The year is 1952, and there is revolution in Egypt. The youth of the nation, more reckless and optimistic than their parents, have formed a militia to drive out both the English colonizers and the corrupt Egyptian king. Miraculously, both goals are achieved. But Isa, an ambitious government worker, is thrown beneath the hooves of history when a new inquisition discovers his corrupt bargains and fires him ignominiously. All at once he is deprived of his job, his fiancé, and his home. The novel traces his existential wanderings through Alexandria and the questions that accompany a lasting revolution.
While this book lacked the physical vividness of The Open Door, the moral structure of it is compelling enough to create its own aesthetic value. This is true even if you're not a card-carrying existentialist. (It's all right; neither am I.) Mahfouz focuses on Isa's story and mental processes rather than using him as a conduit to state any plain conclusion. Yes, the pathetic fallacy makes several appearances (that's when the setting reflects the character's disposition, and it's frowned upon by those who disbelieve that our perceptions of nature influence nature as we perceive it), but it's tastefully in the background. Primarily we become intimate with a powerful listlessness that makes Isa believable.
I don't recommend this book on the basis of an entertaining plot or likable, Rowlingesque characters. Isa is a bastard who doesn't know what to do with himself, even to the very end. Nearly all of the other characters are forgettable. But I do recommend it because it's short and will make you take a moment to breathe a different kind of air.
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