Family as Novel

          This semester, we've encountered examples of the family saga genre. Between Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, (in some ways) Grass' The Tin Drum, and now with Mahfouz's Palace Walk (and the Cairo Trilogy as a whole), we can observe the tropes on which this form relies, such as the presence of a comparatively weaker physically, yet emotionally superior female authority figure -- Úrsula and Amina -- or the age-old competition between sisters over the title of first betrothed -- Maryam and Khadija, and Amaranta and Ursula. These familiar roles and conflicts are key to universalizing even the most culturally insular of familial allegories, allowing postwar Egypt to retain its unique character while still feeling cyclic, part of a larger order. Unlike Tolstoy's opening lines to Anna Karenina, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," the family novel seems to write itself off its own brethren.  The question is -- if there is an inherent allegorical element then in this sort of narrative, where the same characters are born, grow up, and die in different permutations of life circumstances while still owning their classic roles, is the family saga necessarily a type of allegory? And to what tradition does it owe these standard formulas?  Perhaps this novel is less an allegory and actually more of an expression of the author's national character. After all, Solitude feels distinctly Latin American, and Mahfouz's work and its exploration of Muslim piety belongs only in the Middle East. Rather than simply writing a list of customs, social ideologies, and cultural essences, this genre uses its characters to write about the setting. The Nobel Prize Committee thus favors works of this type, because their focus on the "ideal direction," i.e., historically proven literary modes, is combined with honoring the writer's national spirit. The work is a love letter to one's own country. 

Glimpse-JK

   Within the sections surrounding Amina’s accident the reader is able to see glimpses of real emotion, a part of her that has been tamped down by marriage. The surge of fear and excitement at the thought of going outside was undeniable. Her reactions to what many would consider normal activities are oddly intense, she is barely able to walk properly once outside the door, her emotional display of tears in the mosque. Yet this is quickly put down as she remembers her “characteristic temperance and resignation” (181)

            I was upset with her fainting and being hit by a car, her timid and breakable nature was brought back to the forefront. The fainthearted mother who could barely scold her children was back a woman who used her faith to hide from the demons she had created in her mind and no longer the one whose faith and appreciation for beauty moved to tears by the sights around her. The descriptions formed the image of a child, and while that was slightly off putting and fit in with her previous portrayal, the emotions that came forth from the adventure had within them a flash of personality, similar to the first one we were shown when she thought back to the time when she asked her husband about his nights out.

            At the end of the healing process, witnessing her husband’s reactions and scheming it is no wonder Kamal believes that “marriage doesn’t bring happiness” (327). His actions were only slightly better while she was healing, he stopped by and asked how she was, and yet she was thrilled over this attention.  Yet we learn he was merely plotting.

            Another glimpse at her rebellious side came out in a whisper when he began attacking her once he saw she was healed.  He beings questioning her, as if she has tricked him somehow during their twenty-five years of marriage, to which she responses that she doesn’t “deserve talk like this”. Yet this is washed out by his rage and her feeble will.

            While in my previous blog I talked about how the book fits into the mold that the West has created for the Middle East, especially in the ideas of marriage, the opinions from the children and the grandmother were similar to mine. The children question how Sayyid is able to go out and party when his wife is in pain, and Amina’s mother asks why men who are just as jealous as he is are fine with their wives going outside. I was hoping for Amina to react rebelliously against the tyrant that is her husband, at least other characters are made to express their ideas on the absurd situations occurring in the marriage.  

Unnatural Divisions

 If Al-Sayyid were asked whether he would rather be loved or feared he would undoubtedly answer both. His family lives in a state of fretful worship, savoring even the tiniest bits of mercy and praise, deeply upset at disappointing their patriarch.

However, when Al-Sayyid banishes his wife there is a transition that becomes notable: the allegiance of his children. In secret the sons visit their mother while she is away. Mahfouz seems to suggest in this passage that Al-Sayyid’s power has a limit in its scope. He may have an extreme level physical dominance over these people but there is some spirit in each of his children and in Amina, his wife, as well that Al-Sayyid cannot contain. Their desire to look out the window, to venture into the streets, to laugh and love one another seems so natural in Palace Walk that even Al-Sayyid’s choking grip cannot stop the biological urges of his children, not to mention himself. He commands love, but in the same way that the characters constantly refer back to what is out of their control, in God’s control, Al-Sayyid can only extend his power so far.

When his children see him in his element outside their home, there seems to be an understanding that the binary he is living under contends that there is a time for duty and a time for play. Two separate parts of life. There is a time for fear; there is a time for love. Yet in the same way that God’s control is infinite and does not divide between these times of love and fear, there seems to be a suggestion that the divisions Al-Sayyid creates reach for a level of control that is unattainable and unrealistic, that breaks sync with human nature as it is represented in the novel in the will of God, that create divisions in society between outside and inside, between duty and play, that should not exist. A break from which, Mahfouz seems to suggest, is as treacherous as talking back.

They don't say hindsight is 20/20 for no reason...

            Professor Elsherif made me realize something that should have been obvious for this novel, and the rest of the novels we have read this semester as well. Quite frankly, I regret not keeping this thought in the back of my mind, at the very least, for each novel assigned to us in this class. Palace Walk was translated into English from Arabic, of course the native language of Naguib Mahfouz. I had not thought much about this fact, although it was mentioned in the beginning of the semester, I admit. This question began nagging at me after guest speaker Professor Elsherif showed a snippet of the movie version of Palace Walk, and the actor spoke the word, “hawa” which means both “love,” or “affection,” and “air.” In the movie, or originally the book, it created a play on words and made a joke that the English version of this novel totally lost. I even presented the question in class, how much Professor Elsherif thought an American, or any non-Arabic speaker lost reading an English version of this novel. His answer was that honestly, we lost quite a bit simply because we don’t come from that culture. It should have seemed obvious to me, but hearing the truth was so discouraging. Palace Walk has seemed to be the most realistic novel we have read, at least in my opinion, since it is following a family and to a point, deals with issues many of us can relate to, such as sibling rivalry, realizing one’s parents aren’t perfect, and love. The same reasoning made me want to get everything I could out of the novel, politically and culturally. On one hand, I know I will not ever be able to read this with the same understanding and perspective that a person from Egypt that has grown up with a background in the culture. On the other hand, I believe it is my responsibility, if only to myself, to make this an opportunity to educate myself about a history and a whole culture I quite frankly do not know anything about. It is wonderful to read Edgar Allen Poe, John Steinbeck, and Mark Twain, because I don’t think anybody knows everything there is to know about even their own history and culture. However, I believe that pushing yourself to read about something you have no prior knowledge of, is invaluable, but only if you make an honest effort to know the perspective of the author or culture that he or she is writing about. It may be impossible to understand some of the nuances, especially after being translated from another language, but I have learned that not all is lost; one can still learn so much about a new culture or event in history, and the perspective of others.

My Feels about Mahfouz

For me, Mahfouz has been hard to pin down. My initial assumptions, knowing that he was an Egyptian Nobel Prize winner, was that the novel would gently expose some issues in the Middle East, but stay mostly optimistic about change for the better with help from "the world" (or probably the West). I've been seeing in this class that the Nobel Committee seems to reward authors who are toeing a line, but not crossing it; there's never a severe indictment of the West.
Then after the first half of the novel, I was really confused because I could not figure out why this Nobel Prize winner had written such an awful character, the father. While he isn't technically one-dimensional, he was just an unbearable presence as such a tyrant to his family and a morally-loose man with his friends. In an article I read, Edward Said compared Mahfouz to Tolstoy. Tolstoy, in my limited exposure to him, is a great writer who is able to write very human, multidimensional characters without getting caught up in right versus wrong, or demonizing the Other. In the novel, it seems to me that Mahfouz had created a monster in al-Sayyid; the man kicks his wife out of the house for getting hit by a car. Really?
So I was left wondering why an Egyptian seemed to be playing so much into Orientalist binaries; the wife is submissive and a little mystical with her fear of the jinn, the husband is somehow both a strict Islamic tyrant and a beloved, carousing womanizer. Yes, Mahfouz is showing that a person can have many sides to him, but the father does not really have any redeeming qualities because as much as his friends love him, the reader hates him because we know that he isn't nice to his family. I was struggling.
After Professor Elsharif's lecture, I began to wonder how much of a parable Mahfouz is trying to create with this third of the Cairo trilogy. Maybe my hatred for the father was the reaction he wanted; Said mentioned that Mahfouz was interested in the concept of power. This gave me a new lens to try and sort out al-Sayyid. If he represents a government, a ruler, it's easier to work through the novel, seeing his actions as metaphors rather than a commentary on male domination or feeding into the Orientalist discourse.
I started to see a little more that I liked about Mahfouz after reading his speech. In his Nobel Speech, he continuously takes shots at the way the West has shaped the world. I didn't see much of this in his novel, but I was glad to see Mahfouz fired up against Western domination of history, thought, and the globe. In the end, he talks about the nature of power, and how leaders worked only for themselves, exploiting subjects as stepping stones. Mahfouz mourns the loss of ideas and values from this time; he makes it sound like he is lamenting ancient times, but honestly, there isn't a thing he says that couldn't be applied to the present. Mahfouz lands punch after subtle punch, shaming the "First World" for its treatment of the "Third World". He calls them one family, but not without mentioning the First World's status of superiority, citing its potential, but negligence, to lend a helping hand to those who need it. "We have had enough of words. Now is a time for action," Mahfouz declares,calling for a world with leaders who are responsible to the citizens of the globe, not just those within arbitrary borders. He takes the Orientalism and tosses it back into the West's court saying, "Besides, where can the moans of Mankind find a place to resound if not in your oasis of civilization planted by its great founder for the service of science, literature and sublime human values?"
In the end, I think I've warmed up to Mahfouz. Maybe I didn't see it much in the novel (which, to be fair, is only a portion of a larger work, which is one novel among numerous), but a guy who is going to make a statement (in Arabic) to the Nobel Committee and all of the First World powers present about their selfishness and negligence is alright by me.
"I seem to have troubled your calm. But what do you expect from one coming from the Third World?"
He really got feisty.

The Wedding Chapter and Hypocrisy

The wedding chapter

            There seems to be a lot of contradictions in this chapter, mostly on the part of al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad.  He is jovial when there is nothing to celebrate, and at a wedding he is more reserved than ever.  He is disgusted by his family having a good time, which is so obviously hypocritical since every night he is drunk and rambunctious.  When Kamal accidentally sees him, and a friend calls him over, he must pretend he is disgusted by the music.  He gives all of the answers that his father would insist upon, but it is not good enough because they know he is lying.  His father then tells his friends that he is a cub of the lion, meaning he is a lot like the father.  This is probably the nicest thing that al-Sayyid says about the boy, and he is proud that he can sing but would never admit to singing.  I am having a hard time figuring out why Mahfouz made the father figure such a hypocritical and, honestly, horrible character.  He is angry constantly yet revered like a holy figure.  I could appreciate him as a character if the hypocrisy is intentional, and shows that the patriarchal system is faulty, but it also seems like we might actually be supposed to respect him. 

            He also compares the bridegroom to a bull, but means for it to be an insult.  By calling him a bull he means that he looks lazy, like he will only eat grass all day.  In our society, referring to a man as a bull would be a testament to his strength and ferocity.  However, al-Sayyid means quite the opposite.  This might be a language or societal divide that is not intended by the author, but as I read it I saw a major contradiction.  It seems as though he is trying so hard to be angry that he does not realize he is insulting someone with a compliment.  The father seems like the kind of man who would appreciate a bull type man, since he is so stubborn and angry.  However, he would prefer that his daughters did not have to marry since they might end up with a man who will divorce them.  That’s rather interesting, since he divorced his first wife and just recently threw his perfect wife Amina out of his house.  Basically, what I perceive, is that he is afraid they will end up with a man like him, yet he would never admit that, since he thinks so highly of himself.  He also does not want a husband who will let her have fun, since that is completely against his fake principles that he does not abide by every night. 

            I hope that the Nobel committee chose this author because he is working against this type of character and not praising him.  His level of severity makes his family, especially his wife and daughters, prisoners to his will.  I firmly believed that the character was an exaggeration until Professor Elsherif seemed confused by our distaste for him.  He gave the impression that there were many men during the time period of this novel that would have been as strict or more intense than the father.  So, as far as the novel is concerned, is it a conscious attempt at mocking a man like him, or are we supposed to respect his hypocrisy? 

The Palace Bridge

"Palace Walk" by Naguib Mahfouz is an appropriate book to end a semester's worth of observing the matter of and circumstances surrounding Nobel Prize novels. It makes sense that it took him so long (after having written the book) to receive the award-the translation into English, which made the book more accessible to the West, came at at a point in time where the West was becoming more familiar with the East vis a vis international relations. This provides a good context to discuss the themes of the novel.
Much like Orhan Pamuk's "My Name Is Red," "Palace Walk" presents a similar portrayal of the traditional view of the East. Moreover, he reflects on this perception through multiple characters' perspectives as well, and further he describes the impact that the introduction of modernism and Western values have on the respective characters and how it affects them each differently. Again, with the time the novel was written and the time he received the award in mind, the book is timeless. Compared with the knowledge of the revolutionary history of Egypt in the twentieth century, the binary is again well reflected. Mahfouz successfully bridges the two systems of thought through allegory, a tool he uses in many of his other novels.
The main character and patriarch reflects many old world or third world values. He also is very frequently referred to "Him" or "He,"presented as a god of sorts. He carries very strict authority over his household, yet is revered by friends, and even his family. These qualities all represent the old world views in the area, meanwhile, his wife explores more modern and opposite views through her curiosity, which is narrated to us. Her sons too are split, one a nationalist, and the other a revolutionary.
Overall the novel has tones of change, yet presents a picture of multiple views in a mild, introductory manner. The book is again timeless when compared to current affairs in the middle East.