Palace Walk (Cairo Trilogy)

Review: The patriarch of an Egyptian family rules his home with an iron fist while the rest of the world sees a jovial, friendly man. This is the story of one Muslim family (three sons and two cloistered daughters, along with a sheltered wife) during the occupation of Cairo by British soldiers in the early 1900's. Beautifully written and yet hard to read, I found the passages...more

Review: The patriarch of an Egyptian family rules his home with an iron fist while the rest of the world sees a jovial, friendly man. This is the story of one Muslim family (three sons and two cloistered daughters, along with a sheltered wife) during the occupation of Cairo by British soldiers in the early 1900's. Beautifully written and yet hard to read, I found the passages involving the suppression of the household women the hardest to fathom, though other passages made no doubt that the father loved his wife and daughters. But their world is a very different one from mine and I had a hard time with the idea that his wife remained in their house for the 25 years of their marriage, with the shutters tightly closed but for small peepholes used to watch the street. The language was very rich, but slow-going for me because the names (especially of people) were so foreign to me and hard to keep track of. This book actually took me about three months to complete because I'd find myself reading 100 pages or so and then setting it aside to read other things for a while before coming back to it. Even with that pace, though, I enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to reading the other two in the trilogy, which are on my shelves for...whenever I get to them.   hide

I walked into a small, independent book store, and asked the owner for her favorite book/must read. This was her choice. It did take me probably 100 pages to get into it, but the writing is superb, and the insight into Egyptian life and culture intrigued me! Can't wait to read the next two...

See my blog at www.sadiebellereads.blogspot.com for reviews.

This is the kind of writing I read for.

It starts out slow, but picks up the pace after a while. Comparing Mahfouz with Tolstoy and Proust is not far-fetched. Fascinating story.

It came highly recommended. I was disappointed.

Impresionante! Como todo lo que ha escrito Naguib Mahfouz, me ha encantado (esto es un aviso para todos: no soy objetiva porque soy una ADMIRADORA suya). Hace que te metas en el Egipto de principios del siglo XX y que seas un miembro más de la familia...Estoy deseando leer la continuación de la historia: Palacio del deseo.

القصة جميلة جدا فعلا، كمان اللى شاف الفيلم هايقدر يتخيل المواقف والاماكن اسهل لم تخلو الرواية من خفة الدم اللى موجودة فى الحوار بين الشخصيات ، بدايات الفصول مشوقة رواية فعلا رائعة

The rating reveals more about myself than Mahfouz. He's an excellent writer. However, the story's patriarch filled me with such loathing that I reached an impasse and couldn't continue. I had come face to face with my western bias: it was strong and punitive. Perhaps that was his intention...