Marvelous
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If this can be compared to Tolstoy then it is to Anna Karenina rather than to War and Peace. It is true that the novel occurs against the background of war and nationalist fervour and that some characters are caught up in events and all are by the end profoundly affected by them. However, this is above all a recounting of how one family is unhappy in its own way.
The pace is slow, but the journey is worthwhile. Strongly recommended.
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Do not compare this to Tolstoy...
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This is the first book in a highly-rated trilogy, where the entire trio of books was originally written as one book. It tells of a family in Cairo in 1918.
First of all, forget any references that tell you this is equivalent to Tolstoy. It is not remotely in that class. After fifty pages, you know what all the main characters are like, and where you are. Most of the next 450 pages will be spent repeating these things.
The first half of this book is a seemingly endless repetition of the father's hypocrisy, the mother's submissiveness, the physical attributes of the daughters, and three sons who seem almost interchangeable except for their ages. At no time does Mahfouz attempt to draw depth and nuance into his characters. They are defined by two or three characteristics, and these are re-applied in each scenario.
Suddenly, halfway through the book, Mahfouz decides he is not actually writing an historical saga of who gets married, and introduces a political context of the uprising against British occupation. This comes with a total lack of historical, political or social framework, and so makes no sense at all. The reader, unless he/she comes armed with a knowledge of early 20th-century Egyptian politics, merely observes these things in a vacuum.
Ultimately, this is a densely-written, curiously old-fashioned book. It is heavy going, not because there is so much information, detail and subtlety; it is heavy going because the prose is turgid (possibly badly translated as well), and the plot is claustrophobic, illuminating little that adds to an understanding of either character or context. There is virtually no idea of what Cairo is like: it could be Baghdad, Casablanca, or Riyadh.
Whereas Tolstoy used his stories to provide a vivid sense of time, place, social values, geopolitics and history, Mahfouz has simply written a very narrow story, with no sense of place, and hoped that this provides an insight into time and location. It does not. The book lacks the sweep, imagination, plot momentum, subtlety of characterisation, and social context that others have claimed for it. Its' style makes it feel like a book written 200 years ago - leaden story, stilted and false dialogue, repetitious and dull. You will not know much more about Cairo or Egypt at the end than when you started, and you will not have been entertained in the interim.
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Palace Walk The Cairo Trilogy
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A startlingly beautiful book and trilogy. Through Mahfouz, you see Egyptian society, social structure, religion, politics, love and a long lost era. Magic, heaven and apparently, it's even better in Arabic!
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An amazing trilogy
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When I went to Egypt recently, every Egyptian I met, when I expressed an interest in Egyptian literature, told me to read the Cairo trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz. Once you've read the trilogy you'll realise why he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. He tells a gripping story of a family's life in Cairo, interweaving the stories of each member of the family with the wider political events affecting Egypt during the first half of the twentieth century. It gives an insight into Egyptian life which as an outsider you could never otherwise hope to gain. The trilogy is timeless and easily the best three books I have read in the past year.
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a compelling read!
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The characters in this book are amazingly well developed. It is crystal clear as to what drives their actions, and as the story twists into a compelling read, it is as though you actually know the characters. Set in Egypt in the 1900s, this book explores the double standards set for men and women in Egyptian society, and the way that cultural expectations are mistaken for teachings of Islam, which means that people - such as the daughters in the novel - do not question the shackles placed on their lives, as they are convinced that this is the way that God has commanded them to live. The desperately miserable and dreary lives of the women of the household, especially Amina are portrayed excellently, as are the dreams and ideals of the young men in the family. i couldn't put this book down, and can't wait to get started on the second of the trilogy!
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