An Egyptian Detour

Given that today, 25 January, was the 2-year anniversary of the Tahrir Square revolution, I thought it would be the case to write a note about a very Egyptian book (later turned into a very good film) that summarises very well and accurately enough - at least in my eyes - contemporary Egyptian society. 

I am talking about Alaa Al Aswany's Yacoubian Building, a book which looks at a cross-section of Egyptian society with candour and frankness, a touch of irony, and lucid realism. 

I have to confess to seeing the film before reading the book (I add a trailer below for your pleasure), within the Arab Film Festival at the ICA, which was followed by an illuminating Q&A with the film's director, Marwan Hamed.  

The main characters with whom the book is concerned come from different walks of life and backgrounds: a crooked businessman with political ambitions, an ambitious student whose aspirations are dashed because of his poverty, a feisty young woman who has to work to support her family, an upper class Lothario, a very rich, refined gay man and his policeman lover, and a scheming tailor. They are all connected by the Yacoubian Building itself, a once grand block of flats that houses the rich in its vast apartments, while hosting on its roof a collection of ramshackle huts where the working class poor live. 

In the throbbing heart of Cairo, these people love, plot, strive, survive, and dream of the future - each in their own way. 

Taha, the young student, dreams of wedded bliss together with his childhood sweetheart, Busaina. But she has to work to maintain her mother and brothers, and his dreams to become a policeman come to nothing because he doesn't have the money to bribe his way in the police academy. While Busaina comes to accept the advances of her boss at the clothing store where she works, and becomes increasingly disillusioned and bitter, Taha finds solace in religion, coming under the sway of a very influential preacher.

Hagg Azzam rose to the top from being a shoeshine. He now has everything he needs and a little more. But he's not happy: he aspires to a place in the national assembly, and discovers that - at his age - he still has physical needs his old wife can't meet. The solution? Get a second, younger wife; but don't complicate things with the family, keep her closeted in the luxury flat in the Yacoubian Building, and take care there would be no new heirs to the fortune. A very religious man, Hagg Azzam sees nothing wrong with this solution (suggested by a friendly imam), nor in enjoying the occasional hashish. To get a leg up in politics, he has to get in the good graces of kingmaker Kamal El Fouli, but he might be in too deep for his own good. 

Zaki Bey comes from an old, prestigious family. He spends his days spending what's left of the family fortune chasing women and appreciating fine drinks - and occasionally having monster rows with his sister, always careful of the family name. When Busaina is introduced to him as a prospective secretary, he discovers a very fine woman who might tame him, while she discovers the charm of a bygone age - and maybe a means of salvation. 

Hatim Rasheed is the editor of the French-language newspaper Le Caire, and also a fairly open gay man. His employees respect him too much to make an issue about it, and his neighbours are both understanding (to some point) and intimidated by his wealth and high position in society to say anything about it in his face. 

Although the book, and subsequently the film, was accused by some commentators (in the West) of presenting a "dated and shallow" view of homosexuality, the simple fact that it is presented as a fact of life, is considered to be revolutionary. "I tried to portray the gay character as a human being, not as a particular case. That is something new" said Alaa Al Aswany in an interview for The Guardian.  

To quote Rachel Aspden, writing in The Observer, "Al Aswany's frank treatment of everything from homosexuality and corruption to illegal abortion and police brutality was sensational. His book went on to become the bestselling Arabic novel in recent history."

The style of writing is clean, without exaggerations, and sparse with regard to metaphors, making for a very enjoyable read that uncovers a previously unknown world. 

The most likeable character was, for me, the libertine Zaki Bey, possibly also because he is wonderfully played in the film by veteran actor Adel Imam. In fact, the characters are all having bigger or smaller flaws, just like anyone else, but some people's flaws are way bigger than the others. Who comes off the worst, in my opinion, is Hagg Azam, who embodies some of the worst traits of the corrupt society the Egyptian revolution tried to get rid off two years ago.  I think the film wholly does justice to the book, although it had to cut some parts and change others. If you're going to get through the film and the book, I'd recommend to start with the film.

And, since we're talking about Tahrir Square, here is a short video interview with a young Egyptian who has taken part in the events. 

Arab Writing

Now this is a chapter on which I am sure to be found wanting. My reading list of Arab authors is quite short, and I think I should do something about it. 

Up to this moment, it is comprised of The 1001 Nights, The Life and Deeds of Sultan Az-Zahir Baibars, The Storyteller by Rabih Alameddine, and Boualem Sansal's Le Village de L'allemand (ou Le journal des frères Schiller, published in English as An Unfinished Business). I bought recently This Blinding Absence of Light by Tahar ben Jelloun, and started reading from Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy in a bookshop. And that's about it.

Two of the titles don't have known authors, but the 1001 Nights I read were in a children-friendlier edition translated and edited by Romanian writer Eusebiu Camilar. The books were two thick, hardcover volumes published at some point in the 1960s, and they provided hours and hours of entertainement. The anonymous account of Baibars' life was in a semi-scholarly Romanian edition published in the 1980s, peppered with notes, as the translators chose to leave in Arabic some words with difficult Romanian equivalents. This is why I still remember one of the connecting phrases in the narration: "The muhaddith tells us...". 

This leads to Alameddine's Storyteller (or The Hakawati), which tells of life in Lebanon shortly before the civil war, with the narration going back and forth to early 2000s, with some episodes from the early 20th century. And all is interspersed with a magnificent story that could come (or be part) of the 1001 Nights. The main narrator is a young Lebanese who took refuge and grew up in America, returning to Lebanon to be near his dying father. We find out that the father comes from a family of storytellers, the kind that travelled around towns in the Arab and Ottoman world, earning their bread by setting up shop in coffee houses and keeping people hooked on their stories and glued to their seats for hours (and even days) on end. The two narratives, in the real and fantastic worlds, run in parallel and touch in subtle ways. And, like in the 1001 Nights, story begets story in both narratives. I really enjoyed it.

The reader is faced by a completely different outlook with Boualem Sansal. This former Algerian top civil servant began writing in his fities as a reaction to the civil war. Le Village de L'allemand takes in the tragedy of that event, but an extra dimension is added by another, earlier, tragedy - the Shoah. The Schiller brothers, Rachel and Malrich, were sent to live in France by their mysterious German father, a hero of the Algerian war of independence. While Rachel is a successful professional with a French wife, Malrich lives in the banlieu and is very close to being deep in with a very bad crowd. However, the civil war brings to light something of the father's past that changes completely the lives of the sons. An excellent review by Maya Jaggi can be read on the Guardian Online (spoiler alert: it gives-away some of the plot).

I started reading The Blinding Absence of Light on the train. It is a well written story about a man emprisoned in a hell-hole, together with others, for taking part in an attempted coup against Morocco's King Hassan II in 1971. The prison setting is very bleak, steeped in darkness, but the narrator is keen to tell a story, talking, in a Shahrazad kind of way, as a means of survival.

I plan to return to Naguib Mahfouz sooner rather than later. Another to-read is Boualem Sansal's Rue Darwin.

I should add here that Boualem Sansal and Tahar ben Jelloun wrote in French, and Rabih Alameddine in English.