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chiara_pio's review against another edition
3.0
[i read this in arabic]
i was able to decipher the relation between the chapters and i highly respect the messages she was trying to relay (no seriously the story is good), but i really didn't have to suffer this much to understand which person was narrating every chapter and some characters weren't as important to me but i guess she was trying to show us everyone's side.
i was able to decipher the relation between the chapters and i highly respect the messages she was trying to relay (no seriously the story is good), but i really didn't have to suffer this much to understand which person was narrating every chapter and some characters weren't as important to me but i guess she was trying to show us everyone's side.
peripetia's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
4.5
This was a confusing and challenging book to read. It took my full attention to even keep up with what was going on, and even then I often failed.
The story is highly allegorical with references that I for sure missed. Every line could have been analyzed for hours.
This novel for me was more about the themes than the plot, a story that keeps repeating throughout the book in different forms from different perspectives. I'm sure there are multiple theses out there written about this book from a more literary perspective, but I am woefully uneducated when it comes to literary analysis.
My understanding of this book is probably lacking, but I expect that people in general will draw different things from it. Personally, I haven't stopped thinking about it since I finished it four days ago, and I doubt I ever will.
The story is highly allegorical with references that I for sure missed. Every line could have been analyzed for hours.
This novel for me was more about the themes than the plot, a story that keeps repeating throughout the book in different forms from different perspectives. I'm sure there are multiple theses out there written about this book from a more literary perspective, but I am woefully uneducated when it comes to literary analysis.
My understanding of this book is probably lacking, but I expect that people in general will draw different things from it. Personally, I haven't stopped thinking about it since I finished it four days ago, and I doubt I ever will.
freddie's review
2.0
While the book has interesting ideas about women's bodies and lives in a deeply patriarchal society, this novel reads more like a poem rather than a prose narrative. Characters feel amorphous and blend into one another. POVs jump erratically. There is no sense of what really happens, only the idea of something happening. This does not feel like a satisfying read.
helene0707's review against another edition
4.0
4.5 Stars
A harrowing read. At points I loathed even opening my Kindle because I did not want to go on reading. The novel stirred a form of aversion in me I would only expect from horror stories. As a person who has sworn to boycott Egypt due to their FGM practices, I can only wonder whether the novel holds some truth to it. In a World of patriarchy, the woman becomes the vessel of pain.
In terms of the plot, it is hard to describe what is going on. A postmodernist novel at its heart, the author experiments with causality and point of view. Although difficult to adapt to, I found the techniques well executed. The only downside is in my opinion then the translation to English. The foreword mentions that the author’s husband contributed to the English version. Metaphors seem to have been lost in translation. Would the novel have been different English, had an “outsider” translated it?
Read it if you want a feminist (inside) view of the brutality and naivety of a country torn between reason and desire.
A harrowing read. At points I loathed even opening my Kindle because I did not want to go on reading. The novel stirred a form of aversion in me I would only expect from horror stories. As a person who has sworn to boycott Egypt due to their FGM practices, I can only wonder whether the novel holds some truth to it. In a World of patriarchy, the woman becomes the vessel of pain.
In terms of the plot, it is hard to describe what is going on. A postmodernist novel at its heart, the author experiments with causality and point of view. Although difficult to adapt to, I found the techniques well executed. The only downside is in my opinion then the translation to English. The foreword mentions that the author’s husband contributed to the English version. Metaphors seem to have been lost in translation. Would the novel have been different English, had an “outsider” translated it?
Read it if you want a feminist (inside) view of the brutality and naivety of a country torn between reason and desire.
anushka_adishka_diaries's review against another edition
3.0
“If my body dies my heart will live, but the last thing to die in me is my mind, for it can live on the barest minimum, and everything in me dies before my mind. Not one of you has ever possessed my mind. No one. And no matter how often you took my body, my mind was always far away out of your reach, like the eye of the sun during the day, like the eye of the sky at night.”
✨
Every time I read Nawal El Saadawi I fall short of words. No matter what I say, would ever embody her fierce Feminist spirit.
Her razor sharp words critiquing the fundamentalist regime & status of women in a Patriarchal world, pierce at your heart; and although her works are decades old, they continue to resonate with the brutal realities of our present society.
I'll never limit her work to one nation or a religion, because they sound true for every country & religion driven by right wing ideologies.
"The Fall of the Imam" by Saadawi, tr. from the Arabic by Sherif Hetata, set in a male dominated religious state, ruled by the Imam, follows two grisly events—the first is the stoning & mutilation of a woman and the second is the assassination of the Imam—and these two interconnected events, repeated over & over in the course of time, forms the basis of a horrifying socio-political tale & the misconstrued notions of honor, shame & virginity, that surrounds a woman's life, rendered by a fascist & fundamentalist regime.
Interspersed with heavy imagery, magical realism & non-linear narrative, with characters, their thoughts & identities, indistinguishable at times, this is a difficult read—both in terms of narration & the heavy themes it deals with.
It took me time to get acquainted with the narration, since magical realism this deep, isn't my favorite and it was only when I let go of my idea of forming a coherent story & instead started focusing on the characters & their emotions, I started liking it.
Although I won't call it my favorite novel, yet, the rawness in the writing & depiction of certain scenes left me feeling haunted & hollow, and I will remember that feeling for a long time.
The beauty of this book doesn't lie in the story but the social commentary it forms as its thread.
It's not a book that'll appeal to all but if you're looking forward to reading experimental narrative style & Feminist stories where women are taking up spaces despite the constraints put against their lives, then I'll surely ask you to read this.
✨
Every time I read Nawal El Saadawi I fall short of words. No matter what I say, would ever embody her fierce Feminist spirit.
Her razor sharp words critiquing the fundamentalist regime & status of women in a Patriarchal world, pierce at your heart; and although her works are decades old, they continue to resonate with the brutal realities of our present society.
I'll never limit her work to one nation or a religion, because they sound true for every country & religion driven by right wing ideologies.
"The Fall of the Imam" by Saadawi, tr. from the Arabic by Sherif Hetata, set in a male dominated religious state, ruled by the Imam, follows two grisly events—the first is the stoning & mutilation of a woman and the second is the assassination of the Imam—and these two interconnected events, repeated over & over in the course of time, forms the basis of a horrifying socio-political tale & the misconstrued notions of honor, shame & virginity, that surrounds a woman's life, rendered by a fascist & fundamentalist regime.
Interspersed with heavy imagery, magical realism & non-linear narrative, with characters, their thoughts & identities, indistinguishable at times, this is a difficult read—both in terms of narration & the heavy themes it deals with.
It took me time to get acquainted with the narration, since magical realism this deep, isn't my favorite and it was only when I let go of my idea of forming a coherent story & instead started focusing on the characters & their emotions, I started liking it.
Although I won't call it my favorite novel, yet, the rawness in the writing & depiction of certain scenes left me feeling haunted & hollow, and I will remember that feeling for a long time.
The beauty of this book doesn't lie in the story but the social commentary it forms as its thread.
It's not a book that'll appeal to all but if you're looking forward to reading experimental narrative style & Feminist stories where women are taking up spaces despite the constraints put against their lives, then I'll surely ask you to read this.
wafa_yah's review against another edition
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.25
reading_cure's review against another edition
3.0
An interesting yet confusing work by Saadawi, gives me The Satanic Verses vibes. She has a way of using repetition to give new meaning to the same sentences.
My favourite quotes:
"Here loyalty did not exist except among dogs."
"A buffalo costs more on the market than a woman..."
"I know he will kill me, but it will be with love, not with a bullet."
"'...the treachery of men is allowable by divine law...But the treachery of women is inspired by Satan."'
"And just at the moment when I halted to inhale the odours of my life, the bullet struck me in the back. They always hit me in the back, never stand up to face me from the front."
"The thought of death was in my mind, and yet somehow it never occurred to me that I myself would die."
"...it is not love that kills but its absence..."
My favourite quotes:
"Here loyalty did not exist except among dogs."
"A buffalo costs more on the market than a woman..."
"I know he will kill me, but it will be with love, not with a bullet."
"'...the treachery of men is allowable by divine law...But the treachery of women is inspired by Satan."'
"And just at the moment when I halted to inhale the odours of my life, the bullet struck me in the back. They always hit me in the back, never stand up to face me from the front."
"The thought of death was in my mind, and yet somehow it never occurred to me that I myself would die."
"...it is not love that kills but its absence..."
holasisoymaca's review against another edition
4.0
"Desde el momento en que nací, su voz ha sonado en mis oídos, llamándome en el susurro del viento entre las hojas. Sus facciones son parte de mi memoria, líneas grabadas en su lápida. La veo allí, de pie, una estatua de piedra, bañada en luz, en medio de una bruma oscura. (...) Es una mujer que dio su vida y no recibió nada a cambio. En sus ojos está el dolor del desengaño. (...) Mantiene erguida la cabeza, y sonríe como la mujer que lo ha perdido todo y ha conservado su alma, que ha desvelado los secretos del mundo y traspasado la máscara del cielo."
Si tuviese que describir este libro con una palabra, sin dudas sería 'dolor'.
'La caída del Imán' critica, con una prosa impecable, la hipocresía de la religión (que en este caso es el Islam por el lugar geográfico donde está situado el libro, Egipto, pero podría ser cualquier otra) y de la política liderada por los hombres.
El libro se centra en torno a dos personajes principales: por un lado el Imán, representante de Dios en la tierra, líder político del pueblo y del país, un gran hipócrita que podría describirse en la famosa frase 'haz lo que yo digo, no lo que yo hago'. Por otro lado, está Bint Allah (Hija de Dios), huérfana de madre y posible hija ilegítima del Imán. Me costó comprender que la historia da saltos temporales constantemente de atrás hacia adelante, así que admito que al principio estuve bastante perdida. Aparecen otros personajes, la gran mayoría vinculados al mundo político Imán -el Gran Escritor, las esposas, el Jefe de Seguridad- y otros secundarios menos frecuentes que le permiten al libro profundizar en temáticas como la guerra, la corrupción y el poder, los asuntos del Estado, la traición y el amor.
Se me hizo un poco pesado por momentos. Es un texto bastante ¿experimental? pero doloroso. Hay descripciones magníficas, sea un párrafo o una oración produce el mismo efecto en el lector (de haber leído algo hermoso sin importar la cantidad de palabras), y creo que ese impacto no es algo que pueda decir generalmente de todos los libros que leo.
¿Qué decir del final? Me partió el corazón.
Me gustaría seguir leyendo a esta autora. Me quedé con ganas de más.
Si tuviese que describir este libro con una palabra, sin dudas sería 'dolor'.
'La caída del Imán' critica, con una prosa impecable, la hipocresía de la religión (que en este caso es el Islam por el lugar geográfico donde está situado el libro, Egipto, pero podría ser cualquier otra) y de la política liderada por los hombres.
El libro se centra en torno a dos personajes principales: por un lado el Imán, representante de Dios en la tierra, líder político del pueblo y del país, un gran hipócrita que podría describirse en la famosa frase 'haz lo que yo digo, no lo que yo hago'. Por otro lado, está Bint Allah (Hija de Dios), huérfana de madre y posible hija ilegítima del Imán. Me costó comprender que la historia da saltos temporales constantemente de atrás hacia adelante, así que admito que al principio estuve bastante perdida. Aparecen otros personajes, la gran mayoría vinculados al mundo político Imán -el Gran Escritor, las esposas, el Jefe de Seguridad- y otros secundarios menos frecuentes que le permiten al libro profundizar en temáticas como la guerra, la corrupción y el poder, los asuntos del Estado, la traición y el amor.
Se me hizo un poco pesado por momentos. Es un texto bastante ¿experimental? pero doloroso. Hay descripciones magníficas, sea un párrafo o una oración produce el mismo efecto en el lector (de haber leído algo hermoso sin importar la cantidad de palabras), y creo que ese impacto no es algo que pueda decir generalmente de todos los libros que leo.
¿Qué decir del final? Me partió el corazón.
Me gustaría seguir leyendo a esta autora. Me quedé con ganas de más.
juniperusxx's review against another edition
1.0
Tämä oli niin vaikeasti lähestyttävää tekstiä ja raskasta, että päätin jättää kesken. Joulunpyhiksi kaipaan vähemmällä työllä avautuvaa kirjallisuutta :)
niamhreadgood's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0