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False Values
| Article
# : |
18378 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1990 |
2,340 Words |
| Author
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Trevor Le Gassick
Trevor Le Gassick is professor of Arabic literature in the
Department of Near East Studies at the University of Michigan.
He is the author of Major Themes in Modern Arabic Thought as
well as several translations of Arabic literature. |
RESPECTED SIR
Naguib Mahfouz
New York: Doubleday, 1990
200 pp., $7.95 (paper)
AUTUMN QUAIL
Naguib Mahfouz
New York: Doubleday, 1990
167 pp., $7.95 (paper)
THE BEGGAR
Naguib Mahfouz
New York: Doubleday, 1990
140 pp., $7.95 (paper)
These three novels introduce the reader to distinctively different strain in the art of 1988 Nobel Prize laureate, Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz. Each, however, exemplifies many of the attitudes and concerns that are common to all his work. In each case they center upon the false values and poor moral character of middle-aged male protagonists who are undergoing a trauma of self-recognition brought on by societal circumstances beyond their control.
Revolution and alienation
Autumn Quail opens in Cairo amid the fire and confusion of January 1952 when the city is being put to the torch by xenophobic and antiroyalist mobs. The loss of Egyptian life and dignity in battles between Egyptian police and the British forces, who are resisting pressures to abandon their bases in the Suez Canal Zone, have left them enraged. The fires are followed six months later by the coupde'etat of the Free Officers association under Gamal Abdel Nasser, whose revolutionary regime soon purges everyone who had enjoyed power and influence under the ancien regime.
The novel then follows the next five years in the life of Isa, once a rising star in the Wafd Party. Disgraced and then dismissed from his high civil service position by a tribunal that finds him guilty of bribe-taking and favoritism - endemic behavior in Egypt both before the revolution and in recent years - the protagonist lacks motivation or the possibility of reintegration into the new society.
His life is drab and dissolute. His engagement having been broken, he exploits a young prostitute whom he impregnates and abandons, and has no love for the
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