Palace Walk (Cairo Tri\u00adlogy)<\/a> is al-Sayy\u00adid Ahmad, a mer\u00adchant who does whatever he wants while for\u00adbid\u00adding his reli\u00adgious wife (and his chil\u00addren) any\u00adthing that might be deemed even slightly immor\u00adal. The book opens with his wife get\u00adting up at mid\u00adnight to pre\u00adpare for his return from the bars and cur\u00adrent mis\u00adtress. This theme is con\u00adtin\u00adued through\u00adout the book; when the hus\u00adband goes away on busi\u00adness the wife lets her male chil\u00addren talk her into vis\u00adit\u00ading a shrine. On the way home she is hit by a car, so there is no chance of hid\u00ading the fact that she left the house. As soon as she is well, the hus\u00adband throws her out of the house and not until almost the entire neigh\u00adbour\u00adhood peti\u00adtions him on her behalf does he take her back again.<\/p>\nThe book evokes dusty streets and images of pass\u00adive Egyp\u00adtians wait\u00ading for the storm of Eng\u00adlish and Aus\u00adtrali\u00adan occu\u00adpa\u00adtion to pass while try\u00ading to carry on their lives. The nov\u00adel\u00adist uses the mem\u00adbers of the fam\u00adily to show the dif\u00adfer\u00adences in reac\u00adtions to the sol\u00addiers: the middle son is involved in demon\u00adstra\u00adtions (without the father\u00ad\u2019s know\u00adledge, and cer\u00adtainly against his will) while the eld\u00adest cares only for women and wine and money. <\/p>\n
I found it a hard book to grasp. With many books you find your\u00adself sym\u00adpath\u00adiz\u00ading with one or more of the char\u00adac\u00adters. Here I either felt annoyed (e.g., with the father\/husband, des\u00adpite the obvi\u00adous attempts by the nov\u00adel\u00adist towards the end of the book to make him more sym\u00adpath\u00adet\u00adic) or sorry for them (the mother\/wife and the eld\u00adest daugh\u00adter). In the end I found I was read\u00ading as a neut\u00adral observ\u00ader, rather than almost a par\u00adti\u00adcipant, and so the book was not as envel\u00adop\u00ading as I expec\u00adted. Per\u00adhaps some of this was due to the trans\u00adla\u00adtion; it seemed rather uneven in patches and at times I caught myself won\u00adder\u00ading if some phrase had been trans\u00adlated correctly.<\/p>\n
One thing that is inter\u00adest\u00ading in the light of the cur\u00adrent Middle East\u00adern polit\u00adics and reli\u00adgious dis\u00adcus\u00adsions is the tone of passiv\u00adity. There is little of the jihad tone that we hear about today, although the middle son does take part in demon\u00adstra\u00adtions. The fam\u00adily in gen\u00ader\u00adal tries to avoid danger and all the reli\u00adgious lead\u00aders coun\u00adsel its avoid\u00adance as well. From that point of view, the book is inter\u00adest\u00ading as a snap\u00adshot of an age and a way of life that prob\u00adably does\u00adn\u2019t exist any more, but that has an effect on present-day atti\u00adtudes towards women and foreigners.<\/p>\n
In sum\u00admary, I think the book is worth read\u00ading for the pic\u00adture it paints of a dif\u00adfer\u00adent world. I may even read the rest of the trilogy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A small book\u00adclub meet\u00ading with mixed feel\u00adings about Naguib Mah\u00adfouz\u2019 \u201cPalace Walk\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}