More than half of the stories ended unresolved - intentionally, but not well-executed at all. That being said, there are a couple of interesting and surreal stories that were very enjoyable.

90. sayfadaki Veda öyküsü, aşkın başlangıç ve bitişini, huzur olmayan evde yetişen çocukların durumun vahametini kavrayışı ile Cemal’in “ne sizin içinizi ne de kendi içimizi rahat ettiremeyiz” ifadesi. Yüreğe dokunan bir öykü. Kahire Üçleme’si Necib Mahfuz’un başyapıtı. Öykülerdeki kısa soluklu anlatımı sevemedim.

"Necessity has its own rules."

Short stories, some very short. They are strange -- he reminds me of Kafka, Camus, and the editor says Proust. Not sure how students will like them, but they are short. They aren't exactly memorable individually, but they add up to a pretty interesting world view.

I hadn’t read any Mahfouz before and was daunted by the idea of plunging straight into the one thousand or so pages of the Cairo trilogy so I thought I would ease myself into his work with this slender collection of short, short stories. All but one of the stories are set in Cairo and mostly in a one-square mile section of the old city. But if the world of these stories is limited in space it’s certainly adventurous in time – characters can live an entire lifetime in half a day or go backwards and forwards hundreds of years in a matter of minutes. Some are painfully aware that they have lived too long or don’t have long to live. Others are blissfully unaware that the reader is sharing their last moments. The best stories have a mysterious dream-like quality without quite losing their grip on reality, and develop into subtle allegories of death or political tyranny. Unfortunately, however, about half of the stories in the colection are either very slight or very heavy-handed in their allegorical intentions. A few of them came across as second rate Kafka, Ionesco and Bunuel. But the good stories are very good indeed and now I’m looking forward to tackling some of the author’s major works.

These are some of my favorite shorts stories by such an amazing author!

3.5 stars

My two favorite stories were "The Norwegian Rat" and "At the bus stop."

"At the crossroads, emotions flare up, memories are resurrected. How great is my distress! An extraordinary strength is required to control myself, otherwise the moments of saying goodbye will disappear. What a crushing blow, filled with bitterness, fury and hate. How often decay afflicts everything that is good! Love had been uprooted from my heart and it had turned to stone. Let us ignore all that in the short time that remains. What a crushing blow! Of what significance was it?"

Couldn’t get into this book.

A compilation of short stories...this book is a decent read. The stories are deep, intriguing and some are perhaps abstract. Nicely written, each story depicts a deeper thought and meaning of the human journey. The answer is no, Half a day, A day for saying goodbye, The Wasteland and A long term plan are must read stories.

interesting stories, well written. most of them didn’t seem to have much point to them at all but maybe that’s the intention. I found it a bit of a slog to read about half way through.