The Beginning and the End [Paperback]

Naguib Mahfouz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 20, 1989

First published in 1956, this is a powerful portrayal of a middle-class Egyptian family confronted by material, moral, and spiritual problems during World War II.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With this realistic 1949 novel, previously published here in a limited edition, the Nobel laureate reveals to Western readers the woes of a petit bourgeois family thrust into poverty in WW II Cairo. The Kamels' private battles, relayed here in engrossing detail, are a microcosm of the Egyptian nation's birth pangs in gaining independence. When their father dies, age-old conventions crumble--one social-climbing son reneges on a betrothal; drugs and illicit sex numb the grief of two self-hating siblings. Redolent of a culture verging on modernity, the work illumines courting rituals, weddings, funerals, food, dress, interior decor and and entertainment. According to Mahfouz, the plight of Egyptian women in the 1940s was complex. The widow Samira is respected, wise and controlling; her daughter Nefisa's physical ugliness is a virtual death sentence, and her skill at needlework a source of embarrassment, not pride. Readers may appreciate this novel's authenticity and rare terrain but will surely be irked by overt politicizing, highly melodramatic prose and a lackluster translation.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Arabic --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Anchor; First Edition edition (September 20, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385264585
• ISBN-13: 978-0385264587
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #801,280 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Naguib Mahfouz was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. A student of philosophy and an avid reader, he has been influenced by many Western writers, including Flaubert, Balzac, Zola, Camus, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and, above all, Proust. He has more than thirty novels to his credit, ranging from his earliest historical romances to his most recent experimental novels. In 1988, Mr Mahfouz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He lives in the Cairo suburb of Agouza with his wife and two daughters.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining and Thought Provoking, May 7, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Pakistan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Beginning and the End (Paperback)

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.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting story of a family divided, June 9, 2003

By 

JLind555 - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Beginning and the End (Paperback)

"The Beginning and the End" is the story of the Kamel family in mid-1940's Egypt, left in poverty by the death of the father. Left to fend for themselves are the mother, Samira, her daughter Nefisa, and three sons, Hassan, Hussein and Hassanein. Hassan is a ne'er-do-well, a thug and drug dealer who lives on the margins of society. Hussein is a fundamentally decent individual, quiet, hardworking, caring and empathetic. We like him a lot better than his younger brother Hassanein, an arrogant, conceited go-getter and social climber who carves himself out a promising career in the military and doesn't care who he tramples on to reach his goals. The tragic figure in this family is the daughter Nefisa, cursed with a homely face that makes marriage an unlikely prospect, and doubly cursed with a rampant sexual appetite that has no sanctioned outlet whatever for an unmarried woman in a muslim society. Hassanein has no problem dumping his fiancee at the drop of a hat when he decides her family isn't of the class he aspires to belong to; he will disown his brother Hassan rather than be connected to petty criminal. But he's brought up short against his sister's descent into prostitution, and his solution shows him in all his appalling soullessness. "The Beginning and the End" shows us a family and a society torn apart by the conflict between tradition and modernity, especially in its depictions of a society in which women's lives are so circumscribed that they have nothing to look forward to except a marriage that may never materialize. Mahfouz is not a very profound writer, but his sympathy for his characters, including the most degraded, is evident; he empathizes, never moralizes, and shows us a convincing picture of a family in torment. I thought the translation was a good one; it's not stilted or overdone and it flows easily from one chapter to the next. Mahfouz has given us in this book an intriguing story of a family divided against itself.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the all-time greats..., December 18, 2003

By 

hawthorne wood "hawthorne wood" (santa fe, new mexico) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Beginning and the End (Paperback)

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.