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The Sheik A Novel Edith Maude Hull 9781277552317 Books

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<title> The Sheik A Novel

<author> Edith Maude Hull

<publisher> Small, Maynard & company, 1921

The Sheik A Novel Edith Maude Hull 9781277552317 Books

Published nearly 100 years ago and high-profiled by the 1921 Valentino film, The Sheik ran forward and planted a flag in the field of "romance" literature...today a multi-billion dollar global industry. Not bad! I stumbled over this for-free Kindle offering and opened it with an open mind. I give it 5-stars because it's one of those rare novels that's sure to shift at least one of your perspectives. I only wish I'd read it decades ago.

What's to Like:
1. A complete story that, minor anachronisms of phrasing and tone aside, stands up well to a modern reader's expectations. The language is burnished in a way that bridges the gap between elliptical Victorian and mid-20th Century yarn-telling. I could follow it without getting lost or bored.
2. It's possible to read TS at a number of levels of depth: from a straightforward romance story, drilling all the way down to nuanced critiques...if you really want to go that far and play at EngLit undergrad tutorial.
3. There's something special about reading a story which must have brought great enjoyment to folks of my long-gone great- and grandparents' generation.
4. The skill with which the authoress nudges right up to the boundaries of 1919's sexual mores: her artistic use of innuendo is superb, Today, that translates into granting readers the benefit of wit and intelligence to use their imaginations. It's interesting too to compare TS with Lady C's Lover which was published within ten years of TS...far more explicit and banned in the UK until the 1950's. Well played!
5. Particularly in the early part, the use of internal dialog is well done to bring Diana Mayo's perspective to life.

As for the lead characters, I found it easy to relate to Diana in the early part but once she inexplicably (our resident breakfast table clinicians say Stockholm Syndrome) broke and fell in love with the d-bag sheik I sort of backed off and read it as a straightforward adventure romance. The sheik is, of course, not the victim here but a man with a head full of snakes: a rapist and through-going cad and a bounder. Much has been made in certain quarters of Diana's Patty Hurst-style "conversion" following weeks of rape and psychological abuse at the hands of Ahmed and it's no surprise that a bowdlerized modern "revised" version is available which deletes his acts of rape and animal cruelty and skips straight to the Tiggy Mills bedroom lemon...if that makes any sense.

Suffice to say that I enjoyed TS for what it is. If you want hardcore non-con BDSM look elsewhere in the Kindle shop, there's heaps of choice. If you want a Mills and Boone bare-chested pirate romance, again look elsewhere because Ahmed's abuse of Diana (and Diana's vapid flip-flopping) will assuredly offend and frustrate. Likewise if modern day feminist political correctness is a touchstone personal value.

Did I mention it's free? Yes, I did...so what are you waiting for?

Product details Paperback 324 pages Publisher Nabu Press (March 11, 2012) Language English ISBN-10 1277552312

Tags : The Sheik: A Novel... [Edith Maude Hull] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <br /> This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections <br /> such as missing or blurred pages,Edith Maude Hull,The Sheik: A Novel...,Nabu Press,1277552312,Fiction - General,General,History,History General
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The Sheik A Novel Edith Maude Hull 9781277552317 Books Reviews

If you can put yourself into the mindset of an early 20th century Flapper, and leave any 21st century ideas of PC and modern gender and racial issues somewhere else, you'll find that E.M. Hull actually had written a wildly entertaining and racy little book. It beats the knickers off anything that sap Jane Austen ever wrote. The hero is Ahmed, a handsome, initially brutal, rather vampy Arab Sheik (he's also kind of rapey and turns out to be more Spanish than anything else). Diana is the rich, headstrong, initially somewhat lesbian heroine (''She had no need for any man...''). After some wild adventures together, Diana realizes that, like all good romance novel heroines, she must 'Submit To The Will Of Man' to find happiness and fulfillment. Some might find all this a bit too dated, and even offensive. In that case, you can whip open a six-pack of Foucault, and go all Post-Structuralist on this s##t. Ahmed can represent 'Native And Pure Pre-Colonial Society And People Of Colour', while Diana can be 'White Western Imperialism And Uncontrolled Capitalism'. The clash of these two little lovebirds, and Diana's eventual submission, would then, of course, have to mean 'The Triumph Of Good Over Evil And The Implementation Of An Affirmative Action Plan'. Maybe. I'm just guessing. Like most college students, I napped through the Foucault lectures. Apparently, the Valentino movie version of THE SHEIK was so heavily censored and badly directed that it is something of a joke, but however you choose to read it, the book ain't half bad.
In my review of THE FLAME AND THE FLOWER, I said that Woodiwiss is often credited with writing the first bodice ripper. While she was certainly one of the first mainstream authors to publish a widely read romance with an open bedroom door *wink*, THE SHEIK has a shockingly similar formula to the "modern" bodice ripper, and it was published in 1919. The only difference is a deliberate omission of sex scenes, but it's clear that they're happening (and it's equally clear that they're nonconsensual).

***WARNING SPOILERS***

Diana Mayo (that last name kills me, by the way - I kept picturing her as a pasty white jar of mayonnaise rolling through the desert) is a tomboyish, independent woman of noble birth who enjoys gallivanting through exotic locales with her rather unwilling and prissy brother, who thinks that she ought to be more submissive and demure. She turns down a marriage proposal from a desperate admirer (perhaps the first recorded incident of someone being placed in the "friend zone" - and like most guys in the "friend zone", he doesn't get the rules), so you know she's independent, and then rejects her brother's suggestion that she perhaps oughtn't to ride through the desert alone, except for a caravan escort of "natives," because, again, independent.

Unfortunately for Diana, her escort has sold her out and she's ridden down and then captured by the eponymous sheik himself, Ahmed Ben Hassan. Who then rapes her. Many times.

While reading this book, I kept thinking to myself that this probably would have not just been banned but probably also set on fire if it had been published in the late 70s, when all those absolutely insane bodice rippers were being published and everyone was trying to out-WTF each other. This book desperately wants to be dirty, and since sex is off the table, it compensates with violence and racism. Horses are beaten bloody, a servant is whipped, Ahmed shoots Diana's horse to punish her - twice (once to wound, once to kill), a woman is killed by having a knife driven through her heart, and a man's hand is shattered when his rifle explodes while he was holding it. It was as if the author was like, "By God! If they won't let me write about the one bodily fluid, I'll just write about the other!" More disturbing still is that all that horse-breaking serves as an allegory for the hero and the heroine's unconventional relationship by the end of the book she is utterly broken, a shell of her former self. She admits that she no longer has any pride where he is concerned, that she would die for him... and when she finds out that he intends to send her away (out of love for her), she decides to do just that by taking his revolver and attempting to shoot herself in the head. He misdirects the bullet just in time by whacking her hand. (That must be the slowest-moving bullet ever.)

But as disturbing as the violence is, it was the racism that I found most shocking. Granted, this was written in the 1910s, so it's not going to be imbued with the PC-friendly content we expect from the romances of today, but it was still quite a shock to see just how acceptable it was to write such casual racism in mainstream publications. The n-word is used several times (both kinds); the Algerians are repeatedly referred to as Arabs; phrases like "Oriental beast" and "primitive" and "uncivilized" and "savage" are casually thrown around every other page; and the biggest kicker was this - it turns out that Ahmed isn't actually Algerian at all! He's half Spanish, half English, and was adopted by a sheik who fell in love with his mother, and out of love for her, bequeathed to him his name and title.

One of the "conflicts" of the book is Ahmed's blistering hatred of English people, and his refusal to speak in anything but French or Arabic. It turns out that his father was abusive to his mother, and that's why he hates English people. When he found out about his English heritage, he threw a major temper tantrum, refused his title, ran off to the desert, and never spoke English again (even though apparently he can speak it and understand it). Part of the reason he was so cruel to Diana is because it made him feel like he was getting back at his father and his father's people, which is all kinds of messed up. Seriously, dude?

Also, Diana is kidnapped by a rival sheik named Ibraheim and of course he's ugly and dirty and fat and has blackened teeth and really dark skin (although not so dark, the book says, that you can't see the dirt all over him). I've never seen an author use so many adjectives to make a character as unappealing as possible. He even "speaks French villainously" and I'm not sure how one speaks a language villainously, but there you go. At this point, I was giving the book the stink-eye, and when I found out Ahmed wasn't even Algerian, I got even angrier, because it felt like the message was, "Oh, he's white after all, so it's not bad, and that's why he's better." This is why I tend to avoid reading bodice rippers about sheiks and Native Americans - they always do this. The alleged hero of color is always a "half-breed" (and yes, they do describe them that way in the blurbs sometimes), and while there is absolutely nothing wrong with being biracial or multiracial, there is something wrong with making a character part white for the purpose of suggesting that this "whiteness" makes them better.

This book was popular enough that a movie was created by the same name, starring Rudolph Valentino. The movie is supposed to be a lot better (no rape, I believe), and Rudolph Valentino is a babe and a half, so if you're interested in this story that seems to be the way to go (although if you're feeling masochistic, you can grab it for free on ). I noticed that there is a sequel available called THE SONS OF THE SHEIK. It isn't available for in English, but I did find a Spanish version, so if I ever feel like I want to work for my masochism, I'll buy that and let loose.

Interestingly, the plot of this story is very similar to Johanna Lindsey's CAPTIVE BRIDE, from the escape attempts, to the rival sheik, to the fact that the sheik is half-white. I'm sure Lindsey was probably inspired by THE SHEIK, but wanted to write a modern, sexier version (now with 80% less racial stereotypes!). She succeeded - I vastly preferred CAPTIVE BRIDE to this. I'm giving THE SHEIK two stars instead of the one it probably deserved because the constant melodrama could sometimes lead to unintentional hilarity, rather like Louisa May Alcott's rather bodice-rippery and decidedly lesser-known book, A LONG FATAL LOVE CHASE. Yes, the Louisa May Alcott of LITTLE WOMEN fame. Talk about another book that also desperately wanted to be dirty...

P.S. Another way you can really feel the 1910s is the fact that everybody in this book chain-smokes, often at hilariously inopportune times. When Diana escapes the sheik, she stops under a palm tree and lights up. #SmokingBreak

2 out of 5 stars
Published nearly 100 years ago and high-profiled by the 1921 Valentino film, The Sheik ran forward and planted a flag in the field of "romance" literature...today a multi-billion dollar global industry. Not bad! I stumbled over this for-free offering and opened it with an open mind. I give it 5-stars because it's one of those rare novels that's sure to shift at least one of your perspectives. I only wish I'd read it decades ago.

What's to Like
1. A complete story that, minor anachronisms of phrasing and tone aside, stands up well to a modern reader's expectations. The language is burnished in a way that bridges the gap between elliptical Victorian and mid-20th Century yarn-telling. I could follow it without getting lost or bored.
2. It's possible to read TS at a number of levels of depth from a straightforward romance story, drilling all the way down to nuanced critiques...if you really want to go that far and play at EngLit undergrad tutorial.
3. There's something special about reading a story which must have brought great enjoyment to folks of my long-gone great- and grandparents' generation.
4. The skill with which the authoress nudges right up to the boundaries of 1919's sexual mores her artistic use of innuendo is superb, Today, that translates into granting readers the benefit of wit and intelligence to use their imaginations. It's interesting too to compare TS with Lady C's Lover which was published within ten years of TS...far more explicit and banned in the UK until the 1950's. Well played!
5. Particularly in the early part, the use of internal dialog is well done to bring Diana Mayo's perspective to life.

As for the lead characters, I found it easy to relate to Diana in the early part but once she inexplicably (our resident breakfast table clinicians say Stockholm Syndrome) broke and fell in love with the d-bag sheik I sort of backed off and read it as a straightforward adventure romance. The sheik is, of course, not the victim here but a man with a head full of snakes a rapist and through-going cad and a bounder. Much has been made in certain quarters of Diana's Patty Hurst-style "conversion" following weeks of rape and psychological abuse at the hands of Ahmed and it's no surprise that a bowdlerized modern "revised" version is available which deletes his acts of rape and animal cruelty and skips straight to the Tiggy Mills bedroom lemon...if that makes any sense.

Suffice to say that I enjoyed TS for what it is. If you want hardcore non-con BDSM look elsewhere in the shop, there's heaps of choice. If you want a Mills and Boone bare-chested pirate romance, again look elsewhere because Ahmed's abuse of Diana (and Diana's vapid flip-flopping) will assuredly offend and frustrate. Likewise if modern day feminist political correctness is a touchstone personal value.

Did I mention it's free? Yes, I did...so what are you waiting for?