Girls of Riyadh
by Rajaa Alsanea
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Book Summary Information
Author: Rajaa AlsaneaTranslator: Rajaa Alsanea
Translator: Marilyn Booth
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-06-24
ISBN: 014311347X
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of Girls of Riyadh
Book Review: A Fascinating "Epidemic of Contradictions"
Summary: 4 Stars
There was plenty of controversy that followed the publication of Rajaa Alsanea's Girls of Riyadh, and you know what they say: controversy creates interest. First published in Beirut in 2005, Girls was banned by the authorities in Saudi Arabia. As the first and second editions of the novel flew off the shelves in Beirut, Alsanea received death threats for her bold novel about Saudi women's lives, desires, and thwarted dreams.
The back cover has a quote from Time magazine that reads: "Imagine Sex and the City if the city in question were Riyadh." This is an accurate description of the novel, but in the end, this seemingly light-hearted "beach read" does so much more. Girls has the chatty, girl-to-girl quality of Sex and the City, but possesses the ascerbic social critique of a Jane Austen novel. Girls tells the tales of four friends in Riyadh--Sadeem, Gamrah, Lamees, and Mashael (Michelle). These women are considered part of Saudi's "velvet class," an uber rich upper class for whom tribal lineage, social behavior, and family reputation are of utmost importance, which makes each girl's quest for marriage all the more fraught with difficulties. Rather than marrying just for tradition's sake or to make a good match for the benefit of their families, these girls want to marry somebody they love, somebody who knows and respects them for their intellectual gifts, as well as their physical beauty.
Girls describes a world where unrelated men and women cannot openly meet and mingle, where a woman cannot openly show her interest in a man, where sexuality is suppressed until marriage (and in some cases, beyond). For Western readers, it may be difficult to imagine such a world, but the novel's greatest strengths is in the depiction of this culture, its traditions, limitations, and expectations for women. You may not agree with it, but Girls paints a very vivid picture of the contradictions of Saudi society with respect to women.
On the surface, the novel can seem at times shallow, too girly, and too obsessed with love and romance. At times I thought: Oh come on! There are real human rights crimes taking place in the Kingdom, and here you go on about some rich woman's thwarted romantic feelings? Yet I came to understand that a society that prohibits its members from making attachments to each other (or makes those attachments taboo) is a kind of a human rights violation. Make no mistake, this book is a lion in sheep's clothing. As the novel progresses and each of the four friends experience one after another disappointment in their quest for love, the social critique becomes bitingly sharp. The picture Alsanea paints is of a nation that is infected with an "epidemic of contradictions" (183). Women and men fall in love yet cannot marry because their parents do not condone the match; because their social classes are not equal; or because the woman has been previously engaged to another man.
The first thing that you notice about Girls is its format. It's set up as a series of emails that an anonymous writer sends to a yahoo! groups listserv within Saudi Arabia. In each email, sent every Saturday evening, the author tells the stories of her four friends who live in Riyadh. With each email, the anonymous writer gives a small introduction, usually quotes from the Qur'an, poetry, or lyrics from popular Saudi musical artists, and then begins her tale. The email format is one of the book's strengths--it's a clever way to tell the stories of four distinct women, their dreams, and desires. More than just a clever way of telling a story, the novel's focus on computers, cell phones, and other new ways of communication highlights how lonely Saudi women are, but also how there are innovative ways of connecting with others, in a society that makes such connections difficult, taboo, or downright impossible.
Over time, the constant intrusion of the author (i.e. the anonymous email writer) wears thin. Perhaps this is because in the last half of the novel, she just taunts the reader with the fact that she is unknown to them, and will keep her identity a secret. This refrain is repeated at the start of each chapter in the second half of the novel, and quickly becomes repetitive.
Despite this, the novel is a must read for those interested in learning more about Arab or Muslim women, and challenging their preconceived notions about a heretofore closed culture. Girls will fascinate, infuriate, and move you.
Summary of Girls of Riyadh
When Rajaa Alsanea boldly chose to open up the hidden world of Saudi women?their private lives and their conflicts with the traditions of their culture?she caused a sensation across the Arab world. Now in English, Alsanea?s tale of the personal struggles of four young upper-class women offers Westerners an unprecedented glimpse into a society often veiled from view. Living in restrictive Riyadh but traveling all over the globe, these modern Saudi women literally and figuratively shed traditional garb as they search for love, fulfillment, and their place somewhere in between Western society and their Islamic home.Literary Books
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