The blend of East and West in Egypt
which also suggests a setting in 1944, because it names a historical character, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Nahas, who loses office that year.
Midaq Alley is a relic of a once glorious gem, located off historic Sanadiqiya Street in Cairo, surrounded by Ghouriya and Sagha. It is a dead-end, in isolation from the rest of the city, and most of the novel takes place there. The old folks are comfortable there, young Abbas loves living there, and his friend Hussain Kirsha hates it passionately. Both leave, with different emotions. Hamida takes daily walks outside and encounters young women working in factories and thinks of a different future. Eventually, she is transported by taxi to modern Sharif Pasha Street, home of the pimp Ibrahim Faraj, who introduces her to an opulent new world as a high-scale prostitute.
Language and Meaning Midaq Alley is narrated in the past tense in flowing idiomatic English. The original is, of course, in modern Egyptian Arabic. The Introduction by translator Trevor Le Gassick discusses the difficulties of rendering Arabic syntax and vocabulary into idiomatic English. He claims to have tried to make it sound as if Mahfouz’s native tongue was English and he had written in it. He has condensed, dropped, simplified, and defined in context various phrases, passages, names, doing so as little as possible. Le Gassick mentions but does not elaborate on the problem of presenting so complex a culture to another. Western readers may find it odd that God (only once transliterated as Allah) is present in virtually every line of dialog spoken by every character, from the most pious to the most debauched. This is typical of Arabic, and amounts emotionally to little more than the reflex of saying “Bless you” when someone sneezes. The blend of East and West in Egypt is shown as are the internal cultural changes as Egypt confronts the future. This is symbolized in the two streets: backward, impoverished, unwashed, dead- end Midaq Alley, where most of the novel is set, and modern Sharif Pasha Street, which by a taxi drive transports an ambitious girl like Hamida to a new, more prosperous life, if she is willing to prostitute herself. Between lie streets where the girls who work in the wartime factories walk, suggesting times can change less dramatically.
Structure Midaq Alley is told in thirty-five chapters in a smooth linear narrative. Many of the chapters are quite short and in the summary/analysis have been dealt with as larger units. The major actors are introduced and briefly characterized, then left to be fleshed out in the context of adventures and crises. The most serious is Kirsha, the café owner’s latest homosexual fling. His wife has had enough and is determined to reform him. She draws in the alley’s resident holy man, but to no avail. The spouses have several rows, which delight the alley gossips, and fight over their son Hussain’s acts of abandoning the paternal home and limping back when his plans fall short.
Barber Abbas Hilu and confectioner Uncle Kamil and are best friends and share a flat. Abbas falls in love with the beautiful Hamida, who wants the finer things in life. Abbas is
