THE PROOF OF THE HONEY

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.