BOOK REVIEW- 1
CELESTIAL BODIES by JOKHA
AL-HARTHI, translated by MARILYN BOOTH
Intersections of Gender, Race and Class in Jokha
al-Harthi’s Celestial Bodies
Omani novelist Jokha al-Harthi’s Celestial
Bodies translated by Marilyn Booth won the Man Booker International
Prize in 2019, the first time a work in Arabic language winning the Man Booker
International Prize. The prize is given each year for the best work translated
into English. What makes it more special is that the text is from Oman,
considerably a lesser significant area of the Arab world. Celestial
Bodies is “a book to win over the head and heart in equal measure”,
commented Bettany Hughes, the chairwoman of the jury panel.
The novel set in an Omani village al-Awafi
revolves around the lives of three sisters- Mayya, Asma and Khwala; their
choices, love, loss, passion, marriage, family, agency, career, and so on.
Almost every character in the novel falls into the family tree of either Hilal,
the master or Senghor, the slave. The plot across three generations from 1880s
to today with an array of voices blends history, culture, tradition and
dynamics of Omani society. The narrative carefully depicts the trajectory of
transition of Oman from its slave trade to oil trade, infusing major historical
events.
The novel is divided into several chapters,
mostly named after its characters. The plot employs multiple narrative voices,
of which most of the chapters are narrated by Abdallah, Mayya’s husband.
Marilyn Booth in the “Introduction” sets out the key themes of the novel which
is placed in a ‘historical canvas’. The novel originally published in Arabic in
the year 2010 was the second novel by Jokha al-Harthi titled Sayyidat
al-Qamar. Marilyn Booth’s translation appeared in 2018. In translation,
finding an equivalent for the title in Arabic which has several layers of
meaning has been strenuous, states Marilyn Booth. She said that she could not
find an apt English equivalent for the title when the term Sayyidat in
Arabic meaning women also embeds authority, status as well as
service. She has retained very common Arabic phrases in translation
to equip the readers with their way of speaking. Another digression from the
source text is her elimination of quotation marks which she feels is a
“distraction”.
Celestial Bodies intervenes into
the Omani society and resists the discriminations based on gender, race, as
well as class. The novel recounts the lives of a series of women: abandoned,
married, divorced, murdered, mad, raped, desirous, enslaved and the dejected.
Mayya is an ambitious woman and an excellent seamstress married to Abdallah.
She defies the tradition and patriarchy in her own ways. For her, laughter is a
weapon. Breaking the tradition, she gives birth in Muscat hospital and also
manages to migrate to Muscat with her family rather than settling in the
village. She named her daughter London, a place in the “Christian land”. Mayya
expects London to be a symbol of freedom and change, but to the contrary, she is
another woman subject who struggles to come in terms with the complexities of
present-day Oman.
Asma, a voracious reader married artist Khalid
out of a sense of responsibility. Khwala is a divorcee who runs a salon in
Muscat. She waited for years and then married her childhood love Nisar who has
migrated to Canada. He married her only to inherit his mother’s property, and
he went back to his girlfriend in Canada. Later when he settled in Oman and
started to live with the family almost after ten years of their marriage,
Khwala revenges him back. Their mother Salima was a dejected child brought up
at her uncle’s house after her father’s death.
Najiya, the Qamar in resonance with the Arabic
title of the novel “Sayyidat Qamar” is a vibrant subplot at the heart of the
novel. “Qamar” means moon which signifies love, passion and loss; moreover,
lunar system is central to Islamic tradition. Najiya is a seductress who falls
in love with Mayya’s father, Azzan who is the Shaykh of the clan. Azzan and the
Qamar is madly in love and during their meetings, lines from poets like Rumi
and al-Mutanabbi are craftly quoted.
Zarifa is one of the strongest characters in the
novel who is a slave. She took care of Abdallah when he was a child. Meanwhile,
with time she has managed to assert an amount of power in her master’s house.
There are several other minor women characters like London’s friend Hanan who
was raped; Hafiza the concubine who had three daughters, later forcefully made
to take birth control pills; the madwoman Masouda and her daughter; Zarifa’s
daughter in law Shanna and so on.
History of slave trade rampant in Oman in the
previous centuries is portrayed through the story of Senghor who was caught
casting a net even after slavery was lawfully banned. When Hilal made money out
of arms trade, his son Sulayman made his fortune out of slave trade and dates
trade. Freedom for slave men was achievable as they could run away from the
master’s home, as Zarifa’s husband and son did. But freedom for slave women
remains almost impossible; racial as well as patriarchal axes of domination
controlled their lives.
Zarifa throes all day and is also the victim of
sexual abuse by Shaykh Sulaiman and Shaykh Said’s sons. Shaykh Said forcefully
married Ankabuta to Nasib, a slave. Another is Masouda who had to work her
entire life for the master. Sexual abuse of slaves by the men of the house is a
common occurrence. Whereas any such deviation from the part of the women of the
house resulted in their death. Abdallah’s mother Fatima was poisoned to death
soon after her delivery for her affair with a slave man named Saleem. Vestiges
of slavery is witnessed in Shaykh Sulaiman who is reluctant to accept that the
times have changed. At his deathbed, seeing his slave Sanjar’s daughter Rasha
as the nurse at the hospital, he behaves hysterically.
Discriminatory notions based on class prevalent
in the Omani society are explicated through different events. The community is
divided into different classes- Shaykhs, merchants, slaves, and peasants and so
on. People of al- Awafi were reluctant to change their class system
and mindset; despite the fact that Zayid has become a successful officer,
they addressed him as the beggar Maneen’s son. Ahmad, a peasant’s son and a
doctor by profession loves and plans to marry London only to shatter the
classism in their community.
The novel is not an epitome of western
stereotype of “an Arab Muslim patriarch “, rather it showcases several women
“bodies” who defy and deny patriarchal entities in their own ways. Jokha al-Harthi
busts the myth of impurity attributed to the menstrual and postpartum bleeding
quoting Prophet Muhammed who says his wife Aysha that it is normal.
Celestial Bodies documents the clash
between the traditional and the modern. The novel problematises the transition
through the generation gaps, especially between Salima and Mayya, later Mayya
and London; similarly, first between Abdallah and his father, then between him
and his son Salim.
Salima scorns her daughter Mayya for going to
hospital in Muscat to “Indian and Christian doctors” for delivery. Salima and
the elders disapprove of naming the child with an unusual name ‘London’. On the
other hand, when Shanna named her daughter Rasha, others disapproved for the
reason that a slave child should not be named like the master’s children. Here
Shanna has made an intriguing attack on patriarchal slavery.
Abdallah felt dejected and had a strained
relationship with his son Salim. He could not get over his abusive and
overpowering father, who didn’t allow him to graduate and called him a “boy”
even after he was father to three children. He reminisced his relationship with
his abusive father when he was disturbed thinking of London or had a fight with
Salim.
Obsession of the younger generation with English
and cities is well evident in the novel. Abdallah sees it an embarrassment
unable to speak English well. When the first-generation people like Salima and
Shaykh Sulaiman scorned the English ways and city life, Mayya and Abdallah and
others of the second-generation felt fascinated with it. But London and Salim
of the third-generation blend well with English language and the city ways of
Muscat.
Death is a recurring theme in the novel and
deaths of several types surface in the novel. Infant deaths and deaths during childbirth
is a common happening in the old Oman. Infant Hamad died of fever as Shaykh
Said denied permission to take the child to hospital as it was against the
tradition. Marwaan the Pure, a pious young boy kills himself after realising
that he cannot do away with his kleptomaniac self. Najiya the Qamar and Maneen,
a beggar is murdered. Abdallah’s mother Fatima is poisoned to death. Zarifa
dies unattended after getting her both legs amputated due to diabetes.
The novel recounts various myths and rituals deeply
embedded in Omani culture. Customs related to birth, death and marriage are
detailed in length. Another is the common practice in rural Omani society where
the inexplicable and mysterious is related to superstitious beliefs. Rituals to
please jinn not to harm the new-born and its mother are a
common custom. Apart from the blind superstitious practices of exorcism, even
murders in the past were justified as done by supernatural beings.
The novel does not offer any resolutions.
Instead it critiques and re-evaluates the past and present alike. History of
Oman is interwoven with the lives of each character. Neither of them is
liberated but evolve in their own ways. Celestial Bodies touches
upon serious issues and converses with the reader. The novel which begins in a
room and ends in a beach of a vibrant city is an attempt to document the
socio-cultural political and economic history of Sultanate of Oman. It is the
tale of a community and its country coming of age, evolving from its slave past
through the colonial era to an extremely complex present.
