The Map of Love: A Novel

by Ahdaf Soueif

Paperback, 2000

Call number

FIC SOU

Collection

Publication

Anchor (2000), Edition: 1st Anchor Books ed, 544 pages

Description

A story of two love affairs separated by 100 years. It tells of a widow from colonialist Britain who travels to the Middle East in 1900 where she meets and falls in love with an Egyptian nationalist, and how two of their descendants meet in America in 1997 and try to investigate their past.

User reviews

LibraryThing member Sivani
Broadly speaking, literary fiction that touches on politics fall in one of two categories: the first make a few sweeping statements, have the (very) occasional paragraphs with a few high-level details, interspersed with the odd general reference; the second is fairly detailed on the political
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situation - whether historical or unfolding within the context of the novel. Both have their place, serving different purposes in different types of novel. However, the average reader appears to be more comfortable with the former form, rather than the latter, especially when not intimately familiar with the country or countries involved.

Not that I blame them; if the latter kind of novel concerned some obscure South American politics, I would likely feel the same. It is a pity though that this is enough to prevent people from being able to value certain types of books.

Another factor that can trigger reader aversion or fatigue is "foreign names" (think of all the complaints about the Russian patronymics), especially when there is an abundance of them. The death knell in terms of reader opinion to a book seems to be a combination of the two - an (over-) abundance of both foreign politics and foreign names.

The Map of Love happens to have both; it tells two stories, the first of a young widowed English gentlewoman who, at the dawn of the twentieth century on a trip to Egypt becomes enamoured of the country, the culture and its people; the other deals with modern relations of the earlier characters as the end of the twentieth century approaches.

The earlier story is set during the period of the British Protectorate over Egypt, and soon the political situation is seen from the perspective of the educated middle and upper class Egyptians, their aspirations and the British response to their efforts. The modern story, again told from the Egyptian perspective, considers the contemporary state of unrest in Egypt and the changes fundamentalism brought about, frequently ironically (though not overtly) contrasting the situation and its outcome to its former (perhaps naive) expectations. Interwoven is the effect of Western foreign policy on the region.

It is in this contrast, and the honest portrayal of searching people dealing with harsh realities that the strength of this novel lies; the political history Soueif presents is not difficult to follow and is imbued with a sense of urgency and intrigue that served to capture my attention. The portrayal of Egyptian culture is also engaging without descending into sentimentality.

Unfortunately the same can not be said of the love stories for which the above forms at times a backdrop before coming into prominence again. This part of the plot is decidedly sentimental and clicheéd, marring my enjoyment and appreciation of the book.

I find it decidedly ironical then to discover that most readers who disliked the book did so because there was "too much politics" in the book, and too many names and dates.
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LibraryThing member MelmoththeLost
I finally managed to finish this book on the third attempt. It was hard going, no doubt about it, not least because it takes upwards of 50 pages before the reader begins to recognise easily who is speaking or narrating.

The weakness of the whole thing is, to my mind, the role and character of
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Isabel, the American divorcee who sets the whole thing off with her trunk packed with memories and relics of her great-grandmother. I had the distinct impression that Soueif had written an American into the novel in order to give it "Yank-appeal" while in reality Isabel is the shallowest, most superficial, character in the novel and contrasts painfully with the depiction of Anna, her British great grandmother.

Anna had gone to Egypt to see its wonders in the wake of losing her first husband, falls for and marries a lawyer involved in the anti-British Occupation movement and herself becomes involved in and committed to Egyptian politics until her second husband's death. Isabel, by contrast, is essentially driven by a determination to drop her knickers for her famous Egyptian cousin and an obsession with wheedling her way into his and later his sister's lives. The contrast set my teeth on edge and if Soueif originally set out to create "Yank-appeal" she succeeds only in creating a very unpleasant, clingy and dependent American character who gets pregnant in order to trap her man.

As I said, this was an overblown and rather tedious read which would have been much stronger as a novel if Soueif had opted to create something, anything, other than Isabel.

Maybe I'm being unfair - this is not the sort of book I would normally read and I know that others have reviewed it much more favourably.
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LibraryThing member eronston
This novel is set in both modern-era Egypt and colonial Egypt. The more interesting era (and the era discussed in more detail) was the colonial time. The novel focuses on an Englishwoman who comes to Egypt, falls in love with an Egyptian nationalist, and stays to live and marry him. This part of
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the story deals with their relationship and how it develops both personally and politically - it mirrors the sub-plot of the Egyption fight for more freedom from their colonial oppressors. The story takes place also in recent times and follows the descendants of the original couple. These characters are coming together as they research and discover more of their commom past. This more recent plotline also has a subplot (though minor) that mirrors the struggle for Arab independence and identity within Egypt and the Middle East. The book was well written; the tying of the romance between the main characters with the political events kept both plots from becoming too sentimental or too tediously political. There was some anti-Semetic rhetoric, but it was a justified persepective from the characters points of view.
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LibraryThing member DubaiReader
History and romance bound together.

This was quite a weighty read and the first time I read it, 8 years ago, I only gave it 1.5 stars. Having recently re-read it for a book group, I got far more out of it, appreciated the two love stories and didn't get bogged down in the politics. Even so, it's not
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an easy read and there are passages where the politics still became a bit dense. I particularly struggled with the Arab names, the Bashas and Beys etc.

Although we never really know how the trunk of Anna Winterbourne's letters and personal effects came to be in Isabel's possession, I enjoyed wading through her life alongside her great niece, Amal. As Amal reads chronologically through the journals, we learn of Anna's love affair with Sharif, a handsome Egyptian, and how they are both drawn into the events of the time.
Meanwhile Isobel is repeating history by her infatuation with Amal's brother, 'Omar.
It was an excellent tool for investigation into such a significant time in Egypt's history, without allowing the historical facts to become too overbearing.
The descriptions of the day to day life were wonderful and the characterisations were brilliant. I could feel the warm breeze in the private garden, alongside Anna and her new husband, I could almost smell the orange blossom.

There were one or two blips, the one supernatural event towards the end was a bit strange and the ending itself a bit frustrating. Also one genetic question, that I can't mention in any more detail, but which seemed a bit soap opera.
On the whole though, this was a worthwhile read with a fair bit of Egypt's history that I was fascinated to learn about.
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LibraryThing member jane27
Wonderful, wonderful book! read it twice in a row. Evocative and deftly showing connections through time, acorss generations. Beautifully written.
LibraryThing member auntieknickers
Excellent story with many insights into intercultural relationships.
LibraryThing member debutnovelist
Enjoyed this for the love story of Anna and for its evocation of Egypt, but found it over-long and the political side of the story hard to follow (mostly because of all thos Arabic names!) I also wasn't sure that the contemporary sub-plot with the two women added a great deal. Neither of them
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seemed to resove their difficulties, and I didn't feel there was a satisfactory ending for them. I feel the book would have been at least as successsful (and easier to read) if it had concentrated on the historical narrative. Still, I think it will stick in my mind (hence the rating!)
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LibraryThing member ForeignCircus
This lyrical book paints a vivid and moving picture of colonial and modern-day Egypt, and allows the reader to catch a glimpse of the inherently different ways its history is viewed by East and West. Beautiful descriptions and tender scenes invite the reader to share the pain and the joy of
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cross-cultural relationships. The modern-day love story echoes the one from the past, showing how little some things have changed in the last hundred years in Egypt. I highly recommend this beautifully written book.
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LibraryThing member nadaskyg
This book convinced me to marry my husband. The story centeres on characters whose lives are profoundly affected by global events of their time. It reminded me how defenseless life and love can be against politics, violence and prejudice. Moments of happiness are precious yet choices for love
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deemed frivilous. On the other hand, sacrifices for country, religion, ideology are celebrated. This story made me wonder if it would be better the other way around.
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LibraryThing member janey47
This book tells more than one story and winds them together perfectly. Here, it's two love stories that take place years apart in Egypt. One is the story of a British woman at the turn of the century and the Egyptian man she falls in love with, and the other is the story of her great-granddaughter,
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a New Yorker, who falls in love with an Egyptian man in about the late 1990s. They're tied together by a third woman, Egyptian, who is observer and narrator and translator, and whose life we see in part as well. The backdrop of the love stories is the political climate in Egypt and the various difficulties of the Middle East vs. the West, especially as reflected in interpersonal relationships.
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LibraryThing member mrsjwilloughby
Soppy title but intelligent read
LibraryThing member isabelx
This is a wonderful book, in which 2 distant cousins (1 Egyptian, 1 American) piece together the hundred year old romance of the American cousin's English great-grandmother and Egyptian great-grandfather. But it's not just a love story, there is a lot of history and politics in there, comparing the
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situation of Egypt then (nominally ruled by the Turks, but under the control of the British) and now (pressurised by the Americans and the World Bank). I enjoyed it much more than I expected, due to the many facets of the story.
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LibraryThing member thorold
A bit sentimental, and pushes rather a lot of the obvious postcolonial buttons, but I enjoyed it. A good fast read, for all its 500 pages, and plenty of Egyptian atmosphere. The "now-and-then" historical novel form isn't exactly untrodden ground, but Soueif makes a very competent job of it: even
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Lady Anna's slightly stilted Victorian prose sounds almost right. The only point where it goes right over the top is the camel expedition into the Sinai desert. But, as she says herself later in the book: "there have to be camels". You couldn't really imagine a novel about Egypt for Western readers that doesn't include camels and a bit of "native dress".
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LibraryThing member mumfie
This is a very genteel story that is a romance but also explores the clash between Egypt and Britain.
LibraryThing member zeborah
Family saga, but in the form of a family history being uncovered/researched by descendants come together.

Widowed Englishwoman comes to Egypt, 'goes native', and falls in love, not necessarily in that order. A startlingly happy marriage ensues - life isn't without its ups and downs, but culture
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clash doesn't much dent the relationship. In the present day, American woman falls in love, comes to Egypt, and gets to know the sister of her True Love as they together get to know what turns out to be their mutual ancestor.
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LibraryThing member PilgrimJess
“So. Tell me. What do you think? Which is better? To take action and perhaps make a fatal mistake - or to take no action and die slowly anyway?”

This novel centres on three women of three differing nationalities, Egyptian, American, English, one of whom lived nearly a century earlier than the
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other two. An American woman arrives in Cairo looking for someone to interpret the contents of a trunk that she has inherited. Once there she is befriended by an Egyptian woman who agrees to helps her with the task.

The lives of the women are not portrayed in a linear fashion, rather the author reveals each of them piecemeal meaning that the reader discovers the characters and their stories in a way that is akin to how they might unpack the contents of the trunk that is at the heart of the book. Thus the three intersecting stories are revealed to the reader at much the same pace as they are to the characters themselves. This did, however, also mean that it took me a few chapters to realise who was actually telling the story. The family tree at the front of the book was a big help here.

In 1997 American Isabel Parkman, discovers amongst her mother's belongings a trunk and meets and falls in love with, Omar al-Ghamrawi, a famous Egyptian conductor who is known not only for his musical ability but also for his espousal of the Arab cause. As Isabel starts going through the contents of the trunk she realises that, unbeknown to her,she has Egyptian ancestry. Her English great-grandmother, Anna Winterbourne,had married Egyptian, Sharif el-Baroudi, in 1901. On telling Omar about the trunk he suggests that she should take it to Cairo and show it to his sister, Amal, in the hope that she might help translate the Arabic portion of the journals.

Amal immerses herself in Anna's story and in particular the love affair between Anna and the Egyptian nationalist leader who became her husband. Widowed Anna travelled to Egypt in 1900 after her husband's death. Once there she comes to dislike the insular lives of most of the colonial Britons that she meets there. Unlike most of her country men and women she wants to learn the language and about the indigenous people. She wants to experience a side of Egypt that the colonials ignore and one day disguised as a man in order to see the beauties of the Sinai Desert, she and her guide are captured by young nationalists. Her captives are appalled when they learn of her true identity and in their panic hand her over in to the care of the sister of an influential Egyptian lawyer, the man who will come her future husband.

As the two women's' friendship grows so does Anna's doubts about the British occupation of the country, gradually seeing her own nation's presence as being deeply malign as Egypt strives to free itself from the auspices of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire. The longer Anna spends in the country the more sympathetic she becomes towards the Egyptians' cause. Nor do the repercussions of British rule end there. Nearly one hundred years on the legacies of British occupation continue to affect Amal's generation.

Although Britain's influence in Egypt has an important role to play in this novel as it's title would suggest love is the most important element. In particular the fact that love unlike romance comes in many different forms, love of country; love of nature; spiritual love; sensual love; love between family members and friends; love between differing generations.

Soueif cleverly gives an quick oversight of a century of Egyptian politics (unsurprisingly from the biased standpoint of the Egyptians themselves) and in doing so she conveys the sense that whereas love can bind people and nations together politics often only separates them. Equally neither can be fully resolved in one generation instead the ramifications of both are still to be revealed, like a trunk passed from one generation to the next.

''That is the beauty of the past; there it lies on the table: journals, pictures, a candle-glass, a few books of history. . . . You can leaf forward and know the end. And you tell the story that they, the people who lived it, could only tell in part.''

I found this an accomplished piece of writing from an author whom I had not previously read before, an surprisingly engaging and detailed portrayal of LOVE in its many forms.
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LibraryThing member jonfaith
Last fall my wife read about the BBC/Fox production of Taboo starring Tom Hardy and an amazing supporting cast. What could possibly fail? Well, we waited for all the episodes to air and having recorded them sat to binge. Along the way I noticed Guardian headlines bemoaning the show. My best friend
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who doesn't believe in dvr dismissed the show as macho mumblecore. Still, I harbored hope. What an utter waste Taboo proved.

So I went to Cincinnati the other day to buy books. I found a nice copy and looked forward to settling down with what had been described by a GR friend as (A.S. Byatt's) Possession in Egypt. The weather turned really cold yesterday and I thought why not? Well, 516 pages later, I do not understand the parallel. There are two story lines, almost a century apart. There are journals and letters. The troubled travails of Egypt are explored through the casual racism of the British Occupation and the contemporary (circa 1999) fears of US/Israeli hegemony in the region. Most of this is approached obliquely, though the resistance to Mubarak is balanced with fears of the jihadi. There are mirrored situations where love conquers all and I felt my chest ache from repetitive sighing. This wasn't for me.
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LibraryThing member brigidsmith
A love story about an English widow and her marriage to an Egyptian gentleman at the end of the 19th C. This story was so romantic it made me ACHE!! I loved it, and have since bought it as a present for a friend. I would give it more than 5 stars if I could!!!
LibraryThing member steller0707
The Map of Love By Adaf Soueif

Beautifully written love story set against both contemporary Egypt and the early 20th century tumultuous British occupation. There is much detail about Egyptian history and the culture of the Arabic society, related in letters and dialogue. While it might be
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advantageous to have a background in this era, the broad outline is apparent and accessible.

At the heart is a family history and a love story, the intertwining of two cultures- the lovely British Lady Anna and the upperclass Egyptian lawyer Sharif Basha al-Baroudi who can only converse together in French.

The beautifully described scenery, the family home, the color and feel of the women's silk gowns were vivid. Indeed, when Amal writes, after reading Lady Anna's 1901 journal entry about her betrothal . . .

"Looking up from Anna’s journal I am, for a moment, surprised to find myself in my own bedroom, her trunk standing neatly by the wall, my bed, the top sheet folded back, waiting for me to ease myself in. I had been so utterly in that scene, in the hall of the old house, in my great-grandmother’s haramlek. My heart had beaten in time with Anna’s ..."

- I felt exactly how she felt, so immersed was I in the story. The events that affect this family had deep roots that continue to be felt in this troubled region of the world today.
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Pages

544

ISBN

0385720114 / 9780385720113
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