Naguib Mahfouz: AUTUMN QUAIL

Synopsis: This is the story of one man and the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. Isa al-Dabbagh is a senior civil servant in the Egyptian government who loses and job and his fiancee when the Purge Committee of the Revolution brings his venal past to light. His personal relationships reflect the resulting internal conflict he suffers between mind and heart, between intellectual acceptance of the Revolution and the basic emotional instincts which hold him back.

The opening of the novel - the infamous Cairo fire following the Trouble in the Suez, i.e., massacre of Egyptian police - is vivid. Reading this part from Autumn Quail, the very first Mahfouz I've read so far, I thought: If this is how Naguib Mahfouz writes his stories, then, I guess, I'll be hooked on his other works. Indeed, I got hooked on this particular book and finished reading it in no time, satisfied. The novel is full of the author's insights and reflections on the revolution on the points of view, of course, of the characters. Characterization is simply impressive. This is a good piece of literature from the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, Naguib Mahfouz of Egypt.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

{02 February 2010}