Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea.
As an Arabian-American woman, this novel was of more than a little interest to me. The book is slight, in email epistle format. The author traces the lives of four Riyadhi schoolmates over six years. She manages to combine verses from the Qur’an, popular songs, and classical poetry, with the events in the women's lives. I thought it gave a decent idea of the pressures which shape Saudi women. It was a bit hard for me to tell, as I had "inside" information.
The novel combines classical and colloquial Arabic, and some regionalisms. This is probably invisible to American readers, but I could often feel the change in tones. I think the difference in tones would probably be considered uneven, or undesirable in English, but it is important here. Saudi Arabia was completely using oral tradition just fifty to sixty years ago. Classical Arabic is like Latin--not really spoken except for religious or ceremonial purposes. Most Saudis do not or cannot read Classical Arabic. Colloquial Arabic is very much an organic, growing language that varies greatly by country, region or town. Arabic is rather a
portmanteau language, with prefixes and suffixes and special constructs allowing users to build the words they want as they go. Which can make interpretation very difficult.
I was born in al-Hasa, the eastern province of Saudi Arabia. I lived in Jeddah-by-the-sea in the Hejaz or western province as a teenager. Though never treated as a full Saudi (citizenship was never an option), I had some insights into the lives of Saudi women.
My last summer in Saudi Arabia was when I was 21. I could not go anywhere unless accompanied by my father or my brother. I had to cover my hair at all times (if I even took off my head covering in a car, it could cause a huge traffic jam), and wear loose, long dresses or caftans that covered my elbows, ankles, and silhouette. I did not have to wear an
abayah the traditional one piece black garment, or the hijab, which covers hair and neck. I did develop strong feelings about the women who had to wear them. In Saudi slang, fully veiled women are referred to as ghosts. That is how they are treated, as well.
That summer, I was befriended by a woman named Ricarda, whose husband was working for the same company as my father. We lived in the same compound (go ahead, you can call me trailer trash). Ricarda had recently married Faiz, a Saudi man. They had both grown up on embassy row in Washington, DC. Ricarda's parents were from Trieste in Yuoslavia. Faiz's family was an old merchant trading family in Jeddah, so even though Faiz's family did not completely approve, they were more open to Ricarda than to an fully American wife. Ricarda and Faiz were married in a Muslim ceremony, and had to agree to spend two years "in kingdom" as the idiom has it. After that , they would be free to return to the US to complete grad school. Ricarda was studying English literature. She and I had a hoard of old book reviews we would pour over by the pool, before settling on a NYT crossword puzzle from a book I'd brought. Trust me, life a a Saudi woman is deeply boring.
Ricarda had to attend lots of family gatherings, which meant she mostly sat with Faiz's female relatives discussing other relatives and gossip. The main topic was matrimonial prospects, for men and women. The concerns about a woman's virtue and modesty were intense. So were lineage, class, and tribe. The matches were discussed and initiated by the older women, and then formalized by the older men. Most marriages were arranged. There was no interplay between unmarried members of either sex allowed in the traditional culture or religion. But everyone watched Egyptian soap operas, and listened to love songs and poetry.
I lived in Jeddah pre-cellphones. At that time, the most scandalous behavior I witnessed was night driving. Groups of young women and men would cruise the shopping malls in the evenings. Then small groups of women would make their way to their cars and drivers (women are not allowed to drive in SA). Some of the young men would follow in their cars, and the groups would drive around in circles in less populated areas, tossing bits of conversation out of slightly open tinted windows. Scandalous, I tell you.
At the same time, some of my father's employees who were not Saudi would do their best to chat me up. I realized early on that those gentlemen were just engaging in belt notching, just like what was so prevalent on my college campus in the states. The pelting with cell phone numbers that Alsanea describes reminds me of the matchbook collecting games played in NYC bars. My girlfriends might receive seven or eight matchbooks with phone numbers written on them, but they wouldn't call any of them, just wait to see if they received any calls from the one or two individuals they had given their correct number. My friends put matchbooks with good numbers in one pocket, and matchbooks with bad numbers in another. It was all a silly courting game.
Before starting this book, I worried it might turn tragic, with an
"honor" killing or stoning. Those tragedies are realities in kingdom. Things are changing, albeit slowly, as this book details. The prospects faced by the four upper-class heroines of Girls from Riyadh seemed realistic to me. In the beginning, the girls are filled with the idea of romance and finding their true loves. They take different routes, almost all completely modest, and in keeping with Islam. The most scandalous behavior is talking by cellphone and/or internet to unmarried SA men.
One of the tragedies is the story of Qamra, who enters into an arranged marriage with great hopes and happiness. Shortly after the wedding, they move to Chicago, where Qamra has no family or connections. Her husband is cold and often absent. In time, Qamra learns he has been in love and living with a Filipina woman for years, but his family would not allow him to marry her. They forced him to marry Qamra. Qamra becomes pregnant against his wishes, and he divorces her and sends her back to live with her family in SA.
There are some happy endings, too, though some are a long time coming. I think any Muslim reader would understand the risks these women took searching for their true loves. I am actually a bit in awe of the bravery of the
author, who, as far as I can tell is pursuing postgrad studies in endodontics in Chicago
I have to talk about what was for me, one or two of the funniest bits of the book. Firstly, at one point, the narrator says something about men being attracted to the "beautiful" Riyadh accent. My personal prejudices just had to snigger. The broad Saudi accent is somewhat like a southern accent in the US once was--shorthand for stupid. One of my Arab Teaching Assistants in college told me my Al-Hasa accent was the equivalent to deep Mississippi. He thought I should strive for a Lebanese accent, which he thought would sound "more cultured". Guess were he was from :D
Jeddah, with it's greater openness to the west over the centuries, and more relaxed customs and traditions, sounds more cultured to my ear. Plus, the Prophet spoke the Quo'ran in the neighboring cities of Al-Meccah and al-Madinah, which are closed societies. So those dialects/accents might be closer and purer than Riyadh. Riyadh may be the capitol, of government, and home of
Wahabism but many people, Saudi and not, consider it provincial. That leads to the second giggle: toward the end of the book, the narrator notes that one of the people responding to and complaining about her emails feels she is purposely saying the men of Riyadh are inferior to the men of the eastern and western provinces. Though I doubt that was the author's intent, but that was always my impression. Plus my own personal regional prejudice. I guess we'll have to wait for The Boys of Saudi Arabia to enlighten us! Maybe someday the upper class will shed some of the old customs and traditions that make women so miserable.
