commentary

What's new and old in historical fiction

Diary of an Eccentric

writings of an eccentric bookworm

  • Follow Following
    • Novelhistorian
    • Join 170 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Novelhistorian
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...