deeply disturbed woman. She is par ticularly aware of her own absurdi ties, how she pretended to be an emancipated woman, "a whole life inventing balls for myself/' Instead of being free, she has never rebelled against her chains. Her life has been a series of almosts: she almost refused to walk down the aisle to her wedding, she almost leaves her husband, she almost commits sui cide. Her narrative mixes the pres ent with unhappy memories of the past, of how her father made money during the war by taking the prop erty of Jews and her mother did not complain, of how her sons don't love her. Louise often loses control of her emotions: for no reason she calls a young man flirting with a young woman a liar and a dog; on the beach she deliberately throws a child's ball where it can't be found. Hospitalized with a possible cancer, she bites her husband when he kiss es her goodbye, then wonders why he does not come back to see her. After two months in the hos pital, Louise leaves without notice and wanders the streets, consorting with prostitutes and masturbating in sordid hotel rooms before returning to the apartment she shared with her husband. Anticorps is a humorous but cruel portrait of a woman unable to take charge of her own life. Adele King Paris Uzma Aslam Khan. The Geometry of God. Northampton, Massachusetts. Clockroot / Interlink. 2009. 384 pages. $18. isbn 978-1-56656-774-9 The Geometry of God is Pakistani writer Uzma Aslam Khan's fourth novel, and as an anglophone writer living in Pakistan and writing about the lives of Pakistani people, Khan distinguishes herself by her insis tence on using English as a language of aesthetic and literary expression, and not so much the language of a wanna-be Western ethos. Khan's fourth novel strikes us immediate ly as deeply rooted in the ancient and modern history of Pakistan, particularly its archaeological past since two of its major characters are paleontologists?Zahoor, the distinguished Darwinian scientist, and Amal, his granddaughter who becomes the first woman paleon tologist in Pakistan. Paleontology as a metaphor works especially well with this novel about transforma tions: the four main characters? Zahoor, Amal, her blind sister Mehwish, and their friend Noman? all undergo qualitative changes with each new relationship with the world sedimenting into a collective well of humility for the sheer fact of their existence at all. Zahoor cau tions Amal as they walk the old city streets of Lahore: "Search less for the designs of unchanging nature and more for the designs of unchanging men and women." In a prose at times eccentric and whimsical?as in Mehwish's pho nic transcription of the Urdu and English she hears around her?but always precise and poetic, The Geom etry of God traces the fortunes of the four characters and Pakistan from independence (1947) as an Islamic democracy through the military dic tatorship of General Zia and into contemporary times. The geometry of God is an apt metaphor, not mere ly for the blending of science and faith that animates the central con flict in the plot but also for the lov ing spatiotemporal handling of the Pakistani landscape?from the inner courtyards and crowded cities to the Nota Bene Ma?ssa Bey Above All, Don't Look Back Senja L Djelouah, tr. University of Virginia Press A fictionalized account of the aftermath of the 2003 Algerian earthquake, Bey's novel follows a woman as she "makes her way though a city, a life, and a sense of self " destroyed by catastrophe. Adrian Castro Handling Destiny Coffee House A Cuban-Dominican poet and If? priest, Castro's third collection of poetry combines English/Spanish, and Yor.uba. One of his previous works was a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice selection. July - August 2010 i 63 WORLD LITERATURE IN REVIEW ^^ ^^^^^ ^H I Salt Ranges of Punjab as well as the reduction of all this expanse into the eccentric and mystical "boxes" that the blind Mehwish makes for each person she encounters. The novel is divided into five chapters or "Gate...