|
The Yacoubian Building: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Alaa Al Aswany
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy Used: $3.00
You Save: $10.95 (78%)
New (52) Used (60) Collectible (1) from $3.00
Rating:  47 reviews
Sales Rank: 4488
Media: Paperback
Pages: 272
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 4.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0060878134
Dewey Decimal Number: 892.737
EAN: 9780060878139
ASIN: 0060878134
Publication Date: August 1, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Paperback cover with minor edgewear. Pages are clean with no bends or markings.
| |
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
This controversial bestselling novel in the Arab world reveals the political corruption, sexual repression, religious extremism, and modern hopes of Egypt today. All manner of flawed and fragile humanity reside in the Yacoubian Building, a once-elegant temple of Art Deco splendor now slowly decaying in the smog and bustle of downtown Cairo: a fading aristocrat and self-proclaimed "scientist of women"; a sultry, voluptuous siren; a devout young student, feeling the irresistible pull toward fundamentalism; a newspaper editor helplessly in love with a policeman; a corrupt and corpulent politician, twisting the Koran to justify his desires. These disparate lives careen toward an explosive conclusion in Alaa Al Aswany's remarkable international bestseller. Teeming with frank sexuality and heartfelt compassion, this book is an important window on to the experience of loss and love in the Arab world.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 42 more reviews...
Mahfouz Revisited and Egypt Updated April 14, 2005
Arthur C. Hurwitz (New York, NY United States)
61 out of 67 found this review helpful
Alaa Al Aswany is a social realist writer of Egypt with a style and a methodology not unlike that of Naguib Mahfouz. The difference is, however, that he portraying Egypt in the long term aftermath of the Free Officers' coup de etat, the Arab nationalism of Gamal Abd al-Nasir and its social reforms, and years of corrupt emergency rule. All in a country where the relevance of the Arab nationalism of the 1950's and 1960's is in the past, and largely irrelevant to the real life lives of the Egyptian people.
The title, and the building which is the foci of the novel, is a name and a building with non-Egyptian/Arabic name and an origin in a more cosmopolitan and liberal Egypt of the past. The characters represent various sorts of Egyptian personality types in the downtown area: a rich homosexual, a potential aristocrat of the old pre-Nasir regime lapsed into decadence and stagnancy after falling from relevancy in the new regime, a rich "self made" owner of a chain of stores, one of which is in the ground floor of the Yacoubian Building, and on the roof, representatives of the new and also very poor Egypt: a young woman whose father has died and thus is forced to take a job which includes paid sexual harrassement to support her family, the son of the doorman who is dilligent in his studies and preparations to become a police officer, a servant in the building who is renting a shack on the roof of the building so he can set up a shirt-making store, and others.
What all these characters have in common is that each character makes some sort of dramatic leap from the status quo character portrayed the begining of the novel to some fate, either more promising or resulting in the character's fall from some sort of interim grace. It seems to me that Al Aswany believes that the 50 years of dictatorial rule in Egypt and the 10 years of emergency rule (the novel takes place in 1990) under Mubarak, caused all of the segments of the Egyptian society to become corrupt and decadent. By showing various sorts of Egyptians of various socioeconomic classes, regional origins, and religions, he attempts to illustrate how the country's dictatorial regime has forced and continues to force every slice of the society into corruption, stagnancy, decline and/or decadence.
When the book opens its milleau to us, it is assumed that this dictatorial/decadent/stagnancy state-of-beirng, and mind, has gone on for a long time, for as long as any one can relevantly remember.
Each character represents a different philosophical response to this state-of-stagnancy and an eventual attempt to deal with it. Either to overcome it through love and real interpersonal engagement, or to continue on the same road of decadence and stagnancy, which ultimately leads to the death of the character which is an allegory for Egypt and Egyptian society, honest hard work and dilligence which is thwarted by the corruption and class system of the regime leading that character to first an abstract idealism, and that idealism to his death, another character thinks he can outmanuever the true powers-that-be in the regime, only to discover that he is just as powerless and leverageless against the regime as any of the other less powerful, less influential, or less wealthy characters.
I liked this book but would have trouble understanding it if I had never been to Egypt and was not familiar with either Cairo, the history of Egypt and the evolving urban landscape of Cairo, and Egyptian society. Although the book has literary merit, its primary interest would either to Egyptians and other Arabs, who could "fill in the blanks" not discussed in the novel itself, or people interested in Egypt and its own cultural responses to its current condition. Also, the literary merit of the book is only relevant from the point of view of someone either part of or interested in Arab culture, Egyptian society, and the current state of things in the Arab world. That is why I gave it four starts.
 A Fantastic Book...and a word of caution. August 22, 2006
Bee (Costa Mesa, CA)
43 out of 44 found this review helpful
Bad news first:
I found this book a little difficult to get into for a couple of reasons. One, I am not at all familiar with landscape of Egypt. Second, although I am marrying an Egyptian, and have somewhat of a familiarity for Arabic names, it was still a bit confusing to keep track of each of the characters -- especially with most of them having a nickname or title attached to their name in various parts of the story. I found myself having to back track during the first 30 or so pages to keep each character straight, which was a bit frustrating for a seasoned reader with a supposedly high comprehension level. I know, I know: what should I expect from a book translated from Arabic, about Arabic people, and taking place in an Arabic world? Still, I thought that it merited a warning...
Good news:
This was still an absolutely gripping novel. For those like me who may struggle with the names or places and get a bit frustrated in the initial pages, the story is well worth it. I was soon immersed in the lives of the characters, and began to care for them as if I knew them personally. I was able to relate it to what I know of Egyptian culture, and it opened my eyes to aspects of the culture which I have not personally seen.
In the larger scope of things, it really makes you think about the political/religious/ethnic and just general social issues that surround us. It allows one to think outside of the box and experience a life or lives that you ordinarily would not be able to. Although very sad in parts, it also contained great happiness, and allows you to truly see a beautiful culture at its best, at its worst, at its most twisted, and at its most innocent. A very honest, and very enthusiastic 5 stars.
An absorbing and poetically-written book August 5, 2006
gensparkie (California)
32 out of 34 found this review helpful
This is one of those books that comes along once in a great while and has the power to take over one's life for the week or so it takes to read through the book completely. The characters are likeable and relatable, the plot both surprising and inevitable, and the writing is poetic and foreign in a beautiful and intriguing way. Recommended.
Good fictional overview of modern Egyptian life February 11, 2007
Linda Linguvic (New York City)
19 out of 19 found this review helpful
Published in Arabic in 2002 and recently translated into English, this Egyptian novel intrigued me at once. First of all, the unique point of view is decidedly Egyptian, and this afforded me a wonderful opportunity to expand my understanding. It's a mere 253 pages and it certainly gave me a glimpse into a group of individuals and their trials, turmoil and loves as they go about their daily life.
The book is well structured, too structured in fact, as it tells the story of several people who are each somehow changed by the end of the book. They all live in an apartment building in downtown Cairo, a Art Deco building whose glory days were fifty years ago. Here we meet a cross section of the residents. There's an aging gentleman who had many loves without once committing to a relationship, a young woman entering the real world of work, a devout young student who cannot resist the fundamentalism going on around him, a gay upscale newspaper editor in love with a soldier, a corrupt politician and his unfortunate second wife, and other various characters. Each of them has to deal with the constant escalating corruption and stratified class system. And each of them had hard choices to make. It all works out to show an interesting mosaic of Egyptian life.
But yet something was missing. I understand the author's intention. He tried to be all things to all people. He tried to give us a sample of a wide variety of people and points of view. As a kaleidoscope of modern Egypt, the book succeeds. But I yearned for a more in-depth central story which would make me feel more emotion.
This book is good and certainly worth exploring and I therefore recommend it for those interested in a fictional overview of Modern Egyptian life.
Cross-section of Egyptian Society November 6, 2005
Samia Serageldin (North Carolina)
14 out of 16 found this review helpful
The first thought that occurs to a reader of "The Yacoubian Building," particularly if the reader is Egyptian, is this: how did it get past the censors? The book is packed with unedifying sex scenes, but these are a red herring, since the real taboo it breaks is political. The reader finds herself fast-forwarding through page after page of detailed if joyless sexual liasons to zero in on the far more titillating- in the Egyptian context- passages of socio-political criticism.
The novel takes the Yacoubian Building in Cairo as a metaphor for Egyptian society, with the rich and powerful occupying the apartments that were once owned by Europeans and aristocrats, and the poor and disenfranchised eking out a hardscrabble existence in the servants' rooms on the roof.
The characters all represent recognizable types reduced to their essence. There is the kind, courtly, patriotic Zaki Bey- a relic of the ancien regime who could almost be a character out of "The Cairo House"- who is riddled with vices: drinking, womanizing, and spouting French at the drop of a hat. There is the fat cat nouveau riche: ruthless, corrupt and politically connected. There are hungry and ambitious young people, the doorman's son and the housecleaner's daughter, who live on the rooftop. The message is that in a corrupt, dead-end society, relationships are inexorably exploitative, and the young and poor have no recourse but to prostitute themselves- literally or metaphorically- to the powerful and rich.
The one pure, uncompromising character turns to Islamic fundamentalism and becomes a terrorist. His "mission" - to assassinate a chief of police- is depicted in black and white terms: he is sure that his target is the man who was in charge of torturing him in jail, and there are no innocent bystanders hurt in this street-side machine-gun execution. Both propositions stretch the limits of credibility. A reader would look in vain here for the moral complexities of Ariel Dorfman's "Death and the Maiden."
The Yacoubian Building is not a subtle work; but it is clever, powerful, and gripping.
|
|
|
|
| |
