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Title: Palace Walk (Cairo Trilogy)
ISBN: 0385264666
Author:
Naguib Mahfouz
Publicate Date: 1990-12-01
Publish: 1990-12-01
List Price: $15.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $5.75
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $0.46
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| Customer Review: |
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1: A Thoroughly European Novel
Buddenbrooks in a fez, Little Women in purdah, Palace Walk describes exotic settings and even more exotic customs entirely in the borrowed structures of a European novel of 'generations,' in which the eternal dilemma of marrying off the young unsettles the comfortable mindsets of the old. Anthony Trollope did it with far greater polish, humanity, and insight in "Orley Farm", a novel of about the same bulk. This is my first encounter with the Nobel Prize winning Naguib Mahfouz, and for that reason I want to be cautious in passing judgment, but I can't see greatness in Palace Walk, neither in the writing per se nor in the totality of the story, which is little more than a soap opera in prose.
Mr. Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, a prosperous shopkeeper in Cairo at the time of World War 1, and his family and servants compose the cast of the drama. The family includes his wife, two daughters of marrying age, a son by a previous wife, another son at the brink of manhood, and a third son, a boy of ten years. They all have their problems, and step to center-stage in rotation. Their problems are all of the domestic sort, at least until the last quarter of the book, when the struggle for Egyptian independence from the British Protectorate impinges on their lives. Metaphysical/intellectual problems can't emerge overtly - however implicit they might seem to the reader - because all such meta-problems are moot, being fully and permanently answered in advance by the Muslim faith they all proclaim.
This novel gives me no justification for even asking whether questions of faith are open for the author, that is, whether Mahfouz wants his readers to challenge the belief system of his characters. I confess that I find it extremely uncomfortable NOT to challenge, and not to find the author challenging a structure of belief that claims so much from its adherents and offers such flimsy and inconsistent guidance. I'm left with the irksome inkling that this is a novel in which the biggest questions go unasked.
From a European-novel perspective, Mr. Ahmad is himself the biggest problem his wife and children have to face. Ahmad is presented to us as a mostly admirable figure, a man of vigor and elan, of stubborn principles and integrity, someone loved and admired by his friends, loved and admired and above all feared by his family. Okay... Maybe he is "quite a guy" but he's also, from a European reader's perspective, an alcoholic with the typical alcoholic's disposition toward domestic abuse, a narcissistic personality verging on sociopathy, an utterly spoiled, selfish, self-indulgent place-holder. He shows approximately the ethical and psychological development of Harry Flashman, without a fraction of the self-knowledge!
Immaturity is the most obvious marker of character in this novel. Ahmad has the social maturity of an under-challenged 15-year-old. His wife is a perpetual child by virtue of living in seclusion from society for her entire adulthood. The two older sons are supposed to be "young men" but their mental age seems at least five years behind their physical. The boy Kamal is officially ten years old, but his behavior and his perceptions seem more apt for a five-year-old. Let's be bluntly honest: Cairo society as portrayed by Mahfouz is shockingly infantile, yet one doesn't have the sense that Mahfouz is aware of the painful impression he's delivering to us outsiders.
I am perhaps being unfair to this book, faulting it for what it doesn't do, but by chance I've just recently read another book that 'happens' at the same historical moment and portrays the burdens of the 'passing of the generations'. The Radetsky March, by the Austrian Joseph Roth, is a quarter the length of Palace Walk (the first of a trilogy!) but four times the depth.
I can't even guess how well - how beautifully, cleverly, originally - written this novel might be in Arabic. The English translation is pedestrian at best, trite at worst. I found myself holding the book in mid-air after a chapter or two and thinking 'oof, how many pages is this critter.' But I did finish it, and I do intend to read the next volume of the trilogy one of these days or years. How's that for 'faint praise?'
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2: `Wealth is one thing, generosity is another.'
This novel is the first of `The Cairo Trilogy' by Naguib Mahfouz. The other novels are `Palace of Desire' and `Sugar Street'.
To open this novel is to enter a world that will be foreign to many of us both because of the period (early 20th century) the location (Cairo) and the customs. This is a novel where the journey may well be far more interesting than the destination and time is required in order to absorb the experiences. The setting for this journey is both of a country moving towards independence (Egypt, immediately after World War I) and a society that has resisted change (with varying degrees of success) for centuries. The reader's companions in this journey are the members of the Al Jawad family.
The book opens with Amina, wife and mother, who is simultaneously both central and peripheral. There are many such contradictions: Ahmad, the husband and father runs his household strictly in accordance with the Qur'an but follows a way of life outside which is freed from the constraints his iron will imposes on others. There are three sons, and two daughters and a number of other characters who bring this world to life.
There are some novels that, once read, become part of your life in some mysterious osmotic way. This is one of those novels for me. I picked it up as a consequence of recommendations by Amazon Friends and am now keenly awaiting the arrival of a hardcover copy of the entire trilogy. These novels were not written in English and while the translation is superb I can't help but think I'd gain even more if I could read them in Arabic with all the fluidity and nuance of that beautiful language.
Mr Mahfouz died in 2006. After `The Cairo Trilogy' I will be looking to read as many of his works as I can obtain in English translation.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
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3: Mahfouz Rewards Patience
Naguib Mahfouz, the only Arabic language writer ever to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, begins Palace Walk with Amina, the devout and devoted Muslim wife of al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad patiently waiting for her husband to return home from another long night of drinking, music, and carousing with his male friends and pursuing illicit sexual relations in Cairo's clubs and cafes. Mahfouz thus immediately establishes Amina's willing and absolute subservience to her husband. Mahfouz takes the next several chapters to develop al-Sayyid Ahmad's position as the unquestioned head of a family of two daughters, Khadija and Aisha, and three sons, Yasin an adult son from a prior marriage, Fahmy a law student, and young Kamal.
A central theme of the book is the absolute obedience, love, devotion, and fear of each member toward al-Sayyid Ahmad. The father is a towering figure who dominates their lives. They seem only to live and breathe in his absence. Al-Sayyid Ahmad insists upon a strict familial discipline and obedience that strikes even his close friends as extreme. The women in particular are subjected to isolation so extreme as to prohibit even a trip to a local mosque. Yet, as Mahfouz languorously unwinds his tale it becomes entirely clear that the family's devotion to him is sincerely heartfelt.
At the same time, as the reader has already learned, al-Sayyid Ahmad retains to himself the right to live a virtual double-life. He goes out on the town for wine, women, and song every single night without fail (the clich?? fits al-Sayyid Ahmad too well to abjure). He even `officially' allows himself these indulgences . The family remains almost entirely ignorant of these activities, except for his wife Amina who knows only about the wine and song. With this juxtaposition of al-Sayyid Ahmad's guiltless pleasures with his strict demands on his family and their abject obedience, Mahfouz patiently builds to a thunderously powerful sensation when al-Sayyid Ahmad's pronounces his stunning punishment upon his wife for her guilty, secretive, and accidentally disastrous trip to the Mosque of Sayyidna al-Husayn.
While Al-Sayyid Ahmad often dominates the pages of this novel much like he dominates his family, Mahfouz nonetheless manages to patiently develop each family member's individual story. Khadija is the homely strong-willed older daughter with an incisive mind and a cutting tongue while Aisha is the passive, but beautiful and sought-after younger daughter. Yasin has inherited his father's taste for the forbidden pleasures, but not his discipline. Fahmy is the serious law student and secretly active nationalist. Kamal is a young boy whose poignant love for his family is so palpable and his understanding of the world so undeveloped that the reader desires nothing more than for Mahfouz to shield him from harsh reality. The wife and mother Amina remains largely an enigma perhaps because she has entirely submerged her sense of self into her husband.
About two-thirds of the way into the book, the Egyptian Revolution of 1919 breaks out against the British occupation and draws the family into its vortex. Much of the final third of the book is taken up with the family's interactions with the British occupiers. The revolution provides an important historical background and Mahfouz masterfully recreates the sounds, sights, smells, and tastes of Cairo's streets, but his greatest triumph is the creation of the complete life of this urban yet intensely Islamic and Egyptian family, a family that is perhaps remarkable in some ways, but well within society's accepted bounds.
Take the time to savor Palace Walk. Mahfouz rewards the persistent reader by patiently building the remarkable depth and completeness of his characters. Once the last page is turned, the reader can rest secure in the knowledge that Palace Walk is only the first book in Mahfouz's great Cairo Trilogy. Highest recommendation.
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4: Palace Walk
Book in nice condition, did take a long time to get here, but otherwise satisfactory service.
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5: boring
to be honest i couldnt even finish the book. I bought all 3 ( cairo trilogy). Boring
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