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3.33 AVERAGE
3.33 AVERAGE
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
It was hard to get through, with a lot of beautiful prose. Arabic lit fic.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual violence, Islamophobia, Religious bigotry
Moderate: Torture
It is interesting reading this book after discovering that El Sadwaal camped out in Tahir Square. Zeina is a book about the roles or lack of them that men and women are forced to play. The primary focus is on the treatment of women.
At first glance the novel appears to be a story about Bodour and her illegitimate daughter Zeina, the novel is more a story of alternating viewpoints, mostly those of various women, but every so often a view of a man creeps in. It also deals with how religion can be used to subjugate, not just in Islam but also in Christianity and Judaism.
The use of language is beautiful and pointed. From a statement like “How He [God] command a woman to desire her husband when he dominated her” to a description like “Her [Zeina’s] eyes were two blue volcanic stones, two dark flames that changed with the movement of the earth around the sun”.
If you are not bothered by the shifting viewpoints and lack of traditional structure this is a lovely book.
At first glance the novel appears to be a story about Bodour and her illegitimate daughter Zeina, the novel is more a story of alternating viewpoints, mostly those of various women, but every so often a view of a man creeps in. It also deals with how religion can be used to subjugate, not just in Islam but also in Christianity and Judaism.
The use of language is beautiful and pointed. From a statement like “How He [God] command a woman to desire her husband when he dominated her” to a description like “Her [Zeina’s] eyes were two blue volcanic stones, two dark flames that changed with the movement of the earth around the sun”.
If you are not bothered by the shifting viewpoints and lack of traditional structure this is a lovely book.
This novel embodies a very powerful voice for women, Arab women in particular, uniquely presented with eloquence as much as bite. Took me through some extreme emotions here, and even the underlying sense of feminism didn’t save us in the end.
there are no chapters!! but once you get used to the structure of this book, you really enjoy the written prose by Nawal. It’s also interesting to see the conflict between religion (judaism, christianity and islam) and morality. but the ending was predictable, and some parts were redundant.
Very mixed feelings about this book (debating between 3 starts to 2 stars) I feel like a lot of the ideas and conflicts were repeated so often it became redundant. I wouldn’t say it’s a plot driven book, but it does pick up its pace at moments. The prose is beautiful but the characters were two dimensional and weren’t engaging. There is a lot of jumping between perspectives and maybe that isn’t for me. I found that the ending wasn’t as impactful, and almost predictable. The ending only picked up in the last 10 pages and it felt slightly disconnected from the rest of the story. Nonetheless the characters’ conflicts with religion and morality was really interesting and reflective of their society. I just wish that instead of circling around the same issues and same dilemas throughout the entire story, something more was presented.
Zeina follows the lives of Zeina bint Zeinat, the biological daughter of Bodour, Bodour's other daughter Magheeda, Bodour's husband Zacharia, Bodour's cousin "the emir," and a whole cast of characters who appear, disappear, re-appear, die, live again, or are lost forever. At 19, Bodour becomes pregnant with a fellow protester, Nassim. He is killed shortly thereafter (don't worry, that's not a spoiler). Afraid of the scandal of having an illegitimate child, Bodour abandons her daughter, Zeina, on the street. Zeina grows up to become one of the foremost performers in Egypt, mesmerizing fans and critics alike - appearing and disappearing as a mirror by which the subjects of the book analyze their own successes and failures.
Really, though, this book is a glimpse into the mind of a woman who is dead while still alive. The narrative is disjointed and dream-like, returning over and over again to a few snippets of experience. It is unclear when in time certain passages occur, and often a 2-page passage of plot will end with the person waking up. It's a bit of a maddening read, but so lyrical - and so much like memory itself - that the recursiveness is an asset.
That's not to say that the book didn't have flaws. El Saadawi is definitely didactic. Just as there are snipets of experience that appear over and over, there are viewpoints that do as well. The senseless violence of men, the devaluation of women in religion (not just Islam), how men want to control women. It gets a little tiring. The men in the story (except for the few who die too early to become corrupted) rape anyone and everyone: children, their wives, sex workers, servants, and others' wives. Only in the last part of the book does the narrative go beyond the senseless violence men do to women, and on to the agency of women. Which is not to say that senseless violence by men is not worth writing about, but that as a reader I grew frustrated with the female characters' clouded minds.
Overall, though, a beautiful, confusing read.
Really, though, this book is a glimpse into the mind of a woman who is dead while still alive. The narrative is disjointed and dream-like, returning over and over again to a few snippets of experience. It is unclear when in time certain passages occur, and often a 2-page passage of plot will end with the person waking up. It's a bit of a maddening read, but so lyrical - and so much like memory itself - that the recursiveness is an asset.
That's not to say that the book didn't have flaws. El Saadawi is definitely didactic. Just as there are snipets of experience that appear over and over, there are viewpoints that do as well. The senseless violence of men, the devaluation of women in religion (not just Islam), how men want to control women. It gets a little tiring. The men in the story (except for the few who die too early to become corrupted) rape anyone and everyone: children, their wives, sex workers, servants, and others' wives. Only in the last part of the book does the narrative go beyond the senseless violence men do to women, and on to the agency of women. Which is not to say that senseless violence by men is not worth writing about, but that as a reader I grew frustrated with the female characters' clouded minds.
Overall, though, a beautiful, confusing read.
This book looks great - and I love reading translated books and books about other cultures. However, I just couldn't get through this one.
I was often unsure who was speaking - seems like the author switches narrators/narration often and sometimes it is first person from the daughter Mageeda, sometimes it is third person about the mother, Bodour. Also, the mother has written a novel that parallels her life, and sometimes the book goes off on a long tangent about the main character of the book. I couldn't make any sense of it.
It's possible that it is a translation problem...?
I was often unsure who was speaking - seems like the author switches narrators/narration often and sometimes it is first person from the daughter Mageeda, sometimes it is third person about the mother, Bodour. Also, the mother has written a novel that parallels her life, and sometimes the book goes off on a long tangent about the main character of the book. I couldn't make any sense of it.
It's possible that it is a translation problem...?
Review Copy gifted by Saqi Books
Zeina is the second book from Nawal el-Saadawi’s oeuvre that I’ve read and I went into it with very high expectations. Like in Woman at Point Zero, el-Saadawi’s writing in Zeina is very poetic and every sentence hits its target with precision. But like a couple of reviewers pointed out in their reviews of The Fall of the Imam, el-Saadawi interweaves the characters’ stories so that the present, the past and future of every character became one confusing narration — which was frustrating. Yet I still felt the need to finish it.
Zeina tells the story of a renowned literary critic, Bodour, in a loveless marriage. She has a love affair in her younger days that resulted in a child, Zeina, that she had to give up. Zeina grows up on the streets, unknowingly, calling her paternal grandmother, mother. Her voice and love for music nudged her become an Egyptian sensation. Bodour, unaware that Zeina is her own, began to write a biographical fiction to fill the void her lost daughter left — then the novel went missing.
While the blurb gave the overall backdrop, el-Saadawi focused largely on religious hypocrisy especially where lust and desires are concerned. There were lots of repetition that I found irritable but that stressed the poetry of the narration— like how songs have choruses but make it 256 pages. Another social issue that piqued my interest is that where society allows men to freely satisfy their lusts, which results in tons of fatherless children who live their lives with the stigma of “children of sins”—and of course, they are made to feel shame for carrying their mothers’ names.
In addition to that is the thin line of love and hate that men nurture for rebellious women; they are taken in and turned on by this rebellion but harbor deep hatred for these women because of that rebellion — this is still very common nowadays. The way el-Saadawi seems to blend “God” and “satan” into one, is also interesting. The characters themselves were lost in the confusion, especially the women. I think this is a perfect allusion to why women can’t get on board with the “not all men are” phrase. Because while the characters know that God and satan are separate, they get confused to the point that they can no longer tell; similarly, women are aware that not all men will kill or break you, but every men blends into the next so that it’s difficult to tell.
I’ll still make my way through el-Saadawi’s oeuvre because I think she tells women’s stories beautifully.
Zeina is the second book from Nawal el-Saadawi’s oeuvre that I’ve read and I went into it with very high expectations. Like in Woman at Point Zero, el-Saadawi’s writing in Zeina is very poetic and every sentence hits its target with precision. But like a couple of reviewers pointed out in their reviews of The Fall of the Imam, el-Saadawi interweaves the characters’ stories so that the present, the past and future of every character became one confusing narration — which was frustrating. Yet I still felt the need to finish it.
Zeina tells the story of a renowned literary critic, Bodour, in a loveless marriage. She has a love affair in her younger days that resulted in a child, Zeina, that she had to give up. Zeina grows up on the streets, unknowingly, calling her paternal grandmother, mother. Her voice and love for music nudged her become an Egyptian sensation. Bodour, unaware that Zeina is her own, began to write a biographical fiction to fill the void her lost daughter left — then the novel went missing.
While the blurb gave the overall backdrop, el-Saadawi focused largely on religious hypocrisy especially where lust and desires are concerned. There were lots of repetition that I found irritable but that stressed the poetry of the narration— like how songs have choruses but make it 256 pages. Another social issue that piqued my interest is that where society allows men to freely satisfy their lusts, which results in tons of fatherless children who live their lives with the stigma of “children of sins”—and of course, they are made to feel shame for carrying their mothers’ names.
In addition to that is the thin line of love and hate that men nurture for rebellious women; they are taken in and turned on by this rebellion but harbor deep hatred for these women because of that rebellion — this is still very common nowadays. The way el-Saadawi seems to blend “God” and “satan” into one, is also interesting. The characters themselves were lost in the confusion, especially the women. I think this is a perfect allusion to why women can’t get on board with the “not all men are” phrase. Because while the characters know that God and satan are separate, they get confused to the point that they can no longer tell; similarly, women are aware that not all men will kill or break you, but every men blends into the next so that it’s difficult to tell.
I’ll still make my way through el-Saadawi’s oeuvre because I think she tells women’s stories beautifully.
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse, Rape