- Paperback: 512 pages
- Publisher: Myrmidon Books Ltd (1 Mar 2011)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1905802331
- ISBN-13: 978-1905802333
- Product Dimensions: 19.7 x 13.2 x 2.9 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 577,618 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Sharaf
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Product Description
Review
Kumar's novel is a powerful and compelling book. --Internationally bestselling author Jean Sasson
Product Description
Major-General Farhan Al-Balawi is a loyal soldier in the Saudi Arabian army who dotes on his beloved daughter, Maryam, his pride in her learning and independent spirit sharpened by the death of his elder son and his estrangement from the younger who has opted to pursue a hedonistic western lifestyle in the USA. Despite the love she shares with her family, her respect for her father, the pride she takes in her Arabian heritage and her loyalty to Islam, Maryam yearns for travel and the opportunity to continue her education in a European university. But then Farhan announces that Maryam is to marry - the fulfilment of a solemn promise made before Maryam was born and to a man who once saved Farhan's life - that Farhan's daughter would one day marry his old army comrade's son. Maryam endeavours to stifle her bitter disappointment, and to honour her father's wishes she complies with the betrothal. Then she meets Joe, an American dentist- and a Jew. As Joe and Maryam pursue an increasingly intimate clandestine relationship they dare to dream of freedom and of a life together. But Joe is gradually drawing the attention of the Muttawa, the feared religious police, and when Maryam realises that she is pregnant it is then that her trials really begin.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I wouldn't say that I loved this book, but I definitely liked it and enjoyed it a lot. It was a page-turner, and I almost didn't expect that given the story - it's family drama and romance within a contemporary, albeit dangerous and restrictive setting - but it's not a thriller or high-octane action novel. It's filled with the incidentals of everyday life, to give it that down-to-earth, realistic feel of ordinary people dealing with secrets that begin to snowball into serious problems, and is more of a slow-burning page-turner than a rip-roaring one, but its story is fairly compelling nonetheless.
I found Raj Kumar's writing style quite unusual and different - though maybe that's because I don't read much contemporary fiction. I couldn't help but notice the use of imagery was sparing throughout, yet unexpected and fresh when used, and thus innovative and impactful. This, from one of the opening chapters, has to be among my favourites: "A silk prayer mat unfurled over the marble floor spreading a wave of colour... A cockerel crowed among the palm trees and a whisper of pink heralded the birth of another day. Fiery, gossamer clouds unwrapped the newborn sun. On the horizon, a jagged silhouette of mountains tore at the sky, their peaks glinting in the morning light."
The otherness of the setting gives the story great appeal, the richness of the exotic culture permeated by centuries of tradition but undergoing profound change in the modern world, provoking in the reader a desire to learn more, and putting a unique spin on the plot - the challenges that the protagonists face are not the usual challenges characters might face in a Western setting, and yet many of the themes are universal; love, hate, intrigue, hidden secrets, difficult choices.
The conclusion of the story kept me guessing right until the final page, and I was thoroughly surprised at the ending as I was half-convinced that a particular scenario would play out which did not come to pass in fact, and the twist in the tale was rather thought-provoking. I liked the fact that the ending was so unexpected; novels that I can guess the ending of from only 50 pages in are too easy and predictable for my tastes.
Negatives? I couldn't quite put my finger on it but I felt like the book could have been even better; the characters explored more, the love story expanded upon. Some disturbing events take place in the novel but I wanted them to be dirtier, grittier, grimier, darker. One or two scenes I felt like I ought to be on the edge of my seat, gripped with worry for the characters and needing to know what happens next, and whilst I felt compelled to keep turning the pages occasionally I didn't feel quite as scared for the characters as I wanted to be. I wanted the story to engross me and engage me more than it did. This left me with a vague sense that there was room for improvement.
I found Raj Kumar's writing style quite unusual and different - though maybe that's because I don't read much contemporary fiction. I couldn't help but notice the use of imagery was sparing throughout, yet unexpected and fresh when used, and thus innovative and impactful. This, from one of the opening chapters, has to be among my favourites: "A silk prayer mat unfurled over the marble floor spreading a wave of colour... A cockerel crowed among the palm trees and a whisper of pink heralded the birth of another day. Fiery, gossamer clouds unwrapped the newborn sun. On the horizon, a jagged silhouette of mountains tore at the sky, their peaks glinting in the morning light."
The otherness of the setting gives the story great appeal, the richness of the exotic culture permeated by centuries of tradition but undergoing profound change in the modern world, provoking in the reader a desire to learn more, and putting a unique spin on the plot - the challenges that the protagonists face are not the usual challenges characters might face in a Western setting, and yet many of the themes are universal; love, hate, intrigue, hidden secrets, difficult choices.
The conclusion of the story kept me guessing right until the final page, and I was thoroughly surprised at the ending as I was half-convinced that a particular scenario would play out which did not come to pass in fact, and the twist in the tale was rather thought-provoking. I liked the fact that the ending was so unexpected; novels that I can guess the ending of from only 50 pages in are too easy and predictable for my tastes.
Negatives? I couldn't quite put my finger on it but I felt like the book could have been even better; the characters explored more, the love story expanded upon. Some disturbing events take place in the novel but I wanted them to be dirtier, grittier, grimier, darker. One or two scenes I felt like I ought to be on the edge of my seat, gripped with worry for the characters and needing to know what happens next, and whilst I felt compelled to keep turning the pages occasionally I didn't feel quite as scared for the characters as I wanted to be. I wanted the story to engross me and engage me more than it did. This left me with a vague sense that there was room for improvement.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Raj Kumar clearly describes the role played by women in Saudi Arabia and their willingness to accept the generally unwritten law of Sharia. A law which, according to a slightly defensive Saudi saying, is a culture and not a religion.
As he makes clear, Saudi women aren't allowed to drive and must have a male guardian (father or husband) when, always wearing black gloves and clad in a shapeless full-length black abaya and niquab head dress, they are outside their home. They also require his permission for many things we in the West take for granted: marriage and divorce, overseas travel, education, opening a bank account and for certain forms of surgery. The official law requiring the guardian's permission before a woman can seek employment was, however, repealed several years ago.
Unfortunately the storyline itself is poorly developed; in many cases the characterisation leaves much to be desired and, as other reviewers have observed, there's a number of subplots that link only loosely with the story.
The storyline itself - the clandestine relationship between a well educated 20 year old Saudi girl and an American Jewish dental surgeon - is initially almost believable. But her willingness to spend an afternoon in a hotel room with him, after no more than one assignation and a couple of correctly chaperoned professional meetings, stretched my credulity beyond its fairly elastic breaking point.
Maryam's complete disregard for the need to take even basic contraceptive precautions - which her two younger nymphomaniac friends would happily have provided - failed to ring true. She also chose to ignore the extremely serious consequences to her, to Doctor Joe and to her family if their relationship was discovered (as, of course, it is) by the mutaween, the Saudi religious police.
I found it equally difficult to believe that a professional American, already warned that the Saudis play by very different rules - and that he was a long way from home - would so readily indulge in unprotected sex with a virginal Saudi girl, the only daughter of a highly placed and influential family.
Her willing seduction, like much of the novel, isn't that well written and, a few weeks later, we learn of Maryam's vague surprise on discovering she's pregnant. Then, not long after, comes his somewhat immature reaction (verbatim quotes) to the news:
"You're pregnant!" Joe exclaimed.
And moments later we hear:
"I'm so happy, we're having a baby. It's fantastic!" Joe said and punched the air.
Family honour is, of course, finally satisfied: Joe and Marayam walk hand-in-hand towards the Saudi/Jordanian border as her father turns and walks silently away. To him his daughter no longer exists, he never had a daughter.
I might be slightly biased by the fact that the copy I was reading on my Kindle was extremely poorly formatted (Amazon please check) but I found it impossible to give the novel more than three stars.
As he makes clear, Saudi women aren't allowed to drive and must have a male guardian (father or husband) when, always wearing black gloves and clad in a shapeless full-length black abaya and niquab head dress, they are outside their home. They also require his permission for many things we in the West take for granted: marriage and divorce, overseas travel, education, opening a bank account and for certain forms of surgery. The official law requiring the guardian's permission before a woman can seek employment was, however, repealed several years ago.
Unfortunately the storyline itself is poorly developed; in many cases the characterisation leaves much to be desired and, as other reviewers have observed, there's a number of subplots that link only loosely with the story.
The storyline itself - the clandestine relationship between a well educated 20 year old Saudi girl and an American Jewish dental surgeon - is initially almost believable. But her willingness to spend an afternoon in a hotel room with him, after no more than one assignation and a couple of correctly chaperoned professional meetings, stretched my credulity beyond its fairly elastic breaking point.
Maryam's complete disregard for the need to take even basic contraceptive precautions - which her two younger nymphomaniac friends would happily have provided - failed to ring true. She also chose to ignore the extremely serious consequences to her, to Doctor Joe and to her family if their relationship was discovered (as, of course, it is) by the mutaween, the Saudi religious police.
I found it equally difficult to believe that a professional American, already warned that the Saudis play by very different rules - and that he was a long way from home - would so readily indulge in unprotected sex with a virginal Saudi girl, the only daughter of a highly placed and influential family.
Her willing seduction, like much of the novel, isn't that well written and, a few weeks later, we learn of Maryam's vague surprise on discovering she's pregnant. Then, not long after, comes his somewhat immature reaction (verbatim quotes) to the news:
"You're pregnant!" Joe exclaimed.
And moments later we hear:
"I'm so happy, we're having a baby. It's fantastic!" Joe said and punched the air.
Family honour is, of course, finally satisfied: Joe and Marayam walk hand-in-hand towards the Saudi/Jordanian border as her father turns and walks silently away. To him his daughter no longer exists, he never had a daughter.
I might be slightly biased by the fact that the copy I was reading on my Kindle was extremely poorly formatted (Amazon please check) but I found it impossible to give the novel more than three stars.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was interesting to read about how other cultures deal with things. It also put you in the position of how you would feel if your love for someone was forbidden. It had a good story line with an iteresting ending. Would recommend this book. Love can cause a lot of happiness and heartache and this book covered both of these emotions well.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Compelling
A web of lies and intrigue. Leading a sheltered and traditional life maryam is due to be forced into marriage, but falls pregnant when she falls for an American doctor. Read more
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