Hey everyone,
The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz is the most famous novel from Egypt. In this video,
I will summarise the novel, talk about its themes, storytelling and things that make it
unique. Stick around as I will tell you what I think of each character in the novel. As usual,
first let me tell you some facts mixed with some lousy jokes about the country and the author.
Egypt means where the gypsies come from. I’m joking of course.
In Europe people thought the Gypsies or the Romas were from Egypt, but now we know they
were originally from India. Anyway, Egypt has at least a million years of history.
Aliens were the first to settle in Egypt and with the help of dinosaurs 65 million years ago
they built the pyramids. Joking aside, Egypt has the longest history when it comes to homo-sapiens.
It’s all thanks to a river. The Nile. The rest is desert, san and dust.
Egyptians speak Arabic, if you didn't know that already.
They had their own language until the Arabs showed up and taught them Arabic and they all
said okay. The British tried to teach them English but the Egyptians said not again.
We spent centuries getting used to Arabic and now we have learn English? No chance.
After-life is important for the Egyptians. If you want to live forever, I say head to
Egypt to get mummified. Cats are the only sacred animal. After Mo Salah, of course.
He’s like god for the 92-102m people. Nobody knows the exact number of Egyptians. It’s
too sensitive a topic so nobody wants to count how many people live in the country
and how many are mummified. The last time they took census was 4,000 years ago.
Egyptians were the first people to divide the year into 365 days. Cairo, the capital,
is the largest city in Africa, with 22m people. ISIS was a goddess in ancient Egypt.
People around the world know more about the dead Egyptians from 4,000 years ago, than the people
who live there now. Maybe 4,000 years in the future we will get to know the Egyptians of today.
Okay, who is Naguib Mahfouz? Naguib Mahfouz was born in 1911 and died
in 2006. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1988, the first Arab to do so and so far the last.
I mean Arab in the language sense, not in ethnicity. That’s a different topic. Naguib
grew up in a large family, which is reflected in our novel too. He was influenced by Proust
which we will discuss later. He was once stabbed by an extremist for his novels but
luckily he survived. He didn't get married until he was 43 thinking marriage would
harm his writing. He wrote 34 novels and 350 short stories. So not marrying young paid off,
I guess. If you want to be an author and win the novel Prize, don't get married.
Okay, now to our novel. It was published in 1956 and 57. It’s in three volumes:
each with a separate title and now we know it as Cairo Trilogy. The first volume is palace walk,
the second palace of desire and third and final sugar street. Each title refers to a place name,
in the same way Proust named each volume of his long novel.
The story is mainly about Ahmad 'Abd al-Jawad and his family in Cairo between 1920s to 1940s
but also of Egypt in those years. As the head of the family, he’s like a tyrant for the most part.
His wife and 5 kids are mostly submissive to his rule. The novel chronicles their lives, marriages,
relationships, new-borns, their old age and their death. The novel doesn't have a conventional plot
as it follows the lives of the family and the people they come to contact with. For example the
neighbours, their new wives, husbands, friends, prostitutes, the soldiers, the revolutionaries
and many more. The interest for the reader is who the kids are going to get married to or when they
are going to challenge the father or what happens to Egypt under the British rule. As a reader we
watch them grow up, get married, make mistakes, get into troubles, and then die. In a way it is
very much Proustian novel set in Cairo Egypt. It could be set anywhere in the world and still would
work. It’s like a window into human existence. But what makes it unique is the culture in which
the novel is set. A culture that has little or no room for individual freedom. Family comes first.
Father comes first. God comes first. Society comes first. Religion comes first. After all these,
if there is room for the individual, they make mistakes that get them into trouble.
Three things are prominent in this novel: god, politics
and sex and how humans have failed in all of them.
The first thing you notice in this novel that is the failure of love or the absence of love in any
of the relationships. The only romantic love is that of Kamal for Aida which is unfulfilled
as she ends up marrying someone else. Women are married to men who they don't even know. Men are
never satisfied with their wives. They end up cheating on them, or they divorce them. It all
ends up telling that love is not forever and not even for a few years. Yasin, Al-Jawad’s eldest
son personifies this the most. The man cannot help getting married and divorced. finally he marries a
former prostitute who perhaps understands him. I think here we can see the influence of Proust and
in return the Buddhist idea of impermanence. Nothing stays the same forever. Love is
fleeting. But it’s a patriarchal world. only men commit adultery and get away with it. Also
women aren’t as sexual as men. Perhaps the consequence would be much worse or women
don't have as a strong desire as men. The novel doesn't talk about women’s sexuality openly.
Another thing you notice in this novel is the presence of god in every conversation as if
nobody can argue with that. It’s hard to find a dialogue where they don't mention god. Either
for justification of a decision, disagreement or when they want to stop pursuing a topic any
further. God is like a cul-de-sac or an impasse. This shows the failure of human being, unable to
control their desires. At some point the husband justifies his affair as if god wanted it to
happen. When characters find themselves in sticky situation, God comes to their rescue. Almost as
if they don't want to take responsibility for their actions. God is like an extra dimension
between individual desire and social rules. But what’s interesting is that despite brining
god into play, their action contradicts that completely. The husband for one drinks and has
affairs yet God appears like a convenient excuse. In a society where you don't have much freedom,
you use whatever device to follow your desires and intentions. God comes handy. With every
character you notice two people. the real self and the social persona. The author shows this
by telling us their internal monologue with their external monologue. They say
something nice but inside they’re furious. It’s very much like keeping appearances. In
a society where are too many rules and norms, individuals have to develop several personas
to fit in. So God is a useful device
used in the novel to give characters a bit more freedom with their actions or mistakes.
After god and sex, politics is another thing present in all conversations.
Even teenagers talk politics. God and politics mix a lot. God is politics and politics is
god. The novel talks about the politics of the time, mainly about Egyptians trying to
get their independence from Britain. This brings to mind the scenes of 2011 in Cairo:
demonstration, violence, and political rallies and so forth. I didn't really
enjoy the politics sections. But the outside politics mirrors that of the domestic politics.
When Al-Jawad’s mood is bad, he takes aims at his wife and kids.
Occasionally he makes a pit stop at a brothel or a drinking venue but still when he gets home,
there is a feeling of terror. I think there should a venue for some men between their home and work
to smash a few things before they get home. There is a beautiful scene, when the wife and kids hear
the father is going to Port Said for a business trip. The joy of freedom from is heart-warming.
This novel depicts a very Confucian hierarchy: women and children respect men. But the funny
thing is that men cannot even control themselves. When it comes to sex, they have difficulty
following the rules they set out. Men are there to police women and children. Who police men? God,
but we all know how that works in practice. So men are left to police themselves. They cheat, commit
violence and do terrible things. Women don't do anything because they have a police present at
home all the time. While men’s police, i.e. god is not always there to punish them. What surprised me
was how the girls were excited to get married. To anyone really. I guess after certain age, you run
the risk of never finding a husband, which would have been a life sentence in your parents’ house.
By the end of the novel, the father, the son and the grandson all visit the same brothel.
It’s like a rite of passage for boys. For girls they come of age with marriage.
Yasin is the most interesting character and the most honest. He cannot disengage himself from
the brothel. An interesting scene was when the father discovers his son is about to marry a
girl he has been sleeping with. So prostitutes provide a service where men go for therapy,
in the same way we saw in One hundred years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I wonder what
would be the equivalent if a woman writes about a place where women go for some freedom or therapy.
Every generation does the same thing. They get married. They have kids. their kids have kids.
they make mistakes in their relationships. Their kids make the same mistakes. But
Life goes on. You’re part of a chain in this life.
Just a piece in the chain. You snap someone else comes along. In that sense is a very sad novel.
The biggest weakness too much telling and not enough showing. Too much commentary on what the
characters are telling. Endless amount of internal dialogues and description. If you like “Show,
don't tell,” this novel isn’t for you. It’s a long novel, three volumes and about 1500 pages.
I guess the author by adding the commentary is trying to expose the characters beneath
their social and religious personas. We get characters inside characters,
harbouring multiple personalities. I guess the author is trying to tell us that nobody
talks directly and openly. They beat around the bush a lot. Talking openly is considered
too coarse or harm their social and religious standing so they try to hide their true selves.
Now I will tell you what I think of each character.
Jawad the husband is terrible and a tyrant. He needs a strong Columbian grandma to spank him.
Amina the wife is annoyingly submissive. Yasin is the only character I found very honest,
but at times too impulsive and cannot stop cheating on his wives.
Fahmy, I didn't really get into him. A revolutionary and dies too soon I think.
Khadija is interesting as she’s very bubbly and chatty so easy to talk to.
Aisha is beautiful but very quiet and often sick.
Kamal is pretty annoyingly boring. He’s into politics, art, science and everything new.
Interestingly that’s based on the author himself. Oops.
I found Zanuba and Jalila, the two prostitutes very interesting. Oh dear! Not for that of
course as people, they are very open and honest. It seemed they lived
the most authentic sort of life, of course socially condemned by some religious people.
It’s a great novel, if you want to have an insight into the Egyptian society
and history in the 20th century. I don't know how things have changed since but it
does give you a good understanding of how people communicate and the presence of god
and politics in every conversation. It is a very psychological novel. A bit too fat with details,
so you can easily skip a page or two here and there, you won’t miss much of the plot.