This novel, written in 1942, details the lives of both rich and poor in pre-war Cairo. It follows the life of Khaled, son of a wealthy judge, educated in England, and returned to Egypt with enlightened views of the world. “On the one hand, he could change society, shape it according to his desires. This was, of course, impossible. On the other hand, he could change himself, shape himself to conform to what society desired. This was even more impossible, for he was young, living in a world of words and meaning.” His father, the Pasha, needless to say, held more conservative opinions on the need to reform Egyptian society. “A government of the people that you are talking about is the closest thing to bending over in front of an ass and asking it to ride you. Me, I like to ride my ass, not the reverse. You damned fool. I regret spending money on your education. It’s gone to something worse than wine or women.” The novel’s unacknowledged narrator cannot help but interject his two cents, “What a strange young man, this Khaled is! If we could open his head, we would see two compartments. In one, we would see the twentieth century lying squarely in the middle, with its machines and equations. In the other, there would be the eighteenth century, gallivanting along in a forest through which a stream ran.” A mysterious Bohemian psychoanalyst is given the last word on the spirit of the age, “We have no need for literature or art. We need labor. Bold, decisive labor. What good has it done the East, all this poetry that its poets have produced across the ages? None. None save the fact that the word ‘East’ has come to be synonymous with fairy tales and delusions. The poetry of the East is like an opiate imbibed by a lazy failure of a man. We recite poetry because we are incapable of work.”
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