Fiction – paperback; Anchor Books; 176 pages; 1994. Translated from the Arabic by Frances Liardet.
First published in 1966, Adrift on the Nile is by Egyptian writer and Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006).
It’s a story about a group of disillusioned intellectuals in 1960s Cairo who gather on a houseboat to smoke, drink and party every night.
Their conversations often descend into argumentative philosophical debates, and their antics, which include womanising, whisky drinking and drug taking — they smoke a water pipe filled with “kif”, a colloquial term for marijuana — reflect a hedonistic lifestyle. Their relationships with one another are morally ambiguous and they often make ethical compromises to preserve their desires and self-interest.
The blurb of my 1993 edition describes it as a “sleek little existential drama,” which is a perfect four-word summary.
There’s next to no plot and the characterisation is slim, but something about this dialogue-driven novel gets under the skin.
Perspective switch
The story is told from a limited third-person perspective. Occasionally it switches to the first-person so that the reader gets a glimpse of the inner thoughts and feelings of the central character, Anis Zaki, a civil servant whose boss has dubbed him a drug addict.
Tension comes in the form of Samara, a journalist, who joins the circle but doesn’t wish to partake in the drug-taking. Later it emerges that she’s there to study them for a play she wants to write exploring the collapse of belief.
Things eventually come to a head when the group travelling in a car being driven too fast hits a pedestrian but doesn’t stop to help. Samara acts as their conscience and suggests justice must be done.
Period drama
Adrift on the Nile is perhaps a reflection of the time in which it was written. In the 1960s, Egypt underwent significant political, social and economic changes under President Gamal Abdel Nasser. There was a move away from Islam towards secularisation, which many feared would lead to moral decay. This issue seems to be at the heart of the novella — when religion and culture are modernised, what happens to the guardrails?
I don’t know enough about Mahfouz’s work or background to know whether the book reflects his personal values, but the dramatic ending, in which the characters make a significantly awful decision to look after their own interests instead of confessing to a crime, says a lot about personal ethics and societal values. Was Mahfouz issuing a warning or simply writing about what he saw around him?
Did I like this book? I’m not sure. Did I itch to read it when I put it down? Yes, I did. Did I understand what it was about? Not really. I’m not even sure I followed the bulk of it — there are too many characters, many of whose names start with the letter “A”, which added to the confusion.
And yet…I think it’s a story that will stick.
I read this for #NovNov24 (Novellas in November), hosted by Cathy at 746 Books and Rebecca at Bookish Beck.
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