Hi everyone! Just dropping by to start the new blog site. Hope to see you around here soon! How's the Kite Runner going? Is everyone all finished? Let's hear from you to be sure you can work this much easier blog site.
See you soon. Pam
Kalamat! This is the Arabic for "hear my words" Anyhow, welcome to our new blog site for the ladies book club of Jabriya. Hmmm. Ok ladies, we have to come up with a unique name for the club. I suggest "Kalamat". Anyhow, we have Kite Runner coming up for our May discussion and looking forward to that along with our catered dinner from Deek Al-Roomi. Please RSVP your intentions. Ok let's hear from the rest of you! Maasalama. Pam
W E L C O M E
Asalam Alaykum. It's great to have our first blog site up and running - well at least the first one that is going to make sense. The other site was not so user-friendly and thus - here we are! I hope we'll be inspired to keep in touch all through the summer and next year - its interesting to know what one another is reading and experiencing when away from the Kalamat Ladies.
Photos of Kalamat Ladies
One of me is enough! Hope to see the rest of you here soon!
Book Club Selections
- The Scar of David, (not yet chosen by the club) by Palestinian Susan Abulhawa. When the reader picks this up for the first time, he/she is not prepared for the immense amount of emotion that one will encounter as you ravagely move from one chapter to the next. The author has emerged in this novel as a "voice" of several generations - a voice that screams out to be heard and acknowledged - a voice that seeks compassion and and kleenex for the held back tears. This novel is based on factual data and illustrates the human tragedy of a people who still today seek to return to their homeland. Susan Abulhawa's story is only one among thousands, but one cannot read her book without feeling her soul. The loss she has experienced of family members and the love of her life reveals her strength among adversity. From the moment her young brother was stolen by an Israeli man in the madness of 1948 until meeting her lost brother 50 years later, there had never been closure. This novel is more than a good read. It is a human interest story that should make anyone angry at the great amount of "hate" that we still experience today around the world.
- Afsaneh: Short Stories by Iranian Women - Edited by Kaveh Basmenji. Female authors such as Simin Daneshvar, Goli Taraqqi, Zohreh Hatami, Behjat Malek-Kiani and many others reveal their private hells as they tried to maintain some element of dignity in their lives. These authors a vivid with their imagery like Daneshvar whose narrator reveals that her heart "pounded with anxiety, as if someone was washing clothes in her stomach" when she was trapped in a dark room. Goli Taraqqi personifies fear in "The Shemiran Bus" - she says: "Fear is everywhere, like an invisible man. Sometimes it opens the door, and in the afternoons, when everybody's drowsing, it comes for me." The reader will find these stories touching the inner most spirit of existence in the encounter with a country and a people whose culture we are yet to understand.
- Snow - by Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish Nobel Prize winner in literature. This novel reveals the tug-o-war between the Islamist's quest to turn Turkey into an Islamic state and Ataturk's desire for secularism. The main character, Ka takes the reader on a journey that sometimes puts us on the edge of our seat because of the unrest, the clandestine meetings, the undercurrents that are often bridled with fear, secret agendas, and murder. The fact that many young females have been committing suicide as a result of being forbidden to wear their headscarves indicates that they are either too fearful to follow the secularist agenda because of their personal commitment to Allah. They are doomed to hell if they don't veil. They are doomed to hell by the secularists if they do veil. Although this event is not the main theme of the novel, Pamuk carries us through a turbulent time when Turkey is trying to establish itself as a respectable country that cannot quite shake off its Islamic appendages.
- Midaq Alley - by the Egyptian Nobel Prize winner in literature - 1988, Naguib Mahfouz. The author provides a panoramic view of the inner lives of the inhabitants of one alley - symbolic of the stifling and caged entrapment of its characters - especially the females. Mahfouz provides a panoramic view of the cultural nuances of early 20th century Cairo in the midst of British occupation. He shows the reader the heart and soul of despair as it is defined by characters who hope for meaning in their lives - only to find nothing at the end of the alley. A must read!
- The Kite Runner - by Khaled Hosseini. I personally found this a wonderful read. These events rise out of the depths of war in the aftermath of America's invasion of Afghanistan. Here, we are introduced to the class disparity between the Hazaras and the Pashtuns. The narrator and his friend Hassan represent each of these groups which throughout the novel serve as a backdrop for the narrator's self incrimination and Hassan's "pure spirit" that is sometimes common among the more oppressed. Hosseini even despairs at Hassan's devotion. His frustration is often expressed throughout the events of the novel such as when he says "Everywhere I turned, I saw signs of his loyalty, his goddamn unwavering loyalty." The reader often becomes frustrated at the narrator's overwhelming need for acceptance by his own father. Likewise, we are dismayed at his inability to save Hassan from a rape by a gang of boys - all because of his need to show that he had nothing to do with the Hazaras. This novel in part unravels some of the complications that beset Afghanistan in the recent past - and we find that the only safe climate for the author ends up being America.
7 comments:
Hi Ladies,
Okay, I'll try this one. (I think I probably have three or four accounts with this site. All lapsed due to inactivity. Let's hope this time I can actually learn how to do this.)
I've finished reading Kite Runner and am presently working on the book Istanbul.
I'd like to suggest starting an "annotated book list" - starting perhaps with books dealing with the Middle East. If we all list books we've read - and a quick review then I think we'd have a good start. We can then add books that we hear about as "suggestions" and people can comment as they see fit.
I love the name, Pam. How fitting!
VREDE en VREUGDE Linda
Ok Linda was the first to blog after I set this up. Let's hear from the rest. I am inundated with end of semester work and trying to clean up my office and shelves. I fly out on June 19 and that time will approach quite fast, I'm sure. Happy reading on Istanbul, Linda. I wonder what Carol is reading right now - and Tilat - I know you had finished The Kite Runner awhile ago. Well we will all catch up on the 22nd for our last shindig before summer break. See you all soon! Pam
I also finished Kite Runner, and I wasn't that amazed by it. After hearing so many wonderful reviews of the book, I was a bit disappointed. I don't think I'll be able to make the literature circle on the 22nd (as I have a previos engagement I had forgotten about), but I'm going to try my hardest to be there as I'm very interested in hearing what everyone else thought about the book.
I think the "annotated book list" sounds like a great idea. I don't think I could add many books dealing with the Middle East to it, but I certainly would love to read everyone else's suggestions.
At the risk of sounding ignorant, what does "kalamat" mean?
Hi All. I'm using the family gmail account so you'll see someone else's name instead of mine (Tina).
Suzanne, the meaning of the word 'kalamat' is explained in the intro by Pam. Great choice, Pam! Anyway, all this and more on Tuesday. See you all then!
Hi everyone! I really enjoyed our last get-together tonight (22nd)for the year. I keep hoping that by some remote possibility I will be back in September. Let me finish negotiations and I'll pray for a miracle. I'm not ready to leave Kuwait yet. Ok I'm off to bed now - but happy end of the school year to you and have safe travel this summer. Keep in touch via Kalamatladies. Pam
I don't understand why sometimes my name is different than other times when I blog....I want to sign as "Pam" but because this blog is tied to my classroom blogs which list me as "Dr. Pamela..." this is what keeps showing up. Strange.
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