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alobearYou know, in the grand scheme of things, I have a pretty great life.
I woke up slowly yesterday, and spent the first hour of the day finishing The Map of Love by Adhaf Soueif. The blurb on the back puts this firmly in the category of "chick lit" books like The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton and The Glass Painter's Daughter by Rachel Hore, in which a modern day young woman pieces together the story an ancestor or previous owner of their house through diaries/letters/objects from the time, and her subsequent discoveries lead to interesting (and generally romantic) developments in her own life. I've read a few of these, and they are usually quite entertaining, but light and relatively disposable.
Not so with The Map of Love, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1999 and contains so much more than fluffy romance. Isobel Parkman does indeed set out in 1997 to uncover the story of her great-grandmother, an Englishwoman who travelled to Egypt in 1900, and her research into Lady Anna Winterbourne's journals and letters does indeed lead to new and interesting relationships. However, both strands of the storyline are actually narrated by Amal, an Egyptian woman related to both Anna and Isobel, who holds the story together and adds tremendous depth in the realms of history and politics, which lift the book out of the ordinary.
The narrative is well-written and engaging from the beginning, if slightly odd, since Amal tells of incidents in both time periods for which she wasn't present and couldn't know the details, but it works as we follow her through her reconstruction of events. Anna's journals and letters are often quoted directly, giving more variety to the narrative and making her more remote character come to life more directly.
All the discussion and description of Egypt are very apropos, considering not only the recent events there, but also the fact that my parents visited Egypt last month and came back with a wealth of observations and insights that are similar in a lot of ways to Anna's in the book.
The romance, particularly in the historical setting, is beautifully drawn. There is a declaration of love at one point that is almost exactly like Darcy's first proposal in Pride and Prejudice (pointing out all the obstacles to the relationship, statement of continuing love despite efforts to quash it) but with an entirely different reaction from the person it is directed at. I also like the fact that the story follows the lovers past them coming together and explores the hurdles they have to surmount after marriage as well as before.
The politics is liberally sprinkled throughout, but in a way that complements and enhances the story rather than overshadowing it, at least until the last hundred pages, where I admit it did lose me a little. The very end was slightly annoying in suggesting perhaps too much of a parallel between the two plot strands, and also introducing an unexplained and possibly supernatural element that really didn't fit with the rest of the book, but it wasn't annoying enough to really detract from the excellence of the preceding 500 pages.
The book is not so much a map as an intricate and richly layered puzzle - both plot strands jump about a bit in time but come together in the end to create a wonderfully detailed picture of a fascinating country and its difficulties dealing with outside interference.
A couple of hours after I finished my book, Dave and I set off for Biggleswade to enjoy the last of our Christmas presents - a bird of prey experience. We arrived very early and spent about 45 minutes just wandering around the centre, looking at all the various (large and quite terrifying) birds on display, ranging from owls to eagles to buzzards to falcons to kestrels. Then we joined the rest of our group at the entrance, where we were divided into two and assigned a guide.
First stop was Owl Walk, where we were given a falconry glove between two and were provided with the opportunity to have various owls perch upon it, taking turns with the glove and having the owls swapped between couples, as the guide gave us lots of interesting information about them. My favourite was the tiny grey owl named Sid, who sat completely still the whole time, just looking incredibly cute, though the rather more active barn owl was incredibly beautiful. Though it's obvious when you think about it, what most struck me was just how light they were. Interestingly, not all owls hunt at night, and you can tell when they are active by the colour of their eyes, which match the colour of the sky during their hunting periods - those with dark eyes hunt at night, those with orange eyes hunt at dusk and dawn, and those with pale eyes hunt in the daytime.
After work on Friday, I met up with Dave at Green Park, and we went for a three mile walk through Hyde Park to Royal Oak, ending up in a very nice Indian restaurant, which started the weekend off with a combination of good exercise, good food, and excellent company.
I woke up slowly yesterday, and spent the first hour of the day finishing The Map of Love by Adhaf Soueif. The blurb on the back puts this firmly in the category of "chick lit" books like The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton and The Glass Painter's Daughter by Rachel Hore, in which a modern day young woman pieces together the story an ancestor or previous owner of their house through diaries/letters/objects from the time, and her subsequent discoveries lead to interesting (and generally romantic) developments in her own life. I've read a few of these, and they are usually quite entertaining, but light and relatively disposable.
Not so with The Map of Love, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1999 and contains so much more than fluffy romance. Isobel Parkman does indeed set out in 1997 to uncover the story of her great-grandmother, an Englishwoman who travelled to Egypt in 1900, and her research into Lady Anna Winterbourne's journals and letters does indeed lead to new and interesting relationships. However, both strands of the storyline are actually narrated by Amal, an Egyptian woman related to both Anna and Isobel, who holds the story together and adds tremendous depth in the realms of history and politics, which lift the book out of the ordinary.
The narrative is well-written and engaging from the beginning, if slightly odd, since Amal tells of incidents in both time periods for which she wasn't present and couldn't know the details, but it works as we follow her through her reconstruction of events. Anna's journals and letters are often quoted directly, giving more variety to the narrative and making her more remote character come to life more directly.
All the discussion and description of Egypt are very apropos, considering not only the recent events there, but also the fact that my parents visited Egypt last month and came back with a wealth of observations and insights that are similar in a lot of ways to Anna's in the book.
The romance, particularly in the historical setting, is beautifully drawn. There is a declaration of love at one point that is almost exactly like Darcy's first proposal in Pride and Prejudice (pointing out all the obstacles to the relationship, statement of continuing love despite efforts to quash it) but with an entirely different reaction from the person it is directed at. I also like the fact that the story follows the lovers past them coming together and explores the hurdles they have to surmount after marriage as well as before.
The politics is liberally sprinkled throughout, but in a way that complements and enhances the story rather than overshadowing it, at least until the last hundred pages, where I admit it did lose me a little. The very end was slightly annoying in suggesting perhaps too much of a parallel between the two plot strands, and also introducing an unexplained and possibly supernatural element that really didn't fit with the rest of the book, but it wasn't annoying enough to really detract from the excellence of the preceding 500 pages.
The book is not so much a map as an intricate and richly layered puzzle - both plot strands jump about a bit in time but come together in the end to create a wonderfully detailed picture of a fascinating country and its difficulties dealing with outside interference.
A couple of hours after I finished my book, Dave and I set off for Biggleswade to enjoy the last of our Christmas presents - a bird of prey experience. We arrived very early and spent about 45 minutes just wandering around the centre, looking at all the various (large and quite terrifying) birds on display, ranging from owls to eagles to buzzards to falcons to kestrels. Then we joined the rest of our group at the entrance, where we were divided into two and assigned a guide.
First stop was Owl Walk, where we were given a falconry glove between two and were provided with the opportunity to have various owls perch upon it, taking turns with the glove and having the owls swapped between couples, as the guide gave us lots of interesting information about them. My favourite was the tiny grey owl named Sid, who sat completely still the whole time, just looking incredibly cute, though the rather more active barn owl was incredibly beautiful. Though it's obvious when you think about it, what most struck me was just how light they were. Interestingly, not all owls hunt at night, and you can tell when they are active by the colour of their eyes, which match the colour of the sky during their hunting periods - those with dark eyes hunt at night, those with orange eyes hunt at dusk and dawn, and those with pale eyes hunt in the daytime.
Then we spent over an hour in the main arena, "flying" a succession of birds, which was fantastic. We started with the barn owl, which flew from glove to glove as we all stood in a long line. My favourite was the kestrel, which came next and flew from glove to glove as we stood in a circle. The reason I liked this best was because it was the only time I really got a chance to see the bird coming as it flew towards me, as I was standing side on, rather than with my back to it, as we were told to do with all the others. It was really beautiful in action, and landed so lightly that I could barely feel it. Next came a hawk, which flew from tree to glove and back again for everyone in turn, and finally the biggest bird of the afternoon (which I was called a buzzard but was apparently actually an eagle). For this last one, we stood in two lines, and the guides tried to get the bird to fly zig zag from one person to another across the field. Unfortunately, the bird wasn't very co-operative, but this provided great entertainment, as she chose to fly in one direction and then mostly run along the ground in the other. She did actually fly to me, and was considerably heavier than all the other birds, as well as having a much greater wing span.
After our own experiences with the birds, we watched an organised display of a greater range of birds, which was very cool - and then there was cake!
Overall, it was very well organised, considering how many people there were in the group (more than 20), with everyone getting the chance to interact with all the birds, and a constant stream of fascinating information from the guides, who were enthusiastic and very skilled at dealing with the public. I was very impressed with all the staff we met, particularly Sarah, who was in charge of our group, and handled everything very well indeed.
We enjoyed the whole experience so much that we're planning on going back for a whole day's hawking in the near future, where we'll get the opportunity to hunt with a group of birds, which should be very cool.
So, thank you very much indeed to David and Donna for the present - it was awesome!!
But the day was not yet over! We drove home, had a nice dinner, and then walked to the cinema to see Source Code, which turned out to be the best film I've seen in quite some time. It wasn't as clever as it thought it was (I worked out both "mysteries" within the first half hour) but that wasn't a problem, as I think the focus of the film was much more on the emotional side of things than on the intricacies of the plot.
The acting was fantastic all round. I've always liked Jake Gyllenhaal and I was glad to see him in a part that allowed him to show off his range as well as his good looks. He portrayed quite a complex character extremely well - the scene where he speaks to his father on the phone was particularly good, with a great deal of emotion shown in a very understated way. Michelle Monaghan managed to imbue her character with enough depth and appeal to result in a very sympathetic performance, despite the limitations of the scenario (she was only on screen for the same eight minutes repeated throughout). However, I think the prize for best performance has to go to Vera Farmiga, who portrayed amazing emotional depth in a performance where she was mostly seen on a static video screen. She provided the heart of the film, and did so with great success.
The ending wasn't as good as it could have been, in my opinion (there was a great moment about five-ten minutes beforehand which would have made a much better conclusion) but it still worked, and dispensed with all the usual time travel pitfalls to my complete satisfaction. As with Moon (the director's previous film), certain aspects started to rankle a little the more I thought about them on the walk home, but I still think overall it was really good.
