"Midaq Alley" by Naguib Mahfouz

I start my new blog with a review of a novel by Naguib Mahfouz, Nobel Prize winner for Literature in 1988.  Midaq Alley was one of his early novels set during the Second World War.  The novel is about the residents in Midaq Alley, an impoverished part of Cairo city. The World War has wrought changes in the city: It  brought electricity (the new radio in Kirsha's cafe), it brought money (mercenary soldiers) and it brought a collapse of the traditional value systems.  And no one in Midaq Alley escapes these influences. There is no single protagonist in this novel, but one dominant theme--self-indulgence at any cost. It is no wonder then that these people face the tragic consequences of their desire for money and sensual pleasures.  Critics claim that the novel is about the conflict between the past and the present and the ever changing value system.  But I disagree.  It is about human failings, and about overreach.

Midaq Alley is home to Kirsha's cafe , Uncle Kamil who has a sweet shop,  Abbas the barber, the baker Jaada and his wife Husniya, Umm Hamida a marriage broker and her foster daughter Hamida, Zaita a beggar maker, a "dentist" Dr. Bushi, Salim Alwan a perfume merchant and Mrs.Saniya Afifi the landlady.

Of these, Hamida occupies quite a large role in the book. An adopted daughter, growing up in a lower middle class environment, she feels no particular attachment to her mother or to any of her neighbors.  She dreams of wealth and control over men.  She knows she is attractive and wants to ensnare the right kind of men--those that are rich and powerful.   Initially, she latches on to Abbas the barber, as a stop gap solution no doubt caught in his enthusiasm and his earnest promise to earn more money.  But visions of slaving over a hot stove, leading the dull life of a housewife with nothing but the next pregnancy to look forward to, quickly cures her of her love for Abbas.  While the naive Abbas is away in the army making an honest living, she transfers her attention to the rich Salim Alwan who is lusting for her anyway.  A freak heart attack forces Salim out of her life and into a life of an invalid.  However, that works in Hamida's favor too because she now realizes that prostitution is her calling; she is a "whore by instinct"(205).  Seduced by the pimp Ibrahim Faraj she embarks on her new fulfilling career.  She will not be completely happy, though, till she has subjugated the pimp and given herself emotional power over him.  She appeals to Abbas,   Now a rejected, angry and jealous suitor, he agrees to defend her "honor" only to learn that her honor has been bought and sold several times to the British soldiers.  Totally out of control with rage and frustration, Abbas hurls a beer bottle at her face wounding her.  He is beaten to death by the  soldiers.

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