Celestial Bodies Paperback – October 8, 2019

Khawla is one of three sisters who discovers that the life-defining story about souls that are split apart and are forever searching restlessly for completion would find rest only when they were reunited did not come from “The Dove’s Necklace” but from the lesser known subject book. May that perfect fit still be found.Jokha Alharthi won the Booker International Prize in 2019 for this novel, the first Arab author to be awarded the prize. In her acceptance speech she stressed the universal nature of some of her themes. True enough. But I also feel that this excellent novel is deeply rooted in the particular circumstances of Oman, which further enhanced my reading enjoyment.The novel was smoothly translated from Arabic into English by Mary Booth. I had read another work that Booth had translated: Rajaa Al Sanea’s “The Girls of Riyadh.”The core of Alharthi’s novel is three generations of one Omani family. In terms of historical development however, those three generations spanned 10 generations or more in many other countries. The key date is 1970. In that year Sultan Qaboos overthrew his father, Sultan Said bin Taimur, who was “feudal, reactionary and isolationist,” per Wikipedia. Schooling, health care, and many other aspects of the country were stuck in the equivalent of the European Middle Ages. Most Omanis were illiterate, including almost all the women. One of Qaboos first acts was to outlaw slavery, one of the very last countries in the world to do so. (I personally continue to believe that there are many forms of slavery that continue to exist in numerous countries of the world.) And Qaboos, who would provide an enlightened rule for half a century, until his death in 2020, largely brought the country into the modern world, with good schooling, education, and a reasonable social safety net.The ramifications of the not-so-distant past of slavery is a key aspect of Alharthi’s novel. In 1926 the 15-year old slave, Ankabuta, would give birth to Zafira, who is a central character in this novel, slave, child-care minder, and yes, concubine. Zafira’s son, Sanjar, though nominally “free” after 1970, flees the on-going social discrimination, and goes to Kuwait, where he works, well, much as a slave, in the souks. Hum.Djinns are omnipresent in the lives of this family and the residents of the village of Al-Awafi. Homage and care must always be taken with them. And how could an uprooted basil bush lead to a death? Alharthi is an excellent story teller, backing and filling the story among the characters, throwing out a hint here and there, and ultimately telling you the answer. There is a “desert and the sown,” to use Gertrude Bell’s formulation, to life in Oman. Awafi is a coastal agricultural village, with irrigation practices using the falaj system that dated back millennia. In fact, Azzan’s bride, Salima, bears the “falaj” nickname, earned under some unique circumstances. Azzan can leave his home in the evening to visit the nearby Bedouin encampment for a bit of camaraderie, and use the excursion to obtain a bit more… it is the Moon, you understand, and other bewitching celestial bodies. Or is it djinns?Much of the novel centers on the three daughters of Azzan and Salima: Mayya, “the seamstress,” bookish Asma, and Khawla, noted for her vanities and mirrors. London (imagine the scandal of naming your daughter after a city! Hum!), who is the daughter of Mayya and Abdullah, also has a prominent role. She will become a doctor, driving her BMW to Muscat to work. Each of the women find their own orbits in the cosmos that is modern-day Oman.Oman was once a flake of my life. My family and I spent six days there over the Winter school holidays of 1997. Three of those six days were spent camping, in splendid isolation, 50 km south of Muscat, on the beach. I remember reading a guide to Oman before going that cautioned Arabs from the other countries of Al Jazeera (as well as the expats who had adopted the local driving customs) that in Oman they really must obey the speed limit… or there were consequences. Imagine that. A country different. We also circled around to the desert side, and drove high onto Jebel Akhtar (which is never translated by Booth, but means “Green Mountain”). There was an enormous cedar tree that three people could not link their outstretched arms around its trunk. I would have been more careful if I had known about all the land mines and bombs dropped by the British in the 1950’s, as Alharthi describes.Alharthi has written a truly great novel on Oman and its people and history. 6-stars. I’ll conclude with a plug for another great Arab writer still languishing in obscurity: Yousef Al-Mohaimeed. His “Where Pigeons Don’t Fly,” is an incisive portrait of modern-day Riyadh and his “Munira’s Bottle” is also excellent. Hear that, Mr. Booker!

This book takes us to an unusual setting: a village in Oman on the margins of the capital Muscat. It tells the story of a family and a number of other characters around it, from after the second world war to more or less the 2000s. The numerous characters are powerfully sketched and the story of the transition from a world that feels ancient to modernity is compelling. However, the language full of images and religious formulas, the frequent dreams and hallucinations of the character that tells half of the story and most of all the sheer number of characters that are mentioned through the chapter (often very passingly, and only many chapters after their story is told so the reference becomes clear) made this book a bit of an ordeal for me. The book ends when it has more or less told the story of all characters, but there is no real ending, although this is normal these days, and I failed to grasp how some of the characters relate to the main story. I would have been most grateful to have a presentation of the characters or a family tree to look up at the beginning of the book, to help the novices of Arab literature to navigate the story.

The book is written by an Omani author about a somewhat dysfunctional, extensive family unit in Oman. Each chapter is from a different character's viewpoint. As I write this, I remember very little dialogue. It seemed well written but I found it hard to follow the relationships. I found some of them distasteful but reading is not always supposed to be pleasurable. The description of the culture was informative if it is accurate. I found myself feeling strong cultural bias against its values and expectations. I like historical fiction and I did learn something from the book but, I was not able to hold how the characters fit together.

Once again, I am completely perplexed about the Booker/Man Booker International Prizes. What exactly are they rewarding? I periodically read one of the winners with high hopes, especially since so many of them are set in other parts of the world, but once again I am disappointed. Having spent many years in the Middle East and having visited Oman twice, I was so looking forward to the insight I hoped I'd get from this book. There were interesting elements, such as how slavery played out in that part of the world and the “conjure woman” practices, but I would have appreciated a more traditionally constructed story that included these topics. Instead, I got a rambling portrait of the lives of three generations of a roughly middle-class family, their slaves, and associates. It jumped back and forth in time with no rhyme or reason. There was a thin story line that loosely held everything together, but there were so many digressions that it was easy to forget about it. The writing style had so much variance that sections of the book could have been written by different people. There were philosophical ramblings that were often quite beautiful, interesting historical lessons, snippets of poetry, and everyday dialog between siblings. There were also the interspersed stream-of-consciousness musings by one character as he soared above it all on an airplane. These musings became more and more strange, with the last chapter being either a hallucination or dream. As a last chapter, it did absolutely nothing to tie up the story. I think the author didn’t know how to wrap it up – either that, or she was following a non-Western approach to storytelling that didn’t require any sort of resolution. If she was trying to showcase the culture and daily life of her country for the benefit of those who had no knowledge of it, the resulting mishmash may not help many to gain any understanding.

Celestial Bodies turned out to be a delightful surprise. With each page, a piece of the puzzle is set in a wonderful tale of three sisters and their tribe during Nahda - the Omani Renaissance. Jokha Alharthi wrote it with so much color that you can feel the characters, the relationships, thoughts, and feelings - wider also the essence of the culture, the changes - the contrasts between the past and the new in hundreds of different subtle shades.I’ll admit that I struggled the first dozen of pages - until I got in the mood for the somewhat particular way of telling a story. Bit by bit, while getting more comfortable and attached to the characters (thanks to the intimate way of telling the story, without ever mincing the matter of the protagonists' thoughts and feelings), mundane and darker mysteries become uncovered as the shadow is lifted little by little.I am certain that the style of the novel isn’t for everyone - it isn't what many readers attribute to it. It isn't a thriller following a hero in an exotic setting. It isn't an anthropological essay about the middle east. It isn't a cynical comedy or a latent ethnocentric report about a seemingly primitive tribe. And for sure it isn't written like a 1001 nights telenovela love story for a western audience.It is something on its own - with suspense, humor, wisdom and drama. It is ethnographic, yet it lacks the bluntness of the social scientist. It is a homage without being romanticizing.If you never heard about Oman or Arab tribal societies, relating to the development and the subtle details will highly likely be less entertaining. Understanding the context will also be way more challenging. The reason is that Jokha Alharthi refrained to fill her novel with explanations of the context and she limits herself to the absolute essential necessary knowledge to understand some peculiar aspects of Oman's modern history. This way, "Celestial bodies" enables you to experience it through the eyes and thoughts of the characters, with only the barest guidance by the narrator.

But SO confusing!!! This is a book to sit down and read cover to cover so you don't lose track of who is who, when. It needs total concentration which, perhaps, I didn't have at the time. Having said that, some of the passages are so beautiful it takes your breath away.

Not bad, but I thought it was much better. I discovered new Omani traditions, and How they changed in 3 generations

Very good book to have an approach to Oman

Pas reussi a le terminer. Trop lent, trop de descriptions... Pas l'habitudes de ce genre de livre ce qui explique peut etre ce manque d'enthousiasme. Par contre, la traduction en anglais est excellente.