Customer Reviews

Children of the Alley: A Novel

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No one should buy this translation without first checking out the original version made in 1962 with the help of the author and in print since 1981. An updated version of this was published in 1997 as Children of Gebelaawi. The reason why there are two published versions is that after the threats to Mahfuz's life made in 1989 in the wake of the Rushdie affair, because of this novel, the translator (and author of this review), P J Stewart refused to sell his copyright to Doubleday for a world-wide relaunch, considering it more prudent to continue quietly publishing with the original American publisher, now renamed Passeggiata Press. The unsuccessful attempt on Mahfuz made in October 1994 confirmed the wisdom of this decision. The American University of Cairo Press, which owns the world rights, then commissioned Peter Theroux to make a new translation. However, Passeggiata continued to have the US paperback rights, which had been granted to it in 1981 (and in apparent violation of which Doubleday has published its paperback in the USA). As the translator of Children of Gebelaawi, I cannot decently comment on the quality of Theroux' version. Some people may like his use of English, which does not appeal to me. I have found various gross errors of translation of the Arabic, but no doubt a careful study of my version would find similar mistakes; neither of us is a native Arabic speaker. However, it does worry me that in some places he has made a mistake that was in my 1981 edition and which I have since corrected; at least one of these is such an improbable 'howler' that I cannot believe he did not use my translation. Theroux' version lacks an introduction, and I consider this a grave lacuna. The history of the book is deeply interesting in itself and needs to be told. The novel also needs some explaining: why did Mahfuz, the deep psychological observer, write a book so apparently lacking in subtlety; and what is the secret message of the book? All this is tackled in the extensive introduction to Children of Gebelaawi. One more point: Theroux, like all other translators, uses the Arabic text published, without the author's participation, in Beirut in 1967. It is full of typos, but also - mysteriously - it includes words and whole sentences missing from the original Egyptian serialization, suggesting that the publisher had access to the missing manuscript. Children of Gebelaawi is the only version in any language to be based on both the source texts.

"Children of the Alley" (AKA "Children of Gabalawi") is both a realistic and an allegorical novel that consists of two stories simultaneously. On the year the book began to be published as a serial in Al-Ahram, it was banned for ten years, after which it was published for the first time in book format in Beirut. The story, as I mentioned, has two faces. The first is that of an enormous family and its descendants. And the second is the religious history of mankind, with the prophets, the legends, and in the end, the scientific revolution. The background is the "Gabalawi Alley", which has a unique role, just like the "Midaq Alley", or the alley in "The Harafish". I can say without a doubt that Mahfouz is "Proust of the Arabs".

Not sure if I read the politically correct translation but I was impressed by this book. The story is very strikingly told as a simple and hauntingly familiar fable. Historical references are fused with a miasma of religious inferences that manage to seem both biblical, Pharoanic, historical and modern at the same time. We are smitten with the book's stark similarities to Old Testament religious texts. One is then reminded of the vast amount of fabled material each of today's religions has pilfered from the papyri of the Pharaohs.

A good read in English, but it is a book you can put down and pick up without chagrin.

I am sad to hear of the death of the Author and wish him a good rest in the Heaven of his choice.

Through a succession of generations and characters Mafouz makes a strong case for humanity's penchant for forgetting the lessons learned by historical perspective.

In the beginning, an eldest son is cast from his father's house, and loses his inheritance, which goes to a son by a different mother. Like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, this next inheriting son is tempted, and also falls prey to his human failings. The two cast-out sons establish residence in the alley outside the opulent security of their father's house. They spend their lives waiting to be forgiven, for their "ancestor" (father) to call them and their families back into the fold. In this way, the sons and the son's sons live the life of the alley, a microcosm of the misery of mankind, where the strong feed on the weak and violence dominates.

The story becomes an allegory for all of mankind seeking salvation and forgiveness, a return to the source from which we came. Some of the descendants claim to have visions of their "ancestor" (God), changing their lives completely, spreading a doctrine of love and renewal; as well, each generation in the alley produces a "prophet". Life becomes so desperate that the people willingly change their ways and temporary peace settles on the alley. In each case, over time, all is forgotten and the people fall into despair again. And so the cycle repeats. The reader is left to look inward at his own role, his own small history, whether to choose the light or the darkness.

I would like to thank fellow reviewer Bruce Kendall for bringing this book to my attention.

Naguib Mahfouz is one of the most important of the modern Egyptian writers and this is a good place to start with his 20 or so current novels still in print.

This is not a novel, but a series of five similar stories about life in a small area known as the alley. Each story involves the same members of a related group of people but each story is set generations apart in time.

All the stories or the five sections of the book involve a conflict between the manager and his enforcer of a central and walled off estate and the rest of the members of the alley society who live outside the walls. It is a struggle for equality and human dignity by the peole in the alley versus the manager of the estate and his enforcers who want to control the wealth. It is a struggle between economic dominance and poverty.

Each story involves a central male protagonist who struggles to find equality and justice in his own way starting with Adham, and then followed by Gabal, Rifaa, Qassem, and Arafa. Each protagonist - in his own time or era - follows his own aggressive or passive style to try and reach his objectives. After the first section on Adham, each main character feels an attachment back to Adham and his successors, and that attachment plays a role in the subsequent stories

The story or fable is a brilliant work of literature. It is well written, entertaining, and it is an excellent read.

On the surface Children of the Alley appears strange and of dubious intent. Five stories are set in the same place but at different times. Each generation reveres the wonderful deeds of their ancestors, celebrating them with art, poetry, and song. Meanwhile back in the present, people repeat the struggle for justice as if the earlier stories had never occurred. The struggle for justice plays out in the shadow of Gabalawi's mansion. Why is Gabalawi silent while his people suffer? Why do the Children of the alley achieve liberation, only to be discovered back in squalor at the beginning of the next story? What is history?

Mahfouz writes in the style of his other tales of Cairo, a familiar landscape for those who read and love his novels. Each story echoes themes from famous stories from the Bible or the life of Mohammad. The author is saying something about religion as well as history, but what? Take Gabal, for example, a character who appears to be modeled on Moses. Gabal's solution to the problem of the gangsters is to lure them to run into a pit, and then to pelt water and stones down from the windows of the alley to smite them. It is not exactly the Red Sea, but we recognize the essential technique of drowning the creeps. Other recognizable figures - Adam, Jesus, and Mohammad - are given similar through-the-glass-darkly treatment, or so it seems. We are left to speculate who the fifth protagonist in the novel may represent.

This novel is a fun read, and it is even more fun to read in a reading group, while doing enough background reading to compare the protagonists with their models. Lively discussion is sure to ensue, and we ask people to check their knives at the door, just in case it gets too lively.

This is a great novel by a great novelist, a rare case where the Nobel prize should feel honored to have his name associated with it, rather than the other way around.

This novel about a community in some desert village is written with the simplicity of language that one associates with old myths, and underlying the story are indeed echoes, sometimes close and sometimes rather distorted, of ancient myths. God is allegorized as Gabalawi, the remote and mostly unseen owner of the estate of which the Children of the Alley are supposed to be his heirs. The central character in each of the five stories is up against the selfish and oppressive overseers who dominate the estate and its inhabitants with the help of their retinue of gangsters. The first of the stories evokes that of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden and the story of Cain and Abel; the second that of Moses and Pharaoh; the third that of Jesus; the fourth that of Muhammad.

Then there is a fifth story, in which the central figure, a `magician', is presumably a scientist. He tries to discover the secret of Gabalawi He fails to find it, but in the process he is instrumental in the death of Gabalawi `who had been easier to kill than to see'. It makes no difference: the scientist, who has invented a weapon of great destructive power, is forced to put it at the service of the new overseer, and the Children of the Alley remain as oppressed as ever, though they remain hopeful that one day `magic' will put an end to their suffering.

Subtle the book is not, either in content or in style; and in my view is far too long and far too repetitive. The overseers and the gangsters in each generation have different names, but as individuals they are indistinguishable one from another. A large number of the characters are perpetually angry or violent. They mostly `shout', `scream', `shriek', `yell', `cry' or `sneer', which becomes rather tiresome.

The literary quality of this novel is, I think, greatly inferior to Mahfouz's rightly famous Cairo Trilogy which has contributed to his having become the only Arab to have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. But it is a courageous book for an Egyptian to have written: it has been banned in Egypt; its allegories enraged the Islamicists and led to an attempt on the author's life.

In 1993 Mahfouz was stabbed by a fundementalist for writing this book. If you read it you will see that it sets everyone under one spiritual saga. By everyone I mean all of the middle-eastren religons. Nonetheless it can be read as a novel about a family's journey throughout time starting with one family and stemming out into many conflicting families. It really makes you think of Adam as everyone's base root, the grandfather that humanity shares, weither you believe in that or not is not the point, because wherever we came from we all came from the same place. But Mahfouz goes deeper into why families split up, where does one family breake off into many families, and why. Don't try to take this into mind though, and don't go into it looking for arguments, if you find yourself doing that just put it down untill you've fallen in love with one from the enemy, whoever you are. This was a story not so much about love, but in its service.

Having wanted to read a novel by Mr.Mahfouz for years,I was lucky to have selected Children of the Alley to commence my love affair with his stories.You can smell this novelist's passion for the streets of Cairo from half the world away.His stories somehow come to life despite the translational barrier,I found myself following each unforgettable character,feeling their agony,their success,their humiliation and their shame. The provocative predictibilty of this novel is what makes it a remarkable read,how can he easily and every so simply identify these worldly controversial issues and put them into such a flawless context? The book is a challenging gift for the minds. Five starts to Mr.Mafouz,a gifted novelist,a passionate egyptian and shamlessly honest with his words.

Children of the Alley (-- or Children of Gabalawi in the Arabic version, which is more fitting because Gabalawi represents God in the novel and everyone is descended from Him, not the alley). All of Mahfouz's early writing is incredibly romantic yet serious and engaging at the same time. This book is among the best, and probably a must read for the following: religious fundamentalists of any sort, people curious about fundamentalists, people with any religious prejudice, people with no religion at all. In short, this is a seriously challenging work that will likely be moving to anyone that reads it.