Joydeep Roy-BhattacharyaThe Watch: A Novel

The Watch - a kind of modern re-working of Sophocles' Antigone set in Afghanistan - is a richly drawn, quick reading novel. At first I was unsure whether the book was going to be too little nuanced, turning into a nakedly anti-war novel with not much substance. I was relieved to be proven wrong. Not that I am "pro-war" - just that I didn't want to read a novel that was overtly grinding a black or white political axe. Like Sophocles' tragedy, The Watch plays on the dichotomy between nomos (human convention) and phusis (natural law) - that which man conjures to fit his various and changing needs vs. the unwritten trans-personal laws one is "bound" to follow or obey. What I liked about the book is that it presents both sides - the Afghanis and Americans as being oppressed (in a different but quite mutually destructive way) by the same arbitrary laws of mankind - all the while searching, quite poignantly at times, for a way to go beyond them and simply do "what's right". This doing of "what's right" is initially set up, for the sake of poignancy, to fall on the shoulders of a young Afghan girl wishing to bury her dead brother - dead at the hands of Americans defending themselves against an insurgent attack. There is "right" and "wrong" on both sides - reasons for the Americans to be highly suspicious but insensitive and reason to see the girl as principled but displaying a naive devotion. The book revolves around this tension - this confrontation of wills. What the book was so successful at, in my opinion, was its articulation of how war (especially between such too different cultures) makes getting "what's right" so incredibly hard - how the road to hell is truly paved with good intentions. For, when two people(s) don't understand each other how is it possible for one to really help the other? Helping people and achieving a geo-politcal end under the guise of helping people are not the same thing; this is what the book addresses - whether we can break free of the powers that be in this world (our Creon's - to evoke Antigone) so as to allow us enough room to reach out, to extend ourselves far enough, that we may approach something meaningful being done.

As I was reading The Watch and thinking about it, one of the issues that really struck me was the bipolarization of the American army. This might be a generalization but I tend to split the group into people who are in Afghanistan who want to make a difference and people who are there on orders. Even though I do not have any personal connection to the army, I do sympathize with the men who believe it is their moral duty to take care of common people such as Nizam. On pages 244 to 245, I think there is an important conversation between the Lieutenant Tom Ellison and Captain Connolly. The Lieutenant was trying to convince the Captain to give proper medical care to Nizam on the basis of moral grounds but the Captain would not have any of that. As for the Captain, their responsibility was not towards ethics or any form of charity but towards their mission. In my heart, that is really painful to hear because it entirely removes the innate goodness of humans and actively suppresses any form of compassion towards other people. The Captain also does not seem to understand the position of the Lieutenant or other subordinates at all because the Captain sees them as “suddenly go nuts about this girl.” It is as if the Captain assumes that the men are falling in love but as the reader, that is not the case. Also, I think the Captain is paranoid about everybody who is the “other,” people who are outside the group of people working under America’s interests. However, I cannot really blame the Captain because based on his experience, as he said, he was not going to take chances, where every misstep is potentially life-threatening. Survival is the Captain’s number one concern and I do see a caring heart similar to that of a protective mother. However, the violence perpetrated by the American soldiers seems to be no different than what the French army did in Algeria, as described in Desert Divers by Lindqvist. Even though we can point the blame on either the French or American soldiers for the killing of civilians (“collateral damage”), I think they are not directly to blame because they could be suppressing their emotions for the sake of the higher power.

This book in one I truly couldn't put down. I found myself reading almost the entirety of it in only a few hours and recommending it to everybody I've talked to. As a person who wouldn't typically pick this genre as a typical one to read, I am happy with my purchase as well as the magic of Bhattacharya's writing. He is truly one who has managed to gap the bridge between flashbacks and current situations beautifully.Each and every passage and point of view was one that was engaging and impeccably thought out and diverse from the others. I found myself engrossed in every chapter, learning about a wide variety of cultures, both in the Middle East and the US, as well as people's natural ignorance to them. Bhattacharya's way of writing is not only captivating, but also seems to flow similar to the way a musical masterpiece. One of the passages I feel shows his mastery of writing is a passage in the First Sergent's chapter on pages 169 and 170. In this we are swept away to a warm, dreamy summer night where he is going to meet his girl after coming back on leave. As the passage progresses, the scenery transitions seamlessly from the magic of the summer bayou to the Afghan night he is actually enduring. With this transition you feel almost the same sense of "snap back into reality" that the first Sargent feels, not realizing you are in a flashback until you are thrown back into reality.All in all this is a novel that I will be sure to read again. It was one that kept me engaged at every turn, as well as kept me second guessing my own culture and morals that have been engrained into my mentality. This novel has quickly and unexpectedly become one of my favorites, and I look forward to future novels by Bhattacharya.

On a couple of occasions I nearly bought this book but felt I wasn't quite intrigued enough. I can confidently say I am thrilled I finally gave it a go.A seemingly very simple story line creates a complex combination of emotions, thoughts and actions amongst the main characters and felt by the end that I was there in their base helping to make certain decisions. The writing is simple yet high affective, and I. A number of occasions beautiful, as is the story line.This is not a novel just for war/ military fans, but a novel sensitive to the motivations and emotions of humans, and one I thoroughly enjoyed.

Interesting vehicle for highlighting some of the misconceptions and deeper roots behind the Afghanistan issue. Told as a series of vignettes by each of the main characters in the platoon sent to guard the region. It starts when a young girl turns up to claim the body of her dead brother, killed by the soldiers as an insurgent. Is she genuine or a suicide bomber - the platoon is divided, and each of them tells the story from their perspective, interspersed with their own demons and issues. At times I felt I was getting a little lost in the detail rather than the events, and could have done with a reprise of the last few minutes of the main event, before we got the final denouement. Definitely worth reading.

This highly original novel takes the Greek tragedy of Antigone and transposes it to modern day Afghanistan.Antigone in this case is re-cast as an Afghan woman who appears at the perimeter of an American compound full of beleaguered soldiers. The woman, who has suffered severe leg injuries from an American drone attack which resulted in the annihilation of her family, has come to claim the body of her brother, the man who led a retaliatory attack against the Americans, so that she can bury him according to her faith.The ambiguity of the woman's appearance and the way in which she divides the opinion of the various soldiers - is she who she claims to be, or something more sinister? How should they best deal with her and her request? - are narrated from several perspectives, the first being that of the woman herself.The most resonating of these voices is First Lieutenant Frobenius, a student of Classics at university and a somewhat unlikely soldier. War weary and disillusioned, he has come to view the machinations of the American military and politicians as analogous to those of the Greek tyrant Creon. Attempting to bring their own complicity to his Captain's attention, Frobenius lends him a copy of Sophocles' play, describing it as 'as cogent an analysis as anything you'll find about where we are today'.The prose is haunting and evocative, particularly in the build up to the sand storm attack, and Roy-Batthacharya makes effective use of day dreams and nightmares of previous lives, which work together with ancient Greek legend to convey an overwhelming sense of loss and drive home his central theme of the futility of the current conflict in Afghanistan.

Brilliant! This book has so much depth to it that it needs careful reading. I want to read it a second time as I felt I missed a great deL on my first reading.

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