#721 A Day for Saying Goodbye- Naguib Mahfouz
Mustafa Ibrahim is forty-five, with two grown children and wife. He his profoundly unhappy. His marriage is beyond joyless, it has become unbearable. They both know this, but the anger flows and it cannot be stopped. The children were put in the middle and that is what he regrets the most.
“How greatly we harmed them. The love between us had suffered hour by hour and day by day till it breathed its last. It had been choked in the hubbub of continuing arguments, quarrels and exchanges of abuse.”
Life was a battle, and: “Vengeance became mingled with the cost of living.”
He has done a desperate act and ponders doing another. As he walks the city during the day, he says goodbye to people he knows and the sites of his home city. Soon, one way or another, he will be leaving this world.
I absolutely love this style of writing. Mahfouz’ purpose of language and delicate character development is unparalleled. The plot isn’t spelled out, nor is it unraveled. It just appears at the exact right pace like seeing a landscape come into view while riding in a car.
Notable Passage: “If the inclination of the inner self were to assume concrete form, crimes and actions of heroism would be rife.”
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