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BOOK REV I EWS Indeed, Disordered World is no What Is To Be Done?, and neither should it be. As Maalouf writes in the preface (especially penned for the English edition), he stresses how he is determinedly wary of guess-work, however educated: in the case of whether Egypt will be able “to construct a stable democracy, catch up in the field of education, define the place of religion in public life, manage relations between different communities, and give women full rights”, Maalouf admits that it would be downright “presumptuous to make predictions. If there is a lesson to be drawn from the events of 2011, it is that the future does not allow itself to be contained within the limits of what is foreseeable, plausible or probable. And it is precisely for that reason that it contains hope.” And though Disordered World is nowhere near as assiduously researched and convincing as The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, Maalouf is clearly as devoted to asking the right sort of questions as much as he is to answering them. Susannah Tarbush reviews The Art of Forgetting by Ahlem Mosteghanemi translated by Raphael Cohen Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, Qatar, 2011. Pbk, 241pp. ISBN 978-9-9921-4264-6 “Chocolate is your weapon” The Algerian writer Ahlem Mosteghanemi made her name with a trilogy of novels: Dhakirat al-Jasad (1993), Fawda al Hawass (1997) and Abir Sarir (2003), all published by Dar alAdab of Beirut. The novels were bestsellers, with claimed sales of more than 2 million copies and the author having the status of a glamorous celebrity. Now Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing 206 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES
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BOOK REV I EWS (BQFP) has published an English version of Nessyane.com, under the title The Art of Forgetting, translated by Raphael Cohen. The Nessyane.com project is complemented by an Arabic website (at www.nessyane.com) and an Art of Forgetting/Nessyane.com Facebook page. The cover of The Art of Forgetting makes it look like a self-help book of the type that has proliferated in the US and UK in recent decades. The covers of such books typically have no picture, but boldly carry their aims and message in the emblazoned title and subtitle.The subtitle of Mosteghanemi’s book is: “Love him as no woman has ever loved and forget him like a man forgets.” This would appear to put her in similar territory to that of American author John Gray’s hugely successful self-help book Men Are From Mars, Women Are FromVenus which stresses the differences between men and women in love relationships. But The Art of Forgetting is different from a conventional self-help book. It draws much of its inspiration from literature, and is refreshingly free of psychobabble or 12-point plans. And rather than being over-earnest in tone Mosteghanemi’s approach is one of humour and playfulness. She says she wrote the book with “a great deal of sarcasm. I want you to laugh; nothing deserves sadness.” The Art of Forgetting is intended as the first of four books on “the four seasons of love”, which Mosteghanemi identifies as “the wondrous season of encounter, the jealous season of longing, the agonised season of separation and the splendid season of forgetting”. On the cover of The Art of Forgetting is a red circle containing the words “Not for Sale to Men”. But Mosteghanemi denies that her book is “male-bashing” or a feminist manifesto. “It is a women’s inventory against masculinity and in defence of man, that captivator BANIPAL 43 – SPRING 2012 207

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BOOK REV I EWS

Indeed, Disordered World is no What Is To Be Done?, and neither should it be. As Maalouf writes in the preface (especially penned for the English edition), he stresses how he is determinedly wary of guess-work, however educated: in the case of whether Egypt will be able “to construct a stable democracy, catch up in the field of education, define the place of religion in public life, manage relations between different communities, and give women full rights”, Maalouf admits that it would be downright “presumptuous to make predictions. If there is a lesson to be drawn from the events of 2011, it is that the future does not allow itself to be contained within the limits of what is foreseeable, plausible or probable. And it is precisely for that reason that it contains hope.”

And though Disordered World is nowhere near as assiduously researched and convincing as The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, Maalouf is clearly as devoted to asking the right sort of questions as much as he is to answering them.

Susannah Tarbush reviews The Art of Forgetting by Ahlem Mosteghanemi translated by Raphael Cohen Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, Qatar, 2011. Pbk, 241pp. ISBN 978-9-9921-4264-6

“Chocolate is your weapon”

The Algerian writer Ahlem Mosteghanemi made her name with a trilogy of novels: Dhakirat al-Jasad (1993), Fawda al Hawass (1997) and Abir Sarir (2003), all published by Dar alAdab of Beirut. The novels were bestsellers, with claimed sales of more than 2 million copies and the author having the status of a glamorous celebrity. Now Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing

206 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES

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