Peep into "The Yacoubian Building"

I took up the challenge of reading 100 books in a year, and now, after 2.5 months, I have just managed to complete 1 book.  Isn't that pathetic?


Now this means, for me to achieve the target, I have to finish 99 books, which work out to 9 books in a month!  Greedy me! Shouldn't have gone for this challenge.  Time and S doesn’t allow me to pursue this.

Ok! let’s not waste time in ranting.  Over to the review!!

First published in 2004 in Arabic, The Yacoubian Building is the work of Egyptian author Alaa al Aswany, a dentist by profession.  

I chose this book when I was planning a trip to Cairo– thought a book like this will give me a great feel towards the city! But after seeing the riots, I quit my plan of going there – not for the next few years!! 

This book focuses mainly on the residents of the Yacoubian building, a once chic but now tumbledown edifice that acts as a metaphor for Cairo (even now this building exist!!). Author has poignantly laced down each character and their story along with the frustrations of their society at large. 

There is not just one protagonist in this book.  Every character he describes is a protagonist.

Zaki el Dessouki is one of the leading characters, an aging aristocrat, seducer, who spends his days in his office in the Yacoubian Building.  As he gets isolated from people around him, he finds his true love. He forms a surprising connection that offers a hopeful turn.

Yet other intriguing character is Taha, who wants to be a police officer, but his modest antecedents deprive him of a place in the academy. He was strongly in love with his childhood sweet heart Busayna.  Things take a great change during the Gulf war, and it completely changes life of Taha, after a whirlwind of emotional and physical abuse.

Busayna, a beautiful girl who gets trapped in unfortunate situations. As a sole bread winner of the family, Busayna takes up all the jobs and ends up becoming the victim of sexual exploitation.

Hatim, an editor of a French language daily newspaper, an open homosexual in the society.  And the way author had handled homosexuality in this book is truly a taboo-breaking kind in the contemporary Arab literature. 

The story is not about these 4 people, but it revolves around a few more powerful characters. The best thing about this book is the way the story was written.  

It's like a mosaic, moving smoothly one after another with multiple narratives tracing the ordinary lives of its protagonists,  each of whom is in a unique way a victim of their own circumstances.

It took me 4 weeks to read through the first 50 pages of this book and 2 days to finish the rest. So many layers and roles, intersecting rather than interwoven lives, restricted in scope but rich in detail.  

And the book does offers more than a glimpse of Egyptian society. In exploring how each character responds to the failures and frustrations imposed by external forces, Aswany touches on the finer aspects of truly empathizing with one another. 

There are some loose-ends in this book, a few characters were disappeared at the end, and there were no logical ending . The conclusion of the story was not entirely fulfilling, but fascinating, and definitely urges you to reach the end of the book!!  

Overall the complex narrative and view of the city of Cairo made this an engaging book!!

Rating: 3/5