Reviews

The Seventh Heaven: Stories of the Supernatural by Naguib Mahfouz

nrossi23's review

4.0

this is my second foray into mahfouz’ work, and it’s alright! his surrealist work is less nuanced than his realist stuff, but what’s here is really really interesting in concept. it’s a book all about death, it pervades just about every short story contained within, and death comes in many different forms depending on the story, which is a really unique idea, i think. every brand of surrealism is taken from the culture of the author’s place of origin, and mahfouz really digs into surrealist ideas that seem very unique to a muslim way of seeing the world.
the writing isn’t my favorite, but i’ll reduce that to the translation being a bit unfavorable to mahfouz’ writing style.

literaryinfatuation's review against another edition

5.0

What a collection! Each of these stories where printed separately in a span of more than twenty years from 1973 to 1999, and handpicked by the translator, Raymond Stock, for this edition. They are all magnificent, but my favorites were ‘The Seventh Heaven’ (1979), ‘The Disturbing Occurrences’ (1979), ‘Room no. 12’ (1973), ‘Forgetfulness’ (1984), ‘Man of Awesome Power’ (1996) and ‘The Rose Garden’ (1999). Some of them, like Forgetfulness were so chilling I could not keep on reading afterwards. I was completely mesmerized. Also, “Man of Awesome Power” reminded me of Jim Carrey’s movie ‘Bruce Almighty’, but better; with no Hollywood sweet ending. If you’ve never read Mahfouz, this is a good place to start.