A review by lori85
Miramar by Naguib Mahfouz

4.0

Miramar is essentially a soap opera, as the publisher's copy promises. Yet I hate to describe it as such because it's really not trashy at all. Told from four separate perspectives (Hosny, Mansour, Sarhan, and Amer), it is instead a slice of life in a breezy city by the Mediterranean in the aftermath of great social upheaval. While the old folks seek company and security at the end of their lives, the young people (all under thirty) rush from here to there with seemingly no purpose. Amer can only recall the conviction of his youth while his successor, Mansour, falls just as hard and quickly as Sarhan the ostensible socialist. Hosny, alas, is the one left standing and he is by far the least sympathetic. A free-spending, speed-driving aristocrat with a penchant for prostitutes, Hosny is apparently the only one able to adapt to the new climate, thanks to his interest in purchasing a business from an owner nervous about the government's property seizures. The only characters with any real principles are Amer and Zora. Elderly Amer, however, is largely irrelevant, while Zora is strictly pragmatic (she wants to learn to read and find better work) and also powerless due to her gender, illiteracy, and lack of family ties.

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