Un livre sur l’ambition et le désir de s’en sortir à tout prix. Faire fi des règles morales et sociales, se jouer de tout et de tous, et en être secrètement fier. Voici un livre qui met mal à l’aise en montrant l’impossibilité de conjuguer ascension sociale et honnêteté, opulence et moralité.
Même s’il n’est pas le meilleur livre de Naguib Mahfouz (je lui ai de loin préféré La Chanson des gueux), j’y ai retrouvé avec plaisir sa plume simple et factuelle, qui dit et décrit sans détour une société qui se cherche dans l’Egypte des années 30.

This book was interesting, but hard to read. The protagonist, a young college graduate, is difficult to appreciate, but you can't help feeling sorry for him as well. I did enjoy how even with my more than limited knowledge of Egypt, I was able to follow the story and imagine the setting. I didn't care for how the book start by telling the story of college friends, the focus moves to just one of the characters. ( )

A very good Egyian writer, the story is set in Cairo in the 1930s. It a Faustian story, a young University student, recently graducated full of amition is willing to sell his soul to acheive power and wealth. While there is no deal with the devil like in Faust, he makes a deal with the powerful, the devil, to marry a woman so this man of power can kept his relationship with her. It turns out the woman was once involved with a friend. The main character is willing to let any and all moral, ethical concerns to be forgetten to go after his needs. Of course the story ends badly for all concern. The writing is very good, the view of Cairo, the powerful society is interesting. ( )