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Trials of the Flesh and of the Intellect
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20100 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
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2 / 1992 |
3,380 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. |
PALACE OF DESIRE
Naguib Mahfouz
New York: Doubleday, 1991
422 pp., $22.50
SUGAR STREET
Naguib Mahfouz
New York: Doubleday, 1992
308 pp., $22.50
MIDAQ ALLEY
Naguib Mahfouz
New York: Doubleday, 1992
286 pp., $21.50
The appearance of Sugar Street brings to completion the long-awaited publication in English of Naguib Mahfouz's trilogy in Arabic that first appeared, in part in serial form, in Cairo between 1954 and 1957. Universally accepted as his masterwork, it may be regarded as a bildungsroman and as the autobiographical reminiscences and personal observations of the author himself. Mahfouz has acknowledged in numerous interviews that Kamal, a central figure of the work, represents aspects of his own experience until the late years of World War II, also the time in which the trilogy concludes. The work portrays developments in the extended family of Ahmad 'Abd al-Jawad, a merchant; their lives are seen to be heavily colored and influenced by the traumatic events suffered by the Egyptian nation itself throughout the period covered.
The fist volume of the trilogy, titled Palace Walk, was reviewed in The World & I (June 1990, p. 367) under the tile "Trials of Faith." A major theme of the series is Kamal's growing awareness of the dichotomy between the simple purity of Islamic faith and the reality of a society redolent with superstition and hypocrisy where practices are widely pursued that are condemned by the religion. Place Walk tells of the experiences of the family and of Egypt in the period immediately following World War I, when a national uprising against British colonial influence was resulting in civil disorder and repression; Kamal's older brother, Fahmy, is killed in a demonstration, a tragedy that deeply affects the whole family.
The second and third volumes, Palace of Desire and Sugar Street, change the orientation from faith and nationalism to issues relating to love, sex existentialism, and the internal ordering of society. They depict the growing conflict between the monarchical system under
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