Wedding Song, The [Hardcover]

Naguib Mahfouz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 20, 1989

Set against the backdrop of the the theater, this novel is a taut psychological drama on and off the stage.  First published in 1981, this brilliant novel focuses on how time transforms people and their emotions.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A new play is the talk of Cairo. Through the script, the author, a young unknown named Abbas Karam Younis, seems to implicate himself in the death of his ailing wife and the disclosure to the police of his mother, a prostitute, and his father, a gambler. Then Abbas mysteriously vanishes, leaving behind a suicide note but no corpse. Previously published here in a limited edition, this 1981 novel by the Egyptian Nobel laureate adopts the Faulkneresque device of employing a different character to narrate each chapter. All four accounts are marked by a deft blend of everyday details of Cairo life and compelling, stream-of-consciousness monologues. "Abbas could never betray his mother," she muses at one point. "He may have scorned everything else, but not my love. Love is stronger than evil itself." Throughout, Mahfouz probes the nature of art: what is real, what is fantasy. "A play is just a play. Nothing more," one character says. "Otherwise, the law would have the right to put ninety percent of our authors in the prisoner's dock." This transcendent book is evidence of how well Mahfouz's penetrating stories travel across cultural borders.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Arabic

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 174 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st Doubleday ed edition (September 20, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385264631
• ISBN-13: 978-0385264631
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,459,908 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

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Confusing Stream-of-Consciousness, June 23, 2003

By 

Imperial Topaz (Marrakesh, Morocco) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wedding Song (Paperback)

I have read several of Mahfouz's books, and in my opinion, this is NOT one of his best. I do not enjoy stream-of-consciousness writing. We read this book in our bookclub, and several of us found his writing style very confusing, necessitating continual re-reading to find out who is talking, and about whom, and to whom. Nevertheless, the book is full of psychological implications, as it is four character's viewpoints about the same people and incidents. This is Mahfouz at his worst, and most confusing. If you want to read Mahfouz at his BEST, read instead The Cairo Trilogy. The first book in that trilogy is one of the best books I have ever read, and that one is not written in the stream-of-consciousness style.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent!, June 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Wedding Song (Paperback)

One expects nothing less than brilliance from Mahfouz. And this novel of Middle Eastern values and traditions is another one of Mahfouz's masterpieces. There are great metaphors between the characters' lives on and off their theatrical stage. Definitely recommended!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gets progressively better, July 16, 2004

By 

jmz "jzarate12" (Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Wedding Song (Paperback)

While I agree with one reviewer's statement that Wedding Song by Naguib Mahfouz is confusing to read, I also think it's fair to say that as the four characters' stories are told, the story gets easier to follow. The most confusing by far is the first one, but ultimately that makes sense when you finish the book. The same story is told four times by four different characters with four different perspectives. The most confusing is from the character that's furthest removed from the truth of what happened. Then the father tells his story (who, by the way, is an opium addict -- that should explain something why it's confusing to follow him a bit), then the mother, and finally the son, who knows the full truth. The son's story is the most interesting because up until that point you'll only be reading perceptions.

I think Wedding Song is a nice experiment by a great author and shouldn't be over-looked. It may not be for everyone, but it's certainly worth the time. It's a quick read as well.