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What a great book. For the last two months I have been a fly on the wall inside the house of the Egyptian, Abd al-Samad family during 1914-1919, seeing everything, both good and bad. I have been a witness into their most personal actions, thoughts and feelings. Mahfouz has done a wonderful thing. He has invited readers into the heart of family life and then stripped the people's hearts and their lifestyle's bare. By doing so we get a clear picture of what life was like in Cairo at the end of Ottoman rule and the beginning of British military rule.
The head of the family is Ahmed, he is married to Amina and has five children. Ahmed is a complete control freak at home. Everyone is scared of him. He is a highly religious, upstanding ,moral member of the community who rules his family with an iron fist. How he is viewed by the community is of the greatest importance for him. No member of the family would even consider questioning him or disobeying him. He keeps his wife and two daughters under strict house arrest. Their only view of life is through the upper floor window grills and a bit of fresh air when they put the laundry out on the roof. The boys go to school and the only knowledge the girls get is through snippets the boys tell them. I am witness to their cloistered view of life. The laughs they have over the coffee brewing times together and the gossip as they make bread. Their bitchiness, their humour and their love for their brothers is apparent. But they NEVER question their meagre and poor existence and when Amina does venture out once, she pays heavily for it. These women are lovely and funny and it's a tragedy that they are prisoners. They truely are birds without wings.
Ahmed is a complete bigot and lives a double life. in the evenings he goes out to soirees, gets drunk, sings, sleeps with prostitutes and even has an affair with the neighbour. He loves spending time with these charming and beautiful women. He loves their vivacity and it comes across that prostitutes are the only truely free and independent people in the whole of Cairo! It's a shame that society deems that he will never ever see the fun loving side of his family at home. He is not a part of that loving, personal family world.
Mahfouz goes deep into the workings of the brain of a bigotted , religious fundamentalist. He shows us how Ahmed tries to morally justify his dubious existence. It really is scary and a lesson into the minds of religious fanatics the world over! Very clever writing indeed!
Ahmed's oldest son Yasin is a fat, lazy sloth who is bored most of the time. It is interesting watching him start to behave just like his father. But unfortunately he doesn't have his father's wit, intelligence or looks and he ends up being really depraved with servant girls in the house. This results in Yasin's wife ordering a divorce. It's stressful watching Ahmed having to process his oldest son's dabauched behaviour. The complete disregard for wives is revolting. Yasin sees his wife as nothing more than a pair of shoes and says " I can throw out a pair of old shoes, but how on earth can a pair of shoes disregard their owner?" Yasin has no power either though, every little aspect of his life is controlled by his father. This obviously results in his appalling behaviour to his wife (who obviously had been chosen for him by his father.) Yasin equates married life to nothing more than an April Fool's chocolate. It looks good, you take a bite and it's full of garlic!
Kemal is the youngest member of the family and lots of the book is retold through his eyes. He is great, a 10 year old boy full of fun and love and interest in life. He loves his Mum and sisters and has no idea about why they are restricted to staying in the house. He hates it. He asks them lots of questions about marriage, love, babies and war and all he gets is ignored or slapped. He goes to school keen to learn and as most teachers and students are striking against British rule there is no one there to teach him anything. This 10 year old boy is the held up mirror through which we clearly see the system. A young, freedom loving, great little guy trying to live happily amongst the idiocy surrounding him! I am sure that Kamal is the author himself, showing us how impossible it is to live a satisfying life under such a religiously repressive and highly immoral society. Appearance is everything and shame can be bought on a family by just one unveiled peek of a women's head through an open window. It's hard to believe that this is a portrait of only 100 years ago and even worse to know that many countries the world over still live by these morally reprehensible codes.
Mahfouz is a writer, who loves people and loves life. By getting into the minds of the members of this one family he cleverly shows that Egyptian society can't move on until there is more freedom for all. An independent Egypt will only work if both men and women are allowed to florish. The people I have met in this book are great. Real people, warts and all. It's just clear that this repressive lifestyle where women are kept under the thumb and men have to lead sordid double lives has to change for the sake of his beloved country. I wish he were still alive because it would be interesting to see what he would make of Egypt now.
A great read, but Mahfouz deserves a far better English translation! Come on someone, retranslate it!
