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Page 6, Viewpointe January 2022
Book Review
meetings, she also plays a role in her boss’s relations with the
Both/And, A Life in Many Arab world, whether in Cairo, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or other
Arab capitals.
Beautiful Worlds In the course of the evolution of a relationship, whether
marriage of living together, the partners will make discoveries
Sally Rooney. Beautiful World, Where are You. New York: about each other. Alice and Huma explore the truths behind
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021. their romantic attachments, and their disappointment and fury
Huma Abedin. Both/And A Life in Many Worlds. New York: over the subject to which their men show propensity. Felix
Scribner, 2021. shows little interest in Alice’s writing. He also reveals events
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, – that is all ye know on in his past of which he is ashamed, such as working in a strip
earth, and all ye need to know.” John Keats Ode on a club and having sex with an underage girl. He is arrogant and
Grecian Urn rude, tells her that she is a aloof, that she is a “lunatic.” They
“What is it in men that women most require? make love on the fourth night of their visit to Rome, and it is
The lineaments of Gratified Desire. clear that Alice has fallen for Felix. By happenstance, while
What is it women do in men require? Felix is repairing the shower cap in the hotel, Alice has access
The lineaments of Gratified Desire.” William Blake The fact that her father was a laborer (mechanic), she seemingly to his cell phone and sees things that bother her.
Question Answered finds herself in love with her proletariat boyfriend. He Congressman Anthony Wiener first met Huma in August
“What is this thing called love?” Ella Fitzgerald works at a Warehouse Fulfillment center moving packages, 2000, but their relationship took a decade to evolve. Wiener
and he is a hedonist and non-believer. The other principal was a very eligible man, but of the Jewish faith. And she was
By Dr. Ronald J. Meyers characters are Eileen, Alice’s college roommate who works brought up as a sincere adherent to her own Muslim beliefs.
as a magazine editor, and Simon, who works as a political She describes a model courtship where Anthony is considerate,
Alice Kelleher, the organizer, both well educated and suited to each other; and patient, and extremely devoted. He picks her up at airports
heroine of Beautiful World, Eileen ponders her regret over not having hitched with him, when she returns from her travels, lends a sympathetic ear to
is irked by her readers’ her adolescent first love. her concerns, carries on in important conversations about world
assuming her identification Though some might object to my linking a novel with a affairs. In the end, Ms. Abedin falls head over heels for him,
with her creator, the author memoir, there is a school of literary criticism that is open to overcomes her scruples, and agrees to the marriage, presided
Sally Rooney. The general considering a mixture of the genres of fiction and non-fiction by former President Bill Clinton, though the irony of bad boys
reader sees no enigma in based on complementary themes. Ms. Abedin, in her much in cahoots will emerge later.
the plot of an Irish woman longer work, presents a fascinating account of her family’s Should an educated, successful woman accept a relationship
novelist in her twenties, odyssey, Muslim parents who derived from India and with a man of poor manners and morals like Felix? In contrast,
writing of her successful Pakistan, and met as doctoral candidates at the University should a pious Muslim who has been brought to believe in
career, her travels, her illness, her despair, her friends, and her of Pennsylvania. They married and moved to Kalamazoo arranged marriages accept someone of the Jewish faith? Ms.
lover. For Rooney, it is a matter of discretion that the reader Michigan where Huma was born; and thence their life’s journey Rooney holds up the question of whether opposites attract, and
stick to the story and not read it as autobiography. The novel alternating between Saudi Arabia and the United States. Huma more importantly can they stay together? In her novel Beautiful
opens with the first encounter between Alice and Felix Brady, chose to pursue a career of public service like her father, who World, she romantically suggests that perhaps they can.
who have connected on a dating site, at a Hotel Bar outside of tragically died young. The scandalous behavior of her husband engaging and
Dublin, where Alice has just purchased a home, the Rectory, Both Ms. Rooney and Ms. Abedin offer the reader a circulating revealing photos over the internet costs Anthony
by the seaside. As the novel progresses, it is apparent that they comprehensive view of the society they inhabit as well as their his marriage as the press highlighted each and every one of his
are mismatched as a couple, but they travel to Italy together own attempts to find marital bliss. Ms. Rooney describes the indiscretions. When Anthony is forced to accept responsibility
at Alice’s expense, separate and come back together, and complex social scene among the professional class in urban for his behavior and is sentenced to jail time, Huma opts for
the tension in the book is when or whether Alice will finally Dublin. The penultimate chapter of the novel presents the four divorce. Anthony and Huma’s son Jordan Zain is the fortunate
break up with this bad-boy dude whose vices and lack of class principal characters cohabiting at Alice’s home, drinking and survivor of the marriage; Huma is devoted to him and shares
regularly appear. She has Catholic sympathies in addition to smoking joints, engaging deeply and revealing themselves, joint custody respectfully with Anthony, and the boy is the
her liberalism and stringent Marxism, which in addition to the insecurities, frustrations, antagonisms and the like. remnant, perhaps the felicitous both/and of the title.
In 1995, Huma was tapped by the First Lady’s HRC Fiction (novel) like non-fiction (memoir) offers an
organization to work as a lead for Ms. Clinton’s travel illumination of life, though, in Emily Dickinson’s phrase, it
arrangements. Though this was a hectic time for the Clinton may “slant” the truth. Ms. Abedin tells the intensive struggle of
family with scandal and impeachment proceedings, Ms. a woman to combine career, family and traditional values. Sally
Abedin focuses upon her work for Hillary Clinton for more Rooney’s novel perhaps celebrates the aesthetic of beauty,
than a twenty year plus period, during which Hillary served while Huma Abedin’s memoir renders truth. Sally Rooney
as First Lady, participated in two Senate races which she won, presents a pessimistic view of the current world situation, i.e.
and two presidential runs which she lost. She does not explore Weltschmerz, while she holds up the mirror to the sublimity
Hillary’s own troubled personal life with her husband Bill, but of beauty and timelessness of art.
rather offers insights into her role as assistant: the thinking
of her boss on the major issues of the day. And in addition to Dr. Ronald J. Meyers, a resident of La Paz, is an Emeritus
supervising her schedule, making sure that she is on-time to Professor of English. rmeyers@esu.edu.
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