Naguib Mahfouz - Rhadopis of Nubia - Romeo & Juliet in Ancient Egyptian Setting

Naguib Mahfouz’s sonata continues with his second novel, Rhadopis of Nubia.

Here are some of Naguib’s Motifs…

‘Death is as natural as life. What is the value of eternity as long as we eat our fill after going hungry, grow old after being young, and know despair after joy?’

‘You may be lucky enough to see her, may the gods protect your hearts from harm….Those fortunate enough to be near her caught glimpses of her jet-black hair adorned with threads of shining silk as it fell about the radiant orb of her face and cascaded onto her shoulders in a halo of night, as though it were a divine crown. Her cheeks were like fresh roses, and her delicate mouth was parted slightly to reveal teeth like jasmine petals in the sunlight set in a ring of cloves.’

‘Reasonableness is a false and insincere garment in which the weak masquerade.’

‘Is it not possible that two people disagree and both are right?’

‘Whoever thinks you beautiful is blind, without vision. You are ugly because you are dead, and there is no beauty without life. Life has never flowed through your veins. Your heart has never been warm. You are a corpse with perfect features, but a corpse, nevertheless. Compassion has not shone in your eyes, your lips have never parted in pain, nor has your heart felt pity. Your eyes are hard, and your heart is made of stone.’

‘It was a stone before my hands touched it, but now I have put myself into it.’

‘Politics does not know final words.’

What is one prepared to sacrifice for love—a theme, a metaphor, that has an everlasting history of being painted against a wide variety of backgrounds in almost all languages? In Rhadopis of Nubia, Naguib paints this theme on the canvas of ancient Egypt, a Pharaoh falling in love with a courtesan, a woman used to use her allure to seduce men and manipulate them. 

This is the second of the series of novels – the first, Khufu’s Wisdom, which centered around the theme of not being able to run away from the laws of chances and fate, this novel, Rhadopis of Nubia, is about what one is prepared to do for love, and I can’t wait to read the last in this trilogy, Thebes at War.

Naguib invites me into his sensory world of words, a place where I could not only immerse myself and be a part of the place but also sense, smell, touch, taste and see from within the novel. As a part of the backdrop, not only am I able to imagine the physical characteristics, but also conjure up what was in the hearts of the characters.  The scribbles or printed letters on paper come alive to me, as if living in the times of Pharaoh and being one of the slaves who observed the events in the palaces. 

Balancing between the desire to rummage through the pages and letting the taste of words linger a little bit longer is something every great piece of art and literature leads me to re-evaluate.

Upwards and onwards to Thebes at War…

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