The Wedding Song

By Naguib Mahfouz and Naguib Mahfuz

Book Overview

Set against the backdrop of the the theater, this novel is a taut psychological drama on and off the stage.??First published in 1981, this brilliant novel focuses on how time transforms people and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 038526464X
• ISBN13: 9780385264648
• Release Date: October 1989
• Publisher: Anchor Books
• Length: 174 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

The life of a playwright

The Foreword gives the background of the title--the processions, songs, and dances that made up the weddings of the khedives (former Egyptian rulers). So, the WEDDING SONGS must be the narrations of the chapters by Tariq Ramadan the Actor, Karam Younis the prompter, Halima al-Kabsh the mother, and Abbas Karam Younis, whose playscript and life are the narrators' subject. His physical absence is talked of by theatrical colleagues who wonder whether he will show up for the play's first performance. Abbas then narrates, filling in the past and revealing feelings about what has happened, so the reader thinks he has caught up with the Abbas's real life--what is going on with him and how passion and surprises separate practical life from creative imagination, the wellspring for writing. The reader might yet wonder whether Abbas is confusing his life with the characters' lives. After the play is a success, Abbas experiences ennui over the spiritual and material resources to start a second. The non-resolution hints at the philosophy of Lao-tzu's "Tao te Ching" when Abbas awakens to the spiritual joy of the unexplainable: "Let its strength remain unfathomably in its mystery! Lo, its life-giving force marches forward, bearing with it the fragrance of triumph!"

A Provacative Experimentation in Modernism

Even translated, Mahfouz's language in this book as well as his others is both beautiful and enchanting. He grips us with the consistency of his characters, if only in their inconsistency, and with the dramatic unfolding of an unfortunate moralist clinging to survival in his corrupt world. Abbas, the protagonist, is thrown from one extreme to another from the eyes of a blighted lover, to a opium-addicted father unable to decipher reality, and through his guilt-stricken mother trying to keep her family alive. In the end, we are left to decipher what is truth and whose reality it most resembles. In a world where love is hard to find, a love story, a wedding song, emerges. Its beauty is wrapped within the hatred and cruel words of Abbas's father--its "naked self...revealed without hypocrisy." This is a tale without devils or an angels, despite Halima's constant wisdom to her son. Mahfouz gives us a beautiful yet brutally honest view of the inner wokings of an Egyptian, or any, family, complete with misunderstanding, hatred, confliction, and love.

Gets progressively better

While I agree with one reviewer's statement that Wedding Song by Naguib Mahfouz is confusing to read, I also think it's fair to say that as the four characters' stories are told, the story gets easier to follow. The most confusing by far is the first one, but ultimately that makes sense when you finish the book. The same story is told four times by four different characters with four different perspectives. The most confusing is from the character that's furthest removed from the truth of what happened. Then the father tells his story (who, by the way, is an opium addict -- that should explain something why it's confusing to follow him a bit), then the mother, and finally the son, who knows the full truth. The son's story is the most interesting because up until that point you'll only be reading perceptions. I think Wedding Song is a nice experiment by a great author and shouldn't be over-looked. It may not be for everyone, but it's certainly worth the time. It's a quick read as well.

Magnificent!

One expects nothing less than brilliance from Mahfouz. And this novel of Middle Eastern values and traditions is another one of Mahfouz's masterpieces. There are great metaphors between the characters' lives on and off their theatrical stage. Definitely recommended!