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The Cry Of The Dove (2007)

The Cry of the Dove (2007)

Book Info

Author
Genre
Rating
3.25 of 5 Votes: 2
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ISBN
0802170404 (ISBN13: 9780802170408)
Language
English
Publisher
grove press, black cat

About book The Cry Of The Dove (2007)

Rewritten after some advice suggesting I make this review more PC and re-rewritten after deciding I don't care about PC anyway 16 May 2013, see the second spoiler.The story is of a young woman who falls for a man and gets pregnant and then he leaves her. Her child is adopted and forever leaves a hole in her heart and despite all attempts to make a new life for herself abroad she is always drawn back to the nasty, backward, prejudiced, wicked family and country of her past. The country isn't named but since the girl is a Bedouin it's probably Lebanon or close by. (view spoiler)[When the girl discovers she is pregnant she is sent to a very rough and crude prison for her own safety, because there her father and brother cannot kill her to avenge their 'honour'. But the men have long memories and when friends of hers leave the prison they are shot dead as soon as they exit. After a long time, seven years, she is helped by nuns to escape and eventually ends up in Exeter, in England. In her thirties she marries and feeling more secure she travels back to her family, dressing herself as a foreigner to lessen the risk of being recognised, as she traces her daughter. But it is too late, she has been shot and buried for the same crime as her mother and as she weeps and wails on her daughter's grave, she too is shot dead and the father and brothers can now hold their heads up again, honour redeemed, having punished their daughters and sisters and granddaughters for the crime of falling in love with men who want nothing but sex, use no contraception and condemn their girlfriends to death should they be found out or the girl get pregnant. Where is the honour in that? (hide spoiler)]

I desperately wanted to like this book. There were parts of it that were beautifully written. My heart wrenched for Salma -- the main character of this piece. Still, it took me a good two or three reads of the first few chapters to even determine what was going on and in what time period -- which was aggravating. The story also had a tendency to move at an extraordinarily slow pace leading to an outcome which was plainly obvious from the very beginning. I'd be interested to hear other's thoughts on the novel and so even though I didn't like it, I'd still recommend it to friends.The novel centers around Salma, a Bedouin woman who flees her native country after becomming pregnant outside of marriage. She ultimately ends up in the United Kingdom where she must start a new life after escaping various tragedies in her old one. It really opened my eyes to the struggles and challenges of those who choose to start new lives in new places, which I suppose means that my own disagreement and dissatisfaction with this novel was worth it?

Do You like book The Cry Of The Dove (2007)?

If you read fiction to escape, then you read literature to fall in love, and with this love collect for your heart the fallible gestures of human judgment that mark a life as you would know it. The Cry of the Dove creates a woman easy to fall in love with because her life encompasses the most human effort: to stake and bound an identity amid conditions that are powerfully imbalanced, but quietly, lovingly, individual.The novel is constructed with evocative language and a speech broken only out the narrator’s mouth, for Salma Ibrahim El-Musa, sometimes Sally Asher, is nothing if not honest in the cruelty of her self-image, her Bedouin roots never not on display for judgment by her adopted England. Like her speech, scenes of the narrative are spilled like a bag of stones, skipping from present to past, but orchestrated in a way to muse here on religion, here on birth, here on desire, here on loss.I don't know what to say that would express why I think this novel is so beautiful, just as I don't know how to encapsulate a life to make it tell as well as it feels. But I am in love with this complicated Salma, as much as with what she would hope to lightly carry as with how steadily she would march toward grace.
—William

A beautiful unforgettable narrative. Every page is tinged with pain and shame. To imagine that young and debonair Salma following pregnancy, is abandoned by her man who would sing to her, 'your love took hold of my insides, my soul', is heart breaking. I simply could not contain myself when he hurled abuses of rejection upon her, walked away forever, only to leave her alone battling with agony and shame looming larger than life itself. That she should spend time within walls of protected confinement to give birth in shame, trade her home to a land of anonymity, suffer in quiet forbearance the misgivings of the land she took solace and refuge in, and finally be embraced generously by an Englishman whose love added meaning and freedom to her lost soul, is all meaningless when in foolish retrospection, she journeys back to her wretched forbidden land.Long after the book is read, closed and kept away, one is haunted with grief so great for days together. That Salma be shot between her eyes in cold blood, by her own vengeful brother comes to mind vividly and helplessly.
—Chon Rumthao

I picked this book based on the beautiful cover and seemingly interesting description on the back cover. Inside the book was a heart wrenching story that jumped around from one time period to another with each paragraph (not chapter). Maybe the disjointed, jumpy story is meant to show the reader the chaotic thoughts of Salma? Every few pages as the story jumped around and a character was revisited, I'd stop and wonder who it was and then keep reading and finally remember. In the end, the story I
—Michelle Hendricks

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