I saw the Mexican
movie before I
read the
book. I was inspired to read it by my professor Dr. AV
Ashok, who read a few lines about Radwan Hussainy on our first class in my
second year of MA English. The lines were so evocative that they almost sounded
like verses from a beautiful Arabic poem.
In fact, all words that are used to describe Radwan Hussainy as well as
all the words that he speaks are indeed poetry. Great writers don''t tell a
story, they show it. Midaq
Alley was right in front of my eyes as I read the
book and sometimes, when the book was reading me, I was inside Midaq Alley
watching the comings and goings of its
inhabitants. There are books that bear
testimonial to how we become the
place we inhabit like "The Alexandria
Quarter" of Lawrence Durrell. This book demonstrates an inverse
relationship - the place becomes the
people that
Inhabit it. Midaq Alley is not
Midaq Alley at the end of the book because its prime inhabitants are no longer
there - Radwan Hussainy has gone on a pilgrimage to Mecca, Abbas is dead,
Hamida has left to become a prostitute, Dr. Booshy and Zaita are in prison… The
alley is narrating a tale of who its inhabitants once were and what happened to
their fates. But the alley is impersonal. Or is it so wounded that it has
become quite insensitive to the pain of the people who live in it? After all,
it is an ancient alley as the opening line of the book says. Read it… I am sure
you will be able to take a sneak peek at the alley…
More reviews about the Midaq Alley: Place and Peopl