Bibliography
Dec. 3rd, 2012 06:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyThe Harem Within: Tales of a Moroccan Girlhood - Fatima Mernissi
I found this absolutely riveting. Mernissi was born into a traditional Moroccan harem in 1940, and the book is a narrative auto-biography of her early years (up to about nine); the book finishes just after she has been sent to a European school rather than a Koranic school, and after a schism with her cousin Samir, a little older than her. Samir is important, as it is with him that she has tried to understand what a harem actually is - so what you get is the narrative of a little girl trying to understand this cultural construct that she has been born into and that still looks so alien to me as a Western reader, at the same time as the pieces were being put in place to break down the existence of harems as a cultural construct for good.
The characters of the book are brilliant - Mernissi's mother, frustrated with the harem system and determined that her daughter will do better; her cousin Samir, cocky and arrogant and getting away with it; her father, entering into the modern world but reluctant to let his women do the same; her grandmother Lalla Mani, full of tradition and sceptical of anything new; her grandmother Yasmina, living at a harem out on a farm and happy to buck against convention in the open air; her divorced Aunt Habiba, living around the edges of things and aware of her lack of status; her cousin Chama, responsible for putting on various dramatic and musical performances to keep the occupants of the harem entertained. It's a completely alien world, and one captured beautifully through the recognition of how normal it is, how unquestioned, for the narrator who describes it. Wonderful, wonderful descriptive writing, and a very telling insight into how young people question the institutions that they are brought up with.
The Eye In The Door - Pat Barker
This is the second book in the Regeneration trilogy by Pat Barker; I commented on the first book here. The second book is just as good; it continues to focus on the relationship between Prior and Rivers, only Prior becomes the focal character of the book and Rivers fades, gently, into the background. We also have the arrival of a new character, Charles Manning, who offers an insight into the social events of the period, particularly the hysteria over 'the 47,000', supposedly English people who had been corrupted by Germans into vicious sexual practices and were betraying their country in the middle of sexual ecstacy. Yes, this was a real thing. Barker uses it beautifully.
Actually, I think that's one of the things I like about her writing - the intertwining between historical oddities and characterisation. It makes for a rewarding read, and her characters are - challenging, but good. Prior ends up going into disassociative states to cope with difficult experiences, thus losing chunks of his time and memory, and the way he deals with this is gripping. Rivers has to cope with the return of Siegfried Sassoon; Sassoon has to cope with the realities of his return from the front; Prior has to cope with civilian life and his own past; Manning has to cope with the consequences of his serious injury for his vision of self. It's all fascinating stuff, and Barker links the stories together faultlessly. This trilogy is definitely worth a read.
I found this absolutely riveting. Mernissi was born into a traditional Moroccan harem in 1940, and the book is a narrative auto-biography of her early years (up to about nine); the book finishes just after she has been sent to a European school rather than a Koranic school, and after a schism with her cousin Samir, a little older than her. Samir is important, as it is with him that she has tried to understand what a harem actually is - so what you get is the narrative of a little girl trying to understand this cultural construct that she has been born into and that still looks so alien to me as a Western reader, at the same time as the pieces were being put in place to break down the existence of harems as a cultural construct for good.
The characters of the book are brilliant - Mernissi's mother, frustrated with the harem system and determined that her daughter will do better; her cousin Samir, cocky and arrogant and getting away with it; her father, entering into the modern world but reluctant to let his women do the same; her grandmother Lalla Mani, full of tradition and sceptical of anything new; her grandmother Yasmina, living at a harem out on a farm and happy to buck against convention in the open air; her divorced Aunt Habiba, living around the edges of things and aware of her lack of status; her cousin Chama, responsible for putting on various dramatic and musical performances to keep the occupants of the harem entertained. It's a completely alien world, and one captured beautifully through the recognition of how normal it is, how unquestioned, for the narrator who describes it. Wonderful, wonderful descriptive writing, and a very telling insight into how young people question the institutions that they are brought up with.
The Eye In The Door - Pat Barker
This is the second book in the Regeneration trilogy by Pat Barker; I commented on the first book here. The second book is just as good; it continues to focus on the relationship between Prior and Rivers, only Prior becomes the focal character of the book and Rivers fades, gently, into the background. We also have the arrival of a new character, Charles Manning, who offers an insight into the social events of the period, particularly the hysteria over 'the 47,000', supposedly English people who had been corrupted by Germans into vicious sexual practices and were betraying their country in the middle of sexual ecstacy. Yes, this was a real thing. Barker uses it beautifully.
Actually, I think that's one of the things I like about her writing - the intertwining between historical oddities and characterisation. It makes for a rewarding read, and her characters are - challenging, but good. Prior ends up going into disassociative states to cope with difficult experiences, thus losing chunks of his time and memory, and the way he deals with this is gripping. Rivers has to cope with the return of Siegfried Sassoon; Sassoon has to cope with the realities of his return from the front; Prior has to cope with civilian life and his own past; Manning has to cope with the consequences of his serious injury for his vision of self. It's all fascinating stuff, and Barker links the stories together faultlessly. This trilogy is definitely worth a read.
