tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30395167.post1050175067278993523..comments2023-08-15T07:41:19.933-05:00Comments on <center>Slaves of Golconda</center>: Yacoubian Building FailQuillhillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601080339912553168noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30395167.post-8412185753881402542012-06-07T06:23:50.607-05:002012-06-07T06:23:50.607-05:00Stefanie, have you read Reading Lolita in Tehran? ...Stefanie, have you read Reading Lolita in Tehran? I've been doing a readalong with Jodie, and although we're talking about Iran here, not Egypt, the issue is once again with an Islamic culture. The memoir is written by a woman professor who was forced out of her job eventually, due to the intolerable difficulties of working under the religious regime. She sets up a reading group at home with her favourite women students and they read 'forbidden' books like Lolita. Daisy Miller and Jane Austen. The problems with women's sexuality are paramount. Islam has such terror and disgust for it. I think it's hard for us to believe what the women have to put up with in these countries, but it is no exaggeration.litlovehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10952927245186474480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30395167.post-65574451564804800582012-06-03T08:12:32.310-05:002012-06-03T08:12:32.310-05:00Stefanie, one book that approaches Cairo from a ve...Stefanie, one book that approaches Cairo from a very different perspective is Ahdaf Soueif's <i>In the Eye of the Sun</i>--there the focus is much more middle-class and professional (the protagonist is the daughter of university professors, for instance).Rohan Maitzenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12111722115617352412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30395167.post-13485677709379983822012-06-02T09:37:06.524-05:002012-06-02T09:37:06.524-05:00You make a good point Rebecca, and maybe that is w...You make a good point Rebecca, and maybe that is what Aswany was going for. But that he only portrayed women as sexual objects still makes it hard for me because, while it may be the fate of many Egyptian women, it is not the fate of all. I would have liked to get a glimpse of what it might be like for an educated professional woman in such a society.Stefaniehttp://somanybooksblog.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30395167.post-71132162654141633232012-06-01T14:48:02.752-05:002012-06-01T14:48:02.752-05:00I think the portrayal of women and gay men is comp...I think the portrayal of women and gay men is complicated, and I thought a lot about it as I read too. For me, the portrayal of women illustrated the injustices they suffer and how impossible it is for them to move beyond being sexual objects, and it seemed that the narrative stance served to point this issue out and perhaps get the reader's sympathies for the women. I saw the portrayal of women as part of the larger social critique of corruption and injustice. I do agree with you about the Idris story; that "origin" story is troubling.Rebecca H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/10825532162727473112noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30395167.post-82999843247160693132012-06-01T08:14:47.150-05:002012-06-01T08:14:47.150-05:00Souad's story was very sad and really drove ho...Souad's story was very sad and really drove home how powerless the women in this book were. And in some ways many of the men were trapped too. But the men were able to exercise at least a limited freedom in all cases where the women were not. I would have liked one woman character who wasn't so completely powerless. Hatim's mother was a working professional, it would have been nice if there could have been a character like her to balance out the other women. <br /><br />Each story had it's own sort of plot but the book as a whole didn't have a plot. Like I commented to Rebecca, I think the book's structure would have been better as a series of interlinking stories rather than a novel. I suspect I might have been able to enjoy the book more if it had been stuctured differently.Stefaniehttp://somanybooksblog.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30395167.post-50373567450460404652012-05-31T20:29:33.878-05:002012-05-31T20:29:33.878-05:00I had a lot of questions about women in the novel ...I had a lot of questions about women in the novel as I was reading too. I think it's tricky (maybe because of the translation) when Al Aswany is using a kind of indirect discourse--that's how I read the passage you quote about the women who live on the roof and their sex lives, for instance, which I didn't take to be an authoritative comment. But I can't be sure I'm reading it "right." With Busayna and Souad, it's also tricky. Busayna does try to get ahead by working rather than using her body but she is so surrounded by people who expect that of her that she can't figure out a better way. Didn't you think that Souad's story is presented so that we can't help but feel sad and frustrated by the way she is hemmed in, even before the terrible forced abortion?<br /><br />But the problem of authorial positioning was definitely there for me, also in the story of Hatim.<br /><br />I'm interested that you say there's no plot: it's true in the sense that there's not really one plot that combines all the characters, but I felt that the idea of the microcosm of society gives us a kind of story about Cairo or Egypt at that moment that is unifying. And each individual story had quite a bit of plot.Rohan Maitzenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12111722115617352412noreply@blogger.com