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Fiction. Literature. In the village of al-Awafi in Oman, we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a sense of duty; and Khawla, who chooses to refuse all offers and await a reunion with the man she loves, who has emigrated to Canada. These three women and their families, their losses and loves, unspool beautifully against a backdrop of a rapidly changing Oman, a country evolving from a traditional, slave-owning society into its complex present. Through the sisters, we glimpse a society in all its degrees, from the very poorest of the local slave families to those making money through the advent of new wealth. The first novel originally written in Arabic to ever win the Man Booker International Prize, and the first book by a female Omani author to be translated into English, Celestial Bodies marks the arrival in the United States of a major international writer.… (more)
Library's review
This is a family saga which follows the story of three sisters in Oman as the cultural landscape of the nation evolves. The stories of three generations are interlinked and though it is sometimes a bit confusing and one has to often refer to the family tree at the beginning of the book, the glimpses into a culture relatively little known are extremely interesting.
This book confronts Oman’s history of slavery, which was only abolished in the country in 1970. We witness how its dark complexities affect the families at the heart of this novel. “It is a sensitive subject and kind of taboo,” said Jokha Alharthi in an interview, “but I think that literature is the best platform to discuss sensitive issues. And slavery is not exclusive to Oman – It is part of human history”.
This is a most interesting book. CT
User reviews
In a world that is dominated by the needs of men, a world where women are totally subservient and duty bound to serve them, what will happen when modernity interferes with that way of life?
Will cousin still marry cousin, will the marriages be arranged, will women be allowed out of the home, will they be allowed education, will they ever drive or choose their spouse and career? If they obtain more freedom and more rights, will the individuals be prepared to handle them?
As they go from some living in tents in the desert, to others living in luxury, how do their needs and lifestyles change? From the men who expect to be catered to in every way to the women who believe it is their duty to cater to them, how will their lives change if customs and traditions are altered and one gender is no longer totally subservient to the another?
Although it is confusing at times, with so many characters popping up and a timeline that is often not linear, it is written with a prose that is far and above most books today. Filthy language and overt sex scenes to titillate the reader are nowhere to be found as they are in most of the mass produced fiction of today. Rather, the story stands on its own merit.
The novel follows a family from Oman. It takes the reader through the changes in culture, choices, and individual freedoms, especially regarding women’s rights in the Arab world and it travels through world events as these changes occur, illustrating its effects on the family members and servants. It examines the thoughts of several individuals, with insight, as their desires develop and/or change.
With additional freedom comes responsibility. Are any of the characters ready to handle it? Do they even understand what is expected of them since women, especially, are unaware of what goes on in the world around them, are largely uneducated and are ruled by superstition. They are dominated by the rules and wishes of the men around them and have very little freedom of choice. Men are reared to have all their desires and needs attended to by women. Supposedly they only have to show their wives respect, provide for their needs and the needs of the children, in order to keep them happy.
Women are raised to believe that it is their duty to serve men, disregarding their own needs and desires. They are kept largely ignorant of the ways of the world, the workings of the body, and opportunities available to others. When the flood gates open, will women disregard all rules and throw caution to the wind? Will men simply acquiesce to the needs and rights of women? Does the world really change or does morality? How does freedom change the world and the people?
Three sisters with different personalities are followed through their lives, with the preceding and succeeding generation’s fingerprints upon their lives. From wife beating to respecting wives, from subservient women to educated women, from secrets to lies, from change to change, the reader witnesses the growth of a people as it morphs from one entity to another. Rather than the world revolving around the celestial bodies, it begins to revolve around the needs of individual people. As this change takes place there is a rise in decadence and disobedience, so is the change and enlightenment beneficial? The book will make one wonder if it was better before or after the people gained more knowledge, more freedom and obtained greater individual choice. One will wonder what freedom really is.; does it eventually entrap you?
The world was filled with the hypocrisy of rules that kept one sex subservient to the other. There were slaves in the society who actually believed it was their duty to be slaves. When those oppressed were granted rights and greater freedoms, how did that work out for them? As the sheltered women demanded more rights, they were not always prepared to handle them. Did some succeed while others failed? Was the result of modernity beneficial to society or the individual? What was seen was not always what was real. Although someone was perceived in one way, it may not have been the true face or personality of that person. It was how they were taught to behave and present themselves to the world.
The customs around marriage changed and with the changes there were positive and negative results. When a marriage was arranged, it most often lasted. When the young were free to choose their own mates, the choices often failed and rather than men asking for divorce, women soon did, as well. A car was something that occupied a place of honor and symbolized material wealth and success. It had the power of life and death in some parts of the world where it was difficult to travel. Getting to a doctor was tedious and time consuming. Only the wealthy and educated were aware of what tools were available to them. The wealthy were in charge and often were heartless. Even the furniture in the home which once stood for honor and respect in a family, soon evolved into more modern pieces with no ties to ancestry or antiquity.
So, in summary, over about a century of time, as the Omani culture is brought into modernity, the changes bring some positive and some negative effects. Was life better or worse in the end? Depression and divorce were some negative byproducts. What will the reader think was positive and/or negative? It makes for good discussion.
This book is narrated beautifully by the reader. All the characters are appropriately portrayed and his interpretation does not get in the way of the novel’s intent.
But, on reflection, I think it worked. It certainly worked on the Booker International judges. So, worth reading, but not an instant classic.
I loved this book! But I was, sadly, the only one in my book group who did. While I can see why others were less keen, for me, it was just so atmospheric. I should add that I was listening to the audio by Laurence Bouvard and I think this version truly enhanced
It does skip in time (a lot) and this can be pretty confusing. It may have helped that I listened over a few days; I'm sure if I'd taken a break in the middle, I'd have forgotten half of the characters, of which there are many. The book version has a family tree at the beginning, I could really have done with that, but obviously this would not have been compatible with the audio format.
The narrative is basically a bird's eye view of the life of a small community in Al Alwafi, Oman. It covers three generations. The grandparents' generation own slaves and think it quite normal. Their offspring's generation is living in amongst the slaves but no longer owns them. They may work for the family, but they are technically free. By the time we get to the most recent generation, about 40 years ago, many of the slaves have moved off to seek their fortunes, in a very similar way to some of the offspring of the villagers.
Muscat, the capital of Oman, is growing and causing a 'pull' to many of the younger villagers. It offers little by today's standards, but it's considerably more than what is available back home.
Village life is a microcosm, virtually closed to non Arabic speakers, and this book was a wonderful insight into the way people lived and how they saw the world. While travelling in Oman, I have had the occasional opportunity to join with an Omani family for coffee or breakfast, and this book opened up the hidden world behind my fleeting glimpses. Already the concrete dwellings are showing signs of age, but the vacated mud brick houses are washing back into the soil and returning to the dust whence they came.
As well as an insight into village life, I learned about a war that took place in Buraimi (now just over the Omani border from Al Ain, in the UAE). And another that took place on Jebel Aktar, a mountain range currently enjoyed by hikers, climbers and holiday makers to Oman.
I highly recommend the audio version of this book for the spoken Arabic (which I would have just skimmed) and the way the narrator enhances the characters.
Wonderful.
This new child is the prism that shows Omani society. The Oman that she grows up into is changing but still remains very traditional in its outlook, with control from the patriarch of the family. The story is told from a variety of different perspectives each chapter, which occasionally can overlap and get a little confusing. It is not bad overall and is a fast read. What it does do well on though is an insight into Omani culture and customs and the complexity that that arises from family matters.
That rant over with, this really is very good. But don't expect a neat, plot driven narrative. And regardless of the blurb, this is not really about the three sisters Mayya, Asma and Khawla that its claimed to be. What it is is a multi generational tale, told from multiple points of view, of the approach of modernity to rural Oman. This is the story of the pull of the city from the village, the pull of other countries from one's own and what that means for identity, the pull of modern values over traditional ones and, most poignantly, what freedom from slavery actually means in a rigid, patriarchal society.
And being set, mainly, in the village of al-Awafi, it is also about rumour, gossip, innuendo and the breath of scandal. Mayya, Asma and Khawla represent changes to the fabric of village life; Mayya dutifully marries, but her act of rebellion is to name her daughter "London" , to the confusion of all. London has all the opportunities of a modern education and outlook. But does it make her happier? Asma agrees to marriage and moves to Muscat, where here life becomes surprisingly traditional despite the modern environment. Khawla waits patiently for the return from Canada of her feckless teenage love. When he finally returns she does not get the life she expects.
But there are multiple other voices and stories being told here, skipping decades and generations every few pages. Some are more compelling than others; the former slave Zarifa and her family is probably the most compelling. This fragmented structure initially can be confusing , and the reader finds himself frequently consulting the helpful family tree at the beginning of the book. The problem with this is that the family tree reveals relationships that the narrative has yet to reveal. Ah well.
Also, don't expect every narrative thread to be resolved; some relatively important ones are not, at least not definitively. And on a much less important note, I still don't why Salim was being chased through the streets of Muscat by a dude in a Porsche.
But all in all I found it a very interesting narrative well worth the investment of time. As anyone who has visited Oman will know, its a fascinating country and this book is recommended as a way to start to understand some of the stories of its people
In conclusion, skilfully written as a whole, although without any short passages I especially want to quote, and interesting to read but also ultimately tragic in tone.
This book tells the stories of 3 sisters in al-Awabi, Oman. But in order to tell their stories, it must also tell those of their parents, their spouses and their parents, and the slaves that were freed when slavery was ended.
I liked the storytelling in that it is non-linear and comes from multiple viewpoints--you reader has to connect the stories together to get the full picture.
In the end though, I am still confused about Najiya/Qamar, about which families were settled Bedouins and which just worked with the Bedouins, about what hold Salima's family seemed to have over Abdullah's, and who Ahmad's family had been slaves of.
This could have been fuller and richer if it had been longer.
I would love to have read it this way: combining all the chapters for one character, retaining their titles but organized chronologically. For example, there are 22 short chapters called "Abdallah" interspersed throughout the book's 58 chapters. Abdullah is arguably, if not functionally the main character--at least by dint of the fact that he has the most chapters. His chapters are also the only ones in first person, making it unclear who is telling the other stories.
This was a complicated novel, made even more so by the format of the story. The timelines are one that begins with Mayya's marriage to Abdallah (all told in third person); the second is sometime in the future, Abdallah as a first-person narrator recounting his memories (which become strange and don't always appear reliable to me) of the same events. In addition, sometimes in the third-person storyline the memories of a character would tell us something about the past or the omniscient narrator would jump forward twenty years to tell us what happened later to a character. The translator's note praises the format, but I'm not convinced it served the story well. There are many characters and their relationships with each other, and the history of the slave trade, are important, and I found myself referencing the family tree often and wishing for a longer list of all the characters and their relationships, because I had trouble following it. I kept reading because it was, despite the complicated structure, really easy to read. The prose was straightforward, the chapters short, and I was at least mildly interested in learning what happened to the sisters in particular. I would have liked them to be fleshed out a little more, even, especially Khawla, whose story we get in glimpses and then suddenly get about a ten-year update in one chapter. The ending left me confused and unsettled. So on balance, while I'm not sorry I read it, I am hesitant to recommend it.
I was under the spell of this book from the beginning. Alharthi starts with three sisters as her focal point,
I couldn't possibly sum up the plot or even the cast of characters. This unfolds non-linearly with flashbacks, broken memories, and dreams. Not for everyone, but I was entranced.