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dangermousieAfter my recent very enjoyable read of Louise Gerard's Son of the Sahara, I remembered the Mother of them all, E.M. Hull's infamous The Sheik. I tried it once in college and loathed it but I wondered whether my newly-found love for trashy 1920s fiction would enable me to like it better.
Well, I read it to the end (and what a hard slog it was) and - no. Still vile but even worse than that is it commits a book's ultimate sin - it is boring.
For those who don't know, the plot of The Sheik is pretty simple - frigid Englishwoman Diana is kidnapped by cruel but hot Sheik Ahmed who rapes her until she likes it. They live happily ever after, the end.
OK, first of all, obviously this sort of 'fun fun rape' idea is repulsive, especially since it happens repeatedly over months and since Ahmed isn't some man who loses control in anger/passion but is supposed to still love her - nah, he kidnaps because she's hot and he doesn't care much about what she wants.
Sadly, that is not the book's biggest problem. The book's biggest problem is this - it combines repulsiveness with both boredom and bizarre character development (or lack thereof). Let me explain.
'Rapes until she likes it, then he falls for her too' makes for a very boring plot. Basically nothing happens in this novel short of one scene where Diana is kidnapped by a rival Sheik - it's like Twilight with rape - there is no plot, just dwelling on a subset of female fantasy. And since it's a 1920s book, there are obviously no descriptive sex scenes - it's a sex fantasy with no sex scenes, can anything be more bizarre than that?
Neither Diana nor Ahmed feel like real characters (let alone real people) - they are cardboard cut-outs just stuck in the book to be put into various situations - conduits for the fantasies of an odd sort. I have no impression of either as a person at all. This is not helped by their sudden unexplained changes - From an icy, 'mannish', strong-willed person, Diana first turns into a cringing coward (before Ahmed even lays hands on her) and later a hysteric who plans to kill herself because she can't have him. And she spends half the book hating him and then, with no explanation, changes in his behavior, or anything leading to it, she is suddenly in love with him. The same is true for Ahmed (who is portrayed throughout as a thoroughly repellent individual, enjoying cruelty, seeing people as things - he never changes). He has fun treating her as a thing because he likes to satisfy his desires without caring about others and also because he has fun thinking he is humiliating the English. Then, all of a sudden, it's "OMG, my rival kidnapped her. What is this I feel, could it be LURVE?" once again with nothing leading up to it whatsoever. It is basically 'I need to move this story so they need to be in love so they are.'
Oh, did I mention that Ahmed, of course, turns out to be white? (Don't ask). Let's have a bit of racism to go with our misogynism. Fun!
Well, I read it to the end (and what a hard slog it was) and - no. Still vile but even worse than that is it commits a book's ultimate sin - it is boring.
For those who don't know, the plot of The Sheik is pretty simple - frigid Englishwoman Diana is kidnapped by cruel but hot Sheik Ahmed who rapes her until she likes it. They live happily ever after, the end.
OK, first of all, obviously this sort of 'fun fun rape' idea is repulsive, especially since it happens repeatedly over months and since Ahmed isn't some man who loses control in anger/passion but is supposed to still love her - nah, he kidnaps because she's hot and he doesn't care much about what she wants.
Sadly, that is not the book's biggest problem. The book's biggest problem is this - it combines repulsiveness with both boredom and bizarre character development (or lack thereof). Let me explain.
'Rapes until she likes it, then he falls for her too' makes for a very boring plot. Basically nothing happens in this novel short of one scene where Diana is kidnapped by a rival Sheik - it's like Twilight with rape - there is no plot, just dwelling on a subset of female fantasy. And since it's a 1920s book, there are obviously no descriptive sex scenes - it's a sex fantasy with no sex scenes, can anything be more bizarre than that?
Neither Diana nor Ahmed feel like real characters (let alone real people) - they are cardboard cut-outs just stuck in the book to be put into various situations - conduits for the fantasies of an odd sort. I have no impression of either as a person at all. This is not helped by their sudden unexplained changes - From an icy, 'mannish', strong-willed person, Diana first turns into a cringing coward (before Ahmed even lays hands on her) and later a hysteric who plans to kill herself because she can't have him. And she spends half the book hating him and then, with no explanation, changes in his behavior, or anything leading to it, she is suddenly in love with him. The same is true for Ahmed (who is portrayed throughout as a thoroughly repellent individual, enjoying cruelty, seeing people as things - he never changes). He has fun treating her as a thing because he likes to satisfy his desires without caring about others and also because he has fun thinking he is humiliating the English. Then, all of a sudden, it's "OMG, my rival kidnapped her. What is this I feel, could it be LURVE?" once again with nothing leading up to it whatsoever. It is basically 'I need to move this story so they need to be in love so they are.'
Oh, did I mention that Ahmed, of course, turns out to be white? (Don't ask). Let's have a bit of racism to go with our misogynism. Fun!
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no subject
Date: 2010-03-02 11:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-03 04:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-03 05:52 am (UTC)That is pretty such the best summary of the Sheik ever.
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Date: 2010-03-03 04:12 pm (UTC)Re: Verging on OT.
Date: 2010-03-03 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-15 02:11 am (UTC)