Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi
Sandstone Press
Pp. 243
Originally
titled Sayyidat al-Qamar (Ladies of the
Moon), Celestial Bodies is the
third of Alharthi’s novels, but the first novel by an Omani woman to be translated
into English and the first novel in Arabic to be awarded the Man Booker
International Prize (which Alharthi shared with her translator, the Oxford academic
Marilyn Booth in 2019). It spans several generations, from the final decades of
the 19th century to the early years of the new millennium, and
captures the changing mores and traditions in society, particularly in how they
relate to women.
The family tree
at the beginning of the book is crucial, and even with constant reference to
it, the timelines can be a little hard to follow. The novel focusses on three
sisters and their marriage prospects. Mayya marries Abdallah as she is told to after
a heartbreak; Asma marries Khalid out of a sense of duty; Khawla rejects all
offers while waiting for her beloved, who has immigrated to Canada. It is
narrated by an omniscient narrator (who knows all about the women) and
alternate chapters (in a different font) by Abdallah (who doesn’t).
Abdallah’s
chapters are narrated as he is on a flight from Muscat to Frankfurt and he
dreams fretfully of women accused of witchcraft and of the source of his father’s
wealth back in his hometown of al-Awafi. Now little more than an oasis for
nostalgia, it was once a hub for the slave trade, a practice that was not outlawed
in Oman until 1970. It is no accident that the named narrator is not grounded
as Alharthi inhabits the liminal space between memory and forgetting; the truth
and the stories.
Marriage and
childbirth are centre stage: customs are followed or disregarded and everyone
has an opinion about how to follow them or not. Asma reads all the books
and religious texts that she should, including On Matters of Purity although she finds the chapters so boring that
she stops, but not before she gently mocks the highly restrictive guidelines on
personal matters. Customs which are only followed for form are ridiculed,
whereas those that come from logic and reason are upheld. It is still a
patriarchal society, but there are social benefits to marriage. “Now she would be
one of the women who sat around their coffee in the late mornings and then
again at the end of the day. She would be invited to lunch and dinner, and she
would issue her own invitations, since she was no longer merely a girl.
Marriage was her identity document, her passport to a world wider than home.”
Women must still
strive for individual recognition. When Mayya has her first child, it is a
girl, which is considered lucky as it means that boys will follow. “The first
one’s a girl, and a girl comes to raise her little brothers.” She calls her London,
which name the family ridicule, but Mayya wants to give her a future elsewhere
in the world.
The changes are occurring
slowly, and the generations have different ideas and ideals. The
novel is short and contains vignettes of multiple characters, such as Bedouin
businesswomen, slave owners, gossips, poets and arms dealers. Celestial Bodies leaves an ethereal
impression of vibrant sketches rather a chronological saga, and it provides a
new and appealing voice. In a land of shifting sands, Jokha Alharthi is a
shaping energy.
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Jokha Alharthi and Marilyn Booth share the Man Booker International Prize for writing and translating Celestial Bodies
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