Eating Ice Cream in Armageddon by Gabriel Bacopa (Book Review #49)

 

There is a lot to cover in this book even though it consisted of three completely different short stories.

The first story is about Robert, a great professor of Philosophy in the 21st center and his teaching at the Yale University. He isn’t the most punctual teacher. However, he never misses a class. One day his strike ends, and he misses one session. The school sends a patient that suffers from hebephrenic schizophrenia in his place. The students being unaware of this fact start debating philosophical and theoretical content with him, and to the reader’s astonishment, he can handle them all. Starting from the comparison between the ghost and mush he ends up dazzling all the students questioning everything. This was very comedic, funny and delightful to read.

The second story is about an Arab boy named Michael falling in love with a girl named Halima, in an ice cream shop. His background is very confusing, and even Micheal does not know how to explain it. There are political references mentioned in this story regarding the Israel- Palestine situation and even though it is forbidden for them to talk to each other they end up running away together after a bomb explosion near the mall they were hanging out. The dialogue between the two lovers was childish and had no depth. The overall story had no consistent plot; it was confusing, and some parts kept repeating themselves.

Letters from the Fourth Reich, the third story, is a collection of emails/ letters back and forth between Labeeba & Gabriel. The overall take on the exchange was similar to a dialogue between two people in love. However, what was disturbing was that in one instance Labeeba informs Gabriel that she suffers from mental illness and Gabriel in return responds with “Please don’t make your personality disorder an excuse for you not working.

Honestly, I think you’re a lazy bum”. People that suffer from mental illness are not lazy and are certainly not using their situation to stay at home and not work. Although this is a fictional story, I found that a little offensive later did I find out that the Author is also suffering from such an affliction which made more sense to the whole third story. He wished to express how others might think or treat ones that suffer from mental issues.

I believe this Author has great potential in writing and look forward to reading more of his work.

Written by Jeyran Main

This review as kindly requested by the Author, Gabriel Bacopa.

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