August 1, 1990
With this portrait of a misanthropic civil servant, the Egyptian Nobel laureate devises a cunning send-up of egregious ambition, stodgy bureaucracy and cloying piety. Mahfouz's overblown language mirrors the grandiose aspirations of his protagonist Othman Bayyumi, a common archives clerk who schemes for a lofty appointment as Director General, expounding that ``a government position is a brick in the edifice of the state, and the state is an exhalation of the spirit of God, incarnate on earth.'' As Egypt experiences the birth pangs of nationalism, Othman remains an apolitical, selfish loner wallowing in his self-imposed misery, who fawns over his superiors, works like a dervish and squirrels away his money, his only physical pleasures the visits he pays religiously to a prostitute, which ``were usually followed by a wholehearted plea for forgiveness and a prolonged resort to prayer and worship.''45 Envisioning marriage as a means to forge social connections that will launch him to glory, he viciously turns down prospective brides; because no one is good enough for him, he ends up in his later years with two wives, one a opium-addict aging prostitute, the other a young woman who uses him as he sought to use others. This was originally published in Egypt in 1975.
August 1, 1990
Alienation is the theme Mahfouz investigates in these three latest translations. The earliest, Autumn Quail (1962), looks back on the revolution in Egypt through the character of Isa. Formerly a high government official, Isa is purged from the new government and charged with corruption. Attempting to escape the moral outrage of the new order, he becomes an exile in his own country. The Beggar (1965) once again portrays the alienation following the revolution, this time through Omar, a successful lawyer who has lost all sense of value in his life. Cast into deep depression, Omar forsakes his business and marriage in search of some meaning. Respected Sir (1975), however, moves beyond the revolution to study Othman's single-minded pursuit of bureaucratic promotion and how it alienates him from the fuller aspects of life. All three novels are enlightening characterizations by the Arab world's greatest writer. Very highly recommended.-- Paul E. Hutchison, Fishermans Paradise, Bellefonte, Pa.
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