Most helpful customer reviews
|
|
4.0 out of 5 stars
Multigenerational saga of Egyptian women ~1945-1990, Feb 9 2004
This novel of soap opera style love, honor and family secrets is intelligently told against a backdrop of Egyptian politics with a feminist theme focusing on the oppression of women in a male-dominated society of centuries long tradition. The rights of women and men in Egypt are drastically different. There is a passage in the book where one woman decrees that women should be informed by their husbands if they are being divorced, informed if they are taking a second or third wife, be given the right to divorce their husbands if they are being physically abused...basic rights that I expect as an American woman. A young woman in the novel dishonors her family by being raped, another because her hymen was broken innocently and she would not produce blood as proof of her virginity on her wedding night.Amira is the matriarch of the prosperous Rasheed family. The story begins in 1945 and it is Amira's ever-present voice throughout that links the many women and children as their lives unfold through the years until the end of the book in the early 90's. Her husband has died and her son Ibrahim is now the head of the family. His first wife dies while giving birth to his daughter Camelia. Driven by grief and shame for not having a son, he curses God and disappears to Europe. He comes back with an English wife, Alice who also bears him a daughter, Yasmina. Although they want more children, the couple has bad luck with subsequent pregnancies and like many men in Egypt, Ibrahim becomes obsessed with producing male heirs. He takes the drastic measure of claiming the son of a beggar girl as his own. Most of the story focuses on Amira, Ibrahim, Alice, Camelia and Yasmina although there is a large cast of supporting characters. I was appalled by the lack of rights and limited choices for women. It was entertaining and educational without being overly preachy or political. It was a fairly long book at 600 pages, but I really enjoyed reading it. Recommended.
|
|
|
5.0 out of 5 stars
Women in Islam, Oct 28 2001
By A Customer
This was one of those absolutely delicious books that I eat up like an exquisite food. Jasmine is an Egyptian woman, banished by her father from his wealthy household when he discovers that Jasmine was raped, and therefore has dishonored the family. This is one of the many injustices encountered by the women characters in this story in a society dominated by men who justify their actions by their religion. Some of the women accept this, but a few struggle to speak out for equality and modernization, often at the risk of their lives. I finished reading this book two months after the terrorist attack on New York, when there is a lot of talk about fundamentalist Islam. The plot includes the ideas of killing for the sake of God, of fundamentalists striving to return Egypt to its old ways, restricting women's freedoms, and beating them if even an ankle shows. In spite of this ugliness, there is much romance, passion, sexual longings, and family secrets that weave throughout several generations of the wealthy Rasheed family, as their lives coincide with changing political tides in Egypt, beginning with the monarchy of King Farouk, and passing through succeeding presidencies. There is gentle suspense and intrigue, and characters to love as well as to hate. All this made for a delicious story, yet because of its setting and focus on Islam, I was constantly pulled to think about the reality of it in relationship to current events. It's very enlightening, and though fiction, an important book for understanding the present time.
|
|
|
5.0 out of 5 stars
SUPERB!!!, Sep 14 1999
Lets just say I prefered reading than eating or sleeping. I couldnt put it down once I had started reading it. I love the way she combines history with fiction, love and hate, real with unreal... I could read it a thousand times and never get tired.
|
|
|
Most recent customer reviews
|
by Barbara Wood
by Barbara Wood
