This book had me close to tears in frustration at their behaviour. How can some people be so thoughtless and hypocritical and some so timid and single-mindedly devoted. Saying that, there's just so much in the book to learn and reflect on.

A book that everyone must read!

An interesting book. A slow start but a very vivid depiction of life in Egypt in the early part of the 20th Century. Unfortunately, this led me to dislike virtually every character. Fascinating, yes, infuriating, also yes. The latter part of the book really brought forth Egypt's struggles to free themselves from colonial rule (a subtler issue through most of the book), providing more insight into the times.

Though I hadn't thought I'd been that fond of the book, I kept thinking about it and ended up picking up a copy of the second book in the Cairo Trilogy a day later.

They do things differently there...

Amina is the wife of al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, married to him before she was fourteen. Now with her own children approaching adulthood, Amina prides herself on her docility and spends her life trying to be a perfect wife to Ahmad, a bullying husband and tyrannical father. This is the story of Amina and Ahmad and their five children, set to the backdrop of the end of WW1, the rise of nationalism and the dying days of colonial Egypt.

First published in 1956, it’s a historical novel, the first in Mahfouz’ Nobel Prize-winning Cairo Trilogy, describing a way of life that was already changing then and now seems positively archaic in its attitudes regarding the place of women and paternalistic power over children, even for a region that still has a very different cultural approach to these things than the West. It’s written in the third person, but the perspective shifts between the various family members so that we come to understand the inner thoughts and feelings of each. It’s remarkably unjudgemental – I can’t remember another book where I felt such a complete lack of the author’s personal views coming through. Mahfouz tells and shows every aspect of the society the characters operate in – the middle-class of Cairo, educated, prosperous but not rich, strictly traditional; but he leaves all evaluation of the characters to the reader. It took me quite a while to get used to this – I wanted anger against Ahmad and sympathy for his wife and children, but gradually I came to appreciate Mahfouz’ neutrality; it’s as if he’s saying, this is how it was, I merely show it to you with no modern interpretation to obscure it.

This is a family saga, the story concentrating mostly on the development of the characters of the children as they approach adulthood and the all-important question of marriage. Ahmad is old-fashioned even in his own time, and exerts strict control not only over his daughters but his sons too, determined that they will marry as he directs, for the honour and enrichment of the family. Happiness is something Ahmad doesn’t consider – his daughters should be docile enough to be happy with any man he chooses for them, and if his sons don’t like their wives, they can simply follow his example and lead most of their lives pursuing one exotic mistress after another. If the wife objects, then the matter is simply solved by the husband’s unilateral declaration of divorce and returning the obstreperous wife to her unwilling family. In Ahmad’s mind, and his society appears largely to agree with him (even the women), women neither have nor deserve any rights. This is not to say he doesn’t love his wife and daughters – he does, so long as they fulfil their duty of obedience to him.

Amina has two daughters, and has brought them up to see the life she has led as the desired and only possible life for a respectable woman. Marriage is essential – an unmarried woman serves no purpose in life and is merely a financial drain on her relatives. It is the fathers who arrange the marriage, or occasionally a mother if she is a widow and financially independent. Girls are selected primarily for their family connections, but beauty and feminine talents like housework and singing are important too. Aisha is the younger and prettier daughter and doesn’t lack suitors, but Ahmad is determined that his older, rather unattractive-looking daughter, Khadija, should marry first. When one of them is finally chosen, we see the mix of pride and fear of a girl making a good match, but to a husband she has never met. She will be removed from a home where the only men she has been allowed to meet are her father and brothers, and where her father has controlled every aspect of her life, to the home of a husband who will now become effectively her owner. Mahfouz does a wonderful job of showing all this from the female perspective – I never had that feeling of wrongness that sometimes comes through when an author of one gender writes from the perspective of the other. Mahfouz also shows through the daughters’ marriages that things are beginning to change – both girls find a little more freedom in their new homes than their old.

The sons, while still under strict control of their father, go out into the world, first to school and university and then into jobs. The youngest son is still a schoolboy in this first book of the trilogy, so although he plays his part, it’s relatively minor. The oldest son, Yasin, from Ahmad’s first marriage, struggles with the shame he feels is brought on him by his mother’s failure to be submissive enough to keep her husband. He is a chip off the old block – a womaniser with a penchant for exotic mistresses, and no interest in much beyond his own pleasure. The middle boy, Fahmy, gets involved with the Nationalist movement at university, so it’s through him that we catch a glimpse of the political situation. It’s a fairly understated glimpse though – I think Mahfouz probably assumed his readership would know the history of Egypt’s struggle for independence, so he doesn’t go into it in any great detail, using it instead to show its impact on the people we’ve come to know, especially Fahmy.

It took me a long time to feel involved with this family and their community but once I did I became completely absorbed in the slow telling of their lives. Usually I’d be more interested in the out-going, more political lives of the sons, but in this case I found myself fascinated by Mahfouz’ depiction of the lives and feelings of the women – the total seclusion and lack of agency, and the way that the mothers themselves trained their daughters to accept, conform and even be contented with this half-life. Generational brainwashing, of course, but then aren’t we all subject to that? Mahfouz left me reflecting uneasily that we too are brainwashed – that we see our Western values as better simply because our mothers and our society teach us to, and most of us individually never question that nor dispute it for fear of being ostracised. I felt it was the power of Mahfouz’ neutrality that in the end made it impossible for me to judge this society as harshly as I was ready to do when I began. A deserved classic, and for once a Nobel Prize-winning novel that I feel merits that accolade. I look forward to reading the other two volumes in the trilogy.

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This one started off a bit slow, but really picked up in the second half. Given that it is the first in a series, it is definitely understandable. You really feel like you get to know the family, which makes the second half more tense. You definitely want to read the next book to find out what happens to them.

I'm not sorry I read this, but it was a slog. The writing seems to be highly stylized, and as a result I'm not entirely sure that the translation accurately captured what the author was doing in the Arabic. If not it's hard to understand how he won the Nobel prize for literature.

That said, you do very much get a sense of what the Arab world lost as the Ottomans were evicted and the western European powers took over the area. You can also clearly see where the misunderstandings and bigotry back then led directly to the problems in the area today. But you can get the same experience and enjoy yourself more by watching Lawrence of Arabia.

“The alleys, the houses, the palaces and mosques and the people who live among them are evoked as vividly in Mahfouz’s work as the streets of London were conjured up by Dickens.” This Newsweek review of PALACE WALK is spot on. The streets, bazaars, customs, and characters are so vividly brought to life that I felt I walked among them. But this beautiful tale is also a device that prompts serious thought and discussion about faith, nationalism, and colonization.

First and foremost, it is about a Godly family whose true faith is worn like a cloak of comfort that provides the right prayers and attitudes in nearly every situation. Yet this cloak also has a hood which can be pulled over the head to block out the unsavory aspects and choices of life that the wearer wishes to ignore.

Set during World War I, the story begins with Amina, a faithful wife of 25 years to Sayyid — a sternly religious man who rules his family with an iron fist as he guides them in the traditional, strict faith of his family. In her 25 years as wife, Amina has been allowed to visit her mother on a handful of occasions. Other than that she and her daughters have NEVER left the house or been seen by anyone other than family. Yet Amina is comforted by her faith which instructs her to respect her husband’s leadership over the family. “She had no regrets at all about reconciling herself to a type of security based on surrender.” (p 8.)

As is the case in most religions, the men of the family are allowed much greater latitude. Sayyid respects his wife as commanded by his faith — yet has no problem going out every night to party with his friends and a string of lovers. He returns each night to the attentive, loving care of his wife. Amina refuses to see anything wrong with her husband’s actions, and retreats to the comforting scripture that her hood of religion provides. As for Sayyid’s faith, “His faith was deep. It was true that he had inherited it and that there was no room for innovation in it. All the same, his sensitivity, discernment, and sincerity had added an elevated, refined feeling to it, which prevented it from being a blind traditionalism or a ritualism inspired by nothing but desire or fear. The most striking characteristic of his faith as a whole was its pure, fertile love. Using it, he set about performing all his duties to God, like prayer, fasting, or almsgiving, with love, ease, and happiness; not to mention clear conscience, a heart abounding in love for people, and a soul that was generous in its gallantry and help for others.” (p. 47) The irony is that his family NEVER sees this loving, funny, friendly side of him.

The oldest son, Yasin, lives a hedonistic lifestyle, and grasps at religion only tangentially. The middle son Fahmy is devoutly religious and nationally idealistic as he secretly joins the resistance against English colonial rule of Egypt. The youngest son, Kamal, is still in elementary school and interjects the sweet, innocent, funny moments that this heavy tale needs. [Since PALACE WALK is the first book of a trilogy, I suspect that Kamal will rise to the role of protagonist in the sequel.]

The daughters, Khadija and Aisha, fall between Yasin and Fahmy in age, and live the cloistered life of their mother. The expectation is that their marriage will be arranged without the groom ever seeing them before the wedding, and the customs described in their journeys through this book were the most intriguing to me.

As a woman, one of the saddest moments for me in the book was when Yasin married a woman who had been given much freedom by her father as she grew up. When she moved into the home of the strict Sayyid, I was hoping that she would be able to show Amina that women of faith didn’t have to live the lonely, jailed life that Amina had experienced for the last 25 years. However, “In Amina’s opinion, Zaynab was arrogating to herself masculine prerogatives…. Thus in one month of living with this new woman, Amina’s pure, devout soul was soiled by rancor and resentment after a lifetime of earnestness, discipline, and fatigue during which her heart had known nothing but obedience, forgiveness, and serenity.” This particular subplot reinforces the theme of THE HANDMAID’S TALE that a system of misogyny and suppression of women cannot exist without the help and participation of those very women.

Throughout the book, Fahmy’s participation in the resistance against the English colonization and rule of Egypt is the thread of a subplot that actually provides the climax of the book. Amina doesn’t want him to participate because she fears for his safety, and because they’ve “been ruling us for a long time." Sayyid is more direct: “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.” Both of these sentiments are universal and can be seen even in our current time: As long WE are okay, life is good… and war is fine as long as MY children aren’t fighting it.

Another contemporary correlation to the book is the current era of Christians in America who were deceived into believing that their vote for the most vile, profane, bigoted, misogynist ever to run for the U.S. President would catapult him into a position of statesmanship and leadership. Instead, when he continues to be vile and profane, those same Christians pull up their hood of religion and simply say, “It’s in God’s hands” or “we should pray for him” instead of saying, “I’m sorry I ever voted for him. Where can I join the resistance?"

As someone who loves and follows politics for fun, I have most assuredly read more into the plots and subplots of this novel than others might. So I want to stress that it is quite possible to read this book simply as a fantastic historical fiction filled with lively characters and exciting subplots. I truly hope you read it and enjoy it as much as I did.

Palace Walk is a slow walk for much of the novel, lulling the reader into a gradual familiarity with the family of tyrannical (yet profoundly loved and respected) Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, his submissive wife, and their five children. It was so slow, in fact, that I struggled to maintain interest. But as events transpire, first the usual family affairs, then more profound disruptions, the novel gains momentum and finishes with surprising intensity.

Set in post-WW1, when Egypt sought independence from the British protectorate, the uprising and demonstrations described by Mahfouz are hauntingly relevant to the "Arab Spring" uprising more than 90 years later. The impact of both familial and national challenges on Ahmad's family and, ultimately, Ahmad's own place in the world is masterfully examined and told with both tender sympathy and acute cultural awareness.

I had trouble getting into this Egyptian novel, written in the 50s, at first. I felt that the prose was too repetitive and long-winded. But I gradually got used to the pacing. I think it’s probable that what’s sonorous in Arabic doesn’t work as well in English.

In many ways, it’s an eye-opening novel, and I imagine it was pretty radical in its time. The center personalities of the book are an autocratic and rigidly religious father, Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawal, his submissive wife, Amina, and their five children. They have four who are mostly grown – Yasin, Fahmy, Aisha, and Khadija - and one inquisitive nine-year-old, Kamal.

Al-Sayyid Ahmad is a very different person when he’s out with his friends, drinking and having affairs with the local wicked women, who are generally entertainers. At home, he’s stern, angry, and punitive, and this is how his wife and children know him, at least until his eldest son, Yasin, discovers him frequenting the same house of pleasure where he goes.

Still, they don’t dare to defy him even in the smallest way, and all the women of the house are completely cloistered (except the servant). Amina never goes out. And one day when her husband is out of town, Yasin persuades her to go visit a religious shrine, a harmless excursion, and not out of line with what women are generally allowed to do. She takes off walking, hand in hand with Kamal, but is worn down by the unfamiliar sights and her own fatigue, and ends up fainting in the street. When her husband finds out, he waits until she recovers from her injury and then turns her out of the house.

The novel is unusual in that it delves into the feelings of all seven people in the house, and this implies criticism of such rigidity and autocracy. Amina, the wife, is a perennially frightened creature, with good reason, although the author doesn’t give her a lot of depth. The male characters are more three-dimensional.

The last quarter of the book takes a political term, and things get more interesting at this point. The time period is just after World War I, when Egypt was struggling for independence from
England. Fahmy, the second son, dedicates himself to the cause, although he keeps his political activity secret from his parents. The novel does a wonderful job of describing the way everyone in Cairo resonates to certain beliefs, longings, and joys. The ending of this novel is very good.

A totally intriguing sotry of a family in Cairo during the period of the British occupation. A realistic, but compassionate view of the different part of one family. The sequestered, loving, dominated Mother totally acquieses to the dictatorial firm father who is a fun loving hellraiser and womanizer whenever he is away from his family.

I am definitely going to read the rest of the trilogy. I found Palace Walk deeply engaging and insightful. I wish knew my Egyptian history better. I'm certainly going to do some homework before I move onto the next book. The negative reaction I experienced to the father's character and frustration with the harsh misogyny of the culture was such the obvious knee jerk response. I had to concentrate on the stories and connect with the characters to overcome the distraction of my ignorance of a alien culture.