Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian writer who was awarded the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature, wrote Palace Walk, the first of his Cairo Trilogy, in 1956 in Arabic. The novel covers the tumultous period between 1917 & the Egyptian Revolution of 1919...And I am reading this 498-page novel, translated by Hutchins & Kenny, at the fag end of 2007...I have just reached the 339th page...Yasin, the libertine, is disturbed by the morality that threatens to strangle his desires and wonders:
"For me, being a husband who is faithful to his marriage would be death. One sight, one sound, one taste incessantly repeated and repeated until there's no difference between motion and inertia. Sound and silence become twins...No, certainly not, that's not why I got married...If she's said to have a fair complexion, then does that mean I have no desire for a brown-skinned woman or a black? If she's said to be pleasingly plump, what consolation will I have for skinny women or huge ones? If she's refined, from a noble and distinguished family, should I neglect the good qualities of girls whose fathers push carts around in the streets?... Forward...forward..." :)
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