Daughter of Isis: The Autobiography of Nawal El Saadawi

Rating:
Summary: Thrilling, but skewed...
Review: A Daughter of Isis is an autobiography that reveals much more than the tumulteous life of its author in a very thrilling and gripping style. The book is a document about the status of women in Egypt as well as all of the Middle East. From an Arab or Islamic point of view, the book is simply shocking and subvertive. But despite its scathing virulence, the book is authentic and is based on a sad reality in its depictions. Virulence, however, skews its objectivity, clearly antagonizing some of its readers, and alienating others. The book is a must read for people with a good background about Egypt and the Arab World. However, the book is not a good introduction because of its heavy polarization toward a frustrated feministic diatribe against a culture. It is important to note that the majority of Egyptians would not agree with the author's hostile feministic wholesale denunciation of Egyptian sosiety. Personally, I take issue with the author's approach to culture. Other cultures could be objectionable to us in some of their practices, but they are never totally 'evil'. Good and evil are irrelevant in a genuine critique of a culture, especially of a culture with an identity crisis.

Rating:
Summary: The great fighter:
Review: Dr. Nawal ElSaadawi is an outstanding author. The autobiography of her childhood and adolescence is both moving and horrifying. I compared it with the autobiography of Fay Afaf Kanafani [Nadia, Captive of Hope]. Both women grew up in the Middle East and it was very enlightening to see the societal differences of Egypt and Lebanon/Palestine. [If you look further at the autobiography of Edward Said you will see pictured yet another class - Christian Palestinians living in Egypt].The brutality with which Egyptian women were treated by villagers, as opposed to what is seen in Egyptian old films and what we read in Mrs. Kanafani's book. Part seems to be class differences, part society differences, part rural vs urban. The physical brutality described in her book, which we know to be true even today to a lesser degree, is heart-rending. Her fight to give her intelligence a chance to help society in several ways is very important. First as an example to other girls and women, then to her extended family, and lastly as a doctor in villages where doctors are non-existence or scarce. Dr. ElSaadawi must be respected for her resistance as a child to backward standards and to what she accomplished in getting women an equal role in Egyptian society.

I think the book is a must for studies of women's rights.It is very important as it brings to light fearlessly the harsch treatment of women. We should all thank Dr. ElSaadawi for her fearless book.

Rating:
Summary: Contrived, pretentious and so very badly translated
Review: This is a strange book. It was obviously written in Arabic originally but aiming almost exclusively at a western readership. The translator, El Sadawi's husband had the role of translating the book and increasing its appeal for a western audience.

I found the first third of the book dreadfully boring and repetitive. The first page was gripping then it went downhill fast. El Sadawi, an ultra leftist spends most of the first third of the book trying to establish working class connections. That despite of her family's land owning origins and indeed her grandfather's aristocratic heritage and even a title too!

El Sadawi along with Doris Lansing (on the back cover) try to have us believe that she came from such a background that would have married her off at the age of 10 and discriminated so much against her. While I don't for a minute suggest that gender discrimination is not a serious issue in Egypt, then and now. The story as told by El Sadawi appears so contrived, exaggerated and mostly made up. It is hard to believe a father so liberal as to send his daughter to middle and high school away in Cairo in the big city, a father who was the inspector of education, who washed dishes (in 1930's Egypt) from a quasi-aristocratic family considering marrying off his daughter to the "wrong" class let alone at that age. Even if that was the case, what happened to him to turn him into the modern father who then goes on to send his daughter to Cairo alone!

The book gets less painful to read as things move on a bit and Nawal goes to Cairo. Here we have an ungrateful bitter human being who has nothing good to say about anyone. The self-righteousness is nauseating. Her rich aunt's house was no good, her poor uncle's house was also no good, and the schools were no good. You get the impression of the whole world actually trying to help Nawal, yet she has not a good word to say about any of it.

There are occasional parts of the book that are really interesting, very human and / or down right funny. The life of the various aunts in Cairo and their fates was well written and moving.

The treatment of religion was very superficial. El sadawi lashed out on Christianity and Judaism, but saved most of her venom for Islam. El Sadawi presents mostly interpretations of her poorly educated paternal grand mother as the definition of Islam then proceeds to attack them. In doing so, one never really understand her views as a mature person, but only senses her anger at the religion. Parts of the Quran quoted in the book were so badly translated and the interpretation was so poor and narrow to almost feel like a propaganda rag.

The pretensions continue all the way through the book. We are expected to sympathize with the El Sadawi's family following their move to Cairo. Here we have a family of nine kids with her attending the expensive medical school in the middle of World War II and complaining about her diet of daily meat sandwiches!!! And throwing them away! Yet poor family is being discriminated against because of the father being very clean and above politics. And in 1943, right in the middle of Hitler's atrocities, her only thought towards the Jews is hate! What a shame!

This book is doubly irritating because of the huge amount of mistakes, editorial inconsistencies and very intrusive translation. The book was obviously written in Classical Arabic, but Egyptian Arabic was used in quoted dialogue. The translator, revealing more lofty origins, felt the need to apologize for the use Egyptian Arabic, the sopken language of Egyptians, and to explain the origin of the various Egyptian words. Also the translator felt the need to translate place names right in the middle of the text such as Koberi Al Lemon, being Lemon Bridge, he could have used either. Whenever it got to the Quran, the author was really ignorant and offensive, so a chapter in the Quran (Yassin's) he dismissively says it is a part that is meant to chase the evil away, rather than what it is.

The translator also confuses us greatly with inconsistencies, we have Hegaz, the area where Mecca is and we also have setti el hajja! We have "el" for "the" in the author's name and sometimes in other parts of the book, but he often opts for the more Classical Arabic sounding "al". We have the feast after Ramadan defined as the Sacrifice feast.

There is no doubt that the author and the translator anger at the circumstances that led them into exile away from Egypt largely colored the book. It is a shame that she was unable to stay safely in Egypt holding and defending her views, albeit misguided. It is ironic though that her host, Duke University, didn't escape attack even though it was a minor attack against its namesake.

I was so pleased to get to the end of the book so I can start reading something else. Finally! Thankfully the next book was Alan Lightman's Diagnosis so I now enjoy reading again!