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A review by alisarae
Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi
#AlisaReadstheWorld: Oman
I was quite excited that this book won the Booker Int'l Prize in 2019 because it meant more exposure and opportunities for Arab women to be published. Plus, on a personal level, it helps my quest to read a book by a woman from every country/territory in the world.
In the translator's note at the beginning of the book, there is a very fair warning: the narrative structure is "innovative." Quite honestly, I prefer conventional narrative structures. I've come across a lot of inventive and creative structures in my read-the-world quest, and I haven't liked any of them. But part of the personal challenge is to gain exposure to narrative styles of the global south.
Celestial Bodies is made up of vignettes from a huge cast of loosely-related characters, jumping from first-person to 3rd-omniscient, skipping back and forth from different periods in their lives. For a book that clocks in at a mere 250 pages, it is immensely difficult to follow. I started thinking of each chapter written as an independent short story, and the book became more palatable to me after I stopped trying to keep track of the characters and their relationships to all the others. Because of Oman's rapid ascension into the ranks of wealthy nations, keeping track of where the characters are in history hardly matters—both Bedouin lifestyles and college educated Porsche drivers are in living memory, and not enough time has passed for traditional patriarchal ways to have changed.
Overall, I'm glad I had the opportunity to read this book. I've spent a bit of time in Oman but never really got to know any Omanis. As with all Khaliji nations, the culture is rich, ancient, and diverse.
I was quite excited that this book won the Booker Int'l Prize in 2019 because it meant more exposure and opportunities for Arab women to be published. Plus, on a personal level, it helps my quest to read a book by a woman from every country/territory in the world.
In the translator's note at the beginning of the book, there is a very fair warning: the narrative structure is "innovative." Quite honestly, I prefer conventional narrative structures. I've come across a lot of inventive and creative structures in my read-the-world quest, and I haven't liked any of them. But part of the personal challenge is to gain exposure to narrative styles of the global south.
Celestial Bodies is made up of vignettes from a huge cast of loosely-related characters, jumping from first-person to 3rd-omniscient, skipping back and forth from different periods in their lives. For a book that clocks in at a mere 250 pages, it is immensely difficult to follow. I started thinking of each chapter written as an independent short story, and the book became more palatable to me after I stopped trying to keep track of the characters and their relationships to all the others. Because of Oman's rapid ascension into the ranks of wealthy nations, keeping track of where the characters are in history hardly matters—both Bedouin lifestyles and college educated Porsche drivers are in living memory, and not enough time has passed for traditional patriarchal ways to have changed.
Overall, I'm glad I had the opportunity to read this book. I've spent a bit of time in Oman but never really got to know any Omanis. As with all Khaliji nations, the culture is rich, ancient, and diverse.