Suleiman’s Ring
“Epic” describes this novel that begins in 1951 and carries us through wars and crises to the aftermath of the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981. The book is primarily set in Alexandria, Egypt, which begins as an idyllic seaside retreat but wears the scars of international turmoil by our conclusion. Epic here doesn’t mean heroic or necessarily long, but covering many episodes that seem unjointed in purpose or cause.
We begin with the attractive character of Khawaga Daoud, a name that indicates that he is a foreigner, even though his ancestors have been in Egypt, probably since Alexander founded the city. Daoud is content with his life as a simple oud player, Jewish, but who has converted to Christianity in order to marry his Coptic third wife. He has friends in the violent Muslim Brotherhood who end up in prison, however. He knows Gamal Abdel-Nasser as well as folks who decide it’s time to immigrate to Israel, bequeathing our hero profitable factories and villas and their own kind of headaches as nationalization descends. There are Coptic apparitions of the Virgin Mary, and a lot of people who get so depressed they never leave their homes.
The title’s ring seems to be an attempt to infuse magical realism into the narrative and some unity, passing from person to person to bring ill luck or good. The trope never really works. The verses of singer Umm Khulthum are something to cling to instead, and a lovely evocation of the period.
Some of the translation seems rough, and the novelistic mores I am used to want more unity and more showing, less telling. Writers such as Isabel Allende, Gabriel García Márquez or Salman Rushdie show us the way when it comes to epic magical realism we want to believe in.
