Palace of Desire by Naguib Mahfouz

Was I ever worried whether I’d be able to finish this before my trip to Holland… There was no need to worry, absolutely no need: It took me something like four days to read Palace of Desire, the second part in Naguib Mahfouz‘ Cairo Trilogy. I was drawn right back into the story.

***Spoiler warning*** There is no way I can review Palace of Desire without revealing some of the plot of the first book in the trilogy, Palace Walk. If you haven’t read that one, but are planning to, you are welcome to read on, but it is at your own risk. If you don’t want to get any spoilers, stop reading right here!

Palace of Desire starts about five years after the end of Palace Walk, in the early-mid 1920s. The head of the household Ahmad Abd al-Jawad has mellowed somewhat since the death of his middle son Fahmy. Despite his mellowing, the members of his family still hide a lot of their activities from father Ahmad. He is still unaware of a lot of what goes on in his extended family.

Ahmad’s wife Amina can now leave the house freely to visit her daughters or go to the shrine at the mosque nearby. Khadija and Aisha are now married and have children. They live with their families in the house of their mother-in-law, because their husbands are brothers. Aisha continues her lazy life, letting her mother-in-law take care of her, but Khadija tries very hard to cut out her own territory in her new home. This leads to repeated and at times amusing clashes with her mother-in-law.

Most of the story in Palace of Desire is taken up by Kamal, Yasin and to a slightly lesser extent father Ahmad.

Ahmad’s youngest son Kamal has grown up from the twelve-year old boy he was at the end of Palace Walk and is now about to graduate from highschool and continue his education at the Teacher’s Institute, against his father’s wishes. He is growing into a more intellectual person than his father and older
brother Yasin, enjoying studying, but also thinking hard about religion and the world around him. For a large part of the book, we follow Kamal as he is experiencing his first love. His best friend Husayn works as some sort of a catalyst in Kamal’s development, both because he is the brother of Kamal’s beloved and because his family is less traditional and much more Western-oriented than the family Kamal grew up in, confronting Kamal with a different and freer way of life. Kamal was my favorite character in this second part of the trilogy. I felt for him and rooted for him to find his way in life.

In the meantime Yasin hasn’t changed at all: he still goes out drinking and visiting prostitutes or having mistresses. He still confuses lust with love and this leads him to another failing marriage. Neither does he seem to care much about his son from his first marriage. Meanwhile, father Ahmad takes up whoring and snoring with his buddies again after a break of some years after Fahmy died. At the same time he is trying to get Yasin back on the right and respectable track. Hypocritical? Double standards? Yes, of course! Ahmad Abd al-Jawad is still living a life full of double standards.

This is as much of the plot as I can give you without giving away too much. As I described it, the story may not seem to amount to much, but Naguib Mahfouz is a gifted story-teller who will keep you turning the pages to find out what happens next to our heroes. His writing style (or maybe it is the English translation) seems somewhat formal, especially in the way people interact with each other, even family members. But this didn’t distract me at all, on the contrary it seems to fit in with the atmosphere, the distance between the different characters, the way they lead their lives. The writing style is part of what makes me enjoy the book so much.

I will definitely pick up the third book in the series, Sugar Street, as soon as I come back from Holland. I am way too curious to find out what happens to the Al-Jawad family and how this family saga will end, because Palace of Desire is still obviously the middle book in a trilogy, leaving stories unended and ending with a huge cliffhanger.

My review of Palace Walk is here.

Bad Luck and Trouble by Lee Child

To fill in the gap between finishing Palace of Desire (review forthcoming) and leaving for a two-week vacation in Holland on Sunday (for those who have been reading this blog longer: book-binging forthcoming) I wanted to read something fast and not too demanding that I could finish before leaving, so on Monday evening I picked up Lee Child’s Bad Luck and Trouble. Let’s just say I have plenty of time to finish another book before Sunday because I raced through Bad Luck…, finishing it Tuesday evening.

Bad Luck… is the eleventh book in the series with Jack Reacher as main character (see my review of the first in the series, Killing Floor here.). Reacher is a former military who now roams the US with only a bankcard, a passport (ID became necessary after 9/11) and a foldable toothbrush. No family, no home, not even a second pair of clothes besides the ones he’s wearing.

When a member of his old investigation unit from his army days is found dead in the desert, thrown out of a flying helicopter, Reacher’s old unit gets back together to find out who is behind this murder. Things turn even uglier when more members of the unit seem to have disappeared. The remaining members find themselves up against a conspiracy that could threaten the security of the country.

I enjoyed Bad Luck and Trouble a lot for what it is: a smart, fast-paced, well-written thriller. I liked the group interaction, the back-and-forth between the four team members, the fact that there was slightly more of Reacher’s past in there. But after reading two books in the series, the similarities are beginning to show: the attractive woman, the cop who isn’t who he seems to be, and there are a few more things which I won’t mention because of possible spoilers. The Jack Reacher series are books are excellent light reads, but I can only read far apart from each other otherwise they’d get too boring too soon. They’re not books you read for the writing, but for the action, the fast-paced storyline. Or, in Biblioaddict’s excellent description:

I think Lee Child tells a mean story. His Jack Reacher books are an adrenaline rush, always an intrigue, and a great source for pithy one-liners (I’d provide a quote, but I’m not near my library at the moment). For what he does, I think Lee Child is a great writer, but frankly when I pick up a Reacher novel that’s beside the point. I’m looking for some mystery, some action, and some good, old fashioned Reacher ass-kicking.

If this is what you’re looking for, then I highly recommend Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books.