In the Eye of the Sun

Rating:
Summary: A book - Egyptian in detail and universal in nature...
Review: From a Jewish woman poin of view, totally devoted to the existence of the State of Israel, I could read the other side's opinions and attitudes without feeling offended or irrate. Just saddened. Ms. Soueif is too smart a writer to give it fanatic overtones. As far as the story is concerned, I couldn't put the book down. The dialogue and the characters are so real that I deeply cared for what happened to them. My God, this Saif, never wanting to have a conversation, became quite talkative when the pain was in his soul. And Asya, so emancipated and yet so impotent to take a strong stand against the lowest of men; compliant and scared not to hurt his feelings; totally paralyzed by her Middleeastern upbringing. Some things a woman just doesn't do... Oh, this book... I took pleasure in the smallest detail - doing the dishes, putting handcream on, metaphors and semantics, important and unimportant, they breathe life into this novel. It's one of the best I read in a long time. My only question is: do Saifs exist? I know there are plenty of Geralds, but except for Saif's aloofness that is real, his generosity and at the same time his disinterest in his wife - are they real? I wish I could personally congratulate the writer.

Rating:
Summary: (4.5) A consuming work of brilliant storytelling
Review: I am consumed, too soon bereft/ shaded figures of my dark imagining/ still spinning images across the pages of my mind/ A thousand and one Arabian Nights pursue my dreams/ creating magic in the midnight hour/ I hold the dream, refusing to awaken/ to leave this exotic world/ only to begin another day....

Actually, this book was so lush and flowing, I could barely write a review after finishing it. So instead, I wrote a poem, which is, in a way, a disservice to such an enchanting first novel. Perhaps best known for MAP OF LOVE, Soueif is an extremely talented Egyptian writer who has won a lifetime fan. IN THE EYE OF THE SUN is the epic story of a young Egyptian woman in search of herself, well-educated and refined. The descriptive passages of her beloved country and family are filled with elegant prose. In addition, Soueif is unparalleled in her honesty regarding her character's coming-of-age saga. While living in England, furthering her education, the young woman meets an arrogant poseur. Ambushed by her sense of isolation and homesickness, she falls into a love affair that will have consequences for the rest of her life and ultimately devastate her long-planned marriage. Yet she walks through all with grace and courage.

In spite of it's length, IN THE EYE OF THE SUN kept me engrossed, reluctant to reach the last page, so immersed was I in the young woman's struggle to honor family and tradition without dishonoring herself. The only disappointment was toward the very end, in the final resolution of the tale; but for all that, I was hardly disenchanted with this beautifully crafted novel.

Rating:
Summary: A BEAUTIFUL INSIGHT TO EGYPTIAN CULTURE
Review: I found myself caught up in this work from the very begining. Soueif's beautiful writing made it very easy to work my way though nearly 800 pages with ease.

As a woman who is involved with an Egyptian, this book shed light on the complicated personality of an Egyptian man which can be so foreign to a western woman. There were parts of this book which were so painful I could barley stand to read them. The author "takes you there" and you feel the agony and pain which comes from a dissolving marrage. I felt trapped along with Asya as she was dealing with that idiot Gerald. I was always saying to myself 'Get out!!! what are you doing with this guy?'

I love Ahdaf Soueif's writing had have also read "The Map of Love"

Rating:
Summary: Thank you Ahdaf
Review: I have started reading this book last week. Three sleepless nights later i put it down.What a fantastic read... This is a very egyptian novel , yet it is also a novel about sex,politics and life. I can't wait to read Ahdaf Sweif's other books.

Rating:
Summary: A BEAUTIFUL INSIGHT TO EGYPTIAN CULTURE
Review: I only bought this book because I was completely enamored with Map of Love, Soeif's second book. I am only giving it three stars because I have an obsession with all things Middle Eastern right now. I thought this story could have been told much better in about half as many pages. I was really interested in Asya's life at the beginning of the book, but Soueif tends to drag on, and too many annoying details fill up the parts between the interesting stuff. The main stories are Asya's marriage to Saif (who I think is a first-rate jerk!), her political leanings, and her affair with an Englishman (also a real jerk). The book would have grabbed me more if it had focused on these things more specifically.

Rating:
Summary: Post-colonial angst meets the Seventies
Review: I really did enjoy reading this book--Soueif's masterful descriptions and fascinating characters make this easy--however, I found that I really did not sympathize much with the protagonist, Asya. I should have, though. Asya is growing up in the 70s in a Muslim country that is experiencing internal and external political turmoil. Asya was not raised as a traditional Muslim; her parents are intellectuals who seem to merely go through the motions where their religious lives are concerned. They seem more worried about following social constructs than religious ones. Not that there's anything wrong with that, per se. However, it does seem to cripple Asya in some ways, as she is too high and mighty to be really Egyptian, yet she is too Egyptian to be truly European. She doesn't understand what she wants to be, let alone what she should be. She looks to her mother, girlfriends, and husband for guidance, but each gives a different answer. Plus, she has no internal moral compass to guide her. She was bound to let someone down, including the reader, who comes to want nothing but the best for her in her life. That said, this novel was amazing. Soueif was really able to capture this character well, as well as the other characters. But you should be careful not to mistake the Egyptian characters of Asya's family and friends in her social stratum as typical Egyptians. But I found myself longing for a different story as I read this one--a story of devout Muslim people trying to live Muslim, Arabic lives in a changing country, a changing world. The characters in this novel are very Western in their thoughts and desires--a result of years of occupation by Western nations. What's more, the narrator and Asya both appear to have contempt for devout Muslims and for country people, and they look to Europe for all things civilized and proper, and from what I've read, that is not an unusual opinion for modern Egyptians of the upper classes. How unfortunate they seem to me as I consider the pyramids...

Rating:
Summary: I could 't read it
Review: I tried and tried as it came highòy recommended but I couldn't read this book. It was too formless, too confusing, too undramatic. Be forewarned--she may have a great story but she is not a good writer. If there's a structure here I didn't see it in the first 50 pages.

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece
Review: It was a great pleasure reading Ahdaf Soueif's In the Eye of the Sun. The dialogs between husband and wife are painfully real, and Asya's journey to self-realization makes me wonder if there is any reconciliation between Western and Islamic values, that are combined and deeply rooted in upper-middle and upper Egyptian classes, giving, and I will speak only for myself, endless conflicts. Ahdaf Soueif shows an exemplary awareness of the important political events that shaped the history of the region at the time, and accurately captures her generation's reaction to that. Asya's college years match our parents' accounts of a beautiful secular Cairo, and hints to the future change are not to be missed. A true masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: a candid and absorbing coming-of-age story
Review: The most striking aspect of this novel is the candor with which Soueif treats sexual themes, a radical and refreshing departure from most novels and memoirs by contemporary Middle Eastern women writers. Asya's sexual awakening occurs on the riddling boundaries between East and West, her early life in Egypt and her adult life in England. The descriptions of her childhood and adolescent days in Egypt are heart rendingly beautiful. At over eight hundred pages, the book is a quite a tome, but utterly absorbing; I read it through in a matter of sittings! The politics she charts were only vaguely known to me, and so the book also functioned as a sort of primer on Egyptian and Palestinian history of this century. Truly groundbreaking!

Rating:
Summary: Great book!
Review: This is a wonderful story of a young woman who struggles to make her life her own as she grows into adulthood.

And yes, Gerald is an utter idiot -but be prepared to weep with laughter everytime he opens his idiot mouth.