Palace of Desire (Part two of The Cairo Trilogy) (Naguib Mahfouz, 1956)

(445 pages)

[The names of the three sections are names of streets in old Cairo where characters live and much of the action takes place.]

Part 2 of the trilogy starts with the family very sad because of Falmy.

Amina (mother) affected most; she is aging rapidly, still mostly confined to her house but at least can go to the cemetery and mosque pretty much when she wants.

Father is also aging and getting some health scares - had seemed indestructible but behaviors (resumed after a several-years break) take a toll.  Author explores how aging felt to the father, did a good job.

Some looks at the daughters (Khadija, Aisha) who married the brothers.

Yasin not very good at marriage, impulsive, somehow genuinely likeable throughout.

Yasin's tastes overlapping with his father's.  Which creates situations.

Much focus on Kamal (youngest son) - he's growing up, getting educated, falling in love, has a best friend who is brother of his love interest.  Best friend and his sister move out of Egypt, Kamal loses his previously strict faith as he progress in his studies.  The author does a good job exploring how these losses affect Kamal. Modernity invading traditional ways.

Kamal tries alcohol, runs into Yasin in a brothel.

The father has a major health scare toward the end of this work and vows to change his ways.

Aisha's family is stricken with typhus.

The revolutionary leader so admired by Falmy and Kamal passes away as the book ends.  Another loss.

The Bed of Procrustes - Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (Nassim Nicholas Taleb, 2016)

(156 pages)

The content is well-described by the title.

Third book of the five-book Incerto.

Many of the little sayings are valuable; they also tend to repeat or encapsulate the text from the first two books (probably the next two as well, I will be reading those in the not-too-distant future).

While reading, I was thinking that aphorisms overlap with poetry - dense, thus harder to read, thus better consumed in smaller doses.  Taleb himself mentions this comparison in what he called the "Postface" at the end of the book. 

Palace Walk (part one of The Cairo Trilogy) (Naguib Mahfouz, 1956)

(533 pages)

This is the story of a family residing in Cairo.  Story line begins around 1915 - in the midst of WWI.  Not a big direct effect on Cairo, but Australians are occupying certain sections, English are running things, and Egyptian nationalism is roused by the trends affecting so much of the world in those days (Wilsonian self-determination sentiments and the like).

The political stuff gets much less attention than the family.

This first book spends a lot of time introducing the family members.

Father - Sayyid - extremely strict at home (conservative Islam, nationalist politics), boisterous and charming when with his friends.  Highly respected by all family members, admittedly they don't know much about what he does when he goes out with his friends every single evening (wine, women, song). He is a jerk in many ways but strong person, completely loyal as he understands it.

Mother - Amina - dominated by Sayyid but a nice human being.  Not allowed to leave the house except on a supervised basis to visit her mother every now and again. Feel sorry for her.

Yasin - eldest son (different mother than Amina).  He repeats a lot of Sayyid's behaviors. Lacks self-control.

Khadija - eldest daughter - caustic.

Aisha - next daughter - less development of her character - beautiful, likes singing, dislikes conflict.

Falmy - middle son - diligent student, headed for law school, deeply involved in politics.

Kamal - youngest son.

A technique that I really like - the author can convey what it's like when a character in a stressful situation has all sorts of thoughts running through his or her head - fear, humor, non sequitur, absurdity, practicality, etc.  When Sayyid is going to help folks filling the ditch; when he is waiting outside Aisha's delivery room, when Yasin is visiting his mother, etc.

Falmy as the vehicle for discussing political events in Cairo at the time.

Onto part 2!

Cutting for Stone (Abraham Verghese, 2009)

658 pages.

A good story.  Long, but well constructed.  All the pieces fit, including application of medical specialty.

Ghosh as a perfect person. Also Sister Mary Praise. And Matron.

Hema (and others) bringing across many things we saw in India (rangoli, mask, food).

Genet kind of an annoying character; her mother not stable.

Some idea of what it might have felt like to move from India to Aden and then to Ethiopia.

Gave a reader like me some feel of the uncertainty in unstable government situations (I of course have not had to deal with this).  We grew up familiar with Selassie, Mengistu.  And heard of Eritrea. Author speaks to Italian influence here - more than I would have expected.

I found especially striking the part where Marion lands in NYC for the first time.  The sensations of a new world - one could kind of imagine how this might feel. This was a favorite section. (Reminded me, though in the smallest way possible, of returning to that same airport in June 1975 after three weeks in Europe, though my surprise was mostly seeing (being reminded of) the hugeness of American automobiles and the width of American roads.)

Roman Catholic nuns had so many highly valuable, unselfish roles for a few centuries there.  Kind of sorry that went out of fashion.

Matron's idea of "Nurse Sense" - that made sense to me.  Applies in other professions as well.

Company K (William March, 1933)

(260 pages)

Quick read.  Broken into very short chapters, each presented as a reminiscence of an individual (fictional) soldier. Based upon the author's WWI experiences.

Looking at the "Introduction" after reading the book (always read these after!), I learned that this was one of the first books to depict war experiences as awful and too often futile episodes from the perspective of the typically low-ranking soldier.  We've now used to that sort of presentation, but apparently Company K was groundbreaking at its time. The Red Badge of Courage as a sort of precursor from Civil War days.

It amounts to horror. I don't have reason to doubt that this was pretty much how it felt. 

Sometimes prisoners were shot. Officers made bad decisions, perhaps to preserve pride, that cost grunt lives. French villagers - sometimes sympathetic. Soldiers being supportive of, or cruel to, one another.  Encounters with Germans who could have been friends. On it goes.

The cumulative effect is powerful; it catches up with the reader.  In that way it reminded me of Kolyma Stories (highly recommended, by the way) - short snippets that just keep hitting the reader and building in effect.  Not gratuitously. Just trying to bring home what was happening for those of us who fortunately weren't there (and perhaps dilute the effect of all the pro-war propaganda stuff we are hit with). 

Something else I liked: a number of the stories are from the perspective of soldiers back home after the armistice.  The betrothed who no longer wants to marry the soldier drastically changed by his experiences.  The brother who gets all the attention after a slight wound just before the armistice (the brother who saw years of terrible action doesn't get home until a year later and by then the home front folks have moved on).

Recommended.  Gift from PJr/Nedda.

The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien, 1954-55)

(1,032 pages)

Second time I've read this. Beautiful hardbound 50th anniversary edition with maps, etc., gift from Paul Jr. and Nedda.

Such a pleasure even if quite familiar with the story. Tolkien skill well-known and for good reason.

I had forgotten much of the detail of the final chapter so particularly enjoyed rereading that section.

All the sequences are quite wonderful but I think I best like the Shire scenes that begin and end the work.  Tolkien has a great touch with those small-scale interactions.