Up in Smoke

Adrift on the Nile
Naguib Mahfouz; © 1994
Fiction; 174pgs

This book is from the Nobel Prize winning author, Naguib Mahfouz. I have long desired to read his lauded Cairo Trilogy, but could only find the third installment at Half-Price Books. I figured this book would at the least be a adequate introduction to his award-winning prose.

Not entirely certain what to expect, I was delighted with the book. It is a quick read, both for its length and for the ease with which one can read the delicately structured sentences of the author. The plot revolves around a group of somewhat disenchanted middle-aged Egyptians inclined both towards the arts and the water pipe. Each is successful in their own path, but this success is marred by the overriding suspicions they hold for the absurdity of life. Nightly, they meet the protagonist ("the master of ceremonies") on his houseboat to partake in the illicit kif.

Much of the novel revolves solely around these nightly meetings, replete with conversations, hallucinations, and love triangles. Their mildly peaceable existence is thrown in disarray with an insertion of a new member who rebels against their absurdist leanings and argues for seriousness in life. Though both the absurd and the serious are buoys buffering the despair of life, they are diametrically opposed. It is these insoluble differences that drive the story forward and forever alter the makeup of these morally adrift citizens of Cairo.

CONSIDER IT.