The Beginning and the End

I read this years ago, but it continues to haunt me. I went on to read his other popular family novels, and loved every single one of them, too. I find that I am always looking for books by him, about him, fiction and nonfiction. He has had a tremendous influence on my life and my own writing. He has motivated me to write stories that have what I would call metaphysical 'weight.' This novel is a great tragedy, and, yes, sad, but with his other books comes humor, too - a wry look at well-defined characters. The man is a metaphorical magician, I might add. Reading him is like riding the scales with a great opera star. Read everything by this stand-out writer. You can't go wrong.

This is a tale of a family, that sees troubles and disappointments from the beginning of the book. It is peopled with characters you have read about before, like the good for nothing brother, the sexually repressed daughter, the striving and ambitious son, the poor yet proud mother. Yet the story is woven in such a way as Mahfouz only can, so the tale, ordinary as it may seem about a poor family's never ending misfortunes and humiliations, continues to engage you from the first page to the last. If you haven't yet tried Mahfouz, you can start with this book. As a writer, he is a realist that ranks right up there with the best of them.

Each one of us is familar with the characters in this book. There is the woman who finds her self worth from sexual encounters with men; the youngest son who will do anything to get ahead and for his image including sacraficing his own family and happiness; the middle son who puts family in front of himself and his life; and the wreckless eldest son that wants to make the quick buck without having to work for it. While we all know people who share these value, we are quite fortunate that we don't live in Egypt at a time that religious and society's standards are too high for most of to live with. This book proves it. Very well written and hard to put down.

I enjoyed this book very much. I had read the Cairo Trilogy a short time before. As I started this book I wondered if I might not enjoy it because of having just read over 1000 pages of Mahfouz. I needn't have worried. B & E was a totally different story but in wonderfully similar setting and style. I kept thinking that it was almost a photographic negative of the Trilogy. I enjoyed it more having just read the 3 books, as I contrasted the family of Kamel Ali with the family of Abd al-Jawad. Good book.

Having seen the movie (yes there was an arabic movie based on this novel) and read the book, my convictions of Mahfouz as one of the 20th century great writers, has been doubly confirmed. I recommend this book to anyone who appreciates and understands human struggles.