Links By Nuruffin Farah Sparknotes

I just finish reading the novel Links by Nuruffin Farah, and it is an intriguing story. The characters and incidences in this book are depicted vividly by Farah and at times, I began to believe that they were more than just fictions. I know that Links is a work of fiction that is set against the backdrop of actual events; however, the situations described in the book were very realistic. While reading this novel, the main character Jeebleh took on the role of a liaison between myself and the political crisis of Mogadishu (referred to as Mogadiscio in the novel) that dominates the narrative. The journey that Farah takes the reader on in his story is one that creates links between the individual and the artistic determination as well as links between the novel and the nation state. The nation state of Somalia acts as a political determination of individualism while the novel takes on the role of a medium that is used to symbolically represent the current social and political concerns of the nation state.
Certain situations within the book are extremely unsettling and uncomfortable to read because I could empathize with the characters.
The lived experiences of Jeebleh’s life in the streets of the city and the circumstances he faced in the unsettling times brought up old memories from my past experiences of living in different cities in Nigeria. Links does a wonderful job at tracking Somalia’s history in the 19th and 20th centuries. I especially like how Farah employs Jeebleh as a device to describe the history of Mogadishu. For example, when Jeebleh recalls at one point how many times the land had been invaded, conquered, and colonized, it seems to me like that the facts being stated are from actual events that took place in the history of
Somalia. One of the greatest strengths of Farah’s narrative is in his portrayal of the intricate clan loyalties and the effects it has on the Somalian society as a whole. In the novel, the city of Mogadishu is being ruled and divided up by drug lords and their militias, and this perpetuates the notion of distrust. This leads to the portrayal of Jeebleh’s fate, actions, hates, and aspirations as being interpreted through various political contexts. Descriptions of a war-torn Mogadishu also help to display a poignant view of the personal stories of many people. Their daily lives, which are surrounded by extreme forms of violence are incredibly harrowing. Farah’s passage of a mother’s description of the day her daughter was injured by an American helicopter was one moment in particular from this story that stood out to me. Here is an excerpt of the passage from page 276 of the novel:
"I became hysterical," she continued, "and tore at my bare breast, where my daughter had been nursing. I wailed, I wept, I cursed, I prayed, but to no avail. I tore at my clothes, until I disrobed, convinced that my child had been swallowed up in the sand raised by the helicopter's sudden arrival. Then I saw the shape of evil. Rangers pointing at my nakedness and laughing. I stopped wailing, and covered my indecency, and then cursed the mothers who bore these Rangers. I've never glimpsed worse evil than those men cupping their hands at me, their tongues out, pointing at my nakedness."
This passage really affected me because I could not imagine myself or any women I know experiencing such trauma. Overall, Links was a compelling read, with an interesting band of characters and an engaging plot. Farah’s reflections on war, exile, politics and national identity are developed nicely through the main character, Jeebleh. The thematic figure of an orphan at the heart of this story, and the use of national allegory – meaning that the fate of the protagonist is profoundly linked to the fate of the nation – was a nice touch!