Palace of Desire

Thus, she stood in the mashrabiya for successive nights, watching the road from behind the curtain. She saw an unchanging road, and change crept toward her without hesitation. The waiter’s voice rose in the café, echoing into the silent room like an echo. She smiled as she glanced at Sayyid.
Thus, Naguib Mahfouz proceeds in the second part of his trilogy, “Palace of Desire,” as life proceeds, colored by time and political, social, and economic developments. Changes traced in Naguib Mahfouz’s narrative, which the reader follows with eagerness and passion. He observes the course of events with Yassin, who married and then divorced his wife; Sayyid, who was immersed in the problems of his children; and Amina, who, no matter how times change, remains a devoted mother to her family and her husband, aware of his adventures but oblivious to them; and Khadija and Aisha, and marriages and children… and Kamal, and success after success; and a disturbing patriotism that plunges its owner into the furnace of demonstrations, protests, and political activities hostile to the British…
Pages from History Naguib Mahfouz captures it, coloring it with the color of reality, blending it with the liveliness of the event and the creativity of the novel’s imagination, distinguished by spontaneity and naturalness, which casts a wonderful shadow over “Palace of Desire.”