Superb imagination and control, that's what the author exhibited in this novel. From the book's cover I learned that this had been made into a film with Kate Winslet (of the Titanic) in the lead role. I haven't seen it yet, but I think Ms. Winslet indeed fits the role of the young, hippie mother with two daughters, ages 5 and 7.They were English. For some unclear reasons, the mother took her kids away from London and went to Morocco. The father was left in London, but it wasn't clear also if he and Ms. Winslet's character were married or if they had lived together (the kids have vague memories of him though). The father of the children would send her money on a regular basis but it was barely just enough to last until the next remittance which often was late in coming.Why were these things unclear? Because the narrator here is the 5-year-old daughter. Unless I missed it, her name was not even mentioned, same as her mother's (who was always referred to as "Mum"). The narrator, however, called her elder sister "Bea".How a 5-year-old look at things is definitely different from that of an adult. So it was simply marvelous that the author succeeded in keeping this as a child's wayward and undisciplined narrative and yet from the merest of clues you get from it you get to know the adult story behind the child's story.There is love here. And loss. The mother had a Muslim lover, a good man whom the children came to love, but who couldn't earn enough so he disappeared. The kids looked for him, and talked about him, and from their childish prattle, you would feel how much they missed him. When they have no money, they would go hungry. The 5-year-old would have a stark description of this: "I am hungry". Then the reader would feel her hunger. Several times, she and her sister were placed in real danger, like when she and her mother (with her sister left behind a friend's house) were stranded, penniless, in a remote place after hitchhiking. Nighttime was fast approaching. But the child narrator was oblivious to the danger and simply told that they were tired walking pointlessly, so they sat against a wall and she closed her eyes and imagined her sister Bea in her comfortable bedroom, with her toys, maybe with some biscuits and lemonade.A blurb says that this novel "has a delightful lightness of being"...
I thought I wouldn't like this at first, but actually it was really good. I think the title does it a real disservice because it sounds so ridiculous. Once you know what it means, it makes sense, but when you first pick up a book, the title shouldn't be so off-putting, should it?That aside, this is a very subtle piece of writing. The child's point of view is strictly adhered to, so no interpretation of events is offered. Yet the reader is given plentiful evidence of the child's increasing distress and grief over the rootlessness and disorganisation of the life to which the mother exposes her. She is too young to be able to separate herself from her mother (as the slightly older sister is forced to do), so she has to just cling on and try to survive.From the feminist point of view, this book is full of ironies. The mother has gone off on her own to 'find' herself, yet she is still economically dependent on men and her daughters' habit of searching for any men that they feel might rescue them is proof that this dependence is being passed on to the next generation. Their lives are lived in the suspension of waiting ... either for the father to send them money, or some one or other of their mother's male acquaintances and boyfriends to supply their material and emotional needs.This is a fascinating exploration that manages to chart the awakening of consciousness of the late sixties/early seventies, while also showing how the economic shackles of the past prevented any real achievement of freedom for women. In the end, the children are burdened with the results of their mother's apparently impotent and futile struggle for independence.
What do You think about Hideous Kinky (1999)?
On the hippy trail.I read this in Morocco, I don't think it would have had much appeal elsewhere. It seemed to be set somewhere in the early 70s, although it was published 20 years later. Not a lot happens but it does evoke some of the sights and sounds of this fascinating country.I found it a strange book, narrated by a four-year-old girl who travels with her mother and older sister to spend a year or so in Marrakesh. Her mother is a bit distant at times, spending her time meditating, waiting for money to arrive from her (ex)husband back home and generally being a rather irresponsible mum. Her daughter struggles to cope with this lack of direction in her life and searches for parent substitutes amongst the various adults who she meets. At least her older sister, Bea, is able to go to school and has some structure to her day.Apart from a lack of any great direction to the book, there were also a frustrating number of questions that were left unanswered: Who was John and why was he driving them all down to Morocco? What was wrong with his wife and did she recover? What was wrong with Ahmed's youngest wife's baby??According to Wikipedia, Ms Freud travelled extensively with her mother until the age of sixteen and this novel is referred to as autobiographical. This fact at least put the book into perspective for me.(Reissue of a review that I discovered I had written under the screen play version rather then the original novel)
—DubaiReader
Just like the narrator's mother, this book meanders along rather aimlessly. And rather than be enchanted or amused by the character of a young woman who takes her two young children to Morocco in search of 'enlightenment', I found myself becoming quite angry with her fecklessness and what I saw as neglect of her children's needs.The writing itself is strong, but I was also quite shocked when the narrator's age is eventually revealed as four. The character of a young child is never really captured by Freud in this book.
—Lynn
From my bookcrossing review (previous journal entries had mentioned that the story was difficult to follow):I really enjoyed this book and didn't find it difficult to follow, though I read it in a short period of time. I liked that the story was told from the perspective of the youngest girl, and found that after a certain point I couldn't put it down because I had such a feeling of foreboding about what might happen to the girls as a result of their mother's self-absorption and neglect. At the very least, it made me feel better about my own parenting skills!
—crazy-book-lady
