Bayn Al-Qasarayn

The young man rolled over in bed. He turned his mind away from the deluge of memories and began to follow the beats of the dough once more. He looked around the room, slowly becoming visible as the sun rose outside the closed shutters. His mother was making bread! She would continue to knead the dough morning after morning. God forbid that anything should distract her from concentrating her attention on preparing meals, washing the clothes or cleaning the furnishings. Great activities would not interfere with minor ones. Society would always be flexible enough to embrace exalted and trivial matters and to welcome both equally. But not so fast…. Was a mother not part of life? She had given birth to him, and sons fueled the revolution. She fed him, and nourishment fueled the sons. In fact, nothing about life was trivial. But would not some day come when a great event would rock all Egyptians, leaving none of the differences of opinion that had been present at the coffee hour five days ago? How remote that day seemed… then a smile came to his lips when this question leapt into his mind: What would his father do if he learned about his continual struggle, day after day? What would his tyrannical, despotic father do about it and his tender, affectionate mother? He smiled anxiously, because he would be exposed to problems no less significant than if the military authority itself should learn his secret.

He pulled back the covers and sat up in bed murmuring, “It’s all the same whether I live or die. Faith is stronger than death, and death is nobler than ignominy. Let’s enjoy the hope, compared to which life seems unimportant. Welcome to this new morning of freedom. May God carry out whatever He has decreed.”

- Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz.

This book made me shift uneasily from my position many a time. The setting was restrained and the plot excruciatingly slow. The characters formed almost the entirety of the book - and more often than not I put the book away and declared all their drama too wearing. But it was not wearing in the typical annoying manner that can warrant its dismissal due to boredom - rather, it elicited  an intrigue to love them in a second, and hate them with renewed vigour soon afterwards.

Mahfouz spared none of the characters of his exposition, he seemingly made no effort to make the reader side with anything. His line of storytelling would sometimes leave traces of a message he was trying to get across, and within a few pages afterwards, through his turn of events, he would trample it nonchalantly. The glaring tale was that of Cairo, and he told it with the kind of affection which could only be believable by the way he made it so infallible, imperfect.

At points where the story got unbearable, because the story, as it was, allowed me absolutely no room for the construction I wished for them - for the construction most books would allow - Fahmy Ahmad Abd El-Jawad made the next page worth turning. He made me want to throw the book in frustration when he lost his strong outward resolve in confrontation with his father, even more when he could not help but cry - but second afterwards, in the same pathetic manner, he defied the latter and ran out of the room, thus making me postpone my desire to give it up.

And guess what Mr. Mahfouz did. He killed him off just before the book ended.

Thanks a million. Here's looking forward to the next two.

Another Pointless Post

Oh, this is so nice, I can lie here this way forever...

Ba'da dhalika dhahabtu ila alkhizanati kutubi haithu yujadu kutub (wa ma aakhar?) wa qara'tu kitaba amamaha suratun binjamin faranklin.

"Reading was the only amusement I allowed myself. I spent no time in taverns, games, or frolics of any kind; and my industry in my business continued as indefatigable as it was necessary" Benjamin Franklin, 'Autobiography" (1771-1784).

A 'shame on you' from 241 years ago, no less.

Yeah Nah Yeah

That awkward moment when the awkward moment you were at yesterday made its way into the awkward moments on 9GAG. It's the object of many's intellectual affection, Professor Stephen Bottomley himself.

Taken from here.