From the Bookshelf of The Read Around The World Book Club…

Celestial Bodies

Jokha Alharthi,

Marilyn Booth (Translator)

Start date: January 1, 2019

Finish date: January 31, 2019

Discussion: January 2019 OMAN

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January 2019 OMAN

Second half of the book
By Melanie · 13 posts · 34 views

last updated Mar 15, 2019 10:03AM

First half of the book
By Melanie · 8 posts · 56 views

last updated Jan 18, 2019 04:52PM

What Members Thought

Feb 12, 2019 Jo rated it really liked it · review of another edition

4.5 stars
One of the first translated works of fiction to come out of Oman, Celestial Bodies is a bewitching insight into the country, its culture and its history. The story focuses on several families and how they interact over the decades, specifically the family of Mayya and her two sisters, and Abdallah and his sadistic father. There are a myriad of minor characters who feature in one or two chapters and then fade into the background, Marwan the Pure, Masouda the bent backed servant kept conf 4.5 stars
One of the first translated works of fiction to come out of Oman, Celestial Bodies is a bewitching insight into the country, its culture and its history. The story focuses on several families and how they interact over the decades, specifically the family of Mayya and her two sisters, and Abdallah and his sadistic father. There are a myriad of minor characters who feature in one or two chapters and then fade into the background, Marwan the Pure, Masouda the bent backed servant kept confined by her daughter and Manna who begs even when he does not need to.

I had no idea that Oman had a history of slavery with slaves primarily imported from Zanzibar by African and Arabic slave traders. The father of Abdallah continues to do this even when agreements have been signed by the Sultan of Oman, outlawing slavery in 1970. Zarifa is the most prominent of these slaves, a fierce, maternal woman who is more a mother to Abdallah than his own who died young and she holds sway in his father’s household, treading the line between mistress of the house and slave. We also hear about the Bedouin people and how their lives have changed with the years and in particular the character of Qamar, the moon. Her chapters with Azzan were less successful, perhaps because of the amount of poetry that Azzan is spouting but she, as a strong and independent woman, is a contrast to the woman of the village who even in the late twentieth century are told who they can and can’t marry.

The chapters are short and move between the perspectives of dozens of characters yet it is the voice of Abdallah, which is dominant as it runs throughout the book and he talks of his childhood, his father and an incident that has stayed with him from those early days. There are mysteries surrounding the past some of which are never explained but for me, I always appreciate being left wanting more. If you read the book sporadically as I did for the first fifty pages, it can get confusing as to who is who, and how everyone relates to one another but when consumed in one or two sittings, the book sweeps you up and makes for a melancholy, fascinating and haunting read.

Some favorite lines
‘In her sleep she saw nothing, not even dreams. Entering the realm of sleep meant coming into a place of no responsibilities where she felt nothing, and the things she had anxiously needed to hold on to while awake fell away.’

‘The bewitching oud whose sad tunes rubbed across my childhood and scored the raw loneliness of my adolescence.’
...more

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