41 pages • 1 hour read
Alaa Al AswanyThe Yacoubian Building
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2002A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Hidden Lives
Many of the characters in this novel lead hidden lives. There are very few morally pure characters in the text, at least when they are at home. Many enjoy vices of all sorts, or behavior that society might consider immoral or scandalous, whether alcohol, homosexuality, or drugs. These vices cause the characters to create a distinction between their private and public lives. Hatim keeps his sexuality secret (though it is something of an open secret), Hagg Azzam runs a narcotics trade behind the façade of legitimate business, and Busayna claims to work in a shop but earns most of her money from offering her body to employers who expect sexual favors. The disconnect between these overt lives and the hidden lives reveals the shame and guilt that define the existence of so many characters.
Such hidden lives eventually come to tell. Hagg Azzam’s secret narcotics trade is revealed to be a known concern to the government. Hatim’s homosexuality is known and tolerated by his neighbors, who then consider the sounds of fighting coming from his flat to be part and parcel of his hidden life. Busayna’s bitterness almost comes to define her, and it is only Zaki Bey’s kindness that can penetrate her cold exterior and reach the hidden warmth within. The tight confines of Cairo’s architecture ensure that secrets do not remain secret for very long. There is always someone listening, and there is always someone who is willing to trade in information. Even institutions that cater exclusively to hidden lives (bars serving alcohol and businesses with homosexual clientele, for example) secret police inside. Hidden lives cannot exist in places such as the Yacoubian Building.
Taha must leave the building when his life becomes more secretive. When he is training for gihad, he and his fellow trainees decamp to the desert. They leave the urban areas for the vast expanse of nothingness, where no one is spying on them and they are not in danger of being overheard. Taha eventually brings his secret existence back into Cairo and is killed during the attack he is carrying out. His life is the most hidden of all, and it ends in the most tragic of circumstances.
Wealth Inequality
The disparity of wealth among the characters is a constant theme. Even the building itself functions as a metaphor for this: Those with money live and work in the main building’s offices and apartments, while those without money live in slum-like conditions on the roof. Though there is a clear physical separation between the roof people and the building people, their lives are inextricably intertwined. Zaki Bey’s servant’s brother, Malak, schemes to open a shop on the roof, while Hatim gives his lover a home there so that he is always close by. Despite their vast differences in fortune, there is no way to escape the way in which the characters affect one another.
Malak is perhaps the character who is most active in addressing the wealth inequality he sees. Along with his brother, he works tirelessly on all manner of schemes. One of the poorest characters, he will do anything to improve his circumstances. He lies, he cheats, he commits fraud, and he preys on other people’s weaknesses, all in the pursuit of money. Malak is even poorer than those already on the roof; he and his brother must fight and beg for one of the rooms to lift themselves up to such a position where they are considered poor. At every turn, they face pushback. Malak gets into a fight with other residents, though he quickly deals with the situation. From there, he begins to colonize the roof. He grabs what he can, desperate to make as much as possible by any means possible. While most characters are simply content to exist, Malak correctly diagnoses the vast wealth inequality in society and is fearless (and amoral) in his determination to address this disparity.
Such inequality affects even the very wealthy. Hagg Azzam is one of the richest and most powerful characters. Not satisfied with a huge business empire, he bribes his way into a position of power, but he dares to challenge the corrupt system, hoping to renegotiate the terms of his corruption. He visits the Big Man, whose wealth is even more conspicuous than his own. In the meeting, Hagg Azzam’s fortunes are shown to be pitiable in comparison to the truly super rich. What power and wealth Hagg Azzam thought he possessed are inadequate. At every level of society, wealth inequality is clear and evident.
The Hypocrisy of Power
For all of the trappings of power and wealth that exist among the novel’s most privileged characters, there are many hypocrisies. Characters preach and criticize but show themselves to be willing to indulge the same flaws and failings that they denigrate. Sheikh Shakir, Hagg Azzam, and Hatim are all hypocrites in one regard or another, and their hypocrisy is amplified by their proximity to power.
Hatim’s hypocrisy is closest to a personal failing. His relationship with Abduh becomes a battleground for his happiness, and he focuses so pointedly on his own happiness that he is unable to comprehend the happiness of others. Driven close to suicide by Abduh’s departure, he will do anything to get his lover back. However, he is unwilling to take into account Abduh’s own feelings on the matter. Hatim has been searching so long for the perfect relationship that he is unable to recognize the one-sided and unbalanced nature of his relationship with Abduh. They fight because Abduh is willing to criticize Hatim, and Hatim ultimately reveals his true opinion of Abduh: that he is bought and paid for, less an equal in the relationship than an employee. Hatim has spent so long searching for real love that he fails to recognize that he has never truly found it.
Sheikh Shakir is another character whose personal views differ from his public views. In public, Sheikh Shakir preaches the merits of gihad and the evils of the war against Iraq. To that end, he helps recruit and train young men to carry out attacks, but he does not carry out these attacks himself. He finds men like Taha whom he can mold and deploy. Rather than a fanatical believer in the importance of gihad, he is a coward who is unwilling to carry out the deed himself.
Perhaps the most obvious hypocrite in the novel is Sheikh el Samman, the man whom Hagg Azzam recruits to try and convince Souad to get an abortion. The Sheikh is a leading religious figure in the country, but his beliefs are malleable. He finds scriptural justifications for whatever his friends desire; whether they concern war with Iraq or abortion, his beliefs can be bought and sold. Souad’s strength is evident in her willingness to call out this hypocrisy. The book demonstrates how the rich and powerful sculpt morality to suit their needs, rather than vice versa.
