“Sugar Street” by Nagub Mahfouz (translated by William Maynard Hutchins, Olive E. Kenny, Lorne M. Kenny, & Angele Botros Samaan)

This final novel of Mahfouz’s trilogy finds the Jawad household having aged and grown through marriages and births. Al-Sayyid Ahmad’s grandchildren are by now already attending college and, through ill health, he has had to reform his debauched ways. “Every time he had exceeded the limits, he had paid the price. He had finally been forced to give in, eating or drinking only what he was supposed to and coming home by nine. His heart had not given up hope that, by whatever means, he would regain his health and enjoy a pleasant, quiet existence, even though his past life had disappeared forever.” His youngest son, Kamal, has settled into a lowly existence, as a humble grade school teacher, who moonlights writing philosophic scribblings in an unread magazine. “The happiest part of his day was the period he devoted to philosophy. Lasting until midnight, it was the time—as he put it—when he felt like a human being. The rest of his day spent as a teacher in al-Silahdar School or in satisfying various needs of daily life was the stamping ground of the animal concealed in him. The creature’s goals were limited to self-preservation and the gratification of desires.”

Meanwhile, Al-Sayyid Ahmad’s son-in-law, the layabout of independent means, Ibrahim Shawkat, bemoans how best to raise his two rebellious sons, Abd al-Muni’m, a member of the Muslim Brethren, and Ahmad, a budding Communist, “We rear our children, guide them, and advise them, but each child finds his way to a library, which is a world totally independent of us. There total strangers compete with us. So what can we do?” Soon enough, Ahmad, himself, is forced to reflect on the subversive paths he and his brother have taken in life. “Ahmad asked himself why the three older men had been arrested. Had the charges been theft, fighting, drunkenness, or rowdy behavior? Clad in his overcoat, he had often written about “the people” in his beautiful study. Here they were—cursing or snoring in their sleep. For a few seconds by the light of the torch he had seen their wretched sullen faces, including that of the man who was scratching his head and his armpits. At this very moment his lice might be advancing resolutely toward Ahmad and his brother…. “You are devoting your life to people like this,” he told himself…. Ahmad advised himself, “Without regard to the differences of taste between us, our common human condition has united us in this dark and humid place: the Muslim Brother, the Communist, the drunkard, and the thief. Despite dissimilarities in our luck and success at looking after ourselves, we are all human beings.””