Eight Months on Ghazzah Street
by Hilary Mantel
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Book Summary Information
Author: Hilary MantelEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-06-07
ISBN: 0007172915
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Harpercollins Pb
Book Reviews of Eight Months on Ghazzah Street
Book Review: Don't use this one as a reference to Saudi
Summary: 2 Stars
If you like extremely ambiguous thrillers with an open ending that you have to go back to the first page to understand, this is fine.
However, if you're looking for information on the "real" Saudi Arabia, it's far from fine.
The claim is that Hilary Mantel lived in Saudi Arabia, but she doesn't write as if she did. I lived there for six years, and her version of expat life is nothing like what I experienced. To begin with, Jeddah is the most Westernized city in Saudi, a really happening place with lots and lots of foreigners, who enjoy life hugely and manage to skate around the restrictions without letting them get in the way. NO ONE I knew just sat in their apartment and moped! There were parties, concerts, art shows, plays, classes, picnics, camping in the desert, and fishing and swimming outings.
No legal alcohol? Home brew. Women can't drive? Tons of taxis, plus a modern bus service.
Shopping? Most of the shop assistants are from Ceylon, Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen, Bangladesh, Phillipines, Taiwan, etc., etc. The idea that they "don't see a woman as a person" is ludicrous! Also, even Saudi men, who traditionally avert their eyes from unrelated women out of politeness, have mostly learned that Western women can and do have minds and opinions, and can be conversed with.
I had a good laugh when someone on the airplane says "Cartographers are redundant. They don't have maps." She wrote that in 1988. However, when my husband and I left in 1985, there WERE maps. We used them to drive around the country.
There are people from all over the world living in the Kingdom, in addition to Americans. Getting to know people from so many countries and cultures was an adventure by itself. My best friends while I was there were Lebanese, Mexican, Canadian and British. My husband and I were invited to visit Saudis, who were invariably as friendly and curious to know about us and our lives as we were about them. Language, by the way, is rarely a problem, as English is used as a sort of lingua franca.
In my opinion, Mantel wanted to write a thriller about a woman in a place where she couldn't depend on anything she used to know, and she chose Saudi Arabia, then cherry-picked the negative elements and exaggerated them.
If you want a more authentic view on Saudi, try "At the Drop of a Veil" by Marianne Alireza. She was probably the first American to marry a Saudi, and while she doesn't avoid the difficulties or the negative things, she also gives a wonderful view of the fascinating culture of the country, and the warmth of the Saudi family she married into.
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