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The Map of Love A Novel Ahdaf Soueif 9780385720113 Books

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The Map of Love A Novel Ahdaf Soueif 9780385720113 Books

I first discovered Ahdaf Soueif through her book In the Eye of the Sun and was looking forward to reading this one. This book is beautifully written, with as much prose and poetry as her first one. However, I found it got too political towards the end and stopped focusing on the story and instead on Egyptian politics of both the past and 1998, which I didn't find as interesting. Otherwise it was great.


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The Map of Love A Novel Ahdaf Soueif 9780385720113 Books Reviews

One of my top ten favorite books!
It was a little boring and sappy, just not my kind of book.
How skillfully the author wove events in the early 20th century with those in the late 20th century, and how creative the arrangement of clues as the story unfolded. Character Anna, however, nearly always expressed optimism, an approach I would admire if such consistently high mood seemed plausible in the context of her time.
I personally did not like this book and I couldn't even get through it. I bought this for a class, and even with the help of the professor's lectures, I still was very confused about the plot and what the author was trying to say. It is split up into so many flashbacks and flashforwards and subtle details that it lost me early in the book. Sadly this book is collecting dust under my bed now and I intend to give it away.
Having recently read Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, MAP OF LOVE was the perfect choice in my desire to learn more about the Middle East. Although the love story parallels one enacted 100 years earlier, Soueif masterfully integrates her characters and storyline.
In the course of following a beautiful love story between two unlikely lovers, the reader is offered an historical perspective that has seldom been available to Westerners. Her feet firmly planted in the Egypt of today, the author paints the background in rich and fascinating colors. Indeed, the pull of the past is stronger than present-day reality, as the extraordinary Anna allows herself to follow the dictates of her heart. Anna"s capacity for compassion is stunning, seductive in its simplicity. Even her granddaughter's parallel love story pales in comparison.
Against this dramatic background, Soueif delivers a much-needed history lesson. Rather than widening the chasm, this writer gives her readers the opportunity for increased awareness. A culture that appears so rigid and formalized becomes a way of life defined by love of country with passionate ties to family. There is much to learn from this culture, and the doors of perception are thrown wide open by this talented writer.
What many of the previous reviews do not mention is that this novel gives a superb corrective to the idea that feminism in Muslim countries is an import from European cultures. I was astounded to learn that there was a strong movement in Egypt for women's rights from 1900-1919. Soueif's novel provked me to some further research, and I discovered that everything she says is true. Soueif did a remarkable amount of research for this novel, including 19th-century travel journals of both men and women and newspaper archives in Egyptian and British libraries

I sympathize with the reader who found the use of (transliterated) Arabic words difficult, but I myself found this technique delightful. I felt I was learning something of Egyptian culture as I learned bits of its language.

One other thing I found remarkable was the balance shown by Soueif in criticizing imperialistic and repressive governments no matter where they occur. If she has a political passion, it is for real democracy, and she therefore critiques post-colonial Egyptian government as much as she critiques 19th-century British colonialism and contemporary American foreign policy. She is not a nationalist but an internationalist in the best sense of the word she wants every country to have the right to blend its culture with elements from other cultures -- but she wants each country to be able to choose those elements independently and not to have them imposed from without.
The novels feels very long. The characters don't develop, they stand for ideas, for generations, they symbolize things, but they are not complex enough to successfully portray real people. Many background characters are really sketchy. The servant types are truly medieval in their devotion to their masters. There is a lot of history and politics in this novel. It feels like not much has changed since 1910! The main problem with the book is that after about 250 pages, the reader gets tired. The same people, the same characters, predictable statements, happy family life, unhappy political situation, wonderful traditions, great religion, beautiful country, loyal servants etc.. Kids get born, people die, wars begin and end. The author had a good idea for a novel and half way through the inspiration left her...
I first discovered Ahdaf Soueif through her book In the Eye of the Sun and was looking forward to reading this one. This book is beautifully written, with as much prose and poetry as her first one. However, I found it got too political towards the end and stopped focusing on the story and instead on Egyptian politics of both the past and 1998, which I didn't find as interesting. Otherwise it was great.