Author: Kate Pullinger
Pages: 272
Published: 2010
Genre: Historical fiction
Rating: 3/5
Lady Duff Gordon is the toast of Victorian London. But when her debilitating tuberculosis requires healthier climate, she and her lady's maid, Sally, set sail for Egypt. It is Sally who describes, with a mixture of wonder and trepidation, the odd menage marshalled by the resourceful Omar, which travels down the Nile to a new life in Luxor. When Lady Duff Gordon undoes her stays and takes to native dress, throwing herself into weekly salons, language lessons, excursions to the tombs, Sally too adapts to a new world, affording her heady and heartfelt freedoms never known before. But freedom is a luxury that a maid can ill-afford, and when Sally grasps more than her status entitles her to, she is brutally reminded that she is mistress of nothing.
Thoughts: Thought that the first part of the book really dragged, but the second part really picked up in a big way. I found it interesting in that I was delved into a world that I really had no clue about and found it very fascinating. It was also fascinating that I was reading this book during the riots in Egypt, which their president was thrown out of office. It was also interesting because it showed what sort of double standard that men and women servants had in that society.
3069 / 15000 pages. 20% done!
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