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A review by kivt
The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif
5.0
This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. It's very well written. All the narratives and narrators flow together well and the structure seems natural by the end of the book.
The novel explains and contextualizes colonialism, both British and American, through deeply human and intimate relationships. While the book does extensively humanize British characters, the narrative & characterization don't tie themselves into incoherent knots to appear ideologically "even-handed." At one point Anna says, speaking of her husband, "It is very hard, listening to him, not to feel caught up in a terrible time of brutality and even he is helpless--save for letters to The Times--to do anything but wait for history to run its course." The Map of Love as a whole is very much about how people deal with this feeling, without being overwhelmingly depressing. I absolutely loved it for that.
I didn't feel Anna's character was particularly anachronistic. Rather, I think she was fairly realistic in the scope of her ambitions and her acceptance of her place as an educated & rich woman in both British and Egyptain social orders. I also liked how Amal's emotional reaction to the characters in Anna's story mirrored both her involvement in her brother and Isabel's romance, and the reader's involvement in both stories.
I didn't understand the point of the weird possible incest connection between Isabel and Omar, though. That felt tacked-on and unnecessary. I'm not sure what it added to the plot that wasn't already accomplished by Omar's concerns about his age and the previous reveal that Omar and Isabel are cousins. It might have made more sense if more of the book were devoted to untangling the web of relationships between Amal and Isabel's families in the generations between them and Anna.
The novel explains and contextualizes colonialism, both British and American, through deeply human and intimate relationships. While the book does extensively humanize British characters, the narrative & characterization don't tie themselves into incoherent knots to appear ideologically "even-handed." At one point Anna says, speaking of her husband, "It is very hard, listening to him, not to feel caught up in a terrible time of brutality and even he is helpless--save for letters to The Times--to do anything but wait for history to run its course." The Map of Love as a whole is very much about how people deal with this feeling, without being overwhelmingly depressing. I absolutely loved it for that.
Spoiler
I noticed some reviewers were less interested in the political/historical parts of the novel, and also less than enthusiastic about the contemporary romance, but obviously these were the parts that really sold me on the book. The political and historical exposition was well delivered through both explicitly expository passages and through Anna and Amal's experiences. Colonial politics not only shaped the characters' relationships, but politics were also deeply important to all of them. They were certainly all in love with Egypt as much as they were with each other.I didn't feel Anna's character was particularly anachronistic. Rather, I think she was fairly realistic in the scope of her ambitions and her acceptance of her place as an educated & rich woman in both British and Egyptain social orders. I also liked how Amal's emotional reaction to the characters in Anna's story mirrored both her involvement in her brother and Isabel's romance, and the reader's involvement in both stories.
I didn't understand the point of the weird possible incest connection between Isabel and Omar, though. That felt tacked-on and unnecessary. I'm not sure what it added to the plot that wasn't already accomplished by Omar's concerns about his age and the previous reveal that Omar and Isabel are cousins. It might have made more sense if more of the book were devoted to untangling the web of relationships between Amal and Isabel's families in the generations between them and Anna.