Compare Between Albert Camus the Stanger and Naguib Mahfouz Midaq Ally

In 1983 I was a guest of my Arabian Gulf Arab students for a visit to several countries of the Arabian Gulf. While in Kuwait one evening the brother of my host took me to large outdoor space enclosed by huge walls. It was just like a large lot; dirt floor, little grass and a number of very long picnic tables, spread apart from one another. There were no women there, but quite a few young men, perhaps a hundred. The primary activity seemed to be smoking from a water pipe which was set up on each table.

I have no idea what was in the water pipe. My host assumed I wouldn't want any, and he picked up some pepsis for me on the way there since nothing like beer or wine was sold in the country. Everyone seemed to get quite high and giggly, and I always wondered what was in the pipe.

The water pipe is in many ways the central character of Mahfouz's novel of meaninglessness and absurdity. A half dozen or so people gather nearly every night on the houseboat of Anis Zaki. He boat is on the Nile in Cairo in the early 1960s. Each evening his servant lights the water pipe and people drift in and out (in more ways that one!), and the water pipe is constantly passed around. Almost all of them work in the day at what they called "serious" jobs, meaning rather typical jobs in the culture. However, philosophically all are commited to meanlessness and absurdity, very much in the sense of the French Existentialists who have influced them, especially Albert Camus' THE STRANGER means anything and nothing is worth any effort, thus the escape of getting high with the water pipe and being in community with others is simply what they do. Their "serious" life is forced upon them by the necessity of earning enough money to pay for the daily needs of living.

They are joined in this rather dull life by Samara Bahgat, a journalist and self-declared "serious" person who is convinced that the life of meaninglessness and absurdity is itself the most absurd thing of all.

The bulk of the...