JEDDAH, 6 April 2007 — “Bias,” “arrogant,” “stereotypical,” and “repetitive” were some of the words used by Saudi critics to describe Lebanese novel “Misk Al-Ghazal” (The Deer Musk), written by famous Lebanese novelist Hanan Al-Sheikh.

The novel, which tells the story of four women who live in an unnamed Gulf country, was discussed last Tuesday at the Jeddah Literary Club by participants of the “Hewar Group” (the Dialogue Group). Misk Al-Ghazal is the fifth Arabic, non-Saudi novel discussed by the Hewar Group in their fourth season under the theme of “The Presence of Saudi Society in Arabic Novels.”

According to the group’s mission statement, the purpose of choosing such a topic is to discuss questions such as: Is any life experience worth writing? Are the novels merely a reflection of the writer’s attitude toward Saudi Arabia? Can it be considered fiction in the first place, as the writers may merely portray their own personal experience of living in the Kingdom?

Mubarak Al-Khaledi, lecturer in English Literature at the King Faisal University, was one of the main speakers specifically invited by the club to share his observations about the novel.

In his prewritten paper, Al-Khaledi gave the impression that he felt that the Lebanese lead character in the novel, Suha, is actually the novelist herself. “The character has a problem of communicating with people, even women from her own nationality,” he said.

The novel vividly unveils the stories of four women living in a men-dominated society. The lives and secrets of a Lebanese, American, German and one local woman are told through a recording of their daily lives. The novel further portrays desert men as naïve people and that their main goal in life is sex and alcohol despite the strict religious rules that govern the society they live in. The main character has nothing to do but remain imprisoned in a modern home that is void of any true meaningful life.

“I am sympathetic to women. In my writings, I want to expose the injustice that women experience in their daily lives,” said Al-Sheikh in one of her interviews. The Lebanese novelist, who has published many novels, published her first novel when she was 19. She received a lot of attention since it explicitly discussed, for the first time, the alleged distressful life of women in the Middle East.

Although, Al-Sheikh does not name the country throughout the novel, on many previous occasions she has said she has lived in Saudi Arabia for eight years.

In his critique, Al-Khaledi attributed the reason behind the lead character not fully accepting differences in the Gulf country to the exotic and imaginary picture that Suha has about life in the desert before leaving Lebanon. The shock between the expected and the reality prevents her from appreciating and accepting the differences in society, he said.

He further compared the lead character’s attitude to another woman, who came from a totally different background yet embraced the bizarre habits of the unnamed state. Susan, the blonde American in her 40s, savors every moment of life in the country. She is married with a child but still finds the time to indulge in an affair with an Arabian man named Moaath, whose eagle eyes enchant her.

In the desert Susan feels special and feels wanted. She likes wearing the abaya to cover her body. “She wants to be just like the desert woman, precious and fragile,” said Al-Khaledi. Unlike Suha, who was forced to live in the country following a civil war in her native Lebanon, Susan refuses to go back to America saying that “going back to the states is going back to being one in millions” and not having the attention a blonde woman gets in the desert.

Lecturer Faiza Al-Harbi delivered two minor readings from the ladies hall. Followed by a reading from Adel Khamis.

Al-Harbi said that novels should document the history of communities. She added that Al-Sheikh was unsuccessful in achieving this and that the novelist’s ideas and ideology dominated the novel. Al-Harbi categorized the novel as a fictional memoir and added that the writer tries as much as she can to fill the plot with unnecessary details just to prove the naivety of desert people.

Both the audience and the speakers concluded that Misk Al-Ghazal was nothing but a deliberate attempt to use exotic details about Arabia and hyperbole the sexual lives of women to break social taboos and draw attention. Her novel, they all agreed, is completely alien to the desert she attributes the book to.