NAGUIB MAHFOUZ CREATES A MYTHIC

HISTORY
When the Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize in 1988, his work had
an audience of millions of readers, almost none of them in America. Since the prize,
however, Doubleday has published 16 of Mahfouz's books in English translation -- still
only a fraction of his output, since he has written nearly 50 books. The "Cairo Trilogy,"
the early novels that established Mahfouz's reputation, won loyal readers here and sold
more than 250,000 copies.
The trilogy was a meticulous depiction of a specific place and time; it was written on the
models of the major English, French and Russian novels of the 19th century. But it was in
no sense a derivative work; what was original about it was the myth, mystery and
immemorial history that informed the unfolding account of daily events.
In a way, "The Harafish," now translated for the first time, is a complement to the "Cairo
Trilogy," or the "Cairo Trilogy" turned inside out. It too is a novel about generations of a
family living in an alley in an unspecified city, presumably Cairo. But this time there is
none of the
machinery of literary realism; the story covers something like 800 years, but time does
not seem to pass as events mirror each other across the generations. The literary manner
is that of myth, fable, allegory or parable, yet the effect is of the most intense actuality
because Mahfouz's understanding of human psychology and history is so profound.
"Harafish" is the Arabic word for riffraff; for Mahfouz, it means the common people, or,
as his Scots translator, Catherine Cobham, puts it in a note, "those in menial jobs, casual
workers, and the unemployed and homeless." Ashur Abdullah, a foundling, comes from
the harafish; by physical prowess and strength of character he becomes the chief of the
clan, the leader of his people and a legend for generations to come, Ashur al-Nagi (Ashur
the Survivor).
"The Harafish," in 10 epic tales, traces the history of the al-Nagi famly through 10
generations -- one is tempted to say degenerations, because by degrees the family falls
away from its hereditary ideals, makes and squanders fortunes, acquires power, misuses it
and loses it. At the end there is a new Ashur al-Nagi, who restores his family's fortunes by
returning to its original ideals.
"Degenerations," however, may not be the right word, because it implies forms of
judgment, even condemnation, and while there are many forms of intolerance, injustice
and cruelty that Mahfouz condemns with hot anger, the overriding emotion in his work is
of sympathy for the way people are, support for their aspirations and wry resignation at
what usually happens when aspirations come into conflict with the way of the world.
There are memorable characters in "The Harafish." There is the madman
Galal, obsessed with immortality; he builds a strange minaret without a mosque and dies

of a poison administered by his former mistress, the prostitute Zaynat, the blonde.
Mahfouz has always excelled in his depiction of the strength of women; Zahira, an alNagi, uses her beauty and ambition to acquire power. "She was struck forcibly by the idea
that a woman's weakness is her
emotions; and that her relationships with men should be rational and calculated. Life is
precious, with vast possibilities, limitless horizons. Love is nothing more than a blind
beggar, creeping around the alleyways."
The incidents in "The Harafish" are colorful, dramatic and often violent -- there is
murder, suicide, deviant sexuality, domestic violence and every form of family support
and conflict; all of this of course is a kind of metaphor for government and the process,
not the progress, of history.
Incompetent jacket copy on the galley proofs compares all of this to soap opera, an
observation that has been picked up in some of the early reviews. But there is nothing
soap-operatic about the rich entertainment provided by ''The Harafish," because every
event has a context. Two buildings frame each tale, the mosque and the bar; each member
of the al-Nagi family comes by night to the square before the mosque to meditate and
hear the prayer-chants. Everything unfolds within an immemorial pattern of seasons, of
weather, of risings of the Nile, of years. One brother, confronted by another, says he will
listen to what he has to say "On condition that it has nothing to do with morals."
"Everything has to do with morals," the other brother replies.
In The Harafish Naguib Mahfouz returns to the style of sweeping narrative at which he has
proven himself a master. He chronicles the dramatic history of the Nagi family--a family that
descends, over many generations, from the heights of power and prestige to the depths of
decadence and decay. The epic story begins with the tale of Ashur al-Nagi, a man who grows
from humble roots to become a great leader and a legend among his people. The name of Ashur
epitomizes a time of glory for the harafish, or the common people, when they were led by one of
their own. Generation after generation, however, Ashur's descendants stray further from his
legendary example. They lose touch with their origins as they amass and then lose large
fortunes, marry prostitutes when they marry at all, and develop rivalries that end in death. Finally,
a Nagi appears who restores the family name to its former distinction.
The Harafish is a mythic tale, a compelling portrait of human weaknesses--pride, dishonesty,
lust, and greed--and of the greatness of which we are capable when we overcome them.