6 thoughts on “Sunday Morning! “Berg” by Ann Quin

      1. Speaking of great openers mentioning killing:

        Oh God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
        Abe says, “Man, you must be putting me on”
        God say, “No”. Abe say, “What?”
        God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but
        The next time you see me comin’ you better run”
        Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killing done?”
        God says, “Out on Highway 61”.Report

  1. I just finished reading the non-fiction book Alexandria Adieu by Egypttian-British journalist Adel Darwish. It is a part memoir, part history, and part sociology of growing up in Alexandria, Egypt during its last days as Egypt’s liberal, cosmopolitan second city. It is perhaps one of the most Philo-semitic books I read because Adel Darwish, who isn’t Jewish, spends a lot of time mourning over the destruction of Egypt’s Jewish community by both the Nasserite Arab nationalists and the Political Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood. In the last chapter he even goes so far to say that the forced dispossession and exile of the 80,000 strong Egyptian Jewish community, in a country of then 23 million people was a complete social and economic disaster for Egypt.

    One of the fascinating things about Alexandria Adieu is how a lot of the issues regarding it seem really relevant to the present. Mr. Darwish presents Alexandria as representing the Egypt that could have been, multicultural, secular, liberal, educated, capitalist, and sophisticated. The Arab Nationalists and Political Islamists loathed Alexandria for the same reason and saw it as a tumorous colonial imposition that was corrupting the good hard working pure Arab Muslims of Egypt. It’s rather like the debate on whether the current multicultural cities of the United States are seen as really America or not.Report

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