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cruelspirit's review against another edition
relaxing
medium-paced
3.0
This was my introduction to Naguib Mahfouz. I've acquired a few of his books over the last few months, this was the first of which and the idea of reading about dreams definitely caught my interest.
This short book is a collection of over 100 dreams that are recounted in no more than two pages each. These short excerpts are a fun concept and something I've enjoyed from other authors. Mahfouz does a great job capturing the surreal and seemingly nonsensical nature of dreams. I thought this was his strong point in this book. what really lost me was the staying power of these stories and the repetitive nature of the book.
Don't get me wrong, there are a handful of stories I really liked that stuck with me but out of the 100+ they were few and far between. Often I felt like Mahfouz was repeating themes and concepts too often to really hold my interest or differentiate between stories. Many of the themes expressed here are fear, anxiousness, paranoia, and longing. These are all great themes and many that I enjoy reading about but it felt like he had exhausted them by the end of this book.
There are many relatable dream topics such as performance in school or being chased by someone but then there are a lot of stories where he expresses a mix of animosity, love, violence, and skepticism toward women. It's a bizarre mix of emotions. I'm not saying someone can't experience these feelings but he has multiple dreams where a woman is attacked by a mob and stripped nude; a theme that felt more present than others.
I'm sure there are people who are big into analyzing dreams that would spend more time looking into the meanings behind what Mahfouz is expressing here but for me personally, my interest understanding the meaning of dreams is not what it used to be. At this point I'd rather take them for their entertainment value which wasn't really there.
I'm looking at reading more fiction from Arab authors this year and this is only the beginning. I'm looking forward to reading from different authors as well as a full novel from Mahfouz; as this wasn't the introduction I'd hoped it would be.
This short book is a collection of over 100 dreams that are recounted in no more than two pages each. These short excerpts are a fun concept and something I've enjoyed from other authors. Mahfouz does a great job capturing the surreal and seemingly nonsensical nature of dreams. I thought this was his strong point in this book. what really lost me was the staying power of these stories and the repetitive nature of the book.
Don't get me wrong, there are a handful of stories I really liked that stuck with me but out of the 100+ they were few and far between. Often I felt like Mahfouz was repeating themes and concepts too often to really hold my interest or differentiate between stories. Many of the themes expressed here are fear, anxiousness, paranoia, and longing. These are all great themes and many that I enjoy reading about but it felt like he had exhausted them by the end of this book.
There are many relatable dream topics such as performance in school or being chased by someone but then there are a lot of stories where he expresses a mix of animosity, love, violence, and skepticism toward women. It's a bizarre mix of emotions. I'm not saying someone can't experience these feelings but he has multiple dreams where a woman is attacked by a mob and stripped nude; a theme that felt more present than others.
I'm sure there are people who are big into analyzing dreams that would spend more time looking into the meanings behind what Mahfouz is expressing here but for me personally, my interest understanding the meaning of dreams is not what it used to be. At this point I'd rather take them for their entertainment value which wasn't really there.
I'm looking at reading more fiction from Arab authors this year and this is only the beginning. I'm looking forward to reading from different authors as well as a full novel from Mahfouz; as this wasn't the introduction I'd hoped it would be.
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