Palace of Desire: The Cairo Trilogy, Volume 2

Like the  first in the trilogy , this was excellent writing, alternating between telling and describing, but with the most vivid description, and somehow the telling is the most desirous writing as well. Yes, Kamal's long-winded poetic idealistic love gets...long-winded at times. But it builds to the a very appropriate conclusion in his life. It is amazing to watch a family crumble- but not at all unexpected. You see the seeds of destruction from the first pages of Palace Walk. Al-Sayyhid Ahmad Abd Al-Jawad desires to have such strong control over his family, he ends up building it's destruction. He wants to live a double life- and those live half as long. He sees no hypocrisy in his actions, for he lives the unexamined life. And he reaps his harvest. This is the message interwoven throughout both the first two books.I keep on feeling that Naguib Mahfouz is the Dickens of his culture. Characters are consistent with themselves, yet constantly changing, evolving, to become something greater, or worse, and unexpected, yet somehow we always knew it had to be that way. He writes with such realism of the lives of people, and the changing lives over generations of the people of the large city. It is dirty, intimate, and full of pathos. It is life.

I absolutely loved Palace Walk, the first book in the Cairo trilogy, and was looking to once more lose myself in the crowded streets of Cairo and in the lives of the characters. I was not disappointed. The humanity and complexity of the characters is what draws us to them.But I was a little disappointed with Kamal's adolescent introspections and found the book dragging in those places. Just a little too much of it!Otherwise, the writing is as warm, fluent and vigorous as his earlier book.

I've just completed the second book in the trilogy. It is well written, but not as good for me as the first one. It continues with the family and the children are now adults with families of their own. It is always interesting to have such an up close view into other cultures and their belief systems. I still didn't like the father because any joy in him was reserved for outsiders, but he treated his family like he hated them. His children were terrified of him and his wife lived to serve him hand and foot. On to the third installation of this trilogy.

While this book could be read on it's own, I highly suggest reading Palace Walk first, as it is a sequel. The reader really needs the background from the first book to fully appreciate this one.This book opens with the father, Al Sayyid Ahmad Abd al Jawad, in middle age. He,and his oldest son, Yasin continue their romantic escapades. Kamal is hurt terribly in love. This book absolutely deverves the Nobel Prize for Literature that it won, as you really feel with all of the characters. Naguib Mahfouz is a master of characterization, and of many different types of characters.If you have read and enjoyed Palace Walk, by all means, continue with Palace of Desire, and Sugar Street (third and last of the series of three). You will NOT be disappointed.

Excellent writing, continuing the story of the Abd Al Jawad Family against the backdrop of the 20s and 30s. Kamal's introspection becomes too much at times, but his thought evolution is extremely natural and genuine.

The Cairo Trilogy, of which this book is the second, gives a wonderfully vivid portrayal of Egyptian history and life in very individually focused accounts of family and every day life. In this, the books resemble the novels of Jane Austen in showing the very structured cultural expectations and approved behaviors for both men and women in a society where gender equality does not exist nor is desired.

It'll take a bit to get used to the style, the novel was a relatively new to Arabic culture at the time he was writing, but the Cairo Trilogy a rich and intimate look not only at an Islamic family but at the struggle of Egypt to escape British protectorate status.

Great literature