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- 4 de Mar, 2020
The novel Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma follows a troubled family struggling to survive. The main characters are Lochan and Maya, the eldest siblings who fall in love and begin a romantic relationship that later escalates into the sexual. At the start of the novel, their father is absent and their alcoholic mother is so negligent she may as well be absent. This forces Lochan, 17, and Maya, 16, to step in and care for their three younger siblings, Kit, Tiffin, and Willa, turning them into de facto parents. Lochan and Maya are best friends at the outset, and they later become so close that they fall in love.
Forbidden is written in the present tense, and it follows an alternating narrative. Every odd-numbered chapter is presented from Lochan's point of view, and every even-chapter from Maya's. While effectively running their household and serving as ersatz parents to their younger siblings, as well as handling the day-to-day difficulties of life as teenagers, their relationship quickly escalates to a romantic and later sexual one. The catalyst for this is when another boy at school briefly dates Maya, which causes both her and Lochan's feelings for each other to finally emerge. From then on, they agonize over the forbidden character of their relationship while advancing it slowly over a period of several months, eventually culminating in them having sex. But this leads to tragedy, setting off a sequence of events that ends in Lochan's suicide while in police custody.
The novel's main strenglth is its characters; every single one of them come across as real people, governed by their internal contradictions and inconsistencies. For example, Lochan is deeply introverted and socially awkward, shunning social interactions repeatedly. Yet, he harbors a deep, inner desire for the very social relationships he seeks. As another example, his younger brother, Kit, relentlessly rebels against Lochan's authority as the eldest sibling, yet sometimes expresses a fondness for the rest of the family.
The crux of the story is in the developing incestuous relationship between two siblings. When Lochan and Maya aren't struggling to keep the family together, each of them is either engaged in physical acts of incest or through their respective inner monologues justify their incestuous interest in each other. Now, they shouldn't have to do this; consensual incest is inherently justified. Their justifications invite the reader to reflect on their own biases on the topic of incest, as well as social attitudes towards it generally.
By the time they have sex towards the end of the novel, Lochan has turned 18 and is therefore an adult in the UK. However, Maya is still under-18, which makes her a minor, even though she appeared to fully consent to the sex. This is an important plot point, as towards the end Lochan is arrested for allegedly raping his underage sister, even though their sex was fully consensual. He wants her to claim she was raped in order to spare herself any possible legal repercussions and to take all of such a burden on himself.
The topic of incest generally is inherently interesting. I think it goes without saying that consensual incest should be fully legal, as there should be no restrictions on anyone's ability to love one another. The fact that they must keep their relationship a secret owing to the illegality of it is a major contributing factor to Lochan's suicide in police custody at the end. Were it not for the unjustifiable taboo and criminal sanctions against incest, he wouldn't have done so, and both characters would've still been alive at the end.
This means Lochan was effectively murdered by an uncaring, hateful society that wants to suppress true love. In turn, the core message of the novel is that consensual incest should not only be legal, but celebrated as the purest form of love in the world. This is a message I think we can all agree with. People who love each other shouldn't be prevented from sharing their love just because they're related. If, say, an 18 year old guy and his 36 year old mother fall in love and want to start a family of their own, they should be allowed to do so, like any other couple. Anything else is completely unjustifiable.
Everyone should read the masterpiece that is Forbidden. It features amazingly realistic and detailed characters, a compelling plot, and a message that should resonate with everyone who reads it. It's one of the greatest novels of all time.
10/10
Forbidden is written in the present tense, and it follows an alternating narrative. Every odd-numbered chapter is presented from Lochan's point of view, and every even-chapter from Maya's. While effectively running their household and serving as ersatz parents to their younger siblings, as well as handling the day-to-day difficulties of life as teenagers, their relationship quickly escalates to a romantic and later sexual one. The catalyst for this is when another boy at school briefly dates Maya, which causes both her and Lochan's feelings for each other to finally emerge. From then on, they agonize over the forbidden character of their relationship while advancing it slowly over a period of several months, eventually culminating in them having sex. But this leads to tragedy, setting off a sequence of events that ends in Lochan's suicide while in police custody.
The novel's main strenglth is its characters; every single one of them come across as real people, governed by their internal contradictions and inconsistencies. For example, Lochan is deeply introverted and socially awkward, shunning social interactions repeatedly. Yet, he harbors a deep, inner desire for the very social relationships he seeks. As another example, his younger brother, Kit, relentlessly rebels against Lochan's authority as the eldest sibling, yet sometimes expresses a fondness for the rest of the family.
The crux of the story is in the developing incestuous relationship between two siblings. When Lochan and Maya aren't struggling to keep the family together, each of them is either engaged in physical acts of incest or through their respective inner monologues justify their incestuous interest in each other. Now, they shouldn't have to do this; consensual incest is inherently justified. Their justifications invite the reader to reflect on their own biases on the topic of incest, as well as social attitudes towards it generally.
By the time they have sex towards the end of the novel, Lochan has turned 18 and is therefore an adult in the UK. However, Maya is still under-18, which makes her a minor, even though she appeared to fully consent to the sex. This is an important plot point, as towards the end Lochan is arrested for allegedly raping his underage sister, even though their sex was fully consensual. He wants her to claim she was raped in order to spare herself any possible legal repercussions and to take all of such a burden on himself.
The topic of incest generally is inherently interesting. I think it goes without saying that consensual incest should be fully legal, as there should be no restrictions on anyone's ability to love one another. The fact that they must keep their relationship a secret owing to the illegality of it is a major contributing factor to Lochan's suicide in police custody at the end. Were it not for the unjustifiable taboo and criminal sanctions against incest, he wouldn't have done so, and both characters would've still been alive at the end.
This means Lochan was effectively murdered by an uncaring, hateful society that wants to suppress true love. In turn, the core message of the novel is that consensual incest should not only be legal, but celebrated as the purest form of love in the world. This is a message I think we can all agree with. People who love each other shouldn't be prevented from sharing their love just because they're related. If, say, an 18 year old guy and his 36 year old mother fall in love and want to start a family of their own, they should be allowed to do so, like any other couple. Anything else is completely unjustifiable.
Everyone should read the masterpiece that is Forbidden. It features amazingly realistic and detailed characters, a compelling plot, and a message that should resonate with everyone who reads it. It's one of the greatest novels of all time.
10/10
