One Woman's Unorthodox Unraveling — A Must-Read for 2024
A review of The Coin by Yasmin Zaher.
Too bold and disturbing to forget, The Coin is an absolute match for the contemplative autumn nights that call for a change in perception.
Over a month has passed since I read the book, yet the heaps of feelings it stirred within me remain as present as ever — here’s why.
The Coin by Yasmin Zaher
Deemed one of this year’s most anticipated fiction releases, The Coin has gathered significant hype due to its controversial themes.
The book follows a young Palestinian teacher pursuing her dream of living in New York. Through unorthodox teaching methods and an increasing struggle to maintain control over her newfound life, The Coin observes its unreliable narrator gradually declining into madness — and it’s glorious.
Continuously unsettling and occasionally disturbing, the book invites the reader into the mind of a woman trying to make sense of her past and its impact on the present moment.
By the time we know ourselves, we are already. That is the problem of childhood. It takes you a couple of years to grow up, to be conscious, to make decisions, and by then it’s already too late, it’s just a race against those fateful years.
The Coin is an ode to morality, touching on survival, capitalism and consumer culture. More so, it leans into symbolism and oppression through the narrator’s fixation towards an alleged coin stuck inside her body, with no amount of physical and metaphorical cleansing able to scrub the obsession away.
The narrator’s outwardly expressed strength, indifference and seeming confidence is electrifying — to love is not worth it, she says.
To love is not worth it. The benefits, whatever they are, are mostly a comfort from the relentless emptiness of being human, a separate being alone in the world. They are not worth putting yourself at the mercy of others. This isn’t a secret, I said this to people, I even said it to my students. To love is to be taken hostage, boys, it’s Stockholm syndrome.
The philosophy of blunt opposition to love, however, comes with a price — an often hidden, heart-wrenching loneliness that becomes increasingly accessible to the reader throughout.
I could see myself in their hungry eyes. I could see my mysterious and exotic beauty, it was not a lie, it was the truth. It was also the truth that I was lonely, miserable, and tired.
Reorganisation — both inner and outwardly — is a central theme of the book, materialising and analysing feelings and hurt to the point that it becomes anything but.
Well, at the time I thought speaking would only make everything worse. But with you I see that naming the thing makes it smaller. Pain can be a great field of suffering, or pain can be just an object.
I appreciate the everlasting pursuit towards a complete reset and the return to our roots — whether philosophical or literal, and The Coin attempts to display exactly that.
Maybe pretense was all there was. Fashion is pretense, education is pretense, personality, too, is a form of internalized pretense. I wondered what my true essence would be, if I were solitary, in nature, untamed and unconditioned.
In a way that is guaranteed to leave the reader in shock, the narrator attempts a reset of her own, and it is worth the wait. It was my favourite aspect of the book — observing pure self-realisation to the point of reaching full circle.
Pushing boundaries further one after another, The Coin will be a hit with those looking to delve deep and translate an often distressing stream of consciousness into lessons on love, identity and the essence of life.
