Finished: Palace of Desire (Mahfouz) The second book in the Cairo Trilogy, the family saga written by Naguib Mahfouz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. The story of tyrannical Egyptian patriarch, al-Sayyid Ahmad abd al-Jawad, his dutiful wife, and their five children continues five years after the first book and the tragic death of middle son and aspiring law student, Fahmy. Though al-Sayyid Ahmad swore off his drinking, womanizing, and carousing with friends for an entire year after Fahmy's death, he is now back to his old ways, once again going out every night, only to come home in the middle of the night and expect his wife, Amina, to help him get undressed, wash his feet, etc. And, as he did with his old habits, al-Sayyid Ahmad falls in love with a prostitute much younger than himself, going so far as to buy her a houseboat to live on. When she insists that he marry her and have two wives, al-Sayyid Ahmad draws the line and says no. The prostitute then dumps him and goes after his already married oldest son, Yasin. Yasin is much like his father. He falls in love more with the pursuit of women, and then tires of them after a few weeks. Unfortunately, he's on his second marriage and tired of his second wife right after the honeymoon, so when pursued by the prostitute, Zanuba, who wants to be a "real lady", he actually cheats on his second wife with her, divorces his second wife and marries Zanuba. Meanwhile, the years since Fahmy's death have been hard on his mother, Amina. There isn't much story for her, but she's a shell of who she used to be. Youngest son, Kamal, who was only twelve in the first book, is now seventeen and graduating from school, having successfully completed the exams to allow him to continue on with university study. His father wants him to be a lawyer at the very least, but Kamal is the dreamy-eyed romantic and wants to study literature and philosophy, which means going to the Teacher's College instead of the prestigious Law School. Much of the story is spent on Kamal's idealism and his unrequited love for his best friend's sister. For awhile, you think maybe he has a chance, but it ends up she was just using him to make the true person she wanted to propose to her jealous. With Kamal we get the most inner turmoil and reflection with his almost every thought being written by the author before Kamal speaks, usually saying the opposite of his deep, tortured thoughts. The two sisters, Aisha and Khadija, are both still married to the older men (brothers) they were married off to in the first book. Aisha is still the beautiful non-wave making sister, and she now has three young children, a daughter and two sons. Khadija is still the outspoken force she always was and is at constant odds with her mother-in-law who wants to tell her what to do. Khadija now has two young boys. The book is very well written and stays on the verge of delving into the political climate of the time in Egypt. Kamal and his friends have many lengthy political discussions, but not so lengthy that you lose interest. It's hard not to care about the more sympathetic characters. I'm not really so attached to the father or the older brother, since I can't stand their behavior...even if it was typical,"expected" and condoned behavior at that time in that country. As the book was winding down, I was in the process of deciding if I wanted to read book three when a cruel cliffhanger was tossed in at the end. :-( We were left with Aisha's husband and two young sons clinging to life from a typhoid outbreak, while the rest of the grandchildren stayed at al-Sayyid and Amina's house. I have a feeling the next book will take another jump and we will have lost those beings. :-(