blot twist مثير مثلاً في منتصف الرواية، ولكن حياة كاملة متكاملة هي في ظاهرها لأسرة السيد أحمد عبد الجواد المصرية ميسورة الحال، وفي باطنها هي لحياة مصر المحروسة في فترة ثورة ١٩١٩، قرابة الستمائة صفحة من المتعة، ترى مشاهد وتسمع أصوات وتستنشق روائح وتشعر بمشاعر، وتحيا معهم بشكل كامل، لذا سيكون الحديث عن تلك الحياة طويلاً ..

Read the second part of Sarah’s review here: Egypt between Tradition and Modernity: Mahfouz’s Palace of DesireYasin, who is already working, takes after his father in his desire for personal gratification: drink and especially sex tempt him greatly. Anyways, there are a lot of other characters as well. Some of other main character are Amina's four children (from youngest to oldest) - Yasin probably detested the English as all Egyptians did, but deep inside he respected and venerated them so much that he frequently imagined that they were made from a different stuff than the rest of mankind. Yasin is al-Sayyid Ahmad’s eldest son from a previous marriage. He shares some of al-Sayyid Ahmad’s forbidden proclivities, including visiting courtesans, drinking, and music. Fahmy is Amina’s eldest son. He is highly intelligent, more pious than his brother, and wholly unaware of his father’s activities. Kamal, who is the youngest of the family, is close to his mother and sisters. Khadijah is the eldest daughter, who speaks her mind and is often jealous of her younger sister Aisha, who is said to be more marriageable and beautiful. Aisha is often the peacekeeper of the family and is much more amenable than Khadijah.

The story is about a Muslim Arab family living in Cairo. It opens in 1917, during the First World War. It ends in 1919, carrying the story through the Egyptian Revolution of 1919 (Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptia...). It is a book of historical fiction, but it is first and foremost about family.We are constantly at odds with the gender balance in this story; the seeds for the downfall of the patriarch are planted early on, with Abd al Jawad’s own son Yasin catching him in his lewd, sexualised environment of alcohol, music and women. This subversion of patriarchal dominance continues with his second son, Fahmy who refuses to sever his links with the patriotic movement, leading ultimately to his untimely and tragic death at the end of the first Part. The youngest of the sons, Kamal, continues in this disobedience to his father’s wishes when he opts to follow the path of an academic, a leader in education and enlightenment, whilst his father insists on him following the path of a lawyer, a reputable career path for his son. Contrastingly, the role of the mother, Amina, grows in strength as the narrative develops. The loyalty held by the children for their mother is made unmistakably clear from the outset of the novel, in their plot to demand the return of Amina after she is banned from the household, for visiting the shrine of al-Husayn, a formidable act of disobedience to her husband. How many important roles does Amina play in this family? What is her strategy in dealing with her husband? Is it difficult to identify with her? Why or why not? I promised to write a review some time ago butI forgot. This time is not an issue as I still remember well this novel and what I felt while reading.

Kamal, in particular, is disturbed by the change marriage brings with it: even though he can still visit his sisters, they seem entirely different, and the household -- now with only the three sons living at home -- becomes a different sort of place as well. Mahfouz was aligned with the first wave of support for the Wafd party, represented by Fahmy in Palace Walk. He said, “Maybe my generation of intellectuals was the last one that really believed in democracy. . . . I was proud of our 1919 revolution and proud to be a Wafdist. But the top priority of the revolution was not democracy; it was to get rid of foreign rule. Egypt was the first country in our century to rise up against European occupation. The people, led by the Wafd, ended the protectorate but failed to gain real independence, and, in any case, the Wafd did not know how to govern in a democracy. Democracy is not deeply rooted in our culture. Egyptians would make sacrifices for independence, but they did not value democracy, and so, step by step, our system fell apart. . . . I believe that the blame really belongs to Britain’s colonialism and Egypt’s kings. But, whoever was responsible, most Egyptians had concluded by the start of World War II that democracy offered nothing—not social justice, not freedom, not even full independence. They laughed at democracy” (quoted in Weaver, 40). How might Mahfouz have felt had he lived to see the wave of protests that took place in 2011, as well as the trial of Hosni Mubarak?

Success!

There are some perceptive observations about the psychology of patriarchy -- there is a wonderful scene, for example, in which the patriarch's son, a brave and ardent nationalist, finds himself reduced to a quaking heap by the tone of his father's voice. But the reader would be better able to savor those moments, perhaps, if Mahfouz's sympathy with the patriarch were not so patent, if the book were not so much pervaded by nostalgia for a time when Men were Men." - Amitav Ghosh, The New Republic What are Yasin’s, Fahmy’s, and Kamal’s most notable qualities? How do the sons compare with the daughters in terms of character? Which members of the family are most likeable?