Rating: 
Summary: Midaq Alley, a must read.
Review: As a Senior in High School I have read my fair share of novels. The beginning of the novel was a little confusing, but after the first few chapters it became a captivating book based on many people's lives in an alley in Cairo. I have never before read a novel that was written like this one was. It jumps from story to story of the diffent characters, where at first they seem to have nothing to do with any other, but when you reach the end you understand how the stories intertwine. Once I started reading this book, I couldn't put it down. I was fascinated by the streets of Cairo from Mahfouz's writing style and descriptions. It makes me want to read more of Mahfouz's works. Also I want to learn more about Cairo's "alleys". It is a great and fascinating book to read.
Rating:
Summary: A soap opera? Only on the surface...
Review: Focusing on the lives of the inhabitants of a humble--but not wholly destitute--neighborhood, Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz's 1947 novel could be (unfairly) dismissed as "Melrose Place" in Cairo. Yet this is no Grace Metalious soap opera; Western readers will instead find that "Midaq Alley" calls to mind the style of Christopher Isherwood, the plotting of Armistead Maupin, and the characters of Rohinton Mistry. And Trevor La Gassick's superb translation make this a surprisingly fluent, elegant, and humorous yarn.Although filmed in 1995 as "El Callejón de los milagros," a critically acclaimed Mexican film starring Selma Hayek, this novel has never quite reached the audience it deserves. Like "Tales of the City," "Midaq Alley" follows the interlinking stories of several characters who share little more than aspirations to affluence, romantic entanglements--and an address. The reader is introduced to more than a dozen characters, but the novel spotlights three: the cafe owner Kirsha, a married man who flirts with young men in front of discomfited patrons, neighbors, and friends (not to mention his incensed wife); the fickle, young, beautiful Hamida, who flits from man to man in search of wealth and comfort; and Abbas, who joins the British armed forces to earn enough money to win over Hamida. Yet other eccentrics from the alley are just as memorable: the horrid Zaita, who serves as tyrant over the local beggars he has "fashioned" by unusual means (and whose demeanor and methods are astonishingly similar to Mr. Beggarmaster from Mistry's "A Fine Balance," written 50 years later); Mrs. Saniya Afifi, a widow who undergoes cut-rate cosmetic dentistry to win over a new husband--and then is horrified by the hush-hush source of her new dentures; and the suave, slick, duplicitous Ibrahim Faraj, a stranger to the alley who spirits Hamida away from her home into a world of extravagance and debauchery she never imagined possible. In the background is World War II, which ironically presents inhabitants of the alleys with the prospect of advancement in the "outside" world--an opportunity that proves both short-lived and elusive. Scratch below the surface, and you'll find a morality tale about the ultimate displeasure that materialism brings to those who worship it. Yet Mahfouz avoids didacticism when presenting his themes, opting instead for a light-hearted objectivity that brings the residents of Midaq Alley to life.
Rating:
Summary: A soap opera? Only on the surface...
Review: Focusing on the lives of the inhabitants of a humble--but not wholly destitute--neighborhood, Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz's 1947 novel could be (unfairly) dismissed as "Melrose Place" in Cairo. Yet this is no Grace Metalious soap opera; Western readers will instead find that "Midaq Alley" calls to mind the style of Christopher Isherwood, the plotting of Armistead Maupin, and the characters of Rohinton Mistry. And Trevor La Gassick's superb translation make this a surprisingly fluent, elegant, and humorous yarn. Although filmed in 1995 as "El Callejón de los milagros," a critically acclaimed Mexican film starring Selma Hayek, this novel has never quite reached the audience it deserves. Like "Tales of the City," "Midaq Alley" follows the interlinking stories of several characters who share little more than aspirations to affluence, romantic entanglements--and an address. The reader is introduced to more than a dozen characters, but the novel spotlights three: the cafe owner Kirsha, a married man who flirts with young men in front of discomfited patrons, neighbors, and friends (not to mention his incensed wife); the fickle, young, beautiful Hamida, who flits from man to man in search of wealth and comfort; and Abbas, who joins the British armed forces to earn enough money to win over Hamida. Yet other eccentrics from the alley are just as memorable: the horrid Zaita, who serves as tyrant over the local beggars he has "fashioned" by unusual means (and whose demeanor and methods are astonishingly similar to Mr. Beggarmaster from Mistry's "A Fine Balance," written 50 years later); Mrs. Saniya Afifi, a widow who undergoes cut-rate cosmetic dentistry to win over a new husband--and then is horrified by the hush-hush source of her new dentures; and the suave, slick, duplicitous Ibrahim Faraj, a stranger to the alley who spirits Hamida away from her home into a world of extravagance and debauchery she never imagined possible. In the background is World War II, which ironically presents inhabitants of the alleys with the prospect of advancement in the "outside" world--an opportunity that proves both short-lived and elusive. Scratch below the surface, and you'll find a morality tale about the ultimate displeasure that materialism brings to those who worship it. Yet Mahfouz avoids didacticism when presenting his themes, opting instead for a light-hearted objectivity that brings the residents of Midaq Alley to life.
Rating:
Summary: As a complement
Review: Having read the other reviews, just wanted to add a mention of Mahfouz's style as one of a unusual music, which may be strenuous to some but is an enchantment if you get into it. Bravo to the translator !
Rating: 
Summary: One of my favourite books of all time!
Review: I had to read this for a world literature class in college and loved it so much, I bought ALL of Mahfouz's books! He is amazing and this book is a great story. I grew up in the Middle East and this book read like some of the Arabic soap operas on TV! Mahfouz is a wonderful story teller and his books provide rich cultural insight into the lives of men and women in Egypt.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Look Into Egyptian Society
Review: I have to say that Midaq Alley is an interesting, albeit not fabulous read. The characters could use a bit more substance, but overall their motives were described clearly (somewhat). Hamida is really the main character of this novel and almost everyone else in Midaq Alley is connected to her future in one way or another. I consider Midaq Alley to be an interesting book for anyone interested in Middle Eastern womens' rights and struggles.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is kinda....
Review: If I were to choose a book that I could not live without, it would certianly not be this one. I think out of all the books that I read, this must be the most boring one. The main character in this book is Hamida, but this book is composed of many characters who have their own little stories within this book. And she represents Egypt in World War 1. She was tricked into becoming a prostitute for money, makeup, and fancy clothes. If you think about it, Egypt was given the illusion of becoming world power if it were to join the war. When really, all Egypt learned were ... policies. Personally, I did not enjoy this book at all.
Rating:
Summary: Chronicle of midaq alley
Review: In a dank back alley of Cairo in the middle of World War II, Uncle Kamil, the bloated and always semi-catatonic sweet-seller pretends to swat flies from his face before he drifts off again. And the sun sets. The cafe just down the street opens, and Midaq alley comes to life, in all of its semi-impoverished glory. Naguib Mahfouz, the only Arab winner of the coveted Nobel Prize in Literature, has brought us here to meet a cast of outre characters and to gasp at their unorthodoxy, to be saddened at their lack of luck, and to envision, finally, the tapestry of their interactions. But he also wants us to think about what it must have been to be poor and Egyptian in a moment of political frustration. His writing lacks subtlety but his themes do not; what results is an involving drama of a back way in Cairo that you probably would not have noticed.
Rating:
Summary: Charming but ultimately thin
Review: In the interests of full disclosure, I should start out by saying that I don't know a thing about the culture or about literary standards of excellence in this author's society. However, "Midaq Alley", while a pleasant read, wasn't anything to write home about. The characters are lively and the setting fascinating but the author never delves deeply enough into the life of any individual to make you feel as though you fully understand them. The style may have lost something in translation, but it lacked the richness of language and description that I expected to find from an internationally-recognized author. Not bad, but altogether a little disappointing.
Rating:
Summary: Great fiction from Egypt
Review: Regardless of the poor translation (the one I read by Trevor Le Gassick) this was still immensely enjoyable, the characters shone through and the scene descriptions are so rich I felt like I was there, it was just written (or translated) in such a stilted way that it felt like English was definitely not the narrator's first language. I had previously read the Cairo trilogy, the story of several generations of a family, Midaq Alley is quite different, a soap opera about the people of the alley set over a short period of time, fast paced and very funny at times despite the bleak lives of the characters.
The setting is WWII, a generally prosperous time for the people in this story, some content with life in the alley, and others more ambitious dreaming of nothing but escape. Strong characters with interconnected stories draw the reader into their lives - Kirsha the cafe owner with young male lovers, Hamida who is lured into prostitution, fat Uncle Kamil and his sweet shop, Abbas the barber who joins the army just for money to win a bride, Zaita the beggar and grave robber who performs surgery for a fee to create other beggars, Mrs. Saniya Afifi who will pay anything to a marriage broker to get herself a young husband, and several others with stories of their own to tell.
I enjoy books that expose me to totally different cultures and ways human beings adapt to what life throws at them. Midaq Alley was a journey to another time and the other side of the world.
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