Karnak Café

Naghib Mahfouz's novella, Karnak Café, is gem-like in its density, clarity, and ability to transform the ordinary light of day into glittering reflections that startle and bewitch the observer/reader. Gems can be enhanced or obscured by their settings, knowing a bit about the setting from which Karnak Café emerges intensifies the luminosity of this short and potent book. Naghib Mahfouz, both loved and hated in the Arab world, is a Nobel Prize winning author with less recognition in the West than he deserves. A lifetime Egyptian patriot and political activist, he is also an accomplished student of human nature, and known for the psychological depth of his characters. A man of integrity and great personal courage (which has resulted in fatwas that put a death sentence on his head), he has very publically defended Salman Rushdie's right to publish, despite feeling that Rushdie is deeply disrespectful to the Islamic faith. Karnak's Café addresses torture, and it addresses the consequences of fanatical adherence to political and/or religious ideologies. Its simple story of friends meeting for years in a café plumbs the depths of the pernicious effects of torture, and takes a sidelong look at the nature of love. The café clientele, over the years, fall in and out of love, ponder Egyptian politics, and suffer the agony of Egypt's crushing defeat in the Six Day War of 1967. Central to the tale is the repeated disappearance of a group of three young patrons, who are subjected to government interrogation and torture. Told from the point of view of one of the café regulars, the story reaches a climax when the torturer himself becomes a café regular. To say much more would rob the reader of the richness of the tale, but one further comment is fair to make: Solzhenitsyn would have loved this book. Solzhenitsyn felt that the line between good and evil divides every human heart, a position that denies us the comfort of being able to clearly identify evil and subsequently compartmentalize it safely distant from our own souls. If there is a more honest or succinct examination of the shadows that race across the hearts of humans, and the eclipses that periodically darken our souls than Karnak Café, I can not recall it. The last gleam that this gem radiates is a brief, intense philosophical summation of all that can be learned from the collective experiences of the patrons, and the nation of Egypt. The words spill from the lips of a patron with unique power to speak them. Copyrighted in 1974, the words spoken in the closing paragraphs of Karnak Café remain resounding as the first decade of the 21st century draws to a close. Lastly, the concept of a group of intimate friends meeting on a daily basis in a café over a span of years....what price would many of us pay for such a pleasure!

This stunning novella is a marvelous treatise which moves beyond modern Egypt's political struggles into a morality tale in which the questions of loyalty vs. betrayal, love vs. fear, peace vs. war, among others, are addressed. Also examined is the concept of whether peace and patriotism enforced by torture is better than all-out war. The "family" of the Karnak Cafe is torn asunder when 3 of its young student customers are repeatedly kidnapped and held as political prisoners, returning each time changed irrevocably, their youthful idealism compromised by a harsh reality. They must betray their friends or suffer the consequences. They are each tested and no matter their actions, they hate themselves as a result. When their torturer comes to the cafe to confront his accusers, his thoughts reveal as much about the world in which they must all find a place as they do about his motives and actions. This is, on the surface, a simple story. But like all great stories, it has a depth that causes the reader to ponder the greater questions it raises. Thought-provoking and emotional. Excellent tale for our times.

(4.5 stars) In this powerful novella by Naguib Mafouz, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988, a narrator stops in at the Karnak Café, an off-the-beaten-path café in Cairo run by Qurunfula, a former belly dancer, who raised her craft to the level of true art. Recognizing her immediately, he stays, seduced by the atmosphere and by the charm of a small group of regulars--three old men, three young people, and the PR director of a company--who visit the café every day and create their own urban "family." Written in 1974 and newly translated by Roger Allen, the story takes place in the mid-1960s and focuses on the café regulars as they respond to key moments in contemporary Egyptian history. For the young people, "history began with the 1952 Revolution," in which the army, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, overthrew King Farouk, abolished the pro-British monarchy, and established a republic. The three young people and their fates become the focus of the narrator when the young people inexplicably disappear for several months, They return, changed, only to disappear again. While they are gone, Egypt is defeated in the Six Day War of 1967 with Israel. Mahfouz develops tremendous suspense about the outcomes of the regulars of the Karnak Café, at the same time that he creates an intense look at the pressures placed upon them as they try to do what they think is right. The "family" atmosphere, which is so dominant at the beginning of the story, slowly dissipates as speculation develops about the fates of the young people. Changing points of view keep the perspective on events constantly changing and the interest in the outcome high. The taboos of the society become obvious, and the young people's faith in the future of the revolution of 1952 is put to the test. Ultimately, they must consider whether "peace is more risky than war." Their individual lives cease to exist in the aftermath of their trauma, and their ability to trust is gone forever. Mafouz recreates in a mere one hundred pages an historical record of a country yearning to be free, at the same time that he depicts the movements against individual freedom which are also evolving. The young people he creates here are ordinary college students, though all of them have overcome far more than the average western college student will ever dream of. Though they insist that they still believe in the future of the revolution of 1952, their experience less than fifteen years later, shows them and the reader just how far they have left to go. Dynamic, powerful, and thought-provoking, this novella carries an impact--and modern relevance--that the reader will not soon forget. n Mary Whipple Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth A Novel The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street (Everyman's Library) Children of the Alley: A Novel Cairo Modern Arabian Nights and Days: A Novel Miramar

Karnak Cafe by Naquib Mahfouz is a hundred page socio-political thriller. Mahfouz's characters gather together in Karnak Cafe, run by a former belly dancer. The regular customers include old men like the narrator, who remember Egypt before 1952 revolution and remember the belly dancer in her prime. The regular customers also include three university students, who are rooted in the present, without a bittersweet nostalgia for past that old people carry within them. Together the cast converses about religion, love, politics and forms the family of Karnak Cafe. Then one day the students disappear, and when they return, their selves are transformed irreversibly. While the government throws them into prison again and again, their outside world is transformed by the 1967 war. Many years later, the narrator reconstructs the background stories of the three students, who loose their idealism, innocence and zest for life in face of harsh tortures inflicted on them. In a chilling climax, the torturer of these students joins the community of Karnak Cafe, and presents his own disillusionment with the system. The complexity of times is captured brilliantly in the narrative that follows the personal stories of the protagonists. By presenting social, political and economic tragedies through prism of personalities, Mahfouz creates a compelling and unforgettable novella. The nightmarish Karnak Cafe is a must read, contemporary novel which for me ranks along with Blindness by Saramago and Toni Morrison novels.