The February meeting of Muse and Views was held at Janet’s home to discuss Nadia Hashimi’s The Pearl that Broke Its Shell, Carla’s choice. Janet served delicacies to celebrate the Afghanistan setting of the book—dates and pistachios, chicken kabobs with a smoked paprika marinade, Afghani spinach dip, and rosewater cookies for dessert. In attendance were Carla, Colette, Beth, Shirley, Jane, Betty, Jolene and Janet.
Carla introduced the author as an American pediatrician of
Afghani descent, with a degree in Middle Eastern studies and biology. Ms. Hashimi’s parents left Afghanistan in the
1970’s. Her mother pursued a Master's
degree in civil engineering in Europe while her father sought the American
dream. This book is the author’s first
novel. Her second is entitled When the Moon is Low, again about issues
in Afghanistan, this time following the story of people who flee the Taliban
and end up in the dark world of the undocumented.
The Pearl that Broke
Its Shell deals with gender identity and a male-dominated society. Ms. Hashimi introduces the notion of the bacha posh, a cultural tradition in
which young girls dress like boys in order to help their mothers with marketing
and other responsibilities. Only as boys
do these girls seem to achieve a degree of freedom and education in villages
dominated by oppressive warlords who routinely take young brides and beat them
into submission (often with several older wives already under their control,
who may choose to augment the abuse).
Club reviews were mixed.
All were appalled by the violence suffered by women, particularly in
smaller settlements. Even in the capital
city, the book depicted democracy as a veneer, with puppet wives in Parliament
often voting only as their husbands command.
While many felt the story riveting, others were disappointed with the
writing style, where western expressions and unrealistic plot twists to move
the story along seemed to betray the author’s lack of experience. Possibly due to translation difficulties, no
one was able to satisfactorily interpret the poem that inspired the book’s
title. We did enjoy the fact that the central
character, Rahima, was finally able to courageously break out of her shell and
escape, helped by a western woman and two other modern thinkers. Interestingly, Janet added insights from her
travels to Hawaii, where pearls in broken shells are often better than those
drawn from in-tact oysters.
Several noted connections to previous reads. Annabel
dealt with gender identity, and books such as The Kite Runner, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, and 1000 Splendid Suns addressed related
cultural themes. Lest we feel morally
superior in the West, we also commented on our own society’s issue of
objectifying women through pornography. All
in all, we had a very interesting discussion of a book with educational value
about a culture often in the news.
