Customer Reviews

Fountain and Tomb: Hakayat Haretna (Three Continents Press)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I was a freshman at the University of Richmond, Naguib Mahfouz's Fountain and Tomb was one of the books all first year English classes were required to read. I must confess, as a typical student, I had little desire to read the aforementioned text; however, from the moment I read the first paragraph, I was hooked. Rarely have I ever discovered such pure joy in prose. Each word, each sentence created so detailed a picture of a world which delighted me and, by the conclusion of the piece, I longed for more. Mahfouz has painted with words a beautiful, mystical portrait in the Fountain and Tomb and I highly recomend this book to anyone who has even the slightest passing interest in Egypt.

Somehow my previous review of this book has been dropped. This was my introduction to Mahfouz; I understand why he is a Nobel Prize winner. The books uses a number of short vignettes to describe the neighbor over the lifetime of the narrator. Through these vignettes one sees the changing world of the neighbor - from governed by a thug-king to something resembling faith in Egytian government passing through the overthrow of the British rule. The changing world is also reflected in schooling, in women working, in the partial overthrow of superstition, etc. Each vignette is so perfect and the total effect of them makes this a book you should not miss.

The entire freshman class at a Richmond Governor's school was required to read this book. Don't get me wrong, it is a WONDERFUL book with all of its vignettes and how they all paint a picture of an alley being like a family. It is just so confusing in some points. Some stories are pointless and don't add to the overall story. You never find out the narrator's name. Sometimes the narrator is telling the stories as a child, or as an adult look back on childhood, and it jumps around these two views quite often. Other than the slight confusing, this book is a great quick read and can be interpreted in quite a few different ways. I reccommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading at all.

The author, Nobel Prize winner for literature (1988) creates a child's-eye view of a slice of Egypt between a bustling Cairo alley of the 1920's, with its workers, gangsters, drunks and lonely children, and the quiet, beautiful but withdrawn world of a Sufi takiya and poses the question: Can beauty thrive in this alley?

Teachers/Librarians: here is a work by Naguib Fahfouz that is accessible to our high school students and just the right length for both teacher and students! 9th grade to adult - Social Studies / Language Arts

I thought that this book was a realy slow pase. I liked how they tied the beginning to the end and how everyone thought he was crazy. It is sad about the death that goes on durring the storie. The one thing that bugged me about this book was that you never finf out the boys name who is the one telling about the book. It is hard to write about someone when you don't know his name. oh well, it was an ok book, my class thought that it was slow too.