The Time and the Place and Other Stories

by Naguib Mahfouz, Denys Johnson-Davies (Translator)

Selected and translated by the distinguished scholar Denys Johnson-Daivies, these stories have all the celebrated and distinctive characters and qualities found in Mahfouz's novels:  The denizens of the dark, narrow alleyways of Cairo, who struggle to survive the poverty; melancholy ruminations on death; experiments with the supernatural; and witty excursions into Cairene middle-class life.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Egypt, Middle East, Egyptian Literature, Literature, 20th Century

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Naguib Mahfouz (Arabic author profile: نجيب محفوظ) was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. He published over 50 novels, over 350 short stories, dozens of movie scripts, and five plays over a 70-year career. Many of his works have been made into Egyptian and foreign films.

Reviews

[Fred Daly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short stories, some very short. They are strange -- he reminds me of Kafka, Camus, and the editor says Proust. Not sure how students will like them, but they are short. They aren't exactly memorable individually, but they add up to a pretty interesting world view.

[béla malina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite an enjoyable collection of short stories. Some of them had a really strange and dreamlike quality, which I’m always fond of - Where as others were quite straight forward depictions of Cairos city dwellers of all classes. I like the range of people and circumstances depicted. I will definitely pick up one of his novels one of these days.

[Madhulika Liddle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A group of people, sheltering from the rain in a bus stop, are witness to a baffling series of scenes—the near-lynching of a thief, a horrific car accident, a couple making love in public atop a corpse—and cannot tell if what they are watching is real, or the shooting of a film. A man comes home to a house that he realizes is like his but isn’t and a woman who resembles his wife but is not. A man dreams of himself, in a medieval avatar, burying a mysterious box in the place that is now his home—and on a whim, digs up the place to find the box.

A young woman meets again the man who sexually abused her as a child. A man, his marriage fallen apart, goes wandering about the town, remembering the past. A little boy, sent out by his mother on an errand, abandons it after several attempts and goes off to enjoy himself…

Naguib Mahfouz’s stories in The Time and The Place and Other Stories are a varied collection. Many of them have a certain whimsicality to them, a theme that, while set firmly in 20th century Cairo (mostly), could well be straight from The Arabian Nights. Ends are invariably left hanging, for the reader to interpret (along with the rest of the story) as he or she pleases. Themes such as love (requited and not, platonic and savage, youthful and mature), lust, ambition, greed, ennui and fear play out in story after story.

What impressed me the most about these stories was the obvious evidence of a master storyteller at work: at no point did I feel bored, not once did my interest flag. Yes, there were some stories that left me wondering, “But what happened after that?”, but this was usually followed by the realization that Mahfouz was using metaphors and symbols to say something beyond the vivid tale in itself. Commenting, perhaps, on the stupidity of humans, our inability to look beyond our own petty interests, our desire for what lies beyond our reach.

That said, the stories that I especially liked in this collection were A Day for Saying Goodbye, By a Person Unknown, The Norwegian Rat and A Long-Term Plan. All the stories are good, but these ones in particular stayed with me for different reasons, ranging all the way from poignancy to humour, but all of them, in some way or the other, letting me relate to them.

[✿ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Kitty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Learning about Egyptian culture through these short stories, translated by Denys Johnson-Davies is to have a sample of different strata of Cairene life. Perhaps my favorite was the story, rather, more parable than story, called "The Wasteland" in which a man is forced to give up his wife to follow a leader; his plans for revenge are thwarted -- "why is it that all beings disappear and nothing is left but dust?" It makes you think about the expression, "another time". But time does not come again. Which road do you pick, after facing degradation? The one where you will not be seen, through the Wasteland.

[Kabrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read "The Answer Is No" in the textbook for my Literary Heritage class. Loved that the main character stood her ground even though she was still affected after being sexually assaulted at 14. Wish I could find out what happened next but alas the abrupt ending was part of the reason this short story was good.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my students at IUP recommended Mahfouz to me. I have wanted to read him since he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in the 1980's.

This collection of short stories are excellent. Some have an otherworldly quality to them. When I have a little more time next month, I will read his Cairo Trilogy.

[David Milne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting to read a different style of Mahfouz book, for perspective, but I wouldn't rate it as one of his best. Many of the stories seem to abruptly finish, which I'm sure there is a reason for, but I couldn't understand it.

[b bb bbbb bbbbbbbb · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mahfouz has otherwise been consistently good, not sure why this collection of short stories didn't work for me. Read about half of them.

[Nausheen · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Necessity has its own rules."

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to read this collection of 20-30 years of stories because I'd only ever read "Zabalawi" by Mahfouz, and without context, I found that story kind of unresolved. I think in the process I learned that Zabalawi's mystifications are the context for themselves and much of this book, and that probably short stories are not Mahfouz's prime vehicle; if I had a year, I'd read the Cairo Trilogy and probably know what I wanted to know. But instead, I read a collection with a lot of parables, mostly about the relationship between modernity and faith, a lot of them interested rather grandly in Egypt's future and it's relationship to Islam, all interesting subjects but maybe not foremost literary subjects. Really, there are a lot of gauzy parables here about unnamed people facing faceless judges, etc, but without the reality of Kafka's judges and it's a little tiresome. Very few stories have fully developed plots or characters-- there's a longish one about a small "family" living at the edges of Cairo during the peak years of WW2 that is memorable, but then the story is almost all driven by outside actors. There are a couples sharp satires which were enjoyable. There are some interesting elements here, but this probably shouldn't be read as a collection?

[Cosmo Crawley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hadn’t read any Mahfouz before and was daunted by the idea of plunging straight into the one thousand or so pages of the Cairo trilogy so I thought I would ease myself into his work with this slender collection of short, short stories. All but one of the stories are set in Cairo and mostly in a one-square mile section of the old city. But if the world of these stories is limited in space it’s certainly adventurous in time – characters can live an entire lifetime in half a day or go backwards and forwards hundreds of years in a matter of minutes. Some are painfully aware that they have lived too long or don’t have long to live. Others are blissfully unaware that the reader is sharing their last moments. The best stories have a mysterious dream-like quality without quite losing their grip on reality, and develop into subtle allegories of death or political tyranny. Unfortunately, however, about half of the stories in the colection are either very slight or very heavy-handed in their allegorical intentions. A few of them came across as second rate Kafka, Ionesco and Bunuel. But the good stories are very good indeed and now I’m looking forward to tackling some of the author’s major works.

[James F · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Time and the Place and Other Stories collects translations of twenty of Mahfouz' short stories from the years between 1962 and 1989. For the most part, these are not great considered as stories, with many having no real plot, but the writing is so incredible it doesn't matter. To give an example, my favorite story of the collection, "The Ditch", is a description of the life of an old man who has never married or had a family and just lives a boring life; nothing actually happens in the "story" — but the language, and the subtle personification of the man's house, are incredible. Many of the stories which do have a plot are so surreal that the reader doesn't have any idea what is going on or what will happen after the abrupt and ambiguous ending. These are stories which will not appeal to those who read for "the story" but those who read for language and style will find them among Mahfouz' best writing. The translator, Denys Johnson-Davies, also deserves credit, because this is the kind of book that could have been ruined by a poor translation.

[Rick Linde · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book packs a lot of short stories into a short book. I liked the chance to see what life was like in 20th century Cairo, and how similar and how very different it was from modern-day America. Although wonderfully written, this book is a mixed bag. The best of the stories are tightly woven and suspenseful and pack a punch in just a few pages; some of them are dreamlike and Kafkaesque; a few are pretty lame. In this case the book's brevity was an advantage. It politely ended just as I got tired of reading it.

[Wrichard Barremin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Came to this collection through "The Conjurer Made Off with the Dish," which was featured in an anthology called The Art of the Tale; though many stories are powerful in their own right ("The Ditch" "The Man and the Other Man," "A Fugitive from Justice," the title story) the structural similarities between stories became increasingly apparent over the course of the twenty-story collection; as a repertory of Mahfouz's work, it's quite astounding but as a single reading experience it can get a little tiresome

[Gayathri Devi · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5.

For anyone who wants a slow digestible read.

The collection shows Egypt as an atlas of human longing, where sacredness, sordidness, and grief coexist without apology, while holding on to the ache, faith and the slow, unending elegy of being alive.

The stories that stood out for me are the ones that touched upon "what does mean to be alive?", themes involving grief in various forms, and the occasional absurdist fiction that toed the line of ambiguous reality and philosophical allegories.

[keith koenigsberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing. These short stories are utterly un-western. They take place in Egypt, and the perpectives on narrative are very different. Emphasis can often be on the context, the continuity of life, themes of man's place in the universe, etc, all of this above the actual narrative. A story about a crime investigation focuses more on the investigator's life and thoughts than the actual crime. Disorienting. Read this.

[Nikki Rossiter · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is a really, odd book of short stories. it’s never overt in any theme so you’ve really got to scry to get past messages that may come with a region’s themes rather than with an author’s. i’m conflicted to give this a higher score because the translation likely doesn’t do favors for mahfouz and his writing, but i certainly won’t rate it lower because the ideas within these stories feel fresh despite being both so simple and old.

[Garima Sharma · Rating 3 out of 5]

A compilation of short stories...this book is a decent read. The stories are deep, intriguing and some are perhaps abstract. Nicely written, each story depicts a deeper thought and meaning of the human journey. The answer is no, Half a day, A day for saying goodbye, The Wasteland and A long term plan are must read stories.

[Goknilirmak · Rating 2 out of 5]

90. sayfadaki Veda öyküsü, aşkın başlangıç ve bitişini, huzur olmayan evde yetişen çocukların durumun vahametini kavrayışı ile Cemal’in “ne sizin içinizi ne de kendi içimizi rahat ettiremeyiz” ifadesi. Yüreğe dokunan bir öykü. Kahire Üçleme’si Necib Mahfuz’un başyapıtı. Öykülerdeki kısa soluklu anlatımı sevemedim.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to read, all good. Many are surrealistic and disturbing ("The Conjurer"), some are charming ("Half a Day"), some Kafkaesque ("The Man and The Other Man") and some - maybe all - show the strain of living under Egypt's dictatorship ("At The Bus Stop")

[Arvind · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a beautifully written book no doubt and Mahfouz is truly a gem of an author... But this one was too Kafkaesque for my liking... Going to read more of his books to go through the style of his writing in depth!

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

My two favorite stories were "The Norwegian Rat" and "At the bus stop."

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are some of my favorite shorts stories by such an amazing author!

[Alex Whigham · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting stories, well written. most of them didn’t seem to have much point to them at all but maybe that’s the intention. I found it a bit of a slog to read about half way through.

[Justanearthling · Rating 2 out of 5]

More than half of the stories ended unresolved - intentionally, but not well-executed at all. That being said, there are a couple of interesting and surreal stories that were very enjoyable.

[Lauren 罗云 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed these short stories, but (greedily) wanted more resolution; like when you're eating and you feel like you're not quite full.

[Deirdre Fagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories are Poe-like in the way they lure and haunt. The style is measured and quiet with its deceptions while the stories precisely told are shrouded in mystery. I wish I could read Arabic as I suspect the language of these tales has rhythms and sounds that would significantly contribute.

[Thomas Boulton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A complex arrangement of short stories, examining age, death, injustice, desire and entitlement. A solid read but perhaps not a sublime one.

[Omama. · Rating 5 out of 5]

"At the crossroads, emotions flare up, memories are resurrected. How great is my distress! An extraordinary strength is required to control myself, otherwise the moments of saying goodbye will disappear. What a crushing blow, filled with bitterness, fury and hate. How often decay afflicts everything that is good! Love had been uprooted from my heart and it had turned to stone. Let us ignore all that in the short time that remains. What a crushing blow! Of what significance was it?"