Celestial Bodies

Abdallah, the son of a date merchant and sometime slave trader, is one of the novel’s most important figures, even if he is often sidelined by the stories of others. As someone who has tried his whole life to step out from his father’s shadow, who has struggled with his own legitimate businesses, and knows the complicated and difficult nature of parenthood firsthand, he embodies many of the novel’s themes.

Added to this, Abdallah is the only character in the book to provide a first-person narrative perspective. Abdallah narrates several chapters as he takes a long-haul flight to Frankfurt. Drifting in and out of sleep, plagued by memories and regrets, he finds himself recounting events from his life. These memories are not in a chronological order: they are stream of consciousness, revealing Abdallah’s own objective perspective on the events of the past.

Of all the events that Abdallah recalls, there seems to be one moment which sticks with him and haunts him more than any other. When his father discovered that Abdallah stole his gun, he tied up his son and dangled him down a well. The event is traumatic. The memories of the punishment are prone to sneaking into Abdallah’s mind at any moment, even when he is thinking of something else. It has also given him a warped perspective of his father; Abdallah is unable to remember his father without recalling the trauma. Even in later life, when his father is dying in a hospital bed, Abdallah worries that he might leap up, tie up Abdallah, and dangle him down a well once again.

Abdallah’s abusive father has complicated Abdallah’s relationship with his children. He knows that Mayya, his wife, does not truly love him, but he knows he has the love of his children. Occasionally, he will slip. For instance, he hits his autistic son because he is unable to control the boy, but the memory niggles at Abdallah: he is worried that he is becoming his father. Abdallah’s awareness of his father’s influence suggests that he will never truly be as bad as his father.

Mayya is the wife of Abdallah, though he has always loved her more than she loves him. Indeed, in her early life, Mayya was in love with a man who was studying abroad in London, but that man did not return home in time; Abdallah asked for her hand and, reluctantly and obediently, she agreed. Unable to dictate the course of her own life, Mayya resolves to express herself through the lives of her children. She lives vicariously through London, Salim, and Muhammad, hoping that their success will justify her life choices.

From the opening chapters of the novel, Mayya proves to be determined and idiosyncratic. Her character embodies the (occasionally surprising) amount of agency afforded to Omani women in her time: though Mayya is practically forced into her marriage to Abdallah, she takes a dominant role in her marriage, best exemplified by her choice of name for the first-born child. She names her daughter London, a strange and questionable choice to others. To Mayya, whose one-time love went to London and never returned, the name ethereal and unique. She takes no heed from others in calling her daughter London and no one—not even her husband—is able to change her mind.

As well as her children, Mayya frequently draws comparisons to her sisters. By the end of the novel, it has become clear that none of Mayya, Khawla, or Asma are enjoying the marriage they had always coveted. Mayya is married to a man she does not love and expresses herself through the raising of her children; Khawla longs for Nasir, who treats her terribly for 10 years and—when he is finally ready to be a good husband—she asks for a divorce; Asma probably fares the best, though Khalid is arrogant and headstrong and prone to objectifying his wife. Ultimately, all three sisters struggle with love in different ways. However, it is Mayya who seems most resigned to her marriage.

Though she may never love Abdallah, Mayya does love her children. This love is not always purely affection (as shown in the other sisters’ love for their children) but it is frequently desperate. Mayya smashes London’s cellphone when she learns of her daughter’s intention to marry Ahmad. Though Mayya is correct about Ahmad, she is incensed by her daughter’s decision as it contravenes Mayya’s own vision for her daughter. London becomes an expression of Mayya’s character.