I finished the book. The posts I did are only a few of the stories out of the collection. A lot of them have some angst and sadness and pain. Not always abuse but sometimes. Some of the stories were just sad and touching. Like the last story which was that of a woman who has an autistic son. It focused on her attempts to be the 'perfect' Muslim woman - she went to the extremes, doing everything that she might possibly do so that God would 'fix' her son. And then her journey taking her son to an experimental kind of therapy (the therapy took an entire year) to try and get him to have some sort of functionality and how this journey - having to focus on her son and his problem and not the thought that it was somehow her fault because she wasn't good enough brought her out of her self imposed punishment and made her realize that her sons autism wasn't a 'fault'. It's a very touching story - I was sort of sniffling while I was reading it on the treadmill - and it's painful on a purely emotional level. No one does anything wrong in it - just people muddling through and suffering because we're all human.
Anyway. I do think it's an interesting book. Some of the women I liked better than others. There's at least one that I feel comes off as extremely arrogant and self aggrandizing but she probably wouldn't like me either! :) It's a good read.
My next book is Karen Armstrong's Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time.
So glad you shared some of the stories from this book. The one about the mom with the autistic child does sound touching!
ReplyDeleteHope you enjoy your next book.That one sounds familiar. :)
Susanne,
ReplyDeleteIt really was. There's this one part where she's describing trying to pray in this hotel room while her son sits on a bed and screams because that's all he ever does (he's apparently severely autistic) and how every time she tried to lift up her hands to God she found them clenching into fists. And then how he just went quiet like he does sometimes and she tried to finish her prayers and then he started screaming again and she ripped off her prayer clothes, grabbed him and ran out of the room dressed only in her shift trying to find water to submerge him in (this soothed him and I guess the room didn't have a bath tub), found the pool but it was locked for the night so she climbed over the fence and climbed into the pool with her son.
I can't imagine why the next book sounds familiar. :)
aw, that poor mother. :( That's so sad. I've known a few autistic children and it's heartbreaking and I can see how it would be hard on parents.
ReplyDelete