The Proof of the Honey

March 2, 2009
An Arab-French writer explores in sensuous hindsight the life-changing nature of a passionate affair. Al Neimi’s first-person narrator, a scholar of Arab literature, works as a university librarian in Paris, where her discovery of erotic Arabic texts rekindles the memory of an explosive earlier affair with a man she calls the Thinker. The narrator delights in her secret textual discoveries (“Arabic, for me, is the language of sex,” she writes), which underscore the repression of women, on the one hand, while celebrating the healthful, God-given nature of coition, on the other. Parallel to her research, she prods her female friends for tales of sexual exploits and muses on her own upbringing, when the silence and ignorance surrounding sex fueled her desire for greater knowledge. Despite the novel’s somewhat disorienting structure, the narrator’s description of her sexual awakening with the Thinker delivers sensationally beautiful erotic moments, revealing a skillful, enticing voice from the Arab world.

April 1, 2009
Already a slightly scandalous bestseller throughout the Arab world, this provocative novel makes its American debut.

An unnamed Syrian narrator working in a Paris library develops a reputation as a specialist in antique Arabian erotica. An invitation to speak on this subject at a conference serves as a prompt for languorous and learned memories of her varied sexual experiences. Al Neimi exploits the tension between fundamentalist Islam, in which a woman's sexuality is strictly controlled, and classical Islam, in which female desire is a divine gift and the ecstasy of sex is a preview of paradise. Resurrecting lost treatises on lovemaking as she describes a heroine awakening to pleasure, the author gestures beyond the confines of her narrative to make a plea for a more liberated attitude toward sex in contemporary Arab society. It's a noble effort and, judging by the book's sales in Arabic, a welcome one. But activist sincerity does not necessarily make for compelling fiction, and this unimpeachably worthy tract is not much of a novel. Erudition can be erotic, but here the philosophical musings and graphic interludes are awkwardly conjoined:"First, a certain flash of eyes, then my reply, categorical. I feel my answer rising in the first instant, even before the suitor presents letters of accreditation for his lust." Perhaps it's a problem of translation, but lines like that just aren't very sexy.

A distinctive but flawed entry in the annals of female sexual apologia.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

April 15, 2009
In this seemingly autobiographical narrative, Al Neimi mines the depths of Arabic literature in an attempt to revive the forgotten language of sexuality. Her purpose is to show the subtle tension that exists between today's conservative Arab and Middle Eastern cultures and their lascivious literary past. Al Neimi continually underscores her thesis that Arabic is the language of sex by referencing the works of Ahmad ibn Yahya, Ali al-Katibi, and al-Tijani. The anonymous narrator, who works as a librarian, is asked to compile and give a presentation on classical Arab erotica. While uncovering the sensuality of classical Arabic literature, she unlocks her own hidden sensuality through purely sexual relationships. In the novel, the continual oscillation between classical texts and modern society produces humorous chapters dealing with both Viagra and "Sex and the City". A best seller throughout the Arab world, this book will have wide appeal, particularly to readers of erotica, women's, studies and contemporary Arabic literature.Joshua Finnell, McNeese State Univ. Lib., Lake Charles, LA

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