Read Around the World. Egypt

Naguib Mahfouz was a prolific author, considered one of the fathers of contemporary Egyptian fiction, and the only Egyptian to win the Nobel Prize for literature. He received many death threats from fundamentalist Islamic groups and was the victim of an assassination attempt wherein he was stabbed in the neck outside his home. The 82 year old survived the attempt but was unable to write for more than a few minutes a day due to nerve damage in his right arm.

Palace Walk is the first of the Cairo Trilogy and tells of a Muslim family living there from 1917 to the Egyptian Revolution in 1919. It features Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, his wife and children. The characters are well drawn and the family dynamics complex, with Al-Sayyid ruling his home with an iron fist, creating fear in his children and subservience in his pious wife. Al-Sayyid Ahmad follows the Hanbali sect, an ultra conservative form of Islam. As he says to his children, “I’m a man. I’m the one who commands and forbids. I will not accept any criticism of my behavior. All I ask of you is to obey me. Don’t force me to discipline you.” He is a tyrannical, despotic hypocrite of a man, keeping his wife and daughters virtual prisoners in their home, unable to leave its doors, yet staying out himself night after night, drinking and carousing with women and entertaining his friends. Despite this he seems to love his children. I read about him with an almost morbid fascination of repulsion and intrigue. His wife Amina is a subservient doormat and although she aroused my sympathy, I wanted to shake her at points in the story. Her stepson Yasin is a lecherous creep, with some repulsive views on women. “A woman. Yes, she’s nothing but a woman. Every woman is a filthy curse. A woman doesn’t know what virtue is, unless she’s denied all opportunities for adultery. Even my stepmother, who’s a fine woman – God only knows what she would be like if it weren’t for my father.” The next son Fahmy is an idealistic teen, who when thwarted in love throws himself into the nationalist cause of trying to free Egypt from the British. Khadija makes up for her lack of beauty with a rapier-like tongue. Aisha is the beautiful one and very conscious of her charms. My favourite character was the youngest son Khamal, the inquisitive mischief maker of the family with his endless questions and curiosity.

I shifted between the kindle and audiobook versions of this story with the amazing Whispersync. I wasn’t entirely enamored with the audio narration by Neil Shah which seemed breathy and over dramatic at times. I found the book engaging, but probably not sufficiently so to induce me to follow the family into the second book of the trilogy. It is no doubt educational reading about the way women are, or have been, treated in various places in the world, but nevertheless feels like heavy going. 3.5 stars for me. ( )

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بين القصرين هو الجزء الأول من ثلاثية نجيب محفوظ الشهيرة، والتي تشكل القاهرة ومنطقة الحسين خصيصا المسرح الأساسي والوحيد لأحداثها.[1][2][3] تحكي الرواية قصة أسرة من الطبقة الوسطى، تعيش في حي شعبي من أحياء القاهرة في فترة ما قبل وأثناء ثورة 1919. يحكمها أب متزمت ذو شخصية قوية هو السيد أحمد عبد الجواد (سي السيد). ويعيش في كنف الأب كل من: زوجته أمينة وإبنه البكر ياسين وإبنه فهمي وكمال إضافة إلى ابنتيه خديجة وعائشة.
المصدر: ويكيبيديا

It isn't my concious intention to read trilogies, but here I am. Happily, I guess, this first novel is about 40% of the whole. It is an interesting and moving Cairo family epic beginning about the time of WWI (The family wishes that the English will be confounded by the Zeppelin.). ( )

If you want to read about a family made entirely of people whom you are given no reason to like or even find interesting, this is your book. You may learn something about Egypt in the years 1918 and 1919, but even that is presented through a family only one member of whom is interested in anything outside themselves or their household and that one is never followed into his political activities. ( )