Palace Walk

Wow, wow, wow is this book fantastic. It's a substantial book, and the first of a trilogy by a Nobel Prize-winning author and it certainly has the reputation as An Important Book, which put me off reading it despite having picked up a very nice copy over a decade ago. This book seemed like it would require effort and somehow I was never up for making the effort. And so when I finally pulled it down off of the shelf, I was astonished at how vibrant and fun this novel was, one of those rare novels where time disappeared while I was reading.

Set in Cairo, in the years before Egyptian independence from Britain, the novel centers on al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad and his family. In public, Sayyid is the life of the party, a fun-loving and show more generous man who loves nothing more than gathering with his friends, drinking and singing, and sleeping with a series of mistresses. At home, however, he is intent on having a strictly observant religious household, the women who stay home and never show their faces to anyone outside the family, and sons who obey his every order and remain free of all vice. At home, his genial personality transforms into one that is quick to rage. Each family member reacts differently to their circumstances and the novel concerns itself with domestic issues and the crises that pop up in ordinary life, until the dissatisfaction with being an occupied country is expressed in demonstrations and rebellion and the family has to adjust to these new circumstances.

Mahfouz writes so engagingly about ordinary life of a shopkeeper's family that it's impossible not to be drawn into their lives. He's clear about the restrictions placed on women and how onerous and damaging that is, while also showing how a rigid, patriarchal society harms everyone in it, even the ones in charge. He also goes into detail about what life was like in that time and place, in a way that makes me eager to jump into the second book of the trilogy. show less

This is a book of layers and opposites. The author takes us into the home of a traditional Egyptian family in Cairo during the end of WWI. Behind the screens and doors we see the private life that can never be guessed at or glimpsed from the streeet. We also see into the characters. The patriarch, extremely strict at home with his family and the life of the party when he goes out with his friends, rules all. His family lives in his shadow. His two elder sons are the distilation of his private and public selves- one pious and studius, the other just interested in the night life. His daughters are juxtaposed light vs. dark, industrious vs. vain, beauty vs. plain. The mother anchors the home. She has no other purpose except to serve and show more obey her husband. The yougest son plays the role of court jester, fliting between all the layers and sides.
I'm hooked by this famiy saga and look forward to reading the other 2 books. show less

A superb read; first in the Cairo Trilogy, telling the saga of a middle-class family living under the hated British Protectorate
. Head of the house, Ahmad, is brilliantly and convincingly drawn - on the one hand he is a strict Muslim, demanding his wife and daughters live in total seclusion, and keeping all the family in a state of terror at his displeasure, yet every night he goes out on the town with his worldly friends to enjoy wine, women and song.
'Was he two separate people combined into one personality? Was his faith in the divine magnanimity so strong that he could not believe these pleasures really had been forbidden?...He found within himself strong instincts, some directed toward God and tamed through worship and others set show more for pleasure and quenched in play.'
His meek wife, Amina, devotes herself to pleasing him, never questioning his nocturnal excursions, while she looks out on the world through the slits in the shutters. With them lives stepson Yasin - child of a previous, unfavoured wife - who seems to be inheriting his father's immoral ways- and their own four children: sons Fahmy, a law student, becoming increasingly passionate about the anti-British movement, and mischievous schoolboy Kamal plus two daughters awaiting marriage: beautiful Aisha and her older sister, plain, sharp-tongued Khadija.
I couldn't put this down, and intend to read the other two works in near future. Utterly recommended: an Egyptian Tolstoy.
Leaves the female reader glad she doesn't live in an early 1900s Egyptian home, when she reads quotes like:
'No daughter of mine will marry a man until I am satisfied that his primary motive for marrying her is a sincere desire to be related to me...me...me...me' and
'Women are just another kind of domestic animal and must be treated like one'. !! show less

‘Tussen twee paleizen’ is het eerste deel in de Caïro-trilogie van Nobelprijswinnaar Nagieb Mahfoez.

Het verhaal speelt zich af in de laatste jaren van de eerste wereldoorlog en behandelt ook het opkomend nationalisme in Egypte in de eerste jaren na de oorlog. Mahfoez verweeft kunstig deze historische feiten met het leven van de koopmansfamilie Abd al-Gawwaad. De pater familias is uiterst streng voor zijn gezin, maar ongelooflijk mild voor zichzelf. Het is een man met twee gezichten die moeiteloos een strenge godsdienst met een losbandig leven combineert.

Van in het begin wordt de toon gezet, als de lezer zijn vrouw Amiena ontmoet, die met hem is getrouwd toen ze veertien was en al vijfentwintig jaar het huis niet heeft verlaten, show more tenzij ze een zeldzaam bezoek aan haar moeder brengt onder het alziend oog van Ahmed. Ze werkt hard, slaapt kort om na middernacht op de thuiskomst van haar man te wachten en hem daarna als een slaaf te dienen. Zijn oudste zoon Jasien die hij met zijn eerste vrouw kreeg, is qua liederlijkheid zijn evenbeeld. Van hem komt deze ongelooflijke quote:

‘Vrouwen zijn als huisdieren en moeten als huisdieren behandeld worden. Het is huisdieren niet toegestaan zich in ons persoonlijk leven te mengen. Ze moeten thuis wachten tot wij tijd hebben om ze te aaien.’

Niet alleen via Amiena, maar ook via haar dochters Khadiega en Aisja krijgt de lezer een goed beeld van de ‘rol’ van de vrouw in die tijd. Beide dochters wachten tot een bruidegom hun hand vraagt. De mooie Aisja krijgt meer dan een huwelijkskandidaat en toch mag ze van haar vader niet trouwen, zolang haar oudste zus niet in het huwelijk is getreden. Tot er een moeder met meer macht en aanzien dan de rijke koopman Abd al-Gawwaad op het toneel verschijnt. Als Jasien zelfs voor zijn vader met zijn uitspattingen zijn boekje te buiten gaat, zoekt Ahmed bij zijn beste vriend een bruid voor zijn zoon. Via Zainab zie je dat er vaders zijn die wel uitstapjes met hun dochters maken en de vrouw over het algemeen meer respecteren. Toch blijft de positie van de vrouw in die tijd in Egypte beklagenswaardig.

Via de tweede zoon Fahmi, die rechten studeert, krijg je een duidelijk beeld van wat er zich op het politieke toneel afspeelt. Hij vindt het jammer dat de Duitsers de eerste wereldoorlog hebben verloren, omdat de Engelsen terugkeren naar hun protectoraat. Hij krijgt hoop als Saad Zaghloel met een afvaardiging, de voorloper van Wafd, dat nu nog altijd politiek actief is in Egypte, onafhankelijkheid eist bij het protectoraatsbestuur. Saad wordt naar Malta verbannen en de studenten gaan staken en betogen. In al die ernstige thema’s zorgt de jongste zoon Kamaal met zijn naïviteit en ondeugendheid voor een vrolijke noot die soms een wrange bijsmaak krijgt.

Nagieb Mahfoez is kritisch voor de zeden van zijn volk en dat heeft hem als ‘ketteraar’ een aanslag op zijn leven opgeleverd. Hij tekent sommige buurten in Caïro zo gedetailleerd, dat het voelt alsof je er zelf bent. Zijn pen beschrijft het enorme verschil tussen mannen en vrouwen, wat mij als moderne westerse vrouw in de eenentwintigste eeuw, honderd jaar later, heeft gechoqueerd. Buitengewoon hoe hij aan de hand van een rijke koopmansfamilie de politieke ontwikkelingen in de laatste jaren van de oorlog en de eerste jaren erna op een onderhoudende manier vertelt. Een aanrader! show less

Set in an evolving, emerging independent Egypt from 1917-1919, the novel begins with bullseye focus on the day-to-day schedule of the al-Jawad family before zooming out to encompass what they represent microcosmically, Egyptian society at large and Egypt itself leading up to and during the nationalist revolution.

How frustratingly patriarchal should novels be, even if it were a realistic portrayal? To include the amount of feminism that nowadays expect would ring false, but as a work of fiction, why not? The only way I could tolerate al-Sayyid Ahmad's blatant hypocrisy in his expectation of his family's conduct, which the novel did some effort to condemn and point out as unreasonable, was to view it as a human story of the British show more occupation in Egypt at the time, and hope for his ultimate demise in the rest of the trilogy. The depiction of the family also sheds terrifying lights on domestic tyranny and how people can subjugate to it by confusing fear with love: She had no regrets at all about reconciling herself to a type of security based on surrender.

Despite the rampant misogyny and double standards of men, the novel was an engrossing read, immersed as it was in a culture and politics not often depicted in western literature. (cf, Despite being a mass murderer, that person really is just great!) On the surface, the events may appear inane - we began with about a hundred pages going through a typical day of the family's routine from everyone's perspective, now there's a marriage, there's a refusal, etc -, yet subtly reveals the mentality and hustle and bustle of Cairo with its customs and culture.

Recommended for firm supporters of equality since I worry that impressionable minds may be ingrained to carry on such despicable patriarchy as the norm, show less

(25) Part 1 in a Nobel Prize winning trilogy about a family in Cairo living their lives between the two World Wars and when Egypt was wresting control of the British Protectorate. A time and history I know very little about. Mahfouz's characterization and intricate story telling has been compared to Dickens, to the J.G. Farrells' 'Empire Trilogy', and Paul's Scott's 'The Raj Quartet' -- all authors and literature I have enjoyed and greatly admired. This has been missing from the oeuvre oft mentioned together so I figured I would begin the trilogy when I found the first book in a used bookstore. While I would say it did not disappoint, I did struggle with the novel.

The novel is written from multiple POV's and at times stream of show more consciousness but is always readable (unlike fro example Joyce's stream of consciousness blather) The patriarch is VERY hard to empathize with - conceited, self-righteous, duplicitous, hypocritical, domineering, misogynistic. The list goes on. However much the reader (? and the author) can see these things, the other characters do not. They revere him. This was tough for me and I bristled at the hyper-religiosity of a strict Islamic family life that did not allow the women to leave the home and considered them impure and defiled if another man looked at them (even if it wasn't their fault!!) The author had the female characters (whom also narrated at times)- the sheltered Amina, and her two daughters - buy into this sublimation of their identity and submit to the religious patriarchy almost without question and this really rankled. I was left wondering what the author himself actually believed. And therein was my discomfort. Are you serious right now? You are pissed a male doctor had to come and look at the woman's crotch post childbirth especially as it turned out she was OK after all... Women who are raped during a war crime will not be able to live under their husband's roof again as they have been defiled... WTF.

Ultimately, the characters come alive. One can picture Palace Walk with shops and the minarets and the latticed balconies and all the various shopkeepers, kohl-lined eyes and scarf wrapped faces of heavy-set beauties with their lutes and incense, and the serious scholarly young men in their kurtas and fez heading out to the coffee shops and classrooms. I loved Kamal and his flights of fancy and normal little boy ways. I did empathize with the climactic ending and imagined the next scene with a heavy heart. I will read the next installment. But, I am left with an increasingly negative sentiment about Islam despite the humanity of the characters. Normally works of great literature cultivate universality despite differences of time and culture - not so here for this reader and that is a bit disappointing. But I will give the author the benefit of the doubt and will allow it all to spool out. show less

The first novel in The Cairo Trilogy is set in a Cairene neighborhood in October 1917, just after the death of Husayn Kamal, the Sultan of Egypt. Kamal was chosen three years earlier as the figurehead of the land that was a part the Ottoman Empire but had been ruled by Great Britain since 1882. The previous leader, Abbas II, was deposed by the British at the onset of World War I, once the Ottoman Empire sided with the Central Powers and against Great Britain. Egypt was declared a British protectorate, which ended its semi-independent status and fueled the nationalist movement to expel the unwanted colonizers.

[Palace Walk] is centered upon al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, a successful neighborhood shop owner in Cairo. He is a merciless show more tyrant at home, imposing his unbending will and strict Muslim beliefs on his family, but a beloved and devoted friend to many and a fervent lover of wine, women and song outside of it. The al-Jawad family includes Amina, al-Sayyid's pious and tirelessly devoted second wife, his two daughters, the beautiful and vain Aisha, and the homely but quick witted and razor tongued Khadija, and his three sons, Yasin, a government servant whose prodigious appetite for debauchery exceeds his father's; Fahmy, an idealistic law student and freedom fighter; and Kamal, the youngest of the clan, an irreverent young dreamer who has a nose for getting into trouble but loves everyone in his family passionately and unconditionally.

The al-Jawads and those closest to them each struggle with parallel internal conflicts, in keeping with the struggle of the Egyptian people torn between the protection from the ravages of war by British occupation and the burning desire for independence, between older religious traditions and emerging secular freedoms, and especially between the traditional and modern roles and rights of women in early 20th century Egyptian society. In addition, the three sons of al-Jawad each seem to serve as metaphors for different periods of modern Egyptian history, with Yasin representative of traditional Cairo, Khady of the troubled land during the British protectorate, and Kamal of the bright but uncertain future independent country.

Mahfouz does a masterful job in fully portraying each character, the bustling neighborhood that surrounds Palace Walk, and the deep tension and stifling oppression within the al-Jawad household. Palace Walk is a monumental work, one which is essential to an understanding of the history of modern Egypt, and an outstanding family saga that rivals any other in literature. show less