Review
The book contains vivid descriptions of the social life of the city's young set, a riverboat party on the Nile, the yacht progressing through the waves as if swimming through the resplendent light, a society benefit featuring a performance of Moliere in a mansion surrounded by luxuriant gardens. Yet Mahgub is a Dostoyevskyan character and moral nihilist, and caught up in his new comforts, he neglects to send money to his parents. The novel's climax, when all the characters come together at once, takes on the feeling of a French farce, and Mahgub is left with a horrifying realization about himself. Unfortunately this central story is book-ended by schematized philosophical discussions between the characters, who are made to represent different positions: Mahgub the nihilist of course, and three others who practically disappear after the first five chapters: Ali Taha, a Comtean and socialist; Ahmad Badir, a journalist and a member of the nationalist Wafd party; and Ma mun Radwan, an Islamic fundamentalist. (In 1994 Mahfouz survived an attack by a knife-wielding fundamentalist after renewed controversy over his portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad as a womanizer in his 1959 novel Children of the Alley. ) Mahfouz wrote in a classical Arabic, which is comparable to Shakespearean English and doesn't lend itself easily to translation, especially in the dialogue. Yet the sometimes stilted, decorous language in Cairo Modern, punctuated by its moments of sensuality and vibrant description, takes on a kind of pleasing rhythm of its own. Despite its flaws the novel is a singular look at a historical moment in the lives of Egyptians raised in traditional households whose existences were rocked by modernity. If you want to understand the hunger, the corruption, the bitterness that led to Gamal Abdel Nasser's 1952 coup against Farouk, the rise of fundamentalism and the intense Arab nationalism that accompanied it, you will find it played out here in this book. --Dinitia Smith, The New York Times, 6/19/2008
Cairo provides a good setting for such cynics. British colonial masters scheme behind the scenes. State workers pimp for their masters. Charity soirees serve as covers for groveling quests for favors. 'Nothing astonishes me,' Mahgub exclaims when he witnesses a beauty pageant being fixed in advance. `The appointment of government officials is rigged, the award of contracts is rigged and elections themselves are rigged; so why shouldn't the choice of a beauty queen also be rigged?' Though the book is set in 1930, it bears a sad resemblance to Cairo in 2008. Now as then, vast social and economic inequalities rule. Islam vies with secularism to win hearts and minds. College graduates face the prospect of dead-end careers, yet engage in the same kind of high-minded and formal political debates found in this English translation. --Daniel Williams, Bloomberg News, 7/1/2008
About the Author
NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911–2006) was born in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya. He graduated in philosophy from King Fuad University in 1934, and went on to write nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988. WILLIAM M. HUTCHINS is the principal translator of Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy, and has most recently translated Mohammed Khudayyir’s Basrayatha (AUC Press, 2007) and Fadhil al-Azzawi’s The Last of the Angels (AUC Press, 2007) and Cell Block Five (AUC Press, 2008). He was awarded the 2013 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for his translation of A Land without Jasmine by Wajdi al-Ahdal.
