Chaos of the senses

Author's name: Ahlam Mosteghanemi

The second part of the trilogy by writer Ahlam Mosteghanemi, after "Memory in the Flesh." The author, the heroine of the novel, seeks to write a new book. She meets a journalist, and a love story develops between the two. The author then discovers that her lover is obsessed with "Khaled Ben Tobbal," the hero of her first novel, a painter who lost an arm in the War of Independence and signs his articles with his name. She borrows a book from his library and marvels at the handwritten marginal notes alongside the original text. Like "Memory in the Flesh," "Chaos of the Senses" is a love story with three protagonists, not two. By chance, during the final meeting between the lovers, when Khaled tells her that he no longer wants to be together, she learns that the house he lives in and the library it contains do not belong to him but to Abdelhak, his journalist friend, who is fleeing Islamists who have threatened to kill him. Thus, the author discovers that she is repeating the same scenario from the story "Memory in the Flesh." The one she loves is not Khaled, but his friend Abdelhak. As usual, love misses the target.