(I already wrote about Huma Abedin here. Here are some extra thoughts)
In the audio version of her New York Times Book Review of Both/And Susan Dominus takes special care in the way she pronounces Huma- Abedin’s first name , The name, Abedin has told her,) has been pronounced incorrectly for all of Huma’s career. The correct pronunciation Dominus tell us is “Hum-a” where Hum is pronounced like Yum with an “ah” sound at the end.
It was kind of Dominus to have taken the trouble. In the ongoing effort to rebrand Huma Abedin-coming up with a new pronunciation for her name seems like a particularly brilliant idea. Whether or not the pronunciation that Abedin now provides is correct seems almost besides the point, a detail for quibblers (like myself) who have known innumerable Humas and never once heard the name pronounced that way. The important thing is that Huma Abedin-is trying to rebrand herself-get it together after devastatingly public fall from grace.
This newly rebranded outspoken woman persona is departure from the shrinking violet image Abedin has cultivated for years.. In the round of interviews she has given recently, she still seems to be wistful for the old Huma, that egoless creature more comfortable at the back of the room, organizing and executing events rather than being the center of them. This overused refrain was put in place to highlight the recalcitrance of the old Huma as a person who is only reluctantly led into the world of power and politics.
It seems impossible for Huma Abedin was ever that person. .Angling so hard to be Queen Hillary’s top-handmaiden is not the work of a retiring and self-less sort. Queen Hillary’s Court- cannot ever have been a place of sing-alongs and game nights where such a retiring person might shine-a certain amount of ambition, along with self-promotion must all have necessarily been involved in becoming the top woman of the woman who would be President.
But if palace intrigue is what you are after, Both/And… is bound to be a colossal disappointment. This 526 page volume is 60 percent a dazzled hagiography of HRC another 20 percent is a discussion of the dreamboat Anthony Weiner once was. In the remaining twenty percent Abedin regales us with tales of her family lineage-which may be interesting to Western readers-but are banal to South Asians all of whom have been told similar unverified tales by their parents.
(From Anna Wintour’s Long Island Estate)