Frankenstein in Baghdad: A Tale of Fantastical Violence Entwined into the Horror of War
Ahmed Saadawi artfully tells the familiar horror story of Frankenstein’s monster in the backdrop of the US occupation of Baghdad. The city, now a dichotomy of disparate pieces since the war, is a stranger. Saadawi shows how life, for some, remains somewhat the same, yet for others, life has changed all too much. The war didn’t eradicate some evil, but rather simply destroyed whatever it touched good or bad. Hadi, a junk dealer, stitches together pieces of corpses that have been treated like the junk he peddles, into a single body. His hope, to convince the government to treat the dead with respect and give them a proper burial. The corpse disappears, just as people who were involved with the inception of the war are viciously attacked. Soon the attacks mirror the war, destroying not just the perceived guilty, but everything in its path.
As the attacks increase, Saadawi stitches in the stories of others of the city. Reminiscent of the novel, Limbo Beiruit, Saadawi displays the way that citizens of Baghdad all affect each other and harm to one begets harm to many others. One military email leads to the reign of terror from Frankenstein’s monster. Saadawi builds a narrative beyond just Frankenstein or his monster, but of the city itself. Rather than view any character as innocent or guilty, Saadawi attempts to highlight the duality in every character and in the city. For the war to attack someone guilty it must also attack innocence.
Saadawi has Frankenstein’s monster follow the same path as the war to display his overarching message on the violence and horror the war has inflicted on the city of Baghdad – it was pointless. The war didn’t target a specific culture or remove a bad influence, it simple attacked what it could reach; leaving in its wake a scar that spawned just as much evil as it sought to attack. The war created a world for those in Baghdad that was just as surreal as the idea of a corpse shedding putrid flesh and feasting on their neighbors as the headlines in their news today. A world where hunting for blown apart body parts is a normal day’s work. The war didn’t achieve what it intended and left an entire people scrambling mend their shattered lives, piecing them together just as Frankenstein’s monster was. Saadawi’s story paints a vivid picture of senseless violence and horror that resonates with more than just the story of Baghdad, but to the war torn cities of the Middle East and the rest of the world. War can tear apart a people, a place, a culture. Saadawi’s tale begs the question; is the surreal horror of what comes next worth it?
