#651 The Lawsuit- Naguib Mahfouz

#651 The Lawsuit- Naguib Mahfouz

Money can tear a family apart, it can cause jealousy, hatred, and ruin. If you make your life about getting and keeping wealth, when its gone what else do you have? A man takes a second wife; his family worries that she will take all their inheritance. They fret and complain but the woman stays. The rift and jealousy causes the eldest son to be arrested and die, the mother and father also die. 

As they feared the young wife has taken all their father’s money. The youngest son, the narrator, has been the most level headed about the situation and has always taken care of himself. Now years later someone has robbed the young wife of the money she had stolen. Broke, and destitute she sues the son for more money.

Rating: 7-6-7-7 Total= 27

#595 The Ditch- Naguib Mahfouz

#595 The Ditch- Naguib Mahfouz

An old man and the building he lives in are falling apart and not long for this world. He laments the too rapid passing of time and remembers the life that once existed inside these walls:

“In my childhood days, the house was of mature age and in fair shape, and the alley, paved with stones and with two sidewalks…”

Now:

“The shadow of times long past, the expectation of the house collapsing, and the diffusion of filth all pervading my feelings and gave me a sensation of disease—and of fear as well.”

He knows he cannot avoid the inevitable, but wishes for something, a memory, more time, acknowledgement, something. He visits his family's burial plot and takes stock of the past and of the future.

Rating: 8-7-7-7 Total= 29

#532 The Time and the Place- Naguib Mahfouz

#532 The Time and the Place- Naguib Mahfouz

A man is in state of transition, physically, spiritually, symbolically. These are the “days of insecurity” and as he is about to leave his home, he has a crisis of conscience.

“All at once I felt that I was being required to do something, something from which there was no escape.”

“For no reason a listlessness gripped at my feeling of well-being, after which I was overcome by a mysterious sense of unease. I steeled myself to fight against it, but the whole of life piled up before my eyes in a fleeting flash, like a ball of light flung forward with cosmic speed; in no time it was extinguished, giving itself up to the unknown, submerged in its endless depths.”

He has dreams and he is unsure whether they are real occurrences or prophetic visions. His soul is struggling in a waking limbo of uncertainty. But he is being lifted by this experience.

“My imagination went roaming through the vastness of time that comprised past, present, and future together, drunk with the intoxication that total freedom brings.”

This is such a rich and fulfilling style of prose. It amazes me that even in translation and separated by age and culture, that these stories can still exude such emotion. I cant imagine what it must have been like to first read this in it’s original language.

Notable Passage: “My heart became filled with the delights and pains of living in expectation.”

Rating: 9-9-9-9 Total= 36

#476 The Conjurer Made Off With the Dish- Naguib Mahfouz

#476 The Conjurer Made Off With the Dish- Naguib Mahfouz

A daydreaming child is old enough to run errands for his mother, but doesn’t have the concentration level to carry out the simple task of going to get some beans from the market. Three times he must return home to be told the details about what to get. When he finally gets the order right, he has lost the money, then he loses the dish, then he gets waylaid by a conjurer's show, then a beautiful girl catches his eye.

Since he will certainly catch a beating when he gets home, might as well stay out to chase the day’s adventures. Oh, to be a daydreaming child again.

Rating: 7-8-7-7 Total=29

#5 Room 12- Naguib Mahfouz

#5 Room #12 (2005) –Naguib Mahfouz

Mafouz is an Egyptian author that won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988.  This is my first time reading his work. 

Room #12 is a comedic work that takes place in a hotel.  A mysterious, eccentric woman checks in and is immediately the target of wild imaginations by the hotel staff.  The intrigue multiplies by large magnitudes as parades of visitors pile into her room throughout her stay.

“Mad depravity is running wild in there”

She is visited by all manner of folk, all being allowed admittance except an increasingly frustrated “Corpse Washer” named Sayid.   As the staff’s mood turns from curiosity to worry to anger, rain literally comes down on their heads as leaks form in ceilings throughout their charge.  Exasperation reigns supreme:

“This hotel is no longer a hotel, and I’m no longer the manager, and today is not a day and lunacy is laughing at us in the shape of meat and wine!”

As the mundane but pressing responsibilities of their jobs outweigh the distracting imaginings in Room #12, the tension washes away.  Remember, what happens in somebody else’s hotel room is none of your damn business…so why let it anger you?

Notable Passage: “Cosmic ire was smiting the night outside”

Rating: 8-9-8-8 Total =33