The World's Literature in Europe discussion
"Celestial Bodies" by Jokha Alharthi
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This story, full of Omani history and Arabic poetry, by the finish, leaves the reader to contend with a chapter of magical realism narrated by Abdallah, or his imagination. It's a paranormal experience he has of his deceased father's laughing presence and his successful daughter London's appearance as he seemingly is with his young autistic son in the Lexus at the beach. Overall, its impression on me in this seaside scene was that of a rebeginning, a going back to his essential self and that of the boy to a more natural state of existence, free of stalemates perpetuated by others' criticisms and unrealistic traditions. Another character, the horse artist Khalid, puts that independence of self into practice. I liked what the author did with Omani history and poetry, how slavery reached Oman, the village's economic basis in date growing, and threads of communal stories, such as Abdallah's mother's fate. My first impression was that the book only took place in the arid countryside of al-Awafi. Instead, it also is in the capital of Muscat as well as the Egyptian capital of Cairo. It goes to show you that scenic descriptions in themselves aren't prominent here. However, where a scene immediately impacts a character, the author spares no detail of the environment to illuminate the situation and its effect on her/him.
I read this novel in paperback. There also is an audio format, which would be interesting to hear while going about some activity. Some readers might think the elements in the narrative are difficult to understand. I'm used to reading literary fiction. In the video on this homepage, Alharthi says that she researched Oman's history to write the novel. She also brings to the text the passages from Arabic poets.
My review:The 2019 Man Booker International Prize winning novel by Omani author Jokha Alharthi, Celestial Bodies traces the generations of a family in the Omani village of Al-Awafi. The novel begins with the arranged marriage of Mayya to Abdallah, the son of Merchant Sulayman. The style is modernist, with first-person chapters told through the stream-of-consciousness of Abdallah alternating with chapters told in the third person focusing on other characters; the chapters are not in chronological order, but weave backwards and forwards in time, often within a single chapter. We focus in various chapters on Mayya's mother Salima, whose father and uncle were Shayks (the local nobility), on her and Abdallah's daughter London, as a newborn and then more than twenty years later, on Mayya's sisters Asma and Khawla, on her father Azzan, on a Bedouin girl named Qamar, on Zarifa, a former slave and mistress of Abdallah's father, Merchant Sulayman, and her son Sanjar, and near the end of the novel, on Asma's and Khawla's husbands, as well as other minor relatives. We get glimpses of the slave-owning past, the oil-rich present, and the years in between. We see the characters, especially the women, submit to and rebel in various ways and to different degrees against the traditional customs, creating a kaleidoscope of differing relationships. Family secrets are gradually revealed. There are allusions to other authors I have read or will be reading for the same Goodreads group, such as the poets Nisar Qabbani and Mahmoud Darwish. The novel depicts the changing life of Oman in an age of rapid transition.
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I was interested in your explanation of that surreal final chapter; I wasn't quite sure what to make of it.
I thought the characterization was wonderful, especially of the three daughters of Salima.
I agree the book might be quite difficult for someone who isn't familiar with modern literary fiction.
James wrote: "...I was interested in your explanation of that surreal final chapter..."The first time reading the final chapter, narrated by Abdallah, I wondered how realistic the narration was. Did he put his son into the water to swim away like a fish?
To answer your question, I needed more certainty about Abdallah's characteristics and insight into Alharthi's writing style. Toward those ends, I opened the audio format, listening to, and reading the many chapters featuring Abdallah. He's quite an imaginative character, musing on his relationships, particularly with his wife Mayya, his daughter London, his father Sulayman, his 'foster mother' Zarifa, and his youngest son Muhammad, among others. What were Abdallah's feelings about the boy's disability? Yes, there were some moments of annoyance with M's actions. There were also tales of foul play surrounding the deaths of Abdallah's mother and Azzan's mistress, whose causes conjoined with jinns and rumors. In his chapters, Abdallah loses himself in conversations with deceased characters about instances that never got resolved for him, such as his father's punishing him in the well.
When the final chapter occurs at the beach in Sib, the collage of his impressions is surreal. The several events which feature his three children and his father evaporate into each other, yet capture something memorable in those characters which bothered Abdallah during the book. His father's belittling laughter, Salim's friends, London's mobility in the car, and Muhammad's nonsensical statements. The last chapter is not a literal description of events and is outside the boundaries of reality.
These are a succession of little chapters, headed by the name of the narrator. While females narrate, a great many of the episodes Abdallah (married to Mayya above) presents. Through those several characters, a reader learns the history of at least three generations in al-Awafi, handily assisted by a flow chart of relatives as a preface and drawn from almost the entire twentieth century; I would guesstimate the years to be 1926 and forward. I leave that timespan as amendable. My impression so far at 149 out of 243 pages is that the scenery description is minimal; however, characterizations and characters' immediate surroundings get the lion's share of detail. That impression I see reflected in the cover photograph by Ionela Yammine: the colorfully attired sisters walking hand-in-hand down an arid road. Memory plays a significant part in the characters' assessment of present situations. I hope you enjoy reading this book set in Oman and make satisfying discoveries through the text.