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Overview
Elizabeth, the daughter of a professor of history living in Cairo in the 1950s, tells how she came to be an anatomist of mummies, as she opens up to us the sensations and aromas of ancient times, and explains how the city of Cairo itself gives her power - and wisdom - and takes away from her the part of the self that is necessary for love.When her mother leaves her father to "walk" the streets of Cairo, and her father forgets himself in games of chess and war, thirteen-year-old Elizabeth ponders Scheherazade's words, "It is good for a girl to be with a man," and finds comfort at the shop of Ramses Ragab, a master perfumer dedicated to resurrecting the lost fragrances of the past (the Susinum prized by Roman women; the nardinon loved by Pliny, the hekenou of the Pharaohs).
Under the tutelage of the perfumer, Elizabeth reads ancient esoteric texts and learns the mysteries of fragrance. Ramses Ragab is a sensitive and brilliant man, and Elizabeth's burst of love for him has a child's intensity and a young woman's passion. When her father hires a magician to bring back his wife, Elizabeth discovers just how precious she herself is - and how worthless - as a girl and soon to be beautiful woman, in this ancient land of stone, sand, and darkness.
Synopsis
Elizabeth, the daughter of a professor of history living in Cairo in the 1950s, tells how she came to be an anatomist of mummies, as she opens up to us the sensations and aromas of ancient times, and explains how the city of Cairo itself gives her power - and wisdom - and takes away from her the part of the self that is necessary for love.
When her mother leaves her father to "walk" the streets of Cairo, and her father forgets himself in games of chess and war, thirteen-year-old Elizabeth ponders Scheherazade's words, "It is good for a girl to be with a man," and finds comfort at the shop of Ramses Ragab, a master perfumer dedicated to resurrecting the lost fragrances of the past (the Susinum prized by Roman women; the nardinon loved by Pliny, the hekenou of the Pharaohs).
Under the tutelage of the perfumer, Elizabeth reads ancient esoteric texts and learns the mysteries of fragrance. Ramses Ragab is a sensitive and brilliant man, and Elizabeth's burst of love for him has a child's intensity and a young woman's passion. When her father hires a magician to bring back his wife, Elizabeth discovers just how precious she herself is - and how worthless - as a girl and soon to be beautiful woman, in this ancient land of stone, sand, and darkness.
The New York Times
Narrated by the adult Elizabeth, now a lovelorn ''surgical anatomist,'' Gazelle is full of nostalgia for Cairo and the affectations of its citizens -- especially those of Ramses Ragab, a gifted perfumer. In retrospect, Elizabeth takes the measure not only of her stunningly inept parents but of herself as a lonely girl. — Alan Michael Parker
Editorials
The New York Times
Narrated by the adult Elizabeth, now a lovelorn ''surgical anatomist,'' Gazelle is full of nostalgia for Cairo and the affectations of its citizens -- especially those of Ramses Ragab, a gifted perfumer. In retrospect, Elizabeth takes the measure not only of her stunningly inept parents but of herself as a lonely girl. — Alan Michael ParkerThe Washington Post
Gazelle is a sensuous book. A mix of smells pervades its pages, from orange blossoms, perfumes, mint, almonds, limes, roses, jasmine, and long-simmered delicacies to animal dung, vinegar, urine, and long-buried mummies. Great stand-alone sentences are enough to make one's mouth water: "We shall eat lamb with our fingers in the light of a single sequin blinking in the navel of a belly dancer" -- or as in this description of a lunch with "the birds stuffed to indecency and poised like swimmers on a swell of spiced lentils." — Evelyn SmallPublishers Weekly
Sepia-toned like the tea-steeped ivory chess pieces commissioned at its start, this evocative if overripe brief novel by Ducornet (The Fan-Maker's Inquisition, etc.) tells the story of a young American girl's awakening one summer in 1950s Cairo. Thirteen-year old Elizabeth is the daughter of tragically mismatched parents. Her father is a soft-spoken, intellectual scholar of war ("his Egyptian students called him His Airship"), her mother a careless, vivacious Icelandic beauty ("a noisemaker"). When her mother moves into the Hotel-Pension Viennoise, the better to carry on her affairs, her father is heartbroken, losing himself in chess and the history of war. Introverted Elizabeth takes after her father and tends anxiously to him, while feuding with her mother and finding solace in her obsession with her father's best friend, Ramses Ragab, a handsome and gentle perfume maker. His seductive lessons in the art of hieroglyphics and the chemistry of exotic scents foreshadow the novel's plunge into the occult when Elizabeth's father hires a magician to try and lure his wife back. The troubled relationship between mother and daughter is beautifully depicted, and Ducornet deftly evokes a steamy, sophisticated mid-century Cairo, casting a veil of legend and arcane detail over the city's erotic stirrings. Luminous writing is left to take up the slack left by a slow and dreamy plot, but the hothouse atmosphere is artfully contrived. (July 29) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.KLIATT
A young girl is living in Cairo in the 1950s when her American mother leaves her Egyptian father to have affairs with one lover after another. Elizabeth at 13 is just realizing her own womanhood and is fascinated by a friend of her father, a perfume maker who visits their house frequently and is in love with all of them, in different ways. The story reads almost as a myth or fable, but is touched by the sorrow of a young girl who has lost her mother and finds her father just out of reach. Filled with sensual metaphors of fragrance, sight and sound, this is a story of the burgeoning desire of youth and the frantic desire of those who are afraid of what they might have lost. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2003, Random House, Anchor, 189p., Ages 15 to adult.—Nola Theiss