The Beggar by Naguib Mahfouz

Reviewed by Rose City Reader.

Published in 1965, The Beggar is, on the surface at least, the story of Omar’s midlife crisis. While less overtly political than Naguib Mahfouz’s other works, this novella takes on the biggest “political” issue of all – the meaning of life. Omar’s tale is a metaphor for the “midlife crisis” of modern Egypt, 17 years after its 1952 revolution, as both Omar and the country search for meaning after achieving worldly success.

The story reunites three childhood friends all engaged in the same struggle to find the deeper purpose of their adult lives: Othman was a bomb-throwing rebel back in their earlier days. Now, out of prison after 20 years, he is trying to adjust to an Egypt that has adopted the socialist ideals he fought for in his youth. He fights to channel his revolutionary zeal in a post-revolutionary bureaucracy.

Mustafa was an idealistic playwright who sold out and is now the host of a popular radio program sponsored by a snack food company. He embodies the discord between artistic endeavors and modern commerce.

Omar had been an aspiring poet with stars in his eyes, before he became a lawyer and real estate developer. Now, in his 40s, he is bored with his matronly wife and completely indifferent to his law practice. He cannot even get worked up over the news that the government is going to nationalize the apartment buildings he owns.

In an effort to recover from this enervating “illness, ” Omar seeks stimulation in the usual combination or wine, women, and song. His reprehensible behavior – abandoning his pregnant wife for a series of trysts with showgirls – demonstrates how the pursuit of mindless, easy entertainment can lead to ruin.

The title comes from a passage in which Mustafa questions whether Omar’s crisis is caused by “suppressed art.” Omar supposes that art may be the solution, but not the cause. Then both wonder whether they would be better off, metaphysically, if they were scientifically inclined, rather than artistically, because science would offer answers that art cannot. Mustafa concludes that they cannot find the solution to Omar’s crisis, stating, “Since there is no revelation in our age, people like you can only go begging.”

The biggest problem is not the content, but the presentation. Mahfouz’s writing style is difficult to follow. He changes verb tenses at random, he uses dialog without identifying the speakers, and he changes the point of view over and over. Often Omar is referred to as “he” and “you” and “I” all in the same passage or even paragraph. It is hard to tell if these are intentional techniques or translation problems, but they are distracting.

These technical problems aside, The Beggar is full to the rim with metaphors and moral issues. It would be a good choice for a high school English class as there is plenty to chew on for such a short book.

Life and Times of Michael K by J.M. Coetzee

I just cross-posted my review of Life and Times of Michael K by Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee on Rose City Reader and The Complete Booker:



Despite the credentials, I did not like this book and I do not see the point of it. Near the end, the main character, Michael K, questions whether the moral of the story is that there is time for everything. But if that is the moral of this story, then it was not clear at all. Michael K has nothing but time, but he does not do anything. He seems incapable of doing anything. He cannot cope with living in any kind of society; nor does he succeed in living on his own in the wilderness.

Read literally, the book is horribly depressing, because Michael seems to be mentally ill or mentally deficient (because he cannot provide for himself and he has no will to survive), but no one is able to help him. Read symbolically, I just do not get it. If Michael is supposed to represent some greater meaning, as the doctor/narrator suggests in the second part of the book, what is that meaning? The book does not answer that question and I am at a loss to understand how Michael's numbing, endless suffering has meaning.

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

I've been reading several books by Nobel Prize winners lately. Siddhartha was one of them. I can't say that it did anything for me.

Siddhartha is the hero of this allegorical tale of an Indian man's development, from Brahmin student, to mystic, to successful business man and pleasure seeker, to wise ferryboat tender. Maybe back in 1922 when it was first published, or even in the 1960s and '70s when American hippies took it to heart, the examination of Indian mysticism and Buddhism would have been fascinating. But now, when Indian culture is more familiar, it just seems pretentious and overwrought.

Many people love it. It just is not my cup of tea.

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

The Sound and the Fury is much easier to understand if you realize that it cannot be understood from the get go, but only when it is complete. To borrow a line from The Big Chill, sometimes you have to let art flow over you.

The book is divided into four parts, the first three of which are told in first-person, stream of conscious narrative from the perspective of three Compson brothers: Benjy, Quentin, and Jason. Benjy’s section is particularly difficult to follow because he is mentally retarded and does not talk, but only narrates what he hears, in no particular chronological order. Quentin’s and Jason’s sections are progressively more comprehensible as pieces of the story develop. The final section is told by an omniscient third-person narrator, ties the loose ends together, and brings the story to its exciting close.

The first-person accounts are made even more confusing by the multiplicity of names. Because this is the story of a large Southern family, many family members share first names. There are two Moreys, although the younger of the two is renamed Benjamin, the first narrator. The two Jasons, father and son, can usually be told apart, but the two Quentins, uncle and niece, are particularly confusing when introduced in Benjy’s section because the absence of chronological consistency brings both Quentins into the story at the same time, although the niece was born after the uncle’s death.

Reading The Sound and the Fury is like watching a masterpiece being painted. Each brushstroke brings out more of the picture until the whole, beautiful composition is revealed.

Reading The Sound and the Fury is also particularly satisfying for compulsive "list" readers, since it shows up on so many "best of" lists, including the following:Books by Nobel Prize winners
The Modern Library's Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century
Radcliffe's competing list of Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century
Time Magazine's All-Time Best 100 Novels (1923 to the Present)
The Well-Stocked Bookcase (Book of the Month Club)
The Guardian's 100 Best Books of All Time
Dr. Peter Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

Beethoven Was One-Sixteenth Black by Nadine Gordimer

Beethoven Was One-Sixteenth Black, a collection of short stories by South African Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer, has its hits and misses. The misses include a story about a tapeworm from the tapeworm’s perspective; a reminiscence of a cockroach trapped in a typewriter that doesn’t rise above casual anecdote; and the self-indulgent “Dreaming of the Dead” in which Gordimer recounts a dream of having dinner with Susan Sontag and two other deceased friends.

The hits more than make up for weaknesses in the collection. Gordimer’s elegant writing raises ordinary events above the tawdry and mundane, pulling out bigger ideas and themes, including the theme of personal identity in a changing world. In the title story, for instance, the protagonist goes on a half-hearted search for black relatives possibly descended from his white, diamond prospecting great-grandfather. Gordimer subtly makes it clear that his search is driven by more than genealogical curiosity as he searches for a family that would unify his prior anti-apartheid political efforts and his personal history.

Likewise, in “A Beneficiary,” a young woman faced with the early death of her actress mother struggles to determine which is her real identity – daughter of the famous actor who sired her, or the loving businessman who raised her knowing she was the product of his wife’s brief, illicit affair.
Gordimer is at her best writing about marriage and its challenges. Adultery and sexual history are common elements. In “Alternative Endings,” for example, Gordimer examines adulterous affairs in three stories, using a different one of the five senses as the focus of each. Unfortunately, while one of the three involves hearing and another scent, it is entirely unclear which sense was featured in the third. More confusing, especially since this trilogy ends the book, is why Gordimer didn’t write five stories so as to feature each of the five senses.

Overall, this is a worthwhile collection of stories and a good introduction to Gordimer’s sophisticated writing.