The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“It may happen that you will hate a thing which is better for you.”
The Yacoubian Building is about a residential building in Cairo and the people connected with it. We rotate through different stories focused on one or more of these characters and sometimes they interweave with other storylines. There is a list of main characters in the front of the book, which I found myself utilizing quite a bit. It is told from the 3rd person perspective, and we get to know all that is going on internally and externally. It takes place around the 1990s and there is a lot going on. In this book you will find religion, sex, greed, family, homosexuality, and many other divergent topics. It encompasses a wide array of things and gives us a glimpse into what life might have looked like. It is a real time piece.
Alaa Al Aswany is the author of this novel and he is quite the writer. His detailed descriptions really allow you to paint a vivid image in your head. He has some real talent with this. And it doesn’t go on for days either like Hemingway. Everything he puts down on paper has relevance and allows the reader to get to know the characters in depth. It shows the environment they are living in and their history and motives and why they are the way they are. He can create an amazing sense of place and mood. There is a lot of sex in this book and a lot of describing people in sexual terms. The way the bodies are detailed, the words people use, or the actual sex scenes are numerous. I liked the words he chose to use too. There were just enough words that I had to look up and ones that I loved pronouncing out loud like, abrogate and disputatiousness. I enjoyed how they sounded on my tongue and learning new words. It was sad what people had to go through and how they treated each other. People suffered…”This country doesn’t belong to us, Taha. It belongs to the people who have money.” Unfortunately, this is still true in a lot of ways and places. It really touches on corruption within people and institutions and society. It really showed the worst of people. This had a direct impact on my views of characters. At one point I would be on their side and then later I would totally despise them. One thing I didn’t enjoy was trying to keep track of everyone and where we were in their stories. I had to rely on the list of characters at the front to remember who was who and what was previously revealed about them. This book also talked a lot about religion and it got to be too much for me. I cannot relate at all and I just did not get it. I enjoyed this novel and I think others will as well. It is very well written and it is truly thoughtful. This is exactly the type of book that I would love to look back on for inspiration on writing descriptions.
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Tag: Egypt
Interesting Boredom And Destroying The Written Word
The Vanished Library. A Wonder of the Ancient World by Luciano Canfora
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Vanished Library is about ancient libraries, specifically the one located in the famous city of Alexandria as well as one located in the tomb of Ramses II. It also talks about a contemporary, antagonistic library in Pergamum several times. There were many historical figures mentioned including Alexander the Great, Aristotle, and many of the members of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Tons of old writings were also referenced.
This book was not what I thought it was going to be. It touched on many other things and I thought the focus would be on the Library of Alexandria. Luciano Canfora brought in a bunch of additional information that seemed to have a peripheral association with the library. From what I notice, the first use of the phrase “library of Alexandria” was on page 74. The threads of connection were weak in my mind and I was hoping for a deeper focus on the actual place. Instead, we were exposed to other works that mention the library to try to deduce what happened to it. This is a deeply scholarly work. It read like a textbook and it was extremely dense. There were tons of names, places, and events that were divulged. As a result of this I, as a person who likes to google everything that interests me, spent a lot of time getting additional information on a lot of pieces. As a person who loves antiquity and history in general, there were moments of shock and dismay. It is still uncertain what actually happened to the library, but there is a legend that Caliph Omar ordered the destruction of its contents. In this book, there was a supposed letter that stated “proceed, then, and destroy them.” I was just apoplectic at the mention of the destruction of any written word, let alone any historical artifact. I get sad and it just hurts to imagine all that has been lost to history. I recently just finished the show Rome, years after starting, and I love how I could make connections between that and what I just read. There was mention of Caesar, Antony, and Cleopatra as well as battles that I could relate to the show. This is what intrigued me about the book, the history and how things correlate with each other. I ended up learning a ton, more than I ever thought I could ever want. I just wish it was presented in a more cohesive and direct manner.
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