Reading Yacoubian Building

Alaa Aswany's novel The Yacoubian Building finally arrived, and I'm reading it with pleasure. The central Cairo setting, the huge cast of characters, the heady doses of sex and politics - anybody interested in the Arab world ought to read this book. Randa at Moorishgirl tips us to an article about Arabic novels in translation which mentions The Yacoubian Building.

Political folks will be interested in the description of local elections, full of vote buying and corruption. Aswany spares no one!

Warning: sexual matters are portrayed graphically. Aswany's view of homosexual relationships is sure to offend all kinds of people. He seems unable to resist some introductory editorializing, although his further descriptions seem taken from real life observation and reflect a true writer's eye for what happens among human beings. A sexual relationship that happens between a child and a man could get the book banned in lots of places. It's very matter of fact, and this reader doesn't find it prurient or despicable - just real. Lawrence Durrell touched on similar matters, and with less specificity or understanding.

There's also plenty of heterosexual sex to keep everybody entertained.

Look for the film now being shot in Arabic.

UPDATE upon finishing the novel. One of the multiple story lines follows a young student whose fond desire to become a policeman is thwarted. He enters college instead, suffers humiliations because of his poverty, falls in with Islamist radicals, is arrested by the police and brutalized profoundly. Matters go from bad to worse in his case, as they do with several other characters. Not only corruption but dictatorship are exposed as poisons that destroy lives and lead people to pervert their own values. I'm really surprised the novel was allowed to see print in Egypt - its picture of the country's political system is scathing. The sex is plentiful, ranges from tender to salacious to brutal; but the political condemnation is even more pointed. This novel is essential reading for a broad picture of Egyptian society today.

Comments

[firedoglake]

Thanks for the recommend, I'll try to pick it up. Any time I can enliven illuminating political reading with sex...well, what can I say. I'm essentially pretty shallow.

I like your blog a lot, you always cover things that nobody else does from a really interesting perspective, and I link to you on my blog. Just stopped by to say hello.

Jane