The Dreams [Hardcover]

Naguib Mahfouz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 4, 2005 | ISBN-10: 977424866X | ISBN-13: 978-9774248665

In this new collection of his shortest short stories, the Egyptian Nobel laureate has reduced fictional form to its most essential level, while retaining his justifiably famous mastery of the storytelling art.

A man finds that all the streets in this neighborhood have turned into a circus - but his joy at the sight changes to anger when he sees he cannot escape it anywhere, even in his own home. A group of lifelong friends meet to trade jokes in a familiar alley - only to face a sudden, deadly flood that echoes the revenge taken by an ancient Egyptian queen upon the men who murdered her husband. A girl from the dreamer’s childhood flies with him from his native lane on a cart drawn by a winged horse, to become a star in the firmament above the Great Pyramid.

Such is the stuff of Naguib Mahfouz’s The Dreams - his first major work since a knife attack by a religious fanatic in 1994 left him unable to write for several years. First serialized in a Cairo magazine, The Dreams is a unique and haunting mixture of the deceptively quotidian, the seductively lyrical, and the savagely nightmarish - the richly condensed sum of more than nine decades of artistic genius and everyday experience.

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

In his first book since an assassin nearly killed him, a decade ago, the Nobel laureate and author of "The Cairo Trilogy" transcribes his dreams. Presented without interpretation, the hundred and four sketches are cryptic, haunting, and brief—none more than a few paragraphs, some only a few sentences. Frequently, the narrator begins in delight and wonder—a street is a circus; a beautiful lady stirs his heart—and ends in terror, doubt, and confusion. He seems to experience everyday life with the knowledge that something is amiss—sometimes, perhaps, everything—and that people are, at the core, an uneasy mixture of idealism and hate.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

Review

A literary artist who is using his fiction to speak directly and unequivocally to the condition of his country. -- Washington Post

Mahfouz is the greatest writer in the most widely understood languages in the world, a storyteller of the first order. -- Vanity Fair

Mahfouz’s work is freshly nuanced and hauntingly lyrical. -- Los Angeles Times

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 112 pages
• Publisher: American University in Cairo Press (January 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 977424866X
• ISBN-13: 978-9774248665
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,039,804 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Dreams of a literary giant!, August 1, 2009

By 

Rev4u "Rev" (PV, Ca United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Dreams (Paperback)

Egyptian Nobel Laureate Mahfouz, who was nearly assassinated in 1994 at the age of eighty-two, survived the attempt on his life and lived twelve more years, long enough to compose a book about his post-assassination dreams.

The late Mahfouz transcribed these dreams with captivating lyrics shrouded with mystery, and developed his actual reveries into short stories.

The book consists of a series of allegories connected to the attempt on his life, as well as previous experiences of people he knew, places he went, situations he faced, all laced with the ominous political atmosphere in which he lived in.

Unlike Freud, Mahfouz recited his dreams without interpretations, and left it up to the reader to construe the content and to decipher the enigma.

The two hundred and six scenes he dictated to his secretary are obscure, perplexing, and concise. He frequently began the vision with joy, nostalgia, and astonishment and ended in horror, uncertainty, and confusion. His dreams are a troubling mixture of the deceptively ordinary, and the frightfully eccentric constituting ten years of everyday experience.

You have to be a Mahfouz fan and an avid reader of his literature in order to appreciate this volume. Otherwise, you might find it boring and confusing. Overall, the book will present an interesting literary experience of a prolific author and a literary giant.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Fragments of thoughts, March 12, 2010

By 

Zeldie Stuart "in the know" (fort lee, nj USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Dreams (Paperback)

Not a story but pieces and fragments of dreams and thoughts. I found this book strange and not interesting enough for deep and long thinking; too much mind work for a book; I wouldnt mind if it were enjoyable in some sense but I did not find it so.