Palace Walk - Naguib Mahfouz
Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006), born in Cairo, served as a civil servant for most of his life and wrote many novels, short stories, and plays. He won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature and today remains the best known modern Arabic writer.
Palace Walk is the first book of the Cairo Trilogy, considered by most to be Mahfouz's masterpiece. The trilogy follows a family living in post-World War I Cairo, chronicling their reactions to the chaos of an Egypt striving for independence.
Palace Walk begins with the character of Amina, wife to the domineering and tyrannical patriarch, al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad. She is introduced as hard-working, generous, and completely submissive to the (in her time) outmoded traditions that Arabic women are subject to. The closest thing to "outside" that Amina has experience in the 25 years since she married al-Sayyid is an enclosed balcony.
"She entered the closed cage formed by the latticework and stood there, turning her face right and left while she peeked through the tiny, round openings of the latticework panels that protected her from being seen from the street."
Palace Walk is the first book of the Cairo Trilogy, considered by most to be Mahfouz's masterpiece. The trilogy follows a family living in post-World War I Cairo, chronicling their reactions to the chaos of an Egypt striving for independence.
Palace Walk begins with the character of Amina, wife to the domineering and tyrannical patriarch, al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad. She is introduced as hard-working, generous, and completely submissive to the (in her time) outmoded traditions that Arabic women are subject to. The closest thing to "outside" that Amina has experience in the 25 years since she married al-Sayyid is an enclosed balcony.
"She entered the closed cage formed by the latticework and stood there, turning her face right and left while she peeked through the tiny, round openings of the latticework panels that protected her from being seen from the street."
The image above is of the al-Husayn mosque, visible from al-Sayyid's home. Al-Husayn was the grandson of Mohammmed, and was especially treasured by the family in Cairo. Amina, completely devoted to the religious figure, risked her husband's anger by visiting the mosque to pay homage while al-Sayyid was away on business. When he learned of her disobedience, he ordered her to leave his home. Divorce loomed in Amina's mind, but thankfully (and according to Amina, in response to her prayers at the mosque), al-Husayn turned her husband's mind towards forgiveness, and she was allowed to return home.
Amina does not grudge her captivity--in fact, she embraces the strictness of her husband, and her father's before, that has allowed her to remain pure. The rare questions her character asks herself are immediately justified by gratitude for the joys that marriage has brought her--children, security, and the knowledge that she has fulfilled her role as a woman.
The brutality and hypocrisy of al-Sayyid are subtly portrayed as a question of the "old ways." At home and with his family he is cruel, cold, and demanding. Away, however, he is the genial host of parties filled with wine and women, the inviting shopkeeper who bestows gifts on friends and respected officials. He has taken many lovers during his 25 years of marriage, feeling that it is his right to enjoy the beauty and pleasure he can find on earth.
Al-Sayyid is an egocentric. Mahfouz brings these selfish qualities to the surface by the character's repeated use of "me." When confronted with the news that a man has proposed marriage to his youngest daughter, he immediately asks if the man has seen her, intending only to grant their marriage should the his motives be to make an alliance with the patriarch: "No daughter of mine will marry a man until I am satisfied that his primary motive for marrying her is a sincere desire to be related to me...me...me" (157). And when trying to force his son, Fahmy, to swear his obedience on the Qur'an: "The only word that counts here is min. Mine. Mine." He aggressively states that his own words are of more consequence than God's.
His tyranny at home is answered with fear and subservience by his wife, daughters, and sons. However, when his first son, Yasin, spies al-Sayyid with a lover, he is surprised, and somewhat vindicated in his own depraved lust for women of any type and wine in great quantities.
When al-Sayyid realizes that Yasin is following his footsteps, he is at once alarmed and furious. He has raised his sons to be pure and righteous. He doesn't trust Yasin's, or his other sons', judgment to match his own. He feels that his own abberrations will be forgiven by the merciful God, who understands the true reverance that lies in his heart. "If his tongue said, 'O God, repentance,' his heart limited its request to pardon, forgiveness, and mercy" (413). Al-Sayyid abhors the idea of an aescetic's life--he and Yasin both feel that life devoid of wine and women would be empty and meaningless.
The chapter in which the men of the family visit the mosque proves to be the least spiritually enlightening of all. Yasin and his father are concerned mostly with avoiding God's wrath while still enjoying life's pleasures. Fahmy, somewhat skeptical of the traditional beliefs, is concentrating on his part in the impending revolution. The concern that idols can eclipse God also surfaces. In Kamal's experience, "When he was in the mosque, the intensity of his devotion to al-Husayn, whom he loved more than himself, also interfered with giving the kind of total attention to God that a person should when praying" (412).
The brutality and hypocrisy of al-Sayyid are subtly portrayed as a question of the "old ways." At home and with his family he is cruel, cold, and demanding. Away, however, he is the genial host of parties filled with wine and women, the inviting shopkeeper who bestows gifts on friends and respected officials. He has taken many lovers during his 25 years of marriage, feeling that it is his right to enjoy the beauty and pleasure he can find on earth.
Al-Sayyid is an egocentric. Mahfouz brings these selfish qualities to the surface by the character's repeated use of "me." When confronted with the news that a man has proposed marriage to his youngest daughter, he immediately asks if the man has seen her, intending only to grant their marriage should the his motives be to make an alliance with the patriarch: "No daughter of mine will marry a man until I am satisfied that his primary motive for marrying her is a sincere desire to be related to me...me...me" (157). And when trying to force his son, Fahmy, to swear his obedience on the Qur'an: "The only word that counts here is min. Mine. Mine." He aggressively states that his own words are of more consequence than God's.
His tyranny at home is answered with fear and subservience by his wife, daughters, and sons. However, when his first son, Yasin, spies al-Sayyid with a lover, he is surprised, and somewhat vindicated in his own depraved lust for women of any type and wine in great quantities.
When al-Sayyid realizes that Yasin is following his footsteps, he is at once alarmed and furious. He has raised his sons to be pure and righteous. He doesn't trust Yasin's, or his other sons', judgment to match his own. He feels that his own abberrations will be forgiven by the merciful God, who understands the true reverance that lies in his heart. "If his tongue said, 'O God, repentance,' his heart limited its request to pardon, forgiveness, and mercy" (413). Al-Sayyid abhors the idea of an aescetic's life--he and Yasin both feel that life devoid of wine and women would be empty and meaningless.
The chapter in which the men of the family visit the mosque proves to be the least spiritually enlightening of all. Yasin and his father are concerned mostly with avoiding God's wrath while still enjoying life's pleasures. Fahmy, somewhat skeptical of the traditional beliefs, is concentrating on his part in the impending revolution. The concern that idols can eclipse God also surfaces. In Kamal's experience, "When he was in the mosque, the intensity of his devotion to al-Husayn, whom he loved more than himself, also interfered with giving the kind of total attention to God that a person should when praying" (412).
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