Trilogy reviewed by OPNO:The MOST popular chick litt purchase for bored expat wives in Muscat, no doubt, the "Princess" trilogy by American author, Jean Sasson, promises to be a "true" story of life inside the Sa'ud Royal family of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
If you are a biography girl, or love true life stories, then this book IS NOT for you.
Jean Sasson, who worked as a nurse in the Kingdom, claims she got the go-ahead to be a ghost writer of the story from a privalleged but suppressed Saudi Princess who wanted the world to know about the woesome life of Saudi women, even the state's royalty.
A lawsuit from another expat woman who was married into a rich Kuwaiti family tells otherwise, since her memoirs, scooped up/stolen by Sasson's publishers----and written much earlier than the "Princess" series, bear striking resemblances to the life of the fictional "Sultana" who is the protagonist of Sasson's works. Since I had a good look at this lawsuit and the memoirs online [someone feel free to post the link if you have it saved on your desktop] the resemblances are too many to be coincidence.
Since it is NOT the true life story of a "Desert Royale", but a highly embellished tale based upon the stolen memoirs of a glamorous divorcee once married into an extroidinarily wealthy Kuwaiti family, I read it as such. It is a fast and enjoyable story. And since I have many friends who worked as nurses to the Royal Family in the Kingdom who note that "had ever a princess been drowned by her father in the swimming pool of their villa it would have been common knowledge in Riyadh".
That aside, there are some truth in the oriental extravagance of Sasson's emblishments, such as the use of young child prostitutes sold by their own Egyptian parents to young Saudi princes in Cairo. Many of the same issues affecting a Kuwaiti woman who converted to Islam just to marry her handsome Arab business man would affect a Saudi Princess, and your average Omani girl too, should she have a hypocritical irreligious/immoral family.
The book IS an Orientalist's romp through the sexual fantasies of slaves, buying and selling maids for sex, marrying multiple wives and divorcing some to make way for younger prettier versions ect, and honour killings, all issues I am sure that have occured in Arab society, but on the scale and sequence of Sasson's books it was really too much for me to find even remotely plausible, even for the Sa'ud's.
All wildly entertaining, but shameful when marketed all as a true story, which would have been an incredible tale of survival of the human spirit otherwise, I give it that.
The series follows the life of Sultana, a Saudi Princess with a womanizing father, an evil brother, and a weak husband, and the lives of those women around her, including her sisters and daughters. As a story, it is an entertaining and quick read, with none of the honesty and slow bits and parts of a true biography. If you don't mind a bit of graphic sexuality such as a bunch of young virgins sacrificed in temporary marriages forced to tickle a man's face with a peacock feather shoved up their butts {yeah, I'm serrious, that was part of it} than by all means, this book will easily take your day up and leave you hating Saudi men forever;).
My conclusion. While the "Princess Series" does talk about some honest and true issues of gender inequality, and how Saudi society before the 80s only left a few roles for women in the Kingdom to grow up with {"Rebel without a Cause" and "Religious Extremist"}, because it was marketed as a true story that is nothing of the kind and paints Saudi society in an extroidinarily bad light as a whole, I have to say, it reads a little like propoganda, since most of those who read it believe it.
Did I love it? No, it is no work of litterature to be sure. Did I like it? Actually yes, it is a fun read. Does it have relevance? Kind of, in one way to speak of how the world outside of Saudi Arabia imagines Arabia to be, that extreme Orientalism still exists and sells better than truth, and of the topic of the limited roles for Saudi women in their society, but those two don't go together as they cannot be a platform for talk of change since they contradict any honesty on the subject thereof. I'd of preferred a well written version based on the Kuwaiti divorcee's memoirs though, to this romp through the menagerie of a fictiousous Saudi household and its palaces. The publisher should have gotten Sasson to write her memoir. Sasson is a much better writer for sure.
If you know it isn't the brave biography it is marketed as, it is Orientalist chick litt. at its best.
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