Review: The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany (2002)

One building in Cairo becomes the focus for a multitude of different people facing different struggles. Zaki el Dessouki is an aged playboy who lives with his spiteful sister, and whose golden age has long since passed. Busayna el Sayed is a poor young woman who is forced to sell her body in order to support her family. Her boyfriend, Taha el Shazli, finds his dreams squashed repeatedly because of his low social status, and gradually feels the tug toward an Islamic fundamentalism that hides something darker. Hatim Rasheed is a gay editor who can only express himself in terms of power and manipulation. And the worst of all, Hagg Azzam, is a millionaire who buys a spot in the political machine, only to discover that as rich as he is, there are always powers capable of buying and destroying him. As the book develops, these and more characters weave in and out of each other's lives, some never quite meeting despite sharing the same chaotic space in the world.

This is the last installment of my Arabic literature reviews. As far as I know, this one is not indicative of typical Egyptian novels; the professor told us that more than any book he knows, it's intended to offend everybody. So buckle in.

The fascinating aspect of this book is its unresolved question of who is a good person, and who is evil. A dedicated third-person narration washes the authors hands of this somewhat, but of course the events of the plot speak to a certain expectation of life's outcomes. So we, the readers, must decide whether each character receives his just desserts, or whether the outcomes are random. Some characters fall disgracefully, while others find a little happiness at last. For the most part, the resolution is bleak. Such is life, I suppose.

At the same time, however, there's something about almost every character that draws out some sympathy. This is especially true of the two young characters, Busayna and Taha. Both are totally demeaned throughout the course of the story. Though I disagree with my classmate who sees Busayna as a total victim, with no volition of her own, I understand her as an expression that few condemnable actions are total choices, easy to avoid, and that no lifestyle stands on its own. Certainly Busayna is hurt more than she ever hurts anyone else, even herself. Taha, on the other hand, carries this example to its extreme. Unlike Busayna, he is never offered any alternative to the path he eventually follows, other than the option to remain poor and untouchable. A variety of forces, no single one to blame, warp his brain and his values into something he thinks is holy. To me, Taha's resolution is the most heartbreaking part of the story and of any piece of this course.

The book is very explicit about violence and sex; be aware of that when picking it up. And be ready for some psychological trauma. But other than that, it's an intelligent read with a variety of subtle values. Give it a try if you're on a postmodern kick and want to read something non-Western.

Review: Love in Exile by Bahaa Taher (2005)

An unnamed narrator is living in Europe after being failing as a nationalistic journalist in Egypt. There, he discovers that he cannot escape the news of national tragedies; at a conference for the broadcasting of torture in Chile, he meets Brigitte, an Austrian translator, also on the run from a painful past. Though Brigitte is half his age and very beautiful, the two fall in love with the intention to keep the violent world out of their lives. But their love is threatened by Brigitte's broken psychology, the narrator's failing health, and a dubious prince who is conquering the whole world, piece by piece.

I don't want to spend much time on this one because, frankly, there wasn't very much to spend time on. The narrator is dull, although realistically so, and none of the other characters was especially compelling. Even Brigitte failed to convince me that she was truly experiencing any kind of crisis. And the end is extremely disappointing.

The book has a few good points, including a prevalent concept about whether to isolate oneself from the outside world. I think this is extremely relevant to most people, especially those of us here on the internet. The book argues that this kind of lifestyle is impossible, but I vote for a balance. Complete introversion, as the narrator and Brigitte experience, can lead to a greater shock when you are forced to look outward once again.

More books are soon to come! I have quite a few read but not blogged. And thanks to everyone who frequents my reviews; you help me more than you know.

Review: Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih (1966)

If Arabic literature is all about seasons, then sign me up. This is the first book in my class by a writer from somewhere other than Egypt. Salih is from Sudan (now South Sudan), and this is my favorite Arabic work so far.

An innominate narrator returns to his rural Sudanese hometown after an Oxford education in English literature. In spite of his radically new worldview, nothing has changed in the village – except for the presence of a mysterious stranger named Mustafa Sa'eed. Mustafa turns out to know more about English poetry and European cynicism than the narrator, and he soon drops several threads of his past into the narrator's lap, introducing the machinery of cold manipulation and lustful violence into the peaceful village. But before this conceptual disease can take root, Mustafa vanishes and is presumed dead, leaving his estate and family to the young narrator, who spends the rest of the novel in a desperate search for the lost pieces of his own identity as well as the cultural identity of his friends and family.

My professor's complaint about the book is that nothing happens. If you don't like a story that begins at the end and backfills the plot, turn back now. Personally, I don't mind, considering that I'm getting all the information anyway. At its worst, this device is a cheap method of foreshadowing, but Salih avoids that by not being very concerned by plot, either. Take note: you should also turn back if plot is the main thing you're seeking.

In the place of a coherent, cohesive story, Season weaves a philosophic narrative. The difficulty lies in the nonlinear shape of the main event, which arguably takes place over centuries. It's about the disease of humanity, of cultures of cold calculation opposing those of hot passion. It's political without involving nominal politics.

Therein lies the second complaint my class voiced about the novel: it's racist. Many pages are full of description contrasting the ice of Europe with the hot African sun. English go to school and kill each other; Sudanese breed donkeys and have sex. Mustafa is characterized as the ultimate European in an African body. His genius-level intellect and sociopathic unfamiliarity with emotion are what make him a tragedy from the beginning.

I have a specific reason for disagreeing with the assertion of racism here, but it must be supported by the entire narrative, so I'll do my best to support it without spoilers. Essentially, Mustafa is portrayed as the carrier of a metaphorical fatal disease that affects everyone he knows intimately. A soft reading of the text shows this disease to be European civilization, especially in the description of Oxford spires, of frantic student parties, and of steamboats chugging down the Nile. This logic equates his intelligence with the English tradition of colonization, and there are many opportunities to examine the book from a post-colonial critical perspective. In essence, machines are the tools of empire, whereas conquered people, or simply those who keep to themselves, are closer to nature, but duller-witted. For example, the narrator's grandfather has a mud house that blooms with plants every spring, and that dies every harvest season.

However, the point is not to characterize the various races so concerned, but the civilizations. As common as human nature is, you'd be kidding yourself to think that all civilizations across the globe are the same. So many centuries later, it's difficult to see all around us the germ of industrialization that led to colonialism, institutionalism, and Pandora's box of modernisms. Perhaps you can surpass it, but not everyone can. It's the essential distinction between viewing people, including one's self, as objects or viewing them as beings too precious to conceive. Call it love or call it concern for human rights; either way it opposes itself to having a mind of metal and wheels.

Review: Miramar by Naguib Mahfouz (1967)

Miramar centers on a group of people who, for various reasons, come to stay at the Miramar hotel in Alexandria, Egypt. Each chapter recounts the same complete story from the perspective of a different narrator. There is Amer Wagdi, a retired journalist who has come to find a peaceful place to wait for death to catch up to him. Hosny Allam is a young, reckless womanizer adrift in a mindset of random causality. Mansour Bahy, once an idealistic revolutionary, has come to the Miramar to escape his conscience at not being radical enough. And Sarhan al-Beheiry, the smoothest of the lot, enters in pursuit of Zohra, a stunningly beautiful young woman who has fled to the hotel from a sticky past. Under the watch of Mariana, the sly old proprietress, these four men revolve around the central struggles of Zohra, no one coming quite near enough to discover her spirit.

I'll be honest: this is the first novel of my Arabic literature course that has impressed me strongly. This comes with the admission that political literature, which includes books that examine social balances, is not my strongest suit. And of course, that's what you'll find in a survey course aimed at conveying culture. With all that said, Miramar is impressive because it juggles this and an examination of human nature at the same time. One outcome of the book is that human nature is what causes social currents. It's so nice when writers agree with me!

Perhaps the biggest strength of the novel is that Mahfouz finds a way to immerse himself totally within each of his narrators. Not one of them has remotely the same voice as any other, yet with the binding beauty of Zohra's development, the speakers are missing something without each other. The novel is a whole only with four sides. Arguably, it also lacks a supporting center, but I'll come to that in a moment. I was particularly touched by Amer Wagdi, the first and last narrator; Mahfouz was not old by this time, nor was he especially religious, but Amer's voice perfectly matches what a meek, benignant old man should embody. I think I also like Amer the best because he never tries sexually to intrude on Zohra, but that's another story.

Zohra, on the periphery of each narration, is the center of the story. My first essay for this class is about reading between the lines of Miramar. I argue that the very act of excluding Zohra from the narration, when she ties all the pieces together, is both a descriptive portrayal, which is superior to a proscriptive one, and is a feminist writing. Feminism, when done right, is not a promotion of one sex or a denigration of the other, but a diagnosis of a way in which humanity can't stand up straight without both male and female perspectives. And the book is purposely incomplete: we never know where Zohra goes after the Miramar, or whether she completes her education in spite of the fact that she is objectified wherever she goes.

To say all this would be incomplete without a bit about Zohra. She's deliberately shady, but there are points at which her real personality shines through the narratives. She's uneducated, but she's sharp. She's usually quiet and flighty, but she gets into more fights than any other character. She's the kind of character a girl should want to relate to, but she never gives the reader the chance.

Both Mahfouz books I've read have kept my attention and kept my brain running on its hamster-wheel, but Miramar is the one that makes me want to read more. I'll grant that this could have to do with the fact that he keeps his true ideology under lock and key, whatever it is. But sometimes we need a good story to tell us what we think, rather than to tell us what to think.

Short Review: Autumn Quail by Naguib Mahfouz (1962)

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.

Review: The Open Door by Latifa al-Zayyat (1960)

Fun fact: I'm taking a contemporary Arabic literature class, so this and at least five other reviews will be about books written in the Middle East or North Africa. I hope you read some of them, especially if you don't know much about the literature of this part of the world!

Young Layla (pronounced LYE-la) Suleiman is an adolescent in Egypt in the 1950's, when the country decided it had enough of British imperialism. Egypt is the site of the Suez Canal, an extremely important trade route whose possession is a powerful decider of world politics. The revolution for Egyptian independence is originally made up of mostly youths, and Layla's older brother Mahmud is a fervent activist. Unfortunately, as a girl, Layla is cloistered by her parents and unable to follow Mahmud's example. She is also beleaguered with awful suitors who consider her nothing more than property. Layla steels her heart against the injustice that occurs to her, but in doing so she misses the chance to accept the love of Husayn, a revolutionary who has made it his mission to make Layla free at heart. Separated from her family and countrymembers by ideology, behavior, and war, Layla struggles to find an escape from restriction without leaving behind everything she loves.

There's a problem with this book: it's a tremendous allegory. There's no getting around it. Layla is Egypt; her father and suitors are colonial countries, etc. Even knowing very little about modern Egyptian history, this was obvious to me. In fact, I think my ignorance on the subject made the story more enjoyable than knowledge would have done.

But that's enough griping. Apart from the allegory, Layla is a likable protagonist if only because her problems are deep but relatable. I approve of the fact that she doesn't know what she wants for most of the story, because this is so true of everybody I know. She's not out on a mission; instead, she's dealing with the everyday problems of a young woman in a restrictive society. Her desires and failings are understandable if the story is taken at its own pace. There's quite a river of metaphor through which to wade, so you might as well get wet.

Most of the male characters irritated me. As a man who doesn't make a habit out of psychologically enslaving women, I tend to have two harsh reactions to these portrayals: sympathy for the female characters so victimized, and indignation that I and my fellow dudes should be established as creeps. Al-Zayyat gets slack from me because I believe her descriptions are accurate toward middle-class Egyptians of the time. The only exception is Husayn, whose role as the "good guy" ranges from amusing to maddening. At times he even hints about the end of the book; either he read ahead, or al-Zayyat spoiled it for him.

Overall, I found The Open Door to be about average in terms of entertainment and tired in terms of morality. It's not about female empowerment, but Marxism, and even that has to be read pretty closely between the lines. I don't regret reading it, but as recommendations go, I'd hold off until I've read other Arabic novels.