THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 5, 1994 TAG: 9406010451
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: C2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Medium
DATELINE: 940605 LENGTH:
NAGUIB MAHFOUZ
{REST} Translated from the Arabic by Catherine Cobham
Doubleday. 406 pp. $22.95.
\ THE HARAFISH are the ``common people,'' the laborers, the unemployed, the homeless. Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz's novel, The Harafish, is the story of 10 generations of the Al-Nagi family, which ruled in a long, crowded Egyptian alley.
How the family treated the harafish of the alley is the key to the character of each of its generations. And members were sometimes harafish themselves. The first of them to rule, Ashur, was a foundling abandoned beside a monastery.
The Harafish, first published in Egypt in 1977, is biblical in its density, with stories packed in tight against each other, the narrator racing through decades in a few lines. It reminded me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's sweeping One Hundred Years of Solitude. Both novels tell in sequence the generational tale of a family; both are more mythic than realistic; and both tell so many fascinating stories that the episodes begin to blur.
A thematic unfolding occurs as the stories accrue: the hero as flawed individual, the legacy as both blessing and curse, the most downtrodden people as judges of character. Constant in the alley, though, is the chanting of the holy men behind the monastery walls, the mysterious anthems that float out to the street.
For a novel that has so little of conventional plotting, The Harafish rises, almost in song, to a deeply satisfying finale.
- PEGGY PAYNE
\ \ NIGHT PREY
JOHN SANDFORD
G.P. Putnam's Sons. 336 pp. $22.95.
\ KOOP'S MOM was a whore; that's why he killed her. Now he kills women because it's the only way he can relieve his sexual tension. And lately, he's had lots of sexual tension, thanks to Sara Jensen.
Of course Sara doesn't even know Koop exists, that he's been stalking her, spying on her, that he's been in her apartment while she's asleep. But she soon will.
Investigator Meagan Connell has made catching this killer a crusade, one that she is determined to see through before cancer kills her. That gives her about a month. Yet despite the urgency, Connell is less than overjoyed to find Lucas Davenport assigned to the case. And frankly, I don't blame her.
The biggest problem with each of John Sandford's Prey novels is his main character, Lucas Davenport. In the first five novels, Davenport went from being something of a jerk to being truly unlikable. In Night Prey, Davenport improves slightly, but only because Sandford has drawn him poorly. Without Davenport to empathize with, and given Connell's dour disposition, the next most developed, most likable character is Koop. And somehow, rooting for the killer just doesn't seem right.
That Sandford has once again failed to provide a likable character is made even more regrettable by the fact that Night Prey does contain several truly chilling scenes. But ultimately these scenes are too few to make worthwhile a book filled with characters that you simply don't want to be around.
- GREGORY N. KROLCZYK
\ \ I AIN'T AN ATHLETE, LADY
My Well-Rounded Life and Times
JOHN KRUK WITH PAUL HAGEN
Simon & Schuster. 255 pp. $22.
\ THE BOOK ON John Kruk says the pudgy all-star first baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies has an eye for hitting a baseball, a talent for spouting quotable quips and a reputation as a gruff-but-lovable regular guy.
The book about Kruk, written by Kruk and longtime Phillies' beat writer Paul Hagen, supports that scouting report.
Kruk exudes a strange charisma, founded on his 5-foot-10, 214-pound body, unfiltered language, slovenly appearance and a .300 lifetime batting average. That profile, coupled with his turn in the spotlight last year when the renegade Phillies went to the World Series, prompted I Ain't An Athlete, Lady.
It's a quirky, lightweight biography in which Kruk, a native West Virginian, makes it clear that his celebrity is largely unwelcome. Never was that more evident than last spring when he had a cancerous testicle removed. ``And then I had to talk about it,'' he writes. ``Who wants to go around telling people you only have one testicle?''
Kruk gives the subject little space - the last few pages. As his real-life ordeal unfolded, Kruk cracked jokes to help himself cope. Here, he jokes his way through 255 pages that Kruk's fan club will eat up like their hero attacks a rack of ribs.
- TOM ROBINSON by CNB