Gulf
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$10.35
Description
Tom has always known his younger brother Andy (special name, Figgis) was a bit different. One morning in August when Figgis is twelve, Tom suddenly wakes up to find him shouting in the dawn. He shakes him only for Figgis to fight back viciously. When he snaps awake, Figgis says he was dreaming, and the radio over breakfast tells them the Gulf War has just begun. While Figgis shaves his hair, waking Tom up at night speaking in a strange language, Tom has a wonderful time playing rugby with his father's team. But it's his last fully happy day. Tom contacts 'Latif', the boy within Figgis, to find out about the bunkers, the guns and the army in the desert. As the Gulf War draws to a close, and life for Latif becomes harder, Figgis's condition gets worse. The family are forced to take him into a mental hospital. They are divided as Tom witnesses Latif's experiences through Figgis, while his down-to-earth parents enjoy the Americans' triumphs over Iraq. He stays with Figgis and together they live through the last moments of Latif's battle. Figgis, thankfully, remembers nothing of his experience, but Tom cannot look at the world in the same way again. He will never forget.
Customer Reviews
Great Book
this kid tom his borther figgis always seemed dreamy thoughout the book. but his family wasnt always the coolst people and they wernt prepared for what was going to happen in the gulf. tom heard his brother figgis shouting at night in a language he dosent understand. LAtif, an iraq boy fighting in the gulf, is somehow communicating through figgis. figgis can see and feel all the horrors of the war.
tom watchs his brother's grip on reality slip away. as the war draws to its violent climax, will fiiggs win his battle for sanity.
2006-06-06
| zak | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4
Awful...
I was recently forced to read this book in class. It is the sort of book that i would ever choose to read or enjoy, and this probably affects my judgement of the book.
To begin with, it starts by trying to hook your attention, using the past tense in regards to the narrators brother and all the way through drops hints as to what happens in the insipid ciimax, this i disliked strongly, as a good book should be able to keep you reading without obvious "cliffhangers"
The characters are under-developed, apart from Figgis who is the only character who i share any sympathy with. The narration, done by Tom, Figgis' brother, is littered with metaphors and similies and this is unlike any male i know of.
I was, all in all, disappointed with my english teacher for choosing such a dull book for my class.
2004-12-02
(Surrey, UK) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 1
Essential!
This book made me cry. All three times I read it. It succeeds completely in its goal of making you see the Gulf War from the other side, the side of the "enemy" Iraqis. "Gulf" is about a British boy, Andy, who has a strange emphatic gift. He can identify with anyone or anything, from an injured baby squirrel to an African witch-doctor he reads about in the paper. He seems to be a bit psychic. His family is used to his strangeness, so when he starts dreaming about the desert, they think nothing of it. His older brother, the narrator, is only entertained by Andy's half-asleep retelling of these dreams, which coincide with the first war in Iraq. Soon enough though, Andy can't be fully awakened. He will only speak in a gutteral language that is unfamiliar to them and stalks around as if he is under attack. He has traded bodies with a young Iraqi soldier, under attack by the Americans and fiercyly loyal to Sadam Hussein. This book is really short and gripping. You will be thinking about it for much longer than it takes you to read it. Why did we go to war? Why are we at war again?
2004-05-06
| a writer and layabout (Brooklyn, NY USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5
This review does not do Gulf ANY justice.
Gulf, by Robert Westall, is an amazing, amazing book. I read it recently during the war against Iraq. It was the seventh time I have read the book.
Gulf is about Figgis, a strange child who does abnormal things. In the book, they are called his Things. He will see something, hear something, read something, or discover a piece of information and immediately connect with it.
He will obsess over the Thing for days until it is simply over. Then he'll find a new Thing.
One of his most peculiar things happened when he saw an article in the newspaper. On the front page was a picture of a man. There was no caption underneath the picture with his name. Figgis suddenly wanted to write to the man. His parents managed to find out where the man lived, but they didn't know his name. Figgis wrote the man a letter. He began it, "Dear Charlie." When Figgis received a letter from the man, it was signed Charlie. It was addressed "Dear Andy", Figgis' real name. But the odd thing was that Figgis had signed the letter to Charlie "Figgis."
Then one night, Figgis' brother finds Andy muttering in a strange language. When Figgis awakes, he doesn't remember ever doing it and he can't speak the language. After that, it happens more and more. Every night, Figgis becomes someone else. He doesn't know Tom, his own brother. He climbs to the rooftop one night and sits there, speaking in the strange, harsh language, muttering to himself.
After a while, you find out what has happened to Figgis. He is speaking Arabic. He is experiencing what a soldier in the Gulf War is.
Figgis is taken to a mental hospital. There he speaks the language to himself, wears Army clothing, builds bunkers around himself, and uses a gun that the hospital staff found him. The Arabic soldier has taken Figgis over. Figgis not only experiences the soldier's life at night, now he IS the soldier the entire day.
Everything is made worse by everything else. Figgis no longer exists. It is like some terrible disease has taken him away from his family and friends. His dad, a true patriot, is always screaming at the television and watching in glee as more enemy soldiers are killed. Now his son is one.
This book is a somber, scientific read. It's definitely not for everyone. Also, true patriots who think that their country is always in the right shouldn't read this book. Some of it has to do with whether war is ever right. It points out that the soldiers on the other side are just as real as we are. They think that their view is more right than ours and they are also willing to die for it.
Later on in the hospital, when Figgis returns to himself for a few brief moments, he says to Tom that maybe his position is to make up for all the people out there who don't give a damn about who's going to die, and who is going to be wounded. Maybe Figgis' terrible state is because no one in his family except Tom really cares about the other side of the war. His father just wants to see as many dead men from the other side as he can. Tom's mother is sympathetic, but perhaps not enough. Maybe Figgis must suffer because NO ONE except those actually fighting wars seems to care about them. I have to admit that I didn't even know what the Gulf War was until I read this book.
Gulf is an amazing title because it's not only about the Gulf War, it's about the Gulf between us and everyone dying out there, it's about the Gulf between happy if not normal kids and kids who are soldiers. It's also about the Gulf between the real Figgis and the soldier he becomes.
This book might change your life. But if you're stuck in your own point of view and you can't handle all the horrible, maybe even possible things that happen to Figgis, don't read this book. Everyone else, give this amazing, thought-provoking, life-changing, better-than-any-book-I've-ever-read-and-that's-saying-something-because-I-read-EVERYTHING book a chance.
2003-06-30
| Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5
This was a great book
The book starts out with Andy's (Figgis) brother, Tom, talking about Figgis's strange dreams he has. He says about Figgis knowing almost the entire life story of both a medicine man and an Ethiopian woman. Then one day, Tom finds his brother trapped inside of an Iraqi soliders body, and no way of getting out. This book is really good for someone who likes war novels with a little mystery in it. Two thumbs up!!
2003-06-04
| Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5
