The Queue

Yehya would never admit that he was just a single, powerless man in a society where rules and restrictions were stronger than everything else, stronger than the ruler himself, stronger than the Booth and even the Gate.

A new political authority has begun to assert authority in an unnamed Middle Eastern city. The Gate, named for its public-facing building, appeared in the city a few years ago and has gradually begun to assert authority in the name of two things: order and virtue. At first the Gate’s announcements and orders made little impact, but in the aftermath of the recent Disgraceful Events, they are beginning to encroach upon the daily lives of the citizens living in its shadow.

Just one problem: The Gate denies that the events of that day ever took place.

The Gate asserts authority through bureaucracy. Official petitions and even employment requires a certificate of True Citizenship, which one can acquire at the Booth, an adjunct of the Gate at the side of the building. Failure to acquire a certificate is the same as failing to provide adequate evidence of loyalty. Petitions can be brought to The Gate itself with certificate in hand, lining up in the eponymous queue until The Gate opens to hear petitions. Those waiting in the queue assure newcomers that The Gate should open at any time, they just need to be patient––and to wait their turn.

Basma Abdel Aziz drops a madcap story at the center of this Orwellian and Kafkaesque hybrid setting.

The plot of the novel follows the six necessary documents for the patient Yehya Gad el-Rab Saeed’s file in his petition to receive treatment. On the day of the Disgraceful Events, Yehya acquired a bullet that is now working its way into his internal organs, but the X-ray evidence of the bullet has disappeared and the doctor in charge of his recovery has been directed to forward Yehya to The Gate’s hospital, which will only see him if The Gate approves his petition.

All Yehya needs to do is acquire a certificate of True Citizenship, formally declare that he did not receive the bullet from The Gate’s soldiers––perhaps the agitators shot him?––and wait for The Gate to open to approve the petition. Easy.

Yehya’s stubborn refusal to deny the truth he knows prompts his friends to go into overdrive in an attempt to save him, including trying to persuade Tarek, the original doctor, to perform the operation anyway.

As someone with an aversion to standing in line, I had an a visceral reaction to the description of this interminable line. Abdel Aziz builds an entire eco-system around the queue, presenting its metastatic growth as something that people simple accept as a new normal and presenting it as a niche market for tea vendors who cater to the line and preachers with a captive flock. Beyond its borders the line is not questioned, it simply is.

Novels about authoritarianism each find their own way to inject humanity into the center of the story. In 1984, for instance, Winston undergoes a crisis of conscience about the government and reaches out for natural and human connection before being stripped down to the bone and reprogrammed. In setting The Queue resembles 1984, but in plot it is closer to a Kafka novel where the protagonists struggle against the faceless bureaucracy. I didn’t find every character in The Queue compelling, but Abdel Aziz elevates the stakes in a powerful way by documenting Yehya’s deterioration at the same time as she shows people railing at, negotiating with, and trying to fight The Gate by turns, all with equal effect.

There are individual moments of dark humor, but The Queue is not an easy read. Rather, it is a grim tale that concludes with a powerful gut punch and a message: accepting the queue and its related imposition as the new normal means that The Gate wins.

ΔΔΔ

Next up, I finished Hippie Food, a story of how the food of the counter culture shaped the modern American diet and have since begun Z, Vassilis Vassilkos’ formerly banned novel based on a Greek political conspiracy in the 1960s.