The Yacoubian Building: A Novel

Written by Alaa Al Aswany

Narrated by Fajer Al-Kaisi

A fading aristocrat and self-proclaimed ""scientist of women."" A purring, voluptuous siren. A young shop-girl enduring the clammy touch of her boss and hating herself for accepting the modest banknotes he tucks into her pocket afterward. An earnest, devout young doorman, feeling the irresistible pull toward fundamentalism. A cynical, secretly gay newspaper editor, helplessly in love with a peasant security guard. A roof-squatting tailor, scheming to own property. A corrupt and corpulent politician, twisting the Koran to justify taking a mistress.

All live in the Yacoubian Building, a once-elegant temple of Art Deco splendor slowly decaying in the smog and hubbub of downtown Cairo, Egypt. In the course of this unforgettable novel, these disparate lives converge, careening inexorably toward an explosive conclusion. Tragicomic, passionate, shockingly frank in its sexuality, and brimming with an extraordinary, embracing human compassion, The Yacoubian Building is a literary achievement of the first order.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Jun 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9780062939142

Alaa Al Aswany

Alaa Al Aswany is the internationally bestselling author of The Yacoubian Building and Chicago. A journalist who writes a controversial opposition column, Al Aswany makes his living as a dentist in Cairo.

Reviews for The Yacoubian Building

[Елена Кононенко · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very lively account of peculiar angles of Cairo life and its characters

[Marcus Hewitt · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Interesting stories of a culture I’d like to understand better. But persistently depressing.

[nandakishore_varma-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Egypt is in the news today for all the wrong reasons. But when I witness the turmoil there, I perceive a silver lining: this is the birth pain of a true democracy.

I have had a lifelong love affair with Egypt, ever since I studied about pharaohs and the pyramids and hieroglyphics in middle school. I have seen the similarity with India, the paradox of being immensely rich culturally and dirt poor monetarily. Visiting the country had been my secret dream, which was realised three years ago.

I read this novel before visiting Egypt: and after my visit, I could only marvel at how Aswany has succeeded in bringing the multifaceted country under one roof, that of the Yacoubian building. Capturing the macrocosm in the microcosm, when done by gifted writers, produces wonders.

I am increasing my rating from 3 to 4 stars on second thoughts.

I pray the events in Egypt, for all the tragedy and angst, end on a positive note - like the novel.

[lauralkeet · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Zaki Bey is an aging, wealthy playboy living in Cairo, and just one of the many colorful and interesting characters who have some association with the building that gives the book its name. Some, like Zaki, have offices in the building. Others live in luxury apartments. And there is an entire community living on the roof, in low-rent apartments that once served as storage. This diversity makes for an interesting account of contemporary Egyptian culture. The strength of this book is its characterizations. Zaki Bey is flamboyant and wealthy, and goes through elaborate rituals to prepare himself to entertain women in his apartment / office. His servant, Abaskharon, lives on the roof with his brother. Also living on the roof are Busayna, a beautiful young woman, and Taha, a devout Muslim man in love with Busayna. Hagg Muhammad Azzam is a rather slimy businessman and politician who manipulates everyone around him for personal gain, and Hatim Rasheed is a gay newspaper editor struggling to find happiness. For the most part, the characters' lives are not linked in any way, but each person's story progresses a few pages at a time, sometimes stopping at logical points and at other times with a bit of a cliffhanger.The people portrayed in The Yacoubian Buildilng are all ordinary people, living ordinary lives within their social class, and striving for self-actualization. This is important reading for Americans, to counteract the media's typical portrayal of all middle eastern people as evil.

[thebookjunky · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

what a story! the plot lines of a soap opera, action, sex, violence, good pace, and all brushed with the exotic flavor of the different world of Egyptian life.

[kambrogi_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This story presents the daily lives of a group of Egyptians living or working in a high rise building in Cairo – either in its sumptuous apartments and offices, or in the poor shacks on top of the building. It paints a clear and accurate picture of what I know of contemporary Egyptian city life on different socio/economic levels. We get a peek into government, business, the police force, domestic workers, working people of many types, educational and religious institutions and the struggles of women in various walks of life. Its many and varied characters are sharply drawn and believable, and they evolve in not-always predictable ways. Most of the characters begin with dreams and hopes with which we can sympathize, but each is corrupted or disappointed, and Al Aswan lays the blame for his characters’ frustrations and failures clearly at the feet of a fraudulent government and a rickety social structure. People are not always what they seem; everybody has a back story, everybody has a dream, and people don’t always behave as you expect them to.

[oldbookswine · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Well written and true to life story of a building in downtowm Cairo. Many family stories intertwined. Movie made in 2003.

[presto_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Set in Cairo around the time of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, The Yacoubian Building covers the lives of the varied assortment of residents of the decaying Art Deco apartment block of the title. The residents range from the wealthy who live in the apartment building proper to the poor who inhabit the cabins on the roof. The wealthy include a self made business man who courts political success, a gay editor in chief of a French language newspaper passionately in love with a policeman, and an aging yet virile playboy. The residents on the roof include young devout Muslim who as a very able student who aspires to join the police, his attractive and initially naïve girlfriend who lives with her mother, and a shirt maker who eventually sets up business on the roof.One or another of this varied collection of humanity engage in or suffer deceit, corruption, illegal dealings, domestic strife, rejection, fundamentalism, torture, and sexual desire, harassment and fulfilment. For some the outcome is frustration or even tragedy, for others unexpected joy and satisfaction. Altogether this provides a very colourful picture of life in Egypt during a difficult period. An engaging read.

[justme869 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Detailing the difficulties of life in modern Egypt, this is the best selling novel in the Arabic language.

[laytonwoman3rd · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I could neither like nor care about any of the characters in this book. For me, that is a fatal flaw, preventing me from engaging with the story, and more importantly, preventing me from seeing any of the characters as representative of a given segment of Egyptian society. The author gave us all these people corrupted by power, or greed, or fanaticism, or lust--but he never showed us a worthy alternative. Everyone seemed to give in to "the way it is" without a struggle, and became victims of the toxic society almost willingly. It makes me wonder about the author's purpose in writing the novel (which, after all, must have been something of a risk for him). If he hasn't any hope of improvement, why write? And if he DOES have hope for the future, why don't we see any of it reflected in his work? If the author's intention was to convey that living in Egypt is a matter of survival, no matter what your social status, and that there is no real opportunity for fulfillment or happiness under current conditions, he succeeded, but not in a particularly artful way, in my opinion. Part of the reason I wanted to read this book was to get a "feel" for another culture. But when I was finished, I didn't even have the impression that the characters themselves had a feel for their culture. Perhaps that was part of the author's intent, and of course, a book shouldn't be judged by the reader's pre-conceived notions. I wish just one of the characters could have been admirable, or even likable despite his/her faults. As it was, I was happy to be quit of the lot of 'em. (Review written in 2007.)

[mojacobs · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very interesting contemporary Egyptian novel about the lives of the inhabitants of one of Cairo's old appartement buildings. Aswany paints some lovely characters - and some disgusting ones. A very readable book, but also very informative and rather disturbing. It treats blatant corruption, injustice, hypocrisy, and fundamentalism without any reservations, and in a very matter of fact way. The style reminded me of Mahfouz a lot. I think it very encouraging that this book has won the Best Arabic Book of the Year award: our media would have us believe this kind of writing to be impossible in a Muslim country. ”

[smiler69 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Absolutely loved this book with it's cast of characters all centred around the Yacoubian Building, once a distinguished address and since housing a vast array of less fortunate inhabitants. Having read the Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz a couple of years ago enabled me to fully appreciate this book with a better understanding of Egyptian politics, ethics, mores, religion and history from the beginning of the 20th century onward. The Yacoubian Building, beautifully written and completely engrossing, tells the story of Cairo faced with tremendous changes from the breakdown of family traditions to the pull of fundamentalism through these various characters, all of which are broken down in their own ways. Arabic drama at it's finest, told with a fine balance of sensitivity and dispassionate observation.

[tldegray-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found it interesting that a real Yacoubian Building exists, exactly where it’s located in the novel, though looking not much like its fictionalized version. The real-made-unreal building foreshadows and reflects the real-made-unreal inhabitants and the Cairo in which they live. The difference between the real and unreal Yacoubian Buildings is cosmetic and that suggests that the story itself, though not identical to Cairo is certainly stretched over the bones of the Cairo that exists in our world.

The story begins and ends with Zaki Bey el Dessouki. His father had been one of the richest men in the country before the revolution and it was expected that Zaki Bey would continue on his family’s path. After the revolution, much of his family’s money lost, his engineering career failed, he turned his engineering office in the Yacoubian Building into a more all-purpose “office,” which seems to serve as a place where he goes to drink, eat, meet friends, and conduct his many affairs with women. He’s a charming wastrel, the kind of man who offers advice to any who asks, and who lets no opportunity for seduction pass him by. On the surface he’s symbolic of pre-revolution Cairo and he embodies the decadence others see in that time.

Under the surface he is arguably one of the kindest characters in the novel, and the one who manages to come through nearly unscathed, despite the attempts of others to harm him in one way or another. He is the one who understands that people are not who they seem to be on the surface; as he tells his friend Christine, “You think that the good people should be smiling and jolly and the bad ones have ugly faces with thick, matted eyebrows. Life’s a lot more complicated than that.” (109) At the end of the novel, Zaki Bey, the consummate womanizer, the decadent symbol of a past most other characters would like to bury forever, marries Busayna el Sayed, one of the two clearest representatives of the new-Cairo.

Busayna, and her boyfriend at the beginning of the novel, Taha el Shazli, both live in the shacks on the roof of the Yacoubian Building. The shacks were originally built as storage spaces for each apartment in the building, then became rooms for the servants of tenants to live in (still belonging to the apartments), but now are homes and eventually shops. The rooftop shacks are part of the building by virtue of location but are separate in class and status. In this same way, Busayna and Taha are also separated from the tenants of the building because of their class and status.

We’re first introduced to Busayna through a man—her then-boyfriend Taha—and through most of the novel we see her through the distorted lens of the men with whom she interacts. Before the events in the novel we’re told that Busayna dreamed of a life married to Taha, living in a roomy apartment far away from the Yacoubian Building. After her father died Busayna, after achieving her college degree, had to work to help support her family, taking and leaving many jobs over a year’s time. “How can I look after myself when faced with a boss who opens his fly?” (42) she asked her mother, referring to the rampant sexual harassment she experienced. On the advice of her friend who reminded Busayna that her education was nearly meaningless in an economy as bad as theirs she decided to use her sexual power—the only power available to her in this society—to make her and her family’s lives easier.

It’s Busayna who tells us why she—and presumably the real people serving as the bones upon which this novel is hung—hate Egypt. “You don’t understand because you’re well-off” (138) she tells Zaki Bey, talking about the poverty, corruption, and despair she and others like her experience. He can’t quite understand her hatred because “in [his] day love for one’s country was like a religion” (200). He makes it seem good, as though it is right to love your country that way, but it is impossible to forget that he and Busayna live in two different Cairos, two different Egypts, he in one of masculinity, and wealth and privilege, she in one of femininity, and poverty and injustice.

Taha el Shazli inhabits the same world as Busayna and, like her, dreams of escaping it, though not by leaving Egypt entirely as Busayna wants and is eventually promised by Zaki Bey, but by leaving his class and becoming a governmental police officer. He can’t beat them so he wants to join them. It’s his class, specifically his father the doorman, that prevents him from achieving this dream. He’s angered and devastated by this, wondering why he tried so hard when there was no way he could ever qualify. Taha leaves the Yacoubian Building and goes to college, joining up with a group of other religious young men, a group who is later revealed to be a radical Islamist group.

Because of his involvement with this group Taha is arrested by the very police he had wanted to join. He is tortured by them, beaten and sexually abused, forced to respond to a woman’s name. Taha becomes feminized in this way, treated as less than human in ways Busayna might have understood, had he felt able to tell her. Like Busayna, Taha was shamed and angered by this use and abuse, but unlike her he saw it not as a power to be exploited and turned back around on his abusers but as a reason to kill and die. He joins a militant group, trains to commit terrorist acts/be a martyr, and under the guise of his devout belief in Islam his desire for revenge is always lurking.

At the end of the novel, it’s Taha’s death that seems filled with more joy than Busayna’s marriage. Taha is fully present in his death, hearing bells and melodies, feeling welcomed “into a new world” (243). Busayna, on the other hand, disappears into Zaki Bey’s gaze, becoming the “wondrous, pure, newborn creature” (246) he sees her as. We don’t know how she sees herself or if this is her happy ending because she is nothing more than window dressing in Zaki Bey’s fantasy wedding.

Ultimately there was no happiness for Busayna and Taha, those representatives of new, post-revolution Cairo. They didn’t achieve their original desire—that of being happily married to each other and going far away from the Yacoubian Building—nor did they achieve anything we (the readers) might call happiness. Zaki Bey, however, triumphed over all obstacles and ended the novel in a state of true happiness. If there is no happiness to be found in or for new-Cairo, then where and how can it be found? Zaki Bey has the answer:

“The reason the country’s gone downhill is the absence of democracy. If there were a real democratic system, Egypt would be a great power. Egypt’s curse is dictatorship and dictatorship inevitably leads to poverty, corruption, and failure in all fields.” (200)

[jadebeecroft · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Reading the cast of characters listed at the front of this book I was initially crestfallen. How on earth was I going to remember all those details for all those people? Especially with such foreign-sounding names that I couldn’t commit easily to memory.I needed have worried. Despite the fast pace and short snappy nature of this book, with each mini chapter jumping to a different scene with a different character much like a soap opera, one of its strengths for me was how vivid the personalities were and how easy it was to follow the web of stories that were woven around them.Another thing that I really liked about this book was there were no “good guys” and “bad guys”, and in this way I found it very true to life. In so many books you are presented with flat, uninspiring characters that are clearly intended to be either loved or hated by the reader. But in The Yacoubian Building every one of the main characters was flawed, and yet at the same time I found that they were each likable in their own way.This was a romping read, fascinating from the first chapter and brutally honest in its portrayal of sex, religion, relationships, politics and cruelty. A ‘warts and all’ look at human nature that as well as being an insight into Egyptian life was surely relevant to every culture. I would recommend it to anyone.Finally, I found the references to scent intriguing. The smell of death, the scent of an old man, the perfume of a woman preparing for the arrival of her lover. An interesting thread that ran through the book and helped give the narrative an evocative extra layer.Great stuff!

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Reading literature about a particular city gives you insight into the mores and character of that community. This is true of Alaa Al Aswany's novel from 2002, The Yacoubian Building (Imarat Ya'qubyan). I found the novel both well written and structured. Using the title building as his center Aswany portrays a diverse group of contemporary Cairenes to demonstrate the experience of living in the world of Egypt today. The author presents the issues of political corruption, class conflict and the "science" of love in a believable narrative; however, I found his portrayal of homosexuality less effective: sensitive at times but ultimately concluding with a stereotypically brutal end for the spurned lover. The difficulties of living in this society are highlighted as the novel moves smoothly from episode to episode building toward a climax that, while somewhat melodramatic, brings the story to an effective conclusion. Overall the complex narrative and view of the city of Cairo made this an engaging and satisfying read.

[debnance_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I’ve been reading on this book for months and months. Did I drag the read out too long? Is that why the book did not captivate me as I’d anticipated? The book follows the lives of several people who all have in common one thing: they all live in the same building in Cairo. Though the story intertwines a bit of politics of the time, the book never felt distinctively Egyptian; the lives of the people could just as easily have been the lives of people in New York City or London. Maybe that is why the book disappointed me.

[charlotten_23 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very well translated - the English flowed as though that was the original language and didn't sound like a forced vernacular. I sometimes got a little confused with the sheer number of characters, and had to occasionally keep flicking back just to check what a character had been doing the last time we encountered him/her, so as to keep the lines of narrative clear in my head. I also sometimes found the politics and social commentary a little bleak - the poor were almost always kept at the mercy of the rich, and the weak at the powerful. The poor characters were never (except perhaps one or two towards the end) allowed a just victory over their suppressors, only a violent or dishonest victory, or else a defeat. I think that this was the social situation that the author was highlighting, and as such has drawn a successful portrait. Whether or not it is realistic, I do not personally know, having no great knowledge of modern Egypt; however, reading the novel as a grim satire of the author's homeland, I did get pulled into the narrative and associate with the characters.

[p_linehan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Most Americans don’t know much about life in Arab countries today. All we see in the news are the screaming crowds of angry fundamentalist Muslims. As the Yacoubian Building reveals in this thoroughly modern story, they lead lives as complicated as any of ours. They dream, love, suffer betrayal, and endure a corrupt government and leadership class. For me the corruption and how it destroys the lives of Egyptians is the main theme of the book. One of the saddest characters is the young man, Taha, whose dreams of entering the police academy are destroyed because of his poor background. The story shows how the best of Egypt’s youth are being led to fundamentalism and terror. The Muslim power structure doesn’t come off well in this book. The author must be an exceptionally brave man, since not many people like being told the truth about themselves. Almost no one has a happy ending in this story. The story does end on a happy note as two of the most unlikely people find love and marriage, and the Yacoubian building, itself a character in the story, continues to shelter its inhabitants.

[jackdeighton · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Yacoubian Building was first published in 2002 but has probably lost none of its relevance even given recent events in Egypt. The book is about the inhabitants of said building in Cairo and their various (mis)fortunes. Whether all Egyptian life is there I’m not in a position to judge; there certainly is a wide cross-section of society within its pages, though. The characters are memorable enough; some verge, as in magic realism, on larger than life, but their motivations are always clear. The viewpoint characters engage sympathy and are used to point each other up effectively.In part the book deals with the daily grind of living under a dictatorship and the petty corruptions involved in survival but also slyly illustrates how those abused by power can be used by unscrupulous religious manipulators to further their own ends.The wider culture Aswany portrays may not be as saturated with sex as in the West - though there is a mention of semi-naked girls on television adverts - but everyday life as depicted here most certainly is. Then again, love, sex and death are the novelistic big themes, possibly the more so in a society where lack of sexual expression is expected. Or, given that it was also a salient feature of The Unbearable Lightness Of Being, does sex become more important when it perhaps represents the only means of personal expression in repressive societies? The translation is effective (if into American English) and mostly flows easily - the book is very straightforward to read yet doesn’t lack complexity - but had a couple of infelicities. A footballer does not “shoot” the ball to another player and the ugly word “governorate” is employed to describe what appears to be an administrative district. (Governorate has a Wikipedia entry but “does not exist” in either dictionary.com or thesaurus.com.) The term bailiwick might have been better but is perhaps too old English. Would district or jurisdiction not have been clear enough?To sum up, The Yacoubian Building is a very readable and interesting illustration of the differences and similarities between cultures and of what it means to be human.

[elizabethbraun_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Yacoubian Building written by Alaa AL Aswany is the story of the residents of a 'faded glory' building in downtown Cairo. Living in the main building itself, there is Zaki Bey el Dessouki, an aging playboy, who's main concern is his next female conquest and his one legged servant Abaskharon. Then there's Hatim Rasheed, the editor in chief of a french newspaper in Cairo and an eccentric homosexual. Finally there's Hagg Muhammad Azzam, a corrupt, drug dealing, businessman who wants to enter politics and is willing to bribe his way in. On the roof living in tiny rooms is another level of society. Taha el Shazli is a dedicated student making good grades but is rejected by the Police Academy because his father is a doorman. Busayna is a graduate of the Commercial College and is overwhelmed by the overt sexual harassment in the workplace. Malak is a shirtmaker by trade and relentless is his pursuit of property on the roof. Finally, there is Abd Rabbuh, the lover of Hatim.The characters are all extremely flawed, which makes them believable. Even so, the author sucks the reader into their stories. There are twists and turns that reflect the current politics and ideals in Cairo. It is an interesting book and worth reading, but don't look for too many happy endings.

[pummzie · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A quick read but frustratingly unsatisfying. I think I had a problem with the bitty style. The novel weaves in and out of a a host of lives tenuously linked by occupancy in the Yacoubian building. Via these various characters, we're given a picture of the disparate characters that inhabit the city, from the aging playboys, the reluctant terrorist, the corrupt politicians, the social-climbers, the destitute, the homosexual, the young women who shed their romantic ideals for gritty realism of the monetary value of acquiescence....While each of these characters are interestingly drawn, I felt that ultimately, if the cast had been less numerate, i may have learnt more from each of them. The conglomerate made the novel feel episodic and short storyesque. I think, at base, my main issue is - and this could be as a result of reading in translation - that I didn't find it particularly well written. At base, despite the seriousness of some of the subject matter, it read like a trashy read. One of those books where I think I would probably prefer the film, and that's really not something that I say very often.

[tracyfox_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Yacoubian Building is a melange of stories revolving around a commercial building in Cairo. I selected the book just to read something contemporary translated from Arabic. For me, this ended up being the most enjoyable aspect of the read overall. I liked getting a feel for how Egyptians use names -- from formal full names to first names to endearments. I liked going to a map and puzzling out the geographies of the various Cairo neighborhoods and surrounding communities. I liked the way the Koran was quoted, giving me a sense of how it might be interjected into everyday life.The cast of characters seemed to run the gamut of Egyptian stereotypes … from the aging debonair playboy and his sister the shrew-like crone to the poor student-turned-fundamentalist and his too-practical less-conservative girlfriend. Thrown in were a few scheming servants, greedy businessmen, corrupt politicians and semi-closeted homosexuals. The predictable dramas ensued as the characters scratched out a living, confronted bigotries of various kinds, and searched for love. The novel was fast-paced, laying out the circumstances for a particular character, and then moving to another. To me this organization made it easy to stay interested in the various people moving in and out of the Yacoubian building even if they were a bit two-dimensional. This book may not be what people typically think of as an "African" read, but it is nonetheless an enjoyable introduction (albeit with a very Western-leaning worldview) to a vibrant African culture.

[tinwara · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Perhaps a little disrespectful, but this novel made me think of a soap opera. It has a soaplike structure: quite a handful of characters, that are loosely connected to each other, and short chapters/scenes that focus alternately one of these characters. As in a soap, the characters go about their daily lives, but in the course of the story they are confronted with trouble, serious trouble. It's a human approach, that makes it possible for readers from all over the world to identify with these characters, even if the troubles are rather typically Egyptian troubles.The binding factor in the novel is the Yacoubian building, a once stylish, but now rather decayed building in the centre of Cairo. All of the characters either live or work in this building. Otherwise, their stories couldn't differ more. There is the serious student becoming a religious fundamentalist, the girl trying to survive in a sexist world, the old womanizer, the homosexual, the wannabe politician paying his bribes. Through these stories al Aswaani touches on the questionable sides of Egyptian society: corruption, unqualified politicians, torture, sexism, double standard of morals, the rise of fundamentalism, inequality and abuse of power.I don't think it was intended to be a literary novel. The characters remain somewhat superficial, and the language is functional, not poetic, at least not in the translation. For these reasons I wouldn't give the book a top rating. However, I would still recommend this book to my friends, because it was an interesting and pleasant read, giving insight in Egyptian society.

[dmarsh451 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Al Aswany uses a building as the organizing principle of this well populated book. Each character inhabits a different part of the building and lives a different thread of the story. The pacing takes some delightful cues from that of Egyptian soap operas with a small cliffhanger at the end of each part. This does not become disjointed because the stories are woven from good strong skeins, twisty and brightly dyed. Some get snapped.Like all the best Egyptian stories, this one ends with a wedding, which in Egypt end with dancing; that unbelievable dancing that subdues sorrow until joy comes in the morning.

[kerns222 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Many lives, one building.
A moral tale, but not sure what the moral is though. Shifting from one life to another. Some tales meld, some fizzle, some sizzle. Egyptians go at it: rich poor gay straight scheming naive religiouszealots moneyzealots somewhatgoodguys sleazeos. The style is not 4-star, but the lives and settings are 4-star interesting (though the action is predictably formulaic). Can't have it all in every book.

[teunduynstee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Was recommended to me by several people when I travelled in Egypt. And rightly so: this is a magistral novel. It combines many narratives sketching the complex social structure of Africa's largest city. I really liked my stay in Cairo, dusty and noisy as it may be, and this book made me understand the city at a deeper level (or so I think).Escaped from the Egyptian censor, this book deserves to be read by the world.

[litfan_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

With characters from various backgrounds peppering the novel, this was a great "slice of life" of modern Egypt. It was fascinating to see the characters, linked by this one place, how they interconnected and how culture and religion impacted their lives. The reader is instantly transported into another world in reading the novel, and it is truly a memorable journey.

[pokarekareana · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Hmm, well, where to begin? At least I made it to the end of this one, but I didn't particularly enjoy it. None of the characters were particularly likable; almost all of them are motivated wholly by sex (especially the women) money or religious fundamentalism. By the end of the book, I found I just didn't care what they did, or what happened to them. Two of the male characters were engaged in a homosexual relationship which didn't work out well; without spoiling the plot, I felt this was quite a negative depiction and wonder why Al Aswany chose to do this when it might have been more powerful to just leave it as it was earlier in the book.The premise of the book - to describe the interlinked lives of people living and working in a particular building - was a really great idea but I don't think it was executed very well. It took a long time for the story to get going, the characters' lives remained quite insular, and when I turned the page and discovered it was the end of the book, it all felt very anti-climatic and as if the story had just fizzled out to nothing.

[jimelkins · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This would be just another well written kaleidoscope of life in an unfamiliar place (“Cairo in a microcosm,” as Maria Golia says on the back cover -- quoted from the TLS) except that al Aswany has a characteristic of a genuinely good novelist: real, unexpected psychological insight.I hope his next novel to be translated ("Chicago") spends more time on individual characters instead of flitting from one to the next (this novel sometimes seems right in is frantic pacing and fuilletons, but other times it seems that the author becomes nervous when he spends too long on one character); and I hope it gives up politics, which is inadequately represented; and I hope it doesn't try to describe the place (the social-mapping impulse is never enough, unless the author is truly encyclopedic--and why do that, after Perec?); and I hope it lingers, as he doesn't allow himself to do here, on the strange perceptions and slowly developing inner thoughts of its characters. If I were his teacher, I would recommend a novel with just one or two characters.

[fieldnotes_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Al Aswany prefaces his novel by explaining that it is a novel about place, about the Yacoubian Building and what it reveals about Cairo over time. I am pleased to report that this claim is misleading: "The Yacoubian Building" may contain brief forays into the past and various asides about certain establishments and customs; but it is primarily concerned with the nuances of infatuation, courtship and transactional sex in age disparate Cairo relationships.Three affluent and independent men (all at least fifty years old and all, conveniently, apartment holders in the Yacoubian Buildnig) create drama by exercising their power to initiate relationships with much younger Egyptians, whether male or female. The novel is pleasantly villain-free; though there are plenty of misled, meddling and ill-intentioned characters."The Yacoubian Building" is interspersed with Al Aswany's contribution to the "What makes them do it?" sub-genre of humanizing jihadists. This sub-plot, while slightly predictable and a little grim, is balanced, detailed and not particularly manipulative. The only other young man in the novel (who doesn't want to shoot the infidels) is a poor Nubian with wife and child who serves to illustrate the vaguely tragic plight of sensitive and cultured Cairo homosexuals. Al Aswany deals with gayness in Egypt in an unabashed and almost affectionate way, going out of his way to explain how the larger community adapts to the presence of homosexuals in their midst.The whole composition works quiet well and is propelled by a series of creative and comical power grabs and sexual stratagems set against the struggle between secularists and fundamentalists, wealthy power holders and aspirants. Al Aswany's careful attention to the psychology of his characters sustains the novel and prevents it from becoming an overblown parade of stereotypes. His ability to slow down and pinpoint, often with a pleasantly dark humor, the precise motivations and tactics of his characters is what elevates this from story-telling to literature.For instance, "Right now, in bed with Hagg Azzam, she is playing out a scene--that of the woman who, taken unawares by her husband's virility, surrenders to him so that he may do with her body whatever his extraordinary strength may demand, her eyes closed, panting, and sighing--while in reality she feels nothing except rubbing, just the rubbing of two naked bodies, cold and annoying."And, "There lay between the two old people all the irritability, impatience and obstinance that go with old age, plus that certain tension that develops when two individuals live in too close a proximity to one another--from using the bathroom for a long time when the other wants it, from one seeing the sullen face the other wears when he wakes from sleeping, from one wanting silence while the other insists on talking, from the mere presence of another person who never leaves you day and night, who stares at you, who interrupts you, who picks on everything you say, and the grating of whose molars when he chews sets you on edge and the ringing noise of whose spoon striking the dishes disturbs your quiet every time he sits down to eat with you."I find it easier to be patient with an author who is constantly introducing new characters if he will at least take the time to put them forward in such a clear light. I will read Al Aswany's subsequent novel. (And this is definitely one of the two best Arabic language novels that I have ever read.)