Good lord. What a horrifying book this is.
I’ve grumbled before about Western fantasies of the oppressed Muslim woman, so I was rather gratified that I’d found a piece of what’s essentially Kuwaiti chick-lit: an insider perspective of the nation, first uploaded onto a blog then self-published via Lulu. And of course I was prepared that it might be badly written and a little shallow – as one trufan was squealing, “Sophie Kinsella watch out!” – but I honestly wasn’t ready for this.
I’ve grumbled before about Western fantasies of the oppressed Muslim woman, so I was rather gratified that I’d found a piece of what’s essentially Kuwaiti chick-lit: an insider perspective of the nation, first uploaded onto a blog then self-published via Lulu. And of course I was prepared that it might be badly written and a little shallow – as one trufan was squealing, “Sophie Kinsella watch out!” – but I honestly wasn’t ready for this.
You see, Dathra is written breathlessly – it’s full of typos and subject-verb disagreements and tense malfunctions and exclamation marks! and exclamation marks!! and exclamation marks!!! One charming thing is that it’s also composed in Arablish: mixed up English and Kuwaiti Arabic, spelt in the fashion of text messages, replacing the letter “hair” with 7; the letter “ain” with 3, etc, so that the book’s full of mystifying ejaculations such as “G63!” (disgusting) and ”7arra!” (eat your heart out) and “bo6a6a!” (French fries)
More frighteningly, Dathra herself (the word means “dowdy and unfashionable”) is a 32 year-old rich girl with a severe overeating disorder – and no, this is not a charmingly funny junk food addiction like Liz Lemon’s; it’s a problem that hospitalises her after she cooks and eats two kilos of samosas at a go. She also happens to be incredibly obnoxious – she starts fights and screams and yells and throws food at bewildered service staff and folks in the queue for Pinkberry – and in a bid to reinvent herself, starts spending lavishly on designer items: MAC lipsticks and Hermès scarves and sequined tube tops and stiletto heels that smear and creak and burst against her weight.
She has the mindless consumerism of Cathy and the maniacal violent streak of Hothead Paisan, with the redeeming qualities of neither. No, she’s not a layabout: she has a job that pays a good salary (very little description of women’s rights being limited here*) and spends loads of time on her Blackberry, but we’re not even told what her job is, let alone whether she cares about it or loves it.
And yet we’re called upon to sympathise with her. The whole story’s narrated from her perspective, as she hurtles from one disaster to the next; we’re given moment-by-moment motivations for her to hurl yoghurt and trifle on her cousin’s face. We’re directed to root for her to get back her perfect fiancé, the one she violently dumped because he refused to go to Burger Hub with her (plus he was hogging the stuffed grape leaves).
And such is the nature of chick lit that we – or perhaps it’s just me – I can’t put this freaking book down, even though I’m reading it as an oversized pdf on my Kindle, so most of the bottom lines of each page get cut off unless I blow up the screen and look at each page in sixths. This terrible woman, this monster of consumerism in all its forms, living in a society similarly dominated by relentless consumerism, with no sense of self-awareness whatsoever – she is our protagonist, and her uncontrollable urges parallel mine: she keeps eating and fighting, I keep reading.
(The fact that there are so many descriptions of food is also a guilty stimulant. Big Macs, halloumi, imsabbag zbaidi, tea Estekanas, tabbouleh over rocca salad, rice mixed with marag, mini kibbeh filled with labna and garnished with pomegramate seeds, sheesh tawooq, chocolate covered strawberries, fatayer, mini pizzas, vermicelli crème brulee, falafel sandwiches with hummus and tahini, English breakfast, qaymar…)
Oh, and here’s a spoiler: she has a happy ending by the end of this volume. Can you believe it? Let’s hope that in Volume Two she experiences a dramatic epiphany that turns her into a Nice Person.
*Oh, here’s the one interesting “oppressed woman” tidbit: the back-story of the villainess, Sabkahawa, is that she publicly confessed she was in love with a much older Kuwait University professor while she was just twenty, and this was a no-no: a woman must wait for a man to approach her, or else to be matchmade. To openly have feelings oneself is social suicide.
View Around the World in 80 Books!!! in a larger map
More frighteningly, Dathra herself (the word means “dowdy and unfashionable”) is a 32 year-old rich girl with a severe overeating disorder – and no, this is not a charmingly funny junk food addiction like Liz Lemon’s; it’s a problem that hospitalises her after she cooks and eats two kilos of samosas at a go. She also happens to be incredibly obnoxious – she starts fights and screams and yells and throws food at bewildered service staff and folks in the queue for Pinkberry – and in a bid to reinvent herself, starts spending lavishly on designer items: MAC lipsticks and Hermès scarves and sequined tube tops and stiletto heels that smear and creak and burst against her weight.
She has the mindless consumerism of Cathy and the maniacal violent streak of Hothead Paisan, with the redeeming qualities of neither. No, she’s not a layabout: she has a job that pays a good salary (very little description of women’s rights being limited here*) and spends loads of time on her Blackberry, but we’re not even told what her job is, let alone whether she cares about it or loves it.
And yet we’re called upon to sympathise with her. The whole story’s narrated from her perspective, as she hurtles from one disaster to the next; we’re given moment-by-moment motivations for her to hurl yoghurt and trifle on her cousin’s face. We’re directed to root for her to get back her perfect fiancé, the one she violently dumped because he refused to go to Burger Hub with her (plus he was hogging the stuffed grape leaves).
And such is the nature of chick lit that we – or perhaps it’s just me – I can’t put this freaking book down, even though I’m reading it as an oversized pdf on my Kindle, so most of the bottom lines of each page get cut off unless I blow up the screen and look at each page in sixths. This terrible woman, this monster of consumerism in all its forms, living in a society similarly dominated by relentless consumerism, with no sense of self-awareness whatsoever – she is our protagonist, and her uncontrollable urges parallel mine: she keeps eating and fighting, I keep reading.
(The fact that there are so many descriptions of food is also a guilty stimulant. Big Macs, halloumi, imsabbag zbaidi, tea Estekanas, tabbouleh over rocca salad, rice mixed with marag, mini kibbeh filled with labna and garnished with pomegramate seeds, sheesh tawooq, chocolate covered strawberries, fatayer, mini pizzas, vermicelli crème brulee, falafel sandwiches with hummus and tahini, English breakfast, qaymar…)
Oh, and here’s a spoiler: she has a happy ending by the end of this volume. Can you believe it? Let’s hope that in Volume Two she experiences a dramatic epiphany that turns her into a Nice Person.
*Oh, here’s the one interesting “oppressed woman” tidbit: the back-story of the villainess, Sabkahawa, is that she publicly confessed she was in love with a much older Kuwait University professor while she was just twenty, and this was a no-no: a woman must wait for a man to approach her, or else to be matchmade. To openly have feelings oneself is social suicide.
View Around the World in 80 Books!!! in a larger map
Representative quote:
She turned to face him, all her frustration and apparent humiliation poured out of her as she screamed her lungs out ‘Killa MINIK1! O min Elde3la MORTIK2! THE FRUIT TRIFLES ARE GONE, FINISHED, SOLD OUT! I HAVE ASKED THAT WOMAN TO SELL THEM BACK BUT SHE WON’T GIVE THEM TO ME!’
‘Dathra...’
‘CHUB! LA TETKALAM! WALA KILMA! EVER AGAIN TO ME! NEVER TALK TO ME, EVER! YOU CAUSED THE STUPID ACCIDENT, YOU MADE ME LATE, THE FRUIT TRIFLES INBA3AW1! I WANT THEM O OHOM INBA3AW, RA7AW! I MUST FOLLOW THE WOMAN NOW. MOVE OUT OF MY FACE AND NEVER TALK TO ME AGAIN.’
Next book: Princess, Priestess, Poet : The Sumerian Temple Hymns of Enheduanna, ed. Betty De Shong Meador, from Iraq.
She turned to face him, all her frustration and apparent humiliation poured out of her as she screamed her lungs out ‘Killa MINIK1! O min Elde3la MORTIK2! THE FRUIT TRIFLES ARE GONE, FINISHED, SOLD OUT! I HAVE ASKED THAT WOMAN TO SELL THEM BACK BUT SHE WON’T GIVE THEM TO ME!’
‘Dathra...’
‘CHUB! LA TETKALAM! WALA KILMA! EVER AGAIN TO ME! NEVER TALK TO ME, EVER! YOU CAUSED THE STUPID ACCIDENT, YOU MADE ME LATE, THE FRUIT TRIFLES INBA3AW1! I WANT THEM O OHOM INBA3AW, RA7AW! I MUST FOLLOW THE WOMAN NOW. MOVE OUT OF MY FACE AND NEVER TALK TO ME AGAIN.’
Next book: Princess, Priestess, Poet : The Sumerian Temple Hymns of Enheduanna, ed. Betty De Shong Meador, from Iraq.
No comments:
Post a Comment