PALACE WALK PDF, EPUB, EBOOK

Naguib Mahfouz | 533 pages | 29 Nov 2011 | Anchor Books | 9780307947109 | English | United States Palace Walk - Naguib Mahfouz

She even profoundly loved this hour of waiting up, though it interrupted a pleasant sleep and forced her to do chores that should have ceased with the end of the day. Not only had it become an integral part of her life, tied to many of her memories, but it continued to be the living symbol of her affection for her spouse, of her wholehearted dedication to making him happy, which she revealed to him night after night. For this reason, she was filled with contentment as she stood in the balcony peering through the openings toward Palace Walk and al-Khurunfush streets and then towards Hammam al Sultan or the various minarets. She let her eyes wander over the houses bunched together untidily on both sides of the road like a row of soldiers standing at ease, relaxing from harsh discipline. She smiled at the beloved view of this road, which stayed awake until the break of dawn, while the other streets, lanes, and alleys slept. It distracted her from her sleeplessness and kept her company when she was lonely, dispelling her fears. Night changed nothing save to envelop the surrounding areas with a profound silence that provided a setting in which the street's sounds could ring out clearly, like the shadows at the edges of a painting that give the work depth and clarity. A laugh would resound as though bursting out in her room, and a remark made in a normal tone of voice could be heard distinctly. She could listen to a cough rattle on until it ended in a kind of moan. A waiter's voice would ring out like the call of a muezzin: "Another ball of tobacco for the pipe," and she would merrily ask herself, "By God, are these people ordering a refill at this hour? She would wonder, "Where do you suppose he is now? What is he doing? May he be safe and sound whatever he does. Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, so wealthy, strong, and handsome, who stayed out night after night,must have other women in his life. At that time, her life was poisoned by jealousy, and intense sorrow overcame her. Her courage was not up to speaking to him about it, but she confided her grief to her mother, who sought as best she could to soother her mind with fine words, telling her, "He married you after divorcing his first wife. He could have kept her too, if he'd wanted, or taken second, third, and fourth wives. His father had many wives. Thank our Lord that you remain his only wife. Even if the rumor was accurate, perhaps that was another characteristic of manliness, like late nights and tyranny. At any rate, a single evil was better than many. It would be a mistake to allow suspicion to wreck her good life filled with happiness and comfort. Moreover, in spite of everything, perhaps the rumor was idle speculation or a lie. She discovered that jealousy was no different from the other difficulties troubling her life. To accept them was an inevitable and binding decree. Her only means of combating them was, she found, to call on patience and rely on her inner strength, the one resource in the struggle against disagreeable things. Jealousy and its motivation became something she put up with like her husband's other troubling characteristics or living with the jinn. A majestic and capacious accomplishment. The general questions that follow provide topics for further discussion of the trilogy as a whole. What concrete details of daily life does Mahfouz describe in introducing the family? What daily rituals are described? What is the effect of this intimate, material presentation? Do they feel imprisoned or envious of the men in the family? How do the women react to, and deal with, their highly traditional sexual and domestic roles? How many important roles does Amina play in this family? What is her strategy in dealing with her husband? Is it difficult to identify with her? Why or why not? What is different or surprising about the rhythm of life for the al-Jawad family? When are the men separated from the women, and when do they come together? What are the important social moments of the day for the family? Why is Kamal so sad when his two sisters leave the family home? How does he justify to himself the forbidding demeanor he puts on with his family, while going out nightly to enjoy music, laughter and erotic entertainment with his close friends? Is he a hypocrite? Does his relationship with his family make him difficult for a reader to like? Considering that the spiritual ecstasy that Amina experiences at the mosque is a high point in her life, and that her injury causes her both physical pain and shame as the consequence of her disobedience, what do you think of the way her husband punishes her? How does this episode deepen our sympathies with Amina and her children? In what ways does Mahfouz emphasize the role of prayer and belief in the life of the family? How do the sons compare with the daughters in terms of character? Which members of the family are most likeable? Aisha would have been happy to marry the police officer she had been watching each morning, but when Khalil Shawkat makes an offer, she readily agrees to marry him. How much choice does she have in this matter? What social function do wedding celebrations seem to perform? How are father and son alike? What lessons about the power relations in marriage does Ahmad hope his sons will learn from his example? What is the experience of being engaged in the story of a family whose lives are bound by a set of conventions and expectations very different from our own? What does this exchange underscore about the values held by Fahmy, and those held by his mother? Given that Fahmy will be killed later on this very day, discuss the emotional conflict in both father and son between safety and patriotic action. With the death of Fahmy, the political life of the nation has burst into the private home on Palace Walk. What larger point is Mahfouz making about the intersection of history and the family? Kamal is in search of his own truth, and he struggles to break from the religious orthodoxy of his upbringing and to attain a more modern and Western intellectual life. Are any belief systems found to be sustaining for the characters in the trilogy? Does Kamal eventually arrive at a satisfying intellectual, spiritual, or political position? In a moment of illumination, he realizes that his father has created the model for his own masochism in love. He speaks in his mind to his father: "Do you know what other consequences there were to loving you despite your tyranny? I loved another tyrant who was unfair to me for a long time, both to my face and behind my back. She oppressed me without ever loving me. In spite of all that, I worshipped her from the depths of my heart and still do. In any case, Father, you're the one who made it easy for me to accept oppression through your continual tyranny. What is Mahfouz expressing, in the trilogy, about his understanding of time, change and heredity? Compare the characters of Al-Sayyid Ahmad and his wife Amina, for example. What does this contrast suggest about the family structure Mahfouz portrays? How do cultural and familial assumptions about women and sexuality influence the romantic lives of Yasin and Jamal? How do they think about and express their desires, and what, if anything do they have in common with their father in this regard? Mahfouz was aligned with the first wave of support for the Wafd party, represented by Fahmy in Palace Walk. I was proud of our revolution and proud to be a Wafdist. But the top priority of the revolution was not democracy; it was to get rid of foreign rule. Egypt was the first country in our century to rise up against European occupation. The people, led by the Wafd, ended the protectorate but failed to gain real independence, and, in any case, the Wafd did not know how to govern in a democracy. Democracy is not deeply rooted in our culture. Egyptians would make sacrifices for independence, but they did not value democracy, and so, step by step, our system fell apart. But, whoever was responsible, most Egyptians had concluded by the start of World War II that democracy offered nothing—not social justice, not freedom, not even full independence. How might Mahfouz have felt had he lived to see the wave of protests that took place in , as well as the trial of Hosni Mubarak? For a complete list of available reading group guides, and to sign up for the Reading Group Center enewsletter, visit www. Home 1 Books 2. Read an excerpt of this book! Add to Wishlist. Sign in to Purchase Instantly. Members save with free shipping everyday! See details. The novels of the Cairo Trilogy trace three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. Palace Walk introduces us to his gentle, oppressed wife, Amina, his cloistered daughters, Aisha and Khadija, and his three sons—the tragic and idealistic Fahmy, the dissolute hedonist Yasin, and the soul-searching intellectual Kamal. About the Author Naguib Mahfouz was born in Cairo in and began writing when he was seventeen. His nearly forty novels and hundreds of short stories range from re-imaginings of ancient myths to subtle commentaries on contemporary Egyptian politics and culture. Of his many works, most famous is The Cairo Trilogy, consisting of Palace Walk , Palace of Desire , and Sugar Street , which focuses on a Cairo family through three generations, from until In , he was the first writer in Arabic to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He died in August Read an Excerpt 1 She woke at midnight. Show More. Related Searches. Adrift on the Nile. Anis Zani is a bored and drug- addicted civil servant who is barely holding on to his job. View Product. Myra Lamb is a wild girl with mysterious, haint blue eyes who grows up on remote Bloodroot Mountain. Dissident Gardens. El amante japones: Una novela. Pied Piper. It is the spring of and John Sidney Howard The Rain before It Falls. Yasin marries the daughter of one of al-Sayyid Ahmad's friends, but it is not a happy union. The irresponsible Yasin, still living at home, is quickly bored by married life. He's the type who, when praying: He would not ask for repentance, since he secretly feared his prayer might be granted and he would be turned into an ascetic with no taste for the pleasures of life he loved and without which he thought life would be meaningless. His wife, Zaynab, used to greater liberties in her father's household finds that already after a month "her character had been infected with the virus of submission" so prevalent in the Jawad household, but she won't put up with absolutely everything. Yasin's behaviour becomes intolerable and the marriage collapses despite her becoming pregnant. Aisha and then Khadija are also married, but they move away -- becoming peripheral to the story for the time being. Kamal, in particular, is disturbed by the change marriage brings with it: even though he can still visit his sisters, they seem entirely different, and the household -- now with only the three sons living at home -- becomes a different sort of place as well. Al-Sayyid Ahmad has great difficulty in dealing with the world at large, especially with regards to his family. He wants to be in complete control, and in his house he is assured of that, as everyone does exactly as he demands and lives in great fear of him, while also loving and respecting him. To him fathering girls is "an evil against which we are defenseless"; he loves his daughters, but fears having to hand them over to others as he has to when they marry , when he will no longer be able to protect them -- and control every aspect of their lives. His boys, too, can't escape his overprotective and hidebound ways: His children were meant to be a breed apart, outside the framework of history. The revolution and everything it accomplished were no doubt beneficial, so long as they remained far removed from his household. Yasin is just a libertine in his father's mould , and Kamal is still too young to get into real trouble, but Fahmy becomes politically active. Revolutionary fervour grips him: he finds himself "motivated by the most sublime and most hideous emotions: patriotism and a desire to kill and devastate". Eventually, "he reached far-flung horizons of lofty sentiment" yes, there are translation-issues here The foreigners -- the unruly Australians, as well as the English colonialists -- are always a presence. Eventually the English are literally at the door of the Jawad household, setting up camp to control the demonstrations that break out all over Cairo. Kamal becomes friendly with the soldiers, but the others fear them and are more ambivalent. Politics, in which even Amina is interested, is complicated, many facts unknown. The relationship with the English is complicated, as for example: Yasin probably detested the English as all Egyptians did, but deep inside he respected and venerated them so much that he frequently imagined that they were made from a different stuff than the rest of mankind. Yasin is overwhelmed when an Englishman actually speaks to him -- and thanks him for some matches. Later, this brief meeting will put him in considerable danger. A few other figures play significant roles -- the girl next door, some of al-Sayyid Ahmad's close friends, the women father and son enjoy themselves with -- but the focus is very much on the Jawad household, and the house on Palace Walk so much so that when the daughters move out they too become of secondary significance. Each family member is well-developed, and each serves a purpose -- Kamal, who sees things through a child's eyes, playboy Yasin, political Fahmy, beautiful Aisha, serious Khadija. There are small and big family crises, with the firm hand of the pater familias dominating all -- and yet the threat of a changing world is constantly at the door. Al-Sayyid Ahmad is a completely dominating father-figure, but he is also loved and respected. The children want to be in his favour, and their transgressions cause them considerable pain, mainly because they don't want to disappoint their father. The odd family dynamics are disturbing, but fairly well-presented by Mahfouz, the figures only slightly too simply drawn it's hard to imagine that all would be so entirely uncritically subservient to the old man. Mahfouz allows the story to unfold very slowly. In 71 short chapters he moves from person to person, incident to incident. From concerns about marriage and honour to the true dangers of the uprisings, there are a variety of occurrences: a great deal does happen. Some things are missing -- there's almost no sense of how the daughters manage the transition to married life -- but Mahfouz offers a broad, impressive canvas. It makes for a good, if only introductory, picture of a society in the midst of wrenching change. Palace Walk isn't a fast-paced, action-packed novel, but it is a rich, rewarding, and always entertaining read. Trying to meet all your book preview and review needs. Contents: Main. Palace Walk - US. Palace Walk - UK. Palace Walk - Canada. Palace Walk - India. Impasse des deux palais - France. Walking | HowStuffWorks

But in his grandsons we see a modern Egypt emerging: one becomes a communist activist, another a Muslim fundamentalist, both working for what they believe will be a better world. And a third launches a promising political career abetted by a homosexual relationship with a prominent politician. His conscience has died. As he struggles for psychological renewal, he sacrifices his work and his family to a series of illicit love affairs, which simply increase his alienation from himself and from the rest of the world. Set in Cairo during World War II, this novel is a masterpiece of human compassion reflecting with sympathy and well-balanced pathos the material, moral, and spiritual problems of an Egyptian family. The novels of The Cairo Trilogy trace three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. Filled with compelling drama, earthy humor, and remarkable insight, The Cairo Trilogy is the achievement of a master storyteller. One is the narrator, who, looking back in his old age on their seven decades together, makes the other four the heroes of his tale, a Proustian and classically Mahfouzian quest in search of lost time and the memory of a much-changed place. In a seamless stream of personal triumphs and tragedies, their lives play out against the backdrop of two world wars, the Free Officers coup, the defeat of and the redemption of , the assassination of a president, and the simmering uncertainties of the transitional s. But as their nation grows and their neighborhood turns from the green, villa-studded paradise of their youth to a dense urban desert of looming towers, they still find refuge in the one enduring landmark in their ever-fading world: the humble coffeehouse called Qushtumur. In this breathtakingly compact novel, written in the mids, the focus is once again on the generational paradigm featured in the Cairo Trilogy. This time, Mahfouz traces the life of a middle-class Cairene family living in the early s under President Sadat. The novel reaches its climax with the assassination of Sadat on October 6, , an event around which the fictional plot is skillfully woven. First published in Arabic in , this brief but powerful parable is set in a mythical, timeless Middle East. It is presented as the journal of a wanderer known as Ibn Fattouma, whose boyhood tutor had extolled the virtues of travel as a way of finding the true meaning of life. He joins a caravan and sets out to explore the world, his ultimate destination the enigmatic land of Gebel. Raised in an Islamic society, Ibn Fattouma finds to his surprise that many of the countries he visits, though heathen, are in some ways superior to his own. His first stop results in marriage to a non-believer, and children. However, war with another country and a clash with a city official cause him to lose his family, and he is forced to leave. In another country he is imprisoned for twenty years, accused of crimes against the state. Civil war frees him, and he moves on again, always seeking an intangible he is never able to find, always vulnerable to the winds of social and political change. In The Search a young man, hoping to escape a sordid background and an impoverished future, sets out to find the father he has never known. But in the course of his quest he becomes entangled with two women and is enticed into murder. The significance of the novel lies mainly in its symbolic nature and in its possible readings: is the young man searching for his roots, for religious belief, for national traditions, or for political identity? A mummy returns to life after three thousand years, to confront the arrogant new race that now rules the land. Such are the tales that make up this volume of five masterly stories by the young Naguib Mahfouz, all inspired by the Egypt of the pharaohs. All of these gems, however, are very much his own creations. This is the story of a theatrical family of Cairo, whose playwright son exposes its most intimate and sordid secrets on the stage in his first play. The story is told four times from four different viewpoints: that of the family acquaintance, the father, the mother, and Abbas, the son, who is the central character. Hutchins A scamp, he fancies himself a nihilist, a hedonist, an egotist, but his personal vulnerability is soon revealed by a family crisis back home in al-Qanatir, a dusty, provincial town on the Nile that is also a popular destination for Cairene day-trippers. Mahgub, like many characters in works by Naguib Mahfouz, has a hard time finding the correct setting on his ambition gauge. His emotional life also fluctuates between the extremes of a street girl, who makes her living gathering cigarette butts, and his wealthy cousin Tahiya. Since he thinks that virtue is merely a social construct, how far will our would-be nihilist go in trying to fulfill his unbridled ambitions? What if he discovers that high society is more corrupt and cynical than he is? Both novels are comic and heartfelt indictments not so much of Egyptian society between the world wars as of human nature and our paltry attempts to establish just societies. Look Inside Palace Walk. Hutchins Olive E. Kenny Palace Walk transports us into the life of a Cairo family during Egypt's occupation by British forces in the s. The father, Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, is. English edition pp. Add to Wishlist. Product added! Browse Wishlist. The product is already in the wishlist! Description Table of Contents. Download WordPress Themes. About the Author S. He wrote nearly 40 novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in Read more about his life and his work. GoodReads Reviews. Palace Walk Reviews. Reviews from Goodreads. Share on:. In the Language of Miracles. Rajia Hassib. The Map of Love. Ahdaf Soueif. A Strangeness in My Mind. The Hakawati. Rabih Alameddine. A Pale View of Hills. Kazuo Ishiguro. Sweetness in the Belly. Camilla Gibb. Xander Miller. The English Patient. Michael Ondaatje. Girls of Riyadh. Rajaa Alsanea. The Childhood of Jesus. Every Day Is for the Thief. An Artist of the Floating World. The Meursault Investigation. Kamel Daoud. The Dew Breaker. Edwidge Danticat. The Forgiven. Lawrence Osborne. Salman Rushdie. The Lover. Marguerite Duras. Dinaw Mengestu. Related Articles. Looking for More Great Reads? Download Hi Res. LitFlash The eBooks you want at the lowest prices. Read it Forward Read it first. Pass it on! Stay in Touch Sign up. We are experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again later. Become a Member Start earning points for buying books! Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz | LibraryThing

Kamal becomes the mascot of the British soldiers camped in the street outside the house. His brother Fahmy, however, becomes a political activist. Ultimately, he must defy his father, who rightly fears that any involvement in politics will bring tragic consequences to his household. Naguib Mahfouz has been compared to Balzac and Dickens, and his characters, like theirs, are drawn with absolute authority and acute psychological insight. Hutchins and Olive E. Kenny, is always accessible and elegant. For all its family intrigues, the novel is more than a domestic saga. It is the story of the awakening of an entire generation to the social and political realities of the 20th century. What makes this a particularly Arab novel is the characters' continued faith in Islam, which must evolve in new ways to preserve the cultural identity of a people being overwhelmed by foreign, secular ideologies. The universal appeal of Mr. Mahfouz's characters and his insight into the role of religion in their lives will go a long way toward demystifying Western readers' views of the Middle East. In Arabic, a language with a rich tradition of poetry, the novel is a modern upstart form with a history of barely a century. It has been best tested by Naguib Mahfouz, whose generally accessible fiction is widely read in the Arab world and especially in his native Egypt. His dozens of novels and short-story collections have been divided by critics into distinct phases corresponding roughly to their content: historical subject matter published between and , social realism , psychological or symbolic writing and a recent period of stylistic experimentation. Mahfouz's work was not widely available in English translation. The American University in Cairo translations of a few novels were selling at the rate of copies or so a year through Columbia University Press in New York and Three Continents Press in Washington, and were read in some comparative literature classes. Shortly after the prize was announced, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis acquired the world English-language rights to 14 of his more than 40 books for Doubleday, including four that had never been translated into English. With the publication of ''Palace Walk,'' the first volume of ''The Cairo Trilogy,'' four are available, and three more will be published this summer. The two remaining volumes of the trilogy each title is the name of a street in the old section of Cairo will be published in January and January The slowly moving flow of women carried them along until they found themselves near the tomb itself. How often she had longed to visit this site, as though yearning for a dream that could never be achieved on this earth. Here she was standing within the shrine. Indeed, here she was touching the walls of the tomb itself, looking at it through her tears. She wished she could linger to savor this taste of happiness, but the pressure of the crowd was too great. She stretched out her hands to the wooden walls and Kamal imitated her. Meet your guide outside of the Ritz hotel next to the 2 red telephone boxes and 2 souvenir stands, underneath one of the Ritz signs. The nearest tube station is Green Park Underground - take the left-hand exit and go up the stairs. To get to the meeting point you'll walk past the Big Bus Company people. London Top Sights Tours. By signing up, you agree to receive promotional emails. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information, read our privacy statement. Create an account Check your bookings and stay informed about our incredible experiences. See gallery. See over 15 different Royal London sights and visit Buckingham Palace with a fun, local guide on a private or group tour. I think I'm also generally just not in the right mood for this book at this time! No fear is able to spoil love's development or keep it from dreaming of its appointed hour. Palace Walk is a sweeping realist survey of a middle class family in Cairo. The novel covers two years or so from , culminating in the Egyptian Revolution which overthrew the British Protectorate. The Abd al-Jawad family is dominated by the father, an ostensibly pious man who forbids his wife and two daughters from being seen, much less actually leaving this house. Yet this pillar of propriety is predisposed to nocturnal boozing and whoring. So it goes. His three sons quiver in his presence but all harbor hopes for both emancipation as well as approval: yet another family paradox. Despite it being penned in the s, this is a realist novel with little modernist trickery. There is a gentle core to this tale. Hutchins and Olive E. Kenny, is always accessible and elegant. Home Groups Talk More Zeitgeist. I Agree This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and if not signed in for advertising. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms. Series: The Cairo Trilogy 1. A national best-seller in both hardcover and paperback, it introduces the engrossing saga of a Muslim family in Cairo during Egypt's occupation by British forces in the early s. Books about World War I 2. Books Read in Historical Fiction Tour of the Middle East and North Africa Novels featuring siblings Books Set In Africa Around the World in 80 Books Alphabetical Books Books written in uncommon languages All topics Hot topics All discussions Join to start using. What a hypocrite a pious terror at home whoring around town. Eggpants Jun 25,

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Gelatin silver print, x Sultan bin Fahad, Trust from the the Holy Economy series, Cloth and plastic beads, 90 x 90 x cm. Sultan bin Fahad, Prayer Room, Rugs and neon, x cm. Cloth and plastic beads, x cm. Sultan bin Fahad, , Then it did not matter whether the doors were open or locked, the lamp burning brightly or extinguished. It had occurred to her one, during the first year she lived with him, to venture a polite objection to his repeated nights out. His response had been to seize her by the ears and tell her peremptorily in a loud voice, "I'm a man. I'm the one who commands and forbids. I will not accept criticism of my behavior. All I ask of you is to obey me. Don't force me to discipline you. It was her duty to obey him without reservation or condition. She yielded so wholeheartedly that she even disliked blaming him privately for his nights out. She became convinced that true manliness, tyranny, and staying out till after midnight were common characteristics of a single entity. With the passage of time she grew proud of whatever he meted out, whether it pleased or saddened her. No matter what happened, she remained loving, obedient, and docile wife. She had no regrets at all about reconciling herself to a type of security based on surrender. Whenever she thought back over her life, only goodness and happiness came to mind. Fears and sorrows seemed meaningless ghosts to her, worth nothing more than a smile of pity. Had she not lived with this husband and his shortcomings for a quarter century and been rewarded by children who were the apples of her eye, a home amply provided with comforts and blessings, and a happy, adult life? Of course she had. Being surrounded by the jinn had been bearable, just as each evening was bearable. None of them had attempted to hurt her or the children. They had only played some harmless pranks to tease her. Praise God, the merit was all God's. He calmed her hear and with His mercy brought order to her life. She even profoundly loved this hour of waiting up, though it interrupted a pleasant sleep and forced her to do chores that should have ceased with the end of the day. Not only had it become an integral part of her life, tied to many of her memories, but it continued to be the living symbol of her affection for her spouse, of her wholehearted dedication to making him happy, which she revealed to him night after night. For this reason, she was filled with contentment as she stood in the balcony peering through the openings toward Palace Walk and al-Khurunfush streets and then towards Hammam al Sultan or the various minarets. She let her eyes wander over the houses bunched together untidily on both sides of the road like a row of soldiers standing at ease, relaxing from harsh discipline. She smiled at the beloved view of this road, which stayed awake until the break of dawn, while the other streets, lanes, and alleys slept. It distracted her from her sleeplessness and kept her company when she was lonely, dispelling her fears. Night changed nothing save to envelop the surrounding areas with a profound silence that provided a setting in which the street's sounds could ring out clearly, like the shadows at the edges of a painting that give the work depth and clarity. A laugh would resound as though bursting out in her room, and a remark made in a normal tone of voice could be heard distinctly. She could listen to a cough rattle on until it ended in a kind of moan. A waiter's voice would ring out like the call of a muezzin: "Another ball of tobacco for the pipe," and she would merrily ask herself, "By God, are these people ordering a refill at this hour? She would wonder, "Where do you suppose he is now? What is he doing? May he be safe and sound whatever he does. Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, so wealthy, strong, and handsome, who stayed out night after night,must have other women in his life. At that time, her life was poisoned by jealousy, and intense sorrow overcame her. Her courage was not up to speaking to him about it, but she confided her grief to her mother, who sought as best she could to soother her mind with fine words, telling her, "He married you after divorcing his first wife. He could have kept her too, if he'd wanted, or taken second, third, and fourth wives. His father had many wives. Thank our Lord that you remain his only wife. Even if the rumor was accurate, perhaps that was another characteristic of manliness, like late nights and tyranny. At any rate, a single evil was better than many. It would be a mistake to allow suspicion to wreck her good life filled with happiness and comfort. Moreover, in spite of everything, perhaps the rumor was idle speculation or a lie. She discovered that jealousy was no different from the other difficulties troubling her life. To accept them was an inevitable and binding decree. Her only means of combating them was, she found, to call on patience and rely on her inner strength, the one resource in the struggle against disagreeable things. Jealousy and its motivation became something she put up with like her husband's other troubling characteristics or living with the jinn. A majestic and capacious accomplishment. The general questions that follow provide topics for further discussion of the trilogy as a whole. What concrete details of daily life does Mahfouz describe in introducing the family? What daily rituals are described? What is the effect of this intimate, material presentation? Do they feel imprisoned or envious of the men in the family? How do the women react to, and deal with, their highly traditional sexual and domestic roles? How many important roles does Amina play in this family? What is her strategy in dealing with her husband? Is it difficult to identify with her? Why or why not? What is different or surprising about the rhythm of life for the al- Jawad family? When are the men separated from the women, and when do they come together? What are the important social moments of the day for the family? Why is Kamal so sad when his two sisters leave the family home? How does he justify to himself the forbidding demeanor he puts on with his family, while going out nightly to enjoy music, laughter and erotic entertainment with his close friends? Is he a hypocrite? Does his relationship with his family make him difficult for a reader to like? Considering that the spiritual ecstasy that Amina experiences at the mosque is a high point in her life, and that her injury causes her both physical pain and shame as the consequence of her disobedience, what do you think of the way her husband punishes her? How does this episode deepen our sympathies with Amina and her children? In what ways does Mahfouz emphasize the role of prayer and belief in the life of the family? How do the sons compare with the daughters in terms of character? Which members of the family are most likeable? This may not sound like a surprising response, but it was to Ahmad, raised in an entirely different ethic. At its best, Palace Walk is full of insight about the human condition. Its triumph lies in the portrayal of character, particularly the complex figure of Ahmad, whom we might easily judge to be a moral monster. But Mahfouz makes plausible, through multiple points of view and the merchant's own interior monologues, the good opinion held of him by friends, family, and self. Mahfouz's people are made plain by his great clarity of language, though his verbal strength is slightly hampered in this translation by a choice of words that often seems merely accurate. The novel's most contemporary aspect, and its weakest, is its ending. Unlike Balzac, Mahfouz lets the story spin on inconclusively, stopping the action at a sobering climax but without giving closure to an event which might have been a satisfying measuring stick for the change in its characters. The above text may be reposted, forwarded, or translated so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete information about its author, date, place of publication, as well as the original URL. Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off- topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments". See recent outstanding comments. Latest Articles. Daniel J. Contributions are tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law. 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