Finished: Sugar Street (Mahfouz) The final book in The Cairo Trilogy about the family of Egyptian patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad. When the book starts, it's been five years since the happenings in the second book. Time has taken a toll on both al-Sayyid Ahmad, his wife, Amina, and their children, Yasin, Kamal, Khadija and Aisha. Amina and al-Sayyid are both aging, and al-Sayyid's heart is getting weaker and weaker. He still sees his same group of old friends, but when together, they lament how some of their friends have died...some being confined to their beds for months before doing so. The larger than life al-Sayyid does not want this fate for himself. However, he does end up confined to bed, the last of his friends to survive. Towards the end of the book, as the fingers of WWII reach into Egypt, he dies after surviving a frantic air raid. His heartbroken children and wife are with him as he dies and cannot believe the strong, vibrant, albeit severe, husband and father they knew is gone. Sadly, youngest daughter, Aisha's two young sons and husband did succumb to the typhoid fever they contracted at the end of the second book, and she has lived despondently back in her parents' home with her beautiful, teenage daughter, Na'ima since the tragedy, a haggard version of the beauty she used to be.  Yasin, the oldest son, is still married to Zanuba and they have children Ridwan and Karima. As the years pass in this book, Ridwan gets his law degree and goes to work in a rather influential position in the government. Ridwan realizes that he is gay as a teenager and has a relationship with an older man, never explicitly detailed, but certainly implied. His cousins, Abd al-Muni'm and Ahmad, the sons of Khadija, are about his same age, and are as different from him as they are from each other. Abd al-Muni'm also gets his law degree and is devoutly religious and Ahmad is not a believer, but becomes a Socialist. The three cousins spend many hours debating the different politics of the day, though I must admit that my brain just can't wrap around all the Egyptian politics, kings, and different groups that want to show dissent. Abd al-Muni'm marries his cousin, Na'ima at a very young age, mostly to reconcile his carnal desires with his faith. Tragically, Na'ima dies in childbirth with their first child. Her death, of course, throws Aisha into an even bigger emotional turmoil. A few years later, Abd al-Muni'm remarries...this time to his cousin Karima, Ridwan's sister! Ahmad marries as well, an independent woman who works at the socialist magazine he writes for. Neither marriage is happy for very long as both sons are arrested during the trying times in Egypt for protesting against their government, just both in different ways. Khadija, al-Sayyid's oldest daughter, still rules the roost over her husband and two boys....until, as mentioned, the boys grow older and start developing their very own paths, neither of which represent the old ways that Khadija grew up with. She's despondent when her boys are sent to await a trial which they all feel will never come. Kamal, the youngest son of al-Sayyid and Amina, did follow his philosophical path and become a very respected teacher. He still struggles with questions of faith and morality and mostly whether or not he should surrender his freedom and shackle himself to a wife and children for the rest of his life....or continue his lonely existence, all the while being able to think all he wants, write all he wants and debate all he wants. He still spends far too much time in his own head. He does end up getting one chance at love when he's 36  years old, but talks himself out of it and remains the bachelor that he is. At the end of the book, Amina, their mother, finally passes away. Kamal, Khadija, Aisha, and Yasin, her stepson, are all bereaved and don't know how life or the house on Palace Walk will ever be the same. A pretty good book, but again, it delved far too deep into the politics of the time for me. I might try and read about those times to understand them better at some point, but for now, I would say what I got from the book was more about the personal relationships of the various family members with each other and their loved ones.