Chapters (40)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- INTRODUCTION
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- NOTES
- Naguib Mahfouz
- BOOKS BY NAGUIB MAHFOUZ
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He experimented with solitude and its companions—a radio, books, and dreams. Is it possible, he wondered, to forget how to speak? Moments follow each other without any regulation, he thought; you don’t know the time and hardly even remember what day it is. And so you look up bewildered at the sun’s tranquil diamond disk appearing behind the light clouds of autumn, life flirting with you even though you are too morose to respond. It’s as though you were seeing the world—and the people in it—for the first time after waking up from a fever, an illness caused by struggle and ambition, its essential values uncovered, revealing the brilliance of creation. Up till now, the sun’s course has been merely a messenger, bearing news of the submission of a memorandum, the warning of a diplomatic reception. Now that events have buried you alive, these troubles are no more than muddled dreams burning away inside your own decomposing head.
There was real loneliness in this Greek flat, and yearning in his heart. He missed the comfort of the corner in El Bodega, but his conflicting emotions connected with it seemed mean. I love Abbas Sadiq and Ibrahim Khairat, he thought, and yet at the same time I hate them! I love the part of them that was alive before the revolution, but I hate the way they’ve been able to live after it has taken place. Now I have an opportunity to clarify these vexing problems. Anxieties like mountains, the mind overwhelmed by rust, and the road to consolation, which is beset with folly, is paved and ready in the face of your ill-gotten gains and daydreams in which torture leads eventually to victory. A look from above at this boundless wilderness gives the soul a feeling of repose and an ability to rise above it all. O Lord, why don’t You give us a gleam of inspiration about the meaning of this grueling journey stained with blood? Why doesn’t the sea say something when it has seen the struggle going on since time immemorial? Why does this mother earth eat up its sons when evening comes? How is it that rocks, insects, and the condemned man in the mountain10 have a role in the drama while I have none?