Midaq Alley

Immediate charm of place and beautifully sketched characters. It's easy to get engrossed in this world. It was sometimes hard to read the women, like in any older book, but overall I loved his discerning eye cast on this little slice of a city.

I love stories that feature an ensemble cast such as this. Midaq Alley is but one of many such small streets in Cairo. The residents form a microcosm of society – you have amoral profiteers and paragons of virtue, young and old, the beautiful and the deformed, hard workers and lazy ne’er-do-wells.

Over the course of the novel residents of the Alley fall in love, endure heartbreak, commit crimes, fall for promises, take chances at new adventures, become ill, and simply move on with their lives. The characters are frequently seduced by their hopes: If only I had … a husband, a title, nicer clothes, a better flat…etc.

The setting is 1940s Cairo, and the characters are definitely aware of Hitler and WW2. Still, the war is “out show more there” and what is most important to these characters is what is happening in Midaq Alley. Mahfouz’s writing is wonderfully atmospheric – I could smell the bread baking, or the hair oil used by the barber; hear the cacophony of sound in a busy public square; see the colors and movement of people gathering in a café. show less

This book was my introduction to Egyptian writers in general, and Nobel Prize winner Mahfouz in specific. In this book, I found him a gifted story-teller to whom I will definitely return.

This novel is told as a series of interlocking stories that portray the lives of a small group of individuals over a short period of time during the waning days of World War II. The stories are set in Midaq Alley, a poor backstreet in Cairo. As the book unfolds, you realize that the alley is a small village within the city; its inhabitants live, socialize, work and marry largely within its confines. Some embrace this sense of community; some feel confined and struggle to escape. The alley, itself, might almost be considered the major character of the show more book. Mahfouz fills it with a character of its own: shabby, cynical, vibrant, faintly corpulent. It seems to sit there, observing the individuals that run about within it, loving them in its own distant way. This sense of intimacy made me feel that I was watching the events through the alley's eyes in an odd sort of first person narrative.

There is a vibrance to the human characters who populate this story. Each individual, major or minor, is drawn with a keen eye for detail, with affection for their strengths, humor for their foibles and a lack of judgment for their flaws. I felt I knew each of these characters intimately: the inconstant Hamida, ruthless in her desire for wealth and luxury; responsible and kind Abbas, content with his life in the alley but willing to give it up for love; Kirsha, owner of the café, married but with a predilection for young men; Saniya, the miserly landlord obsessed with finding a younger husband; Zaita, the cripple maker who feels nothing but contempt for all but Husniya, the baker who beats her husband.

The social changes as Egypt struggles with a modern era, the side-effects with Western cultural imperialism, the role of religious faith in life, all of these provide an unobtrusive background as Mahfouz circulates among his creations, advancing each of their stories bit by bit as the novel progresses. The inherent inter-connectedness of their lives causes their stories to brush against each other until he draws them together in an ending that, though containing sadness, was never bleak or unsatisfying.

Highly recommended. show less

The more I read of Mahfouz, the more confused I grow. I have read excellent works and I have read works that I considered a waste of time. I chose this work specifically as one I had somehow overlooked and which has a very good reputation. The plot revolves around a large cast of individuals who live or work in this tiny alley in Cairo during World War II. The book is no more or less than the story of these and a number of other lives. Mahfouz’s themes are numerous: religion, marriage, gender roles, and even Egyptian nationalism. But overriding them all, perhaps is the economics of wealth and poverty. Indeed, Mahfouz is said to have acknowledged that Hamida, whose desperation to leave the alley ends in tragedy, is a metaphor for Egypt show more itself. The characters are very well-drawn and complex but I found not one of them particularly sympathetic. Sadly, they often seemed more pitiful than unfortunate. Mahfouz doesn’t judge—a strength of his writing and his depictions—but ultimately I found this more depressing and disappointing than anything else. [Trivia: this was made into a Mexican film, El Callejón de los Milagros, starring Salma Hayek. It won a substantial number of awards in many Spanish-speaking countries.] show less

Mahfuz inserisce il romanzo in un’unita spaziale precisa, come se in realtà fosse il Vicolo stesso, anziché la folta schiera di personaggi, il vero protagonista del romanzo. E’ l’immobilità (del tempo, della società, delle persone), il punto cruciale del romanzo. Vite intere scorrono nel Vicolo, come in un’isola fuori dal tempo. Tutti i personaggi che orbitano intorno ad esso vivono il proprio dramma personale: i ricchi vivono il disagio familiare o il problema dell’identità sessuale, i poveri lottano per una posizione più elevata, cercando di conquistarla con mezzi ambigui. Chi attraverso la guerra, quella che si crede infinita, contro Hitler, fonte di fortuna inaspettata (saranno poi gli stessi personaggi ad show more autocriticarsi per il fatto di gioire di qualcosa di così orribile). E chi, come Hamida, la giovane opportunista, che cerca fortuna come prostituta, rompendo gli impegni d’amore presi, per lei veramente poco importanti. Tutto questo non può che portare al dramma finale, ma anche di questo il Vicolo si fa beffe e in pochi giorni tutto è passato e tutto resta immobile.
Lo stile di Mahfuz è immersivo e delicato, riuscendo a dipingere Il Cairo nei suoi colori e odori. La gestione dei molti personaggi è fluida e lo stacco tra uno e l’altro non comporta noia o disorientamento, come in altri autori. show less

Mahfuz inserisce il romanzo in un’unita spaziale precisa, come se in realtà fosse il Vicolo stesso, anziché la folta schiera di personaggi, il vero protagonista del romanzo. E’ l’immobilità (del tempo, della società, delle persone), il punto cruciale del romanzo. Vite intere scorrono nel Vicolo, come in un’isola fuori dal tempo. Tutti i personaggi che orbitano intorno ad esso vivono il proprio dramma personale: i ricchi vivono il disagio familiare o il problema dell’identità sessuale, i poveri lottano per una posizione più elevata, cercando di conquistarla con mezzi ambigui. Chi attraverso la guerra, quella che si crede infinita, contro Hitler, fonte di fortuna inaspettata (saranno poi gli stessi personaggi ad show more autocriticarsi per il fatto di gioire di qualcosa di così orribile). E chi, come Hamida, la giovane opportunista, che cerca fortuna come prostituta, rompendo gli impegni d’amore presi, per lei veramente poco importanti. Tutto questo non può che portare al dramma finale, ma anche di questo il Vicolo si fa beffe e in pochi giorni tutto è passato e tutto resta immobile.
Lo stile di Mahfuz è immersivo e delicato, riuscendo a dipingere Il Cairo nei suoi colori e odori. La gestione dei molti personaggi è fluida e lo stacco tra uno e l’altro non comporta noia o disorientamento, come in altri autori. show less

Set in the Cairo of the mid-1940's, this novel through a series of vignettes depicts the lives of several individuals living in one of the cities alleys. With so many narrators, most are not fully developed into three dimensional people; instead each seems a caricature. However, through the variety of the caricatures and the many episodes, Mahfouz is able to create his portrait of the whole of Egyptian society and the forces beliefs, and habits that seem to thwart any hope of betterment of the characters or their place in society. I found it to alternate between a horrifying and charming world.