Palace Walk: The Cairo Trilogy, Volume 1

“Habit woke her at this hour. It was an old habit she had developed when young and it had stayed with her as she matured. She had learned it along with the other rules of married life. She woke up at midnight to await her husband’s return from his evening’s entertainment. Then she would serve him until he went to sleep.”Originally published in 1956 in Arabic, Palace Walk is the first part of trilogy written by Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz. From the opening pages, the reader is given a glimpse into the life of a Cairo family near the end of the first world war. The father, a conservative Muslim, keeps his women confined to their home, and yet himself carouses at night, drinking and having affairs with various women. He rules his sons with an iron fist, and yet they each, in their own way, rebel against him. When WW I ends, Egypt is embroiled in a push for independence from Britain, and the family is caught up in the struggle.This book is masterful on many levels. First, the story is excellent. It had me hooked immediately. Second, there is a great opportunity to learn about Egypt on the eve of independence, and the life of a Muslim family faced with political and cultural change. Third, I loved the subtle comparison of the oppression enforced by the family patriarch when placed next to their outrage against British oppression. Simply brilliant.

Buddenbrooks in a fez, Little Women in purdah, Palace Walk describes exotic settings and even more exotic customs entirely in the borrowed structures of a European novel of 'generations,' in which the eternal dilemma of marrying off the young unsettles the comfortable mindsets of the old. Anthony Trollope did it with far greater polish, humanity, and insight in "Orley Farm", a novel of about the same bulk. This is my first encounter with the Nobel Prize winning Naguib Mahfouz, and for that reason I want to be cautious in passing judgment, but I can't see greatness in Palace Walk, neither in the writing per se nor in the totality of the story, which is little more than a soap opera in prose.Mr. Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, a prosperous shopkeeper in Cairo at the time of World War 1, and his family and servants compose the cast of the drama. The family includes his wife, two daughters of marrying age, a son by a previous wife, another son at the brink of manhood, and a third son, a boy of ten years. They all have their problems, and step to center-stage in rotation. Their problems are all of the domestic sort, at least until the last quarter of the book, when the struggle for Egyptian independence from the British Protectorate impinges on their lives. Metaphysical/intellectual problems can't emerge overtly - however implicit they might seem to the reader - because all such meta-problems are moot, being fully and permanently answered in advance by the Muslim faith they all proclaim.This novel gives me no justification for even asking whether questions of faith are open for the author, that is, whether Mahfouz wants his readers to challenge the belief system of his characters. I confess that I find it extremely uncomfortable NOT to challenge, and not to find the author challenging a structure of belief that claims so much from its adherents and offers such flimsy and inconsistent guidance. I'm left with the irksome inkling that this is a novel in which the biggest questions go unasked.From a European-novel perspective, Mr. Ahmad is himself the biggest problem his wife and children have to face. Ahmad is presented to us as a mostly admirable figure, a man of vigor and elan, of stubborn principles and integrity, someone loved and admired by his friends, loved and admired and above all feared by his family. Okay... Maybe he is "quite a guy" but he's also, from a European reader's perspective, an alcoholic with the typical alcoholic's disposition toward domestic abuse, a narcissistic personality verging on sociopathy, an utterly spoiled, selfish, self-indulgent place-holder. He shows approximately the ethical and psychological development of Harry Flashman, without a fraction of the self-knowledge!Immaturity is the most obvious marker of character in this novel. Ahmad has the social maturity of an under-challenged 15-year-old. His wife is a perpetual child by virtue of living in seclusion from society for her entire adulthood. The two older sons are supposed to be "young men" but their mental age seems at least five years behind their physical. The boy Kamal is officially ten years old, but his behavior and his perceptions seem more apt for a five-year-old. Let's be bluntly honest: Cairo society as portrayed by Mahfouz is shockingly infantile, yet one doesn't have the sense that Mahfouz is aware of the painful impression he's delivering to us outsiders.I am perhaps being unfair to this book, faulting it for what it doesn't do, but by chance I've just recently read another book that 'happens' at the same historical moment and portrays the burdens of the 'passing of the generations'. The Radetsky March, by the Austrian Joseph Roth, is a quarter the length of Palace Walk (the first of a trilogy!) but four times the depth.I can't even guess how well - how beautifully, cleverly, originally - written this novel might be in Arabic. The English translation is pedestrian at best, trite at worst. I found myself holding the book in mid-air after a chapter or two and thinking 'oof, how many pages is this critter.' But I did finish it, and I do intend to read the next volume of the trilogy one of these days or years. How's that for 'faint praise?'

Twelve years ago, I spent several months living in Egypt. I am an American woman, and at that time, I found much of the culture and behavior of Egyptians to be confusing. Since that time, I have married a Moroccan, and have lived in Morocco for the past ten years. I now feel that I understand much about Arab culture.Just recently, a friend recommended I read the Cairo trilogy. I began with Palace Walk, and haven't yet read the others. This book is SUPERB. Westerners have trouble understanding how Middle Easterners THINK. This book is so wonderful because it takes you inside the mind of each of the characters, in turn, chapter-by-chapter, showing you how each one of them thinks, and allowing you to see their motivations for their behavior. One person commmented in their book review that the majority of the book concentrated on the male characters. There is a reason for this. Egyptian society is mostly about men, not about women. Even as the society modernizes, the THINKING stays the same. Mahfuz has done a masterful character study of each character in the book, as they go therough their daily lives. Without yet having read the two subsequent books, I expect that I will get more in depth into the women's lives in Sugar Street, because this is the house to which the two female daughters have moved upon their marriages to two brothers.In the past, I have tried to read some other books by this author, and just couldn't get into them. These books are different. They really do merit the Nobel Prize. Reading them now, after being immersed in the Arab culture for 12 years, I see so many more things than I would have noticed had I read the books first. But living in this culture, I can see how accurate they are, and how the men really DO behave and think like the characters in these books! Aside from the all this, the story line is wonderful, too. I had trouble putting the book down after having read the first few pages. I recommend these books to anyone who would really like to understand the Middle Eastern culture.

WOW! I found it so difficult to read this story of a father whose children totally feared him, of a wife who was a prisoner in her own home, and the father's affairs while always professing his love for Allah. What an insightful book, if it tells an accurate picture of Cairo Egypt at this period of time. The characters are well drawn, but lead such sad lives throughout. I will not read the others in this trilogy, but was glad to have read this, just for the look at this culture.

Much easier to read than I had imagined. Well-drawn characters and insights into life and attitudes of fairly well-to-do families in early 20th Century Cairo.

Livre incroyable, je ne regrette pas mon achat

Mahfouz is an amazing story teller who engages his reader with his meticulous attention to detail.The plot and characters develop akin to peeling an onion. Mahfouz slowly reveals the idiosyncrasies of each character against the historical background of life in colonial Cairo. He does not moralize and handles even the least likable character in a manner that evokes some compassion ..The reader is drawn into the narration to find his own conclusions. A superb read !!

This is one of the finest pieces of world literature I have come across.

Thois book is nearly 500 pages Had I known I would not have bought it without standerd size print.