The Cairo Trilogy

     Author                      Naguib Mahfouz

     Country                    Egypt

     Genre                        Historical Fiction

     Publication Date      1957

     Pages                        1325







'One of the best books I have read in recent times': that's how I would like to describe this book. With some 1300 plus pages, its crazily long but honestly, that's one of the best parts of the book! I have never been a huge fan of short stories and now I know why. Novels or books that are as long as this grow on you and absorb you as an insider. And that is what, it my view, makes the reading experience truly intense and powerful!

The Cairo Trilogy traces the life of a traditional family in Egypt across three generations. Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad is the tyrannical patriarch who rules his household with a strict hand while leading a secret life of self indulgence. The story of this family and it's upheavals  is beautifully interspersed with that of Egypt and its turbulent times.

Through this Nobel prize winning trilogy, Naguib Mahfouz brings to life the themes of family values, traditions and religion, to name a few. Another key theme that is subtly conveyed through the book is the superiority of man over woman. And it's refreshing to see how this is not presented with any judgement, but is rather factually conveyed as a mere reflection of the times. Some quotes that really bring this to life for me are:

'You're just a woman, and no woman has a fully developed mind'

'Zaynab was asking for a divorce. Which of them was the man and which the woman? There was nothing strange about a man casting away a pair of shoes, but shoes were not supposed to throw away their owner'

How women don't even consider most of these circumstances as derogatory since they have not known anything better is another interesting insight for me.

Another powerful and beautifully portrayed theme in the book is the passage of time and how that influences and moulds us along the way. As time passes and Al-Sayyid Ahmad matures from a young man with a secret life of indulgence into an old man, he becomes very different. His wife, Amina who loses her beloved son at a very young age also learns to accept fate and to allow time to take its due course. And this passage of time and its reflection on us as individuals is portrayed through each character and their independent journeys.

In short, The Cairo Trilogy is filled with drama, humour, reality, traditions, history and most essentially a flavour of having been crafted by an excellent artist. And it's no wonder that this won the Nobel Prize.

Personally, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves fiction and has the courage to take on a 'massive' book!

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