Gazelle [Paperback]

Rikki Ducornet (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 12, 2004

As mesmerizing as a tale from the lips of Sheherazade, Gazelle traces the story of Elizabeth, a thirteen-year-old American girl whose adolescent passion is awakened in the exotic climate of 1950s Cairo. While her mother–whose beauty and sexual prowess both frighten and fascinate Elizabeth–moves into a hotel to pursue a string of lovers, her father, a historian, loses himself in a world of chess and toy soldiers. Elizabeth’s imagination, primed by an explicit edition of The Arabian Nights, leads her to fantasies about her father’s friend, a gentle, older man named Ramses Ragab, a perfume maker who visits their house regularly to play games of war and who opens her up to the mystery of hieroglyphics and the art of exotic scents.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers 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.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Elizabeth, a 13-year-old American, is living in Cairo in the 1950s with her eccentric, Fulbright-funded historian father, and her extravagantly sexy mother, whose blond beauty exerts a rare fascination. Precocious and self-possessed, Elizabeth revels in the ancient city's mysteries and heady mix of hustle and languor, and does her best to cope when her mother, caught flagrante delicto, blithely moves out to pursue her many amours. Elizabeth's gentle, heartsick father retreats into fantasy, staging elaborate mock battles with battalions of toy soldiers with his one friend, the suave and handsome perfumer Ramses Ragab, while Elizabeth, newly awakened to her body's promise of pleasure and power, begins to educate herself in the art of seduction via an explicit edition of The Arabian Nights. Ducornet affirms her critical reputation as a gifted fabulist with a flair for the erotic in this enchanting tale of sexual allure, survival, and the dream of immortality. Lushly detailed yet swiftly paced, this mythic coming-of-age novel archly traces the plexus of sensuality, intelligence, and imagination that defines the human soul. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Anchor (October 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385720432
• ISBN-13: 978-0385720434
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.5 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,056,724 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A perfumed rememberance of things past., December 6, 2003

By 

Craig L. Gidney "ethereallad" (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gazelle (Hardcover)

13-year old Elizabeth lives with her parents, a bumbling professor father and an exquisite, hot-blooded beauty of a mother, in Cairo of the 1950s. When Elizabeth's mother leaves the family, for sexual excitement, Elizabeth finds that she has to care for her father's increasing mental and physical deterioration. At the same time, she finds herself drawn to the beauty and mystery of Egypt, embodied in the "gazelle" man, her father's friend Ramses, who is a perfume-maker. It's a languid, episodic brief novel, with slight detours into the occult, reminiscent of the work of Jeanette Winterson. Like Winterson, Ducornet creates postmodern philosophical fables that masquerade as novels. With painterly precision, and a certain word-sorcery, "Gazelle" muses on the nature of love and sexual awakening; memory; perfume making; illness; and mother-daughter, father-daughter relationships. The reader is well served by just immersing themselves in the rich and quirky prose, and the exotic scents and smells of Egypt. The scenes with Elizabeth's cold and glamorous mother provide much needed tension in this vaporous, attar-scented novel.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Americans in Egypt, 1950s, March 22, 2009

By 

Ginger at risk "Vmcougar" - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Gazelle (Paperback)

During the 1950s Egypt was a totally different place and the era of the unwanted American had not yet appeared. Pre-teen Elizabeth goes to Cairo with her parents when her father, a professor, on a Fulbright scholarship Elizabeth's father transported his wife and child to Cairo, Egypt for one year.

It is here in the turbulent, yet quiet of exotic air that young Liz finds herself stuck with her ailing father when her mother (an Icelander) decides to leave. She doesn't go far just moves out of their abode and proceeds to demoralize her husband and shake her daughter's life.

I love the prose of this novel. Ducornet's ability to draw the reader into the scene is wonderful. Recommend this book to anyone who likes good prose, and family life abroad - albeit with stress.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars absoulty loved it!!, March 26, 2006

By 

phoebe keegan "bloddy lunitic" (New Mexico) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gazelle (Hardcover)

i loved this book with every fiber of my being!! i would have read it again and again but a couple months ago i lent it to a friend and havent seen it since. maby my love for it was partialy because i was in egypt when i read it. this book was very poetic and went indepth about the emptions of sexually frustrated young girls. i recomed this book to anyone who would take the time to read it!
PS
forgive any spelling mistakes you might find, i cant spell to save my life!