In Nature

The second chapter of the book begins with the mention of the Bridge of Hesitation. Ono mentions that it is where men, husbands, hesitate on whether they should go into the pleasure district with the geishas, or head home with their wives. Ono finds comfort in the hesitation. It could simply be ironic that he finds beauty in the confusion and insecurities of others. But it could also signify that he is stuck in the middle of the generations. The pleasure district represents the newer generation and the homes represent the older generation. He is comfortable and unashamed where he is. He doesn't feel disturbed by be in between. This is how his views are. He agrees on some terms with both the older and newer generation, but he doesn't choose a side. He just likes seeing the beautiful sunset silence everything around him.

The Japanese culture is much different in the way we address on another. Here we are blunt and straight-forward. In the Japanese culture, they speak indirectly and by implications. This is how Noriko addresses her father, Ono. She compares him to the bamboo he has just cut. She comments that he cut it wrong and made it unbalanced. She's talking about his life, Ono's life, and how holding onto all that happened in the past is making his life unbalanced. On page 106, Ono mentions that some of the younger shoots are becoming more dominant. Here he is making a comparison with the bamboo and Noriko, Setzuko, and her son Ichiro.

Ono, also, seems to have a fascination with the snow falling outside on his garden. He makes notice of the snow falling off of the branch and the lantern evenly covered with snow. It's showing the symbolism of Ono being stagnant, and staying in the past, while Shintaro is trying to forget the past and is shaking the now off just like the tree branches.

Similes and Metaphors

“He had perhaps intended from the start to agree but had refused to yield until he had expressed his anger, like a politician who attacks an opponent, even though supporting the same goal, in order to defend his principles” (306).

Lately, while reading the book, I’ve been interested in the thing Kersia brought up in her blog about noticing the language Mahfouz uses to get the story from different perspectives. I began to notice all of the descriptive language he adds to his descriptions of things going on in the book. Another example is when he was describing marriage and Yasin’s feelings toward his new marriage to Zaynab, “It was like a trick chocolate presented on April Fool’s Day with garlic stuffed inside the sweet coating” (307). This simile made me feel what Yasin was feeling in entirety. His similes are designed to put you in the situation and make you understand what the character feels as much as possible. I can definitely make the connection between garlic in chocolate and how Yasin felt about his marriage becoming boring and how the excitement of being married changed completely once he was married just as the excitement of eating a chocolate changes after you taste the garlicky inside.

He also uses many metaphors to accomplish the same thing. On page 308, he describes the same situation with a metaphor, “…, but it was no longer the desire of a fasting person for a tasty delicacy.” The depth he goes in to explain the significance of the issue makes for a better, more relatable read. But, what also struck me was the usage of little motivational words of wisdom that he incorporated into the situations in the book from the narrator’s perspective. As I read, I began to wonder why it was that he was offering the narrator’s opinion or interpretation of what was going on. I wanted to see if the situation was at all related to Mahfouz’s background. I wondered if he was a doctor, counselor, or any sort of motivational speaker of any sort. So I looked this up and found that he wasn’t any of these things and began to question if this was simply his style as a writer, or if these notes played an important part in the plot of the book. So I took my research a little further and found that he was simply a civil servant and an author and didn’t really the answer to the question I was looking for. But, my curiosity is still here and I wonder why he refers to diseases and other things when he writes these similes and metaphors to describe situations in the novel.

Work Cited

1. "Naguib Mahfouz - Biography." Nobelprize.org. Web. 6 Mar. 2010. .
2. Maḥfūẓ, Najīb. Palace Walk. New York: Anchor /Doubleday, 1991. Print.

Poetic Writing

In chapter twenty six of Naguib Mahfouz's Palace Walk, Mahfouz's almost poetic language begins to pull the reader in. He starts mixing in long sentences with shorter sentences, and even uses dialogue. This is the first chapter in which the reader can actually feel present in the scene.
In this passage, Mahfouz writes about how simple it is to disrespect the man of the house, and the magnitude of being disrespectful to the man of the house.

Aisha had anticipated what would happen even before the matter was presented to her father. All the same, she had nourished a glimmer of hope in her dreams, like one of us tempted by the hope of winning first prize in a major lottery. At first, influenced by the generosity that comes with victory or happiness and by affection for her unlucky sister, she had been willing to object to getting married. Now her generosity had faded away and her affection had dwindled. Nothing remained but resentment, anger, and despair. There was not a thing she could do about it. This was her father's will and she could not criticize it. All she could do was submit and obey. In fact, she had to be happy and content. To be despondent would be an unforgivable offense. To protest would be a sin her conscience and sense of etiquette could not allow. From the intoxication of bounteous happiness that had elated her night and day she awoke to despair. How gloomy the darkness seemed coming immediately after dazzling light. Thus the pain was not limited to the current darkness but was doubled many times over by regret for the light that had vanished. She asked herself why, since light had been able to shine for a while, it could not keep on shining. Why should it die out? Why had it died out? It was a new regret to add to the others – drawn from memories, the present, and dreams of the future – that sorrow was weaving around her heart. Although she was sunk in thought about this and it dominated her feelings, she wondered again, as though for the first time, whether the light had really gone out. The bitter truth seemed to be bombarding her emotions for the very first time. (159)

What really catches the reader's eye is the detail and the similes and metaphors. The reader could understand that it was a severe action to disrespect the man in the house, but in this passage Mahfouz puts the reader there and the way he delivers this message is like a boxing match. He throws some jabs, short sentences, and the he throws right and left hooks along with uppercuts, long sentences, to know the reader out of his chair. The combinations he is throwing could not be put together any better, and the questions he asks are the knock out blows to the reader's kidneys. When he takes the gloves off, he picks up a T-square and a pencil, and like an architect begins drawing up masterpieces to be created in the reader's imagination. With words like dazzling, intoxication, bombarding, and bounteous, Mahfouz builds skyscrapers with the sharpest edges, and cathedrals with the most detailed cupola.
Mahfouz describes the situation exceptionally well, and if the rest of the novel is like the passage above, the reader will really enjoy reading it.