Karnak Café

I had already read the first book of Mahfouz's Palace trilogy, and I knew from that that he was a true master storyteller. This much shorter Karnak Café fully confirms that. We follow the narrator (ostensibly the author himself) as he visits a Cairo drinking establishment run by an elderly woman who was a popular belly dancer in the 1940s. Their refined conversations about life and love are interrupted by the disturbing disappearance of a group of students who frequent the café. And here Mahfouz elegantly elevates his narrative to a political level, through conversations with three of the people involved, who re-emerge later. This not only provides interesting information about what they have become involved in, a game of show more psychological warfare that also involves torture and denunciation. It also exposes the complex framework in which people function and, above all, how they each try to survive within it in their own way. Mahfouz, from a very specific context (Egypt at the end of the 1960s, including the traumatic defeat in the war with Israel), manages to zoom in on the universal human condition. And he does so in just over 100 pages. Well done. show less

This novel begins with a man casually dropping into a cafe and becoming the observer of a love obsession of a former belly dancer, now owner of the cafe, with Hilmi Hamada, a young medical student who frequents the cafe with his friends except for the times he and his group of young friends repeatedly and suddenly stop appearing. The question is what is happening to these students during their absences from the cafe? It it something political? Is it imprisonment? They say it’s a trip, but the students appear changed when they reappear after these abrupt absences.

Having previously lived in Israel, I found it interesting to learn about the Egyptian politics of that time, although I was too young at the time of the Egyptian Revolution of show more 1952 for me to have known anything about it. I read about it now to give more context to this novel.

It seems as if, in every political situation, it’s always the college students that get it the roughest. Plainly put, they know too much. Hence they have too much power in the eyes of the governmental elite. This is such a universal fact. It was hard to read how this scenario played out in this novel.

I liked the way this story was told. It was like viewing a scene through different windows as each character described his or her experiences in dealing with friendship, political alliances and betrayal. The political discussions at the end of the book were really timeless as well as the statement by the one-time secret police interrogator. show less

In the eponymous Cairo establishment an observer is drawn in by the retired belly dancer who runs it and stays for the company of the other men and the young patrons who include a woman. The 1952 revolution is a decade and some years in the past and everyone talks politics - until the young people repeatedly disappear and reappear worn down but not disclosing the reasons for their absence. Eventually our observer is able to collect some of their stories of imprisonment, violence and betrayal all centered around the 1967 defeat. There is no resolution, but only fragments of what happens when a nation believes its own lies and uses power because it has power.
There is a claustrophobic sense to the story, because once the narrator enters show more the cafe it is almost as if that is the only place the older characters exist and the younger ones have witness to what happened to them outside. show less

Once in a while I read a book that sparks my interest in the history and culture of the writer's country... well, more often than not that is the case. And it is definitely the case with Naguib Mahfouz's books.

Written soon after the the June War of 1967, this book explores the post-1967 era of Egypt's history, an era of profound dismay, of reflection, of recrimination, of "looking back in anger". It is a short novel that takes place in a small Café. The Café is frequented by 3 young people and several older people. The young people periodically disappear and reappear. And their story of imprisonment, brutal interrogations, and betrayals is pieced together by the narrator.

This is a book that is still relevant today.

Karnak Cafe, by Naguib Mahfouz, is a thin novel by any measure though written by a master. Clearly his Cairo Trilogy remains supreme. I don't have a good reason for you to read this novel. A lot of talk about the revolution takes place in the Karnak Cafe, but it is a lot of chatter.

Hay países, que parece que lleven una eternidad en procesos de revolución. Así es la historia de Egipto en estos últimos tiempos. Ya lo era en los años 70, en la época de la guerra de los siete días, y lo ha sido hace unos meses con el derrocamiento popular de Mubarak. Cuando esas revoluciones, que privan de derechos a sus ciudadanos, se perpetúan, pasan a convertirse en regímenes semidictatoriales, que solo buscan perpetuarse en el poder. Mahfuz nos relata este caso a través de los clientes habituales de un café en Egipto.

"Me gustó aquel sitio por su excelente café, el agua pura, las tazas y los vasos limpios, la dulzura de Qaránfula, la grave dignidad de los ancianos, la vitalidad de los jóvenes y la belleza de la chica". Así describe el narrador (acaso el mismo autor) el ambiente y los personajes que frecuentan el Café Karnak, cálido punto de unión entre el pasado y el presente. Cuando sin previo aviso tres jóvenes dejan de acudir al café, Qaránfula, su dueña, una bella mujer madura que fue bailarina, empieza a investigar. Descubrirá sus historias entrelazadas y la cara más dura de la revolución.