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Out of Egypt: A Memoir
From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Call Me by Your Name and Find Me, a memoir of an extraordinary life.
'[A] mesmerizing portrait of a now vanished world. Aciman's story of Alexandria is the story of his own family, a Jewish family with Italian and Turkish roots that tied its future to Egypt and made its home there for three generations, only to find itself peremptorily expelled by the Government in the early 1960's. It is the story of a fractious clan of dreamers and con men and the emotional price they would pay for exile, the story of a young boy's coming of age and his memories of the city he loved in his youth.
Writing in lucid, lyrical prose, Mr. Aciman does an exquisite job of conjuring up the daily rhythms and rituals of his family's life: their weekly trips to the movies, their daily jaunts to the beach, their internecine squabbles over everything from religion to money to the pronunciation of words. There are some wonderfully vivid scenes here, as strange and marvelous as something in Garcia Marquez, as comical and surprising as something in Chekhov.' Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
Aciman's latest novel, Find Me, is now available for preorder in paperback.
'[A] mesmerizing portrait of a now vanished world. Aciman's story of Alexandria is the story of his own family, a Jewish family with Italian and Turkish roots that tied its future to Egypt and made its home there for three generations, only to find itself peremptorily expelled by the Government in the early 1960's. It is the story of a fractious clan of dreamers and con men and the emotional price they would pay for exile, the story of a young boy's coming of age and his memories of the city he loved in his youth.
Writing in lucid, lyrical prose, Mr. Aciman does an exquisite job of conjuring up the daily rhythms and rituals of his family's life: their weekly trips to the movies, their daily jaunts to the beach, their internecine squabbles over everything from religion to money to the pronunciation of words. There are some wonderfully vivid scenes here, as strange and marvelous as something in Garcia Marquez, as comical and surprising as something in Chekhov.' Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
Aciman's latest novel, Find Me, is now available for preorder in paperback.
352 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1980
About the author
André Aciman
47 books9,674 followersAndré Aciman was born in Alexandria, Egypt and is an American memoirist, essayist, novelist, and scholar of seventeenth-century literature. He has also written many essays and reviews on Marcel Proust. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, The Paris Review, The New Republic, Condé Nast Traveler as well as in many volumes of The Best American Essays. Aciman received his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Harvard University, has taught at Princeton and Bard and is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at The CUNY Graduate Center. He is currently chair of the Ph. D. Program in Comparative Literature and founder and director of The Writers' Institute at the Graduate Center.
Aciman is the author of the Whiting Award-winning memoir Out of Egypt (1995), an account of his childhood as a Jew growing up in post-colonial Egypt. Aciman has published two other books: False Papers: Essays in Exile and Memory (2001), and a novel Call Me By Your Name (2007), which was chosen as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and won the Lambda Literary Award for Men's Fiction (2008). His forthcoming novel Eight White Nights (FSG) will be published on February 14, 2010
Aciman is the author of the Whiting Award-winning memoir Out of Egypt (1995), an account of his childhood as a Jew growing up in post-colonial Egypt. Aciman has published two other books: False Papers: Essays in Exile and Memory (2001), and a novel Call Me By Your Name (2007), which was chosen as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and won the Lambda Literary Award for Men's Fiction (2008). His forthcoming novel Eight White Nights (FSG) will be published on February 14, 2010
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June 16, 2021
Brilliant! In its early pages it’s interesting to think of this book as a flipside of Naguib Mahfouz’s The Cairo Trilogy. Both stories are multigenerational family sagas set in Egypt during the same period, early to mid-20th century. But while Mahfouz’s three-volume book focuses on an Arab family and its falsely pious roué paterfamilias in Cairo, Out of Egypt is about an eccentric Jewish family living in nearby Alexandria. There’s nothing here of Mahfouz’s abhorrence of British colonialism, and the political protests of the Arab population to shake off that yoke. Rather, it’s clear that author Aciman’s Jewish ancestors depended on that yoke if they were to continue to live there. In the years after the Suez Crisis, 1956, they were forced to flee in the face of expropriation, arrest and torture.
First we meet the grandmothers who are not yet grandmothers, before the author’s mother and father met. The women were neighbors on the Rue Memphis and shared six languages between them, including the obscure Ladino, which Wikipedia calls: “. . . a Romance language derived from Old Spanish. Originally spoken in the former territories of the Ottoman Empire . . . Today it is spoken mainly by Sephardic minorities in more than 30 countries, with most of the speakers residing in Israel.” The tenor of Proust is here in the family arguments, the work of the servants, who are described beautifully and berated intolerably. The writing is vivid, so intensely so that it approaches the synesthetic. One can smell the rosemary and rhododendrons in the gardens; the Parmesan cheese in the houses, the reek of hilba on the Arab servants. There’s Aunt Flora playing Schubert’s B-flat major sonata while the Nazis threaten the city before El Alamein. Flora’s sleeps with the author’s future father who then jilts her for the neighbor’s deaf daughter. This alignment produces the author. Flora befriends Mimi, the new wife.
There’s a wonderful line delivered by the odious Uncle Isaac, when he learns that because Israel was part of the Triumvirate that attacked Port Said, that the Jews in Egypt were being targeted. “Why?” he says. “We’re not Israelis.” There’s a wonderful incapacity to understand racism here, that I think anyone with a brain shares. I remember that incomprehensibilty when reading extensively on the Holocaust years ago. That comment made me like Isaac, a splenetic and disagreeable man, as I had not before.
After most of Aciman’s family members leave Egypt, his father insists on staying behind because of his robust textile business. The young author is sent to Victory College—formerly known as Victoria College—once a proud though far flung stronghold of the British educational system, now a hotbed of antisemitic rage and a serious tool for inculcating nationalist views in Egyptian youth. Aciman is the only Jew in the school. Part of his studies include the memorization of Arabic doggerel that depicts Egypt as all powerful, and Jews as hook-nosed savages being crushed under the wheel of the new national pride. Aciman’s father, who is largely consigned to the fringes of this ample memoir, takes no notice of this wretched antisemitic content, but insists his son learn it like the other boys lest his failure be looked on as an act of sedition by the government, and thus justification for expulsion. This penultimate chapter, called “The Lotus-Eaters,” is a gobsmacker.
Then comes the coda with its intimidating, anonymous phonecalls. The voice knows the family’s complete history. Chillingly, the voice speaks of their daily activities. Mostly it asks: “Where is your father?” Not until the textile business is taken by Nassar’s government, though, do they decamp. It’s hard to imagine living under such a strain. I put Out of Egypt on the same shelf with William Dalrymple’s marvelous City of Djinns and Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard, though neither Matthiessen nor Dalrymple ever had to worry about their personal safety when researching those books. They are travel books whereas Egypt is a prelude-to-exile book. Maybe it’s even closer to Victor Klemperer’s two-volume I Will Bear Witness, which recounts the author’s life during the Nazi period with his “Aryan” wife, though Klemperer never went into exile. Vladimir Nabokov entered exile, though he was a child at the time, and so did Victor Serge, both escaping revolutionary Russia. Napoleon did, too, perhaps most famously. About the latter I highly recommend Julia Blackburn’s fine The Emperor’s Last Island.
First we meet the grandmothers who are not yet grandmothers, before the author’s mother and father met. The women were neighbors on the Rue Memphis and shared six languages between them, including the obscure Ladino, which Wikipedia calls: “. . . a Romance language derived from Old Spanish. Originally spoken in the former territories of the Ottoman Empire . . . Today it is spoken mainly by Sephardic minorities in more than 30 countries, with most of the speakers residing in Israel.” The tenor of Proust is here in the family arguments, the work of the servants, who are described beautifully and berated intolerably. The writing is vivid, so intensely so that it approaches the synesthetic. One can smell the rosemary and rhododendrons in the gardens; the Parmesan cheese in the houses, the reek of hilba on the Arab servants. There’s Aunt Flora playing Schubert’s B-flat major sonata while the Nazis threaten the city before El Alamein. Flora’s sleeps with the author’s future father who then jilts her for the neighbor’s deaf daughter. This alignment produces the author. Flora befriends Mimi, the new wife.
In October 1956, when the Suez Crisis erupted, Nasser brought in a set of sweeping regulations abolishing civil liberties and allowing the state to stage mass arrests without charge and strip away Egyptian citizenship from any group it desired; these measures were mostly directed against the Jews of Egypt. As part of its new policy, 1,000 Jews were arrested and 500 Jewish businesses were seized by the government. A statement branding the Jews as "Zionists and enemies of the state" was read out in the mosques of Cairo and Alexandria. Jewish bank accounts were confiscated and many Jews lost their jobs. Lawyers, engineers, doctors and teachers were not allowed to work in their professions. Thousands of Jews were ordered to leave the country. They were allowed to take only one suitcase and a small sum of cash, and forced to sign declarations "donating" their property to the Egyptian government.—Wikipedia
There’s a wonderful line delivered by the odious Uncle Isaac, when he learns that because Israel was part of the Triumvirate that attacked Port Said, that the Jews in Egypt were being targeted. “Why?” he says. “We’re not Israelis.” There’s a wonderful incapacity to understand racism here, that I think anyone with a brain shares. I remember that incomprehensibilty when reading extensively on the Holocaust years ago. That comment made me like Isaac, a splenetic and disagreeable man, as I had not before.
After most of Aciman’s family members leave Egypt, his father insists on staying behind because of his robust textile business. The young author is sent to Victory College—formerly known as Victoria College—once a proud though far flung stronghold of the British educational system, now a hotbed of antisemitic rage and a serious tool for inculcating nationalist views in Egyptian youth. Aciman is the only Jew in the school. Part of his studies include the memorization of Arabic doggerel that depicts Egypt as all powerful, and Jews as hook-nosed savages being crushed under the wheel of the new national pride. Aciman’s father, who is largely consigned to the fringes of this ample memoir, takes no notice of this wretched antisemitic content, but insists his son learn it like the other boys lest his failure be looked on as an act of sedition by the government, and thus justification for expulsion. This penultimate chapter, called “The Lotus-Eaters,” is a gobsmacker.
Then comes the coda with its intimidating, anonymous phonecalls. The voice knows the family’s complete history. Chillingly, the voice speaks of their daily activities. Mostly it asks: “Where is your father?” Not until the textile business is taken by Nassar’s government, though, do they decamp. It’s hard to imagine living under such a strain. I put Out of Egypt on the same shelf with William Dalrymple’s marvelous City of Djinns and Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard, though neither Matthiessen nor Dalrymple ever had to worry about their personal safety when researching those books. They are travel books whereas Egypt is a prelude-to-exile book. Maybe it’s even closer to Victor Klemperer’s two-volume I Will Bear Witness, which recounts the author’s life during the Nazi period with his “Aryan” wife, though Klemperer never went into exile. Vladimir Nabokov entered exile, though he was a child at the time, and so did Victor Serge, both escaping revolutionary Russia. Napoleon did, too, perhaps most famously. About the latter I highly recommend Julia Blackburn’s fine The Emperor’s Last Island.
August 19, 2019
A really stunning memoir, which despite being published in the US in 1994, is only appearing in print at this side of the Atlantic in 2019 (due to Faber's recent acquisition of Aciman's back catalogue).
Aciman's accounts of his family are almost unbelievable. Whereas many families may have one character who stands out amongst the rest, Aciman's family seems to have been entirely comprised of characters with strange origins and wild lives. All of these lives are projected against the fraught setting of Alexandria before, during, and after WWII.
Oftentimes you forget you're reading a memoir, due to Aciman's novelistic approach, which transforms this book from a random memoir of a would-be novelist to an almost essential work of non-fiction.
I hope that this reissuing (which is actually a first printing) gives this book a second wind. It deserves to be loved again.
Aciman's accounts of his family are almost unbelievable. Whereas many families may have one character who stands out amongst the rest, Aciman's family seems to have been entirely comprised of characters with strange origins and wild lives. All of these lives are projected against the fraught setting of Alexandria before, during, and after WWII.
Oftentimes you forget you're reading a memoir, due to Aciman's novelistic approach, which transforms this book from a random memoir of a would-be novelist to an almost essential work of non-fiction.
I hope that this reissuing (which is actually a first printing) gives this book a second wind. It deserves to be loved again.
January 12, 2023
«Lo que escribo no es ni verdadero ni falso, sino vivido».
Leyendo esta historia me han venido a la cabeza estas palabras de Malraux, que leí una vez y apunté en algún sitio. Lo que contienen las páginas de Lejos de Egipto es vida, es memoria. Una palabra esta última, que, creo, es casi sinónima de imaginación.
Ni verdadero ni falso. Vivido.
Un libro fabuloso, unas memorias narradas con una ternura inmensa, esa que reservamos para hablar de aquellos y aquello a lo que amamos de verdad. Unas historia divertidísima, como solo puede serlo lo que está cargado de humor inteligente, maligno, inapropiado pero alejado de la crueldad.
Un libro que a pesar de contar una historia en ocasiones dura, un libro regado de la sensación agridulce que provoca el hablar de algo que ya no existe pero nos fue querido, desprende fundamentalmente alegría.
Dos cosas me han parecido maravillosas:
Las descripciones, las del lugar, el mar bañando la Corniche de Alejandría, el milagro de las mañanas en Mandara, y, sobre todo, de los personajes. Todos ellos inolvidables, el tío Vili, turco-italo-anglófilo y aburguesado fascista judío… de profesión, espía británico; las abuelas, la princesa y la santa, enemigas íntimas; Gigi, su maravillosa madre, sorda; la inolvidable Flora, refugiada alemana… todos ellos, conjuntamente, forman un fresco interesantísimo sobre lo que ¿significa? ser judío (si es que algo tan significativo puede realmente significar algo)… plenamente conscientes de su origen, sin ser conscientes de ello en absoluto.
Y, segundo, cómo consigue narrar la historia desde su yo adulto, a través de los ojos de su yo niño, cómo van cambiando las sensaciones, cómo es de diferente la historia familiar, siempre propia, que le fue contada pero no fue vivida, terreno de leyenda, de la historia de su propia infancia feliz, de las emociones adolescentes cuando llega la incertidumbre, el miedo, la nostalgia anticipada. Antes de comenzar a leer, pensé que probablemente sería exagerada esa descripción que hace la editorial cuando habla en la contraportada de “ecos proustianos”, pero, es verdad, esto es el retrato de un tiempo perdido, de un tiempo asombrosamente recobrado.
…intuí que lo que hacía tan dolorosa la partida era saber que jamás habría otra noche como aquella, que jamás comería regaifas jugosas en el paseo marítimo, ni ese año ni ningún otro, que jamás sentiría la belleza desconcertante y súbita de ese momento, en el que quizá solo por un instante me había descubierto añorando una ciudad que hasta entonces no sabía que amaba.
Leyendo esta historia me han venido a la cabeza estas palabras de Malraux, que leí una vez y apunté en algún sitio. Lo que contienen las páginas de Lejos de Egipto es vida, es memoria. Una palabra esta última, que, creo, es casi sinónima de imaginación.
Ni verdadero ni falso. Vivido.
Un libro fabuloso, unas memorias narradas con una ternura inmensa, esa que reservamos para hablar de aquellos y aquello a lo que amamos de verdad. Unas historia divertidísima, como solo puede serlo lo que está cargado de humor inteligente, maligno, inapropiado pero alejado de la crueldad.
Un libro que a pesar de contar una historia en ocasiones dura, un libro regado de la sensación agridulce que provoca el hablar de algo que ya no existe pero nos fue querido, desprende fundamentalmente alegría.
Dos cosas me han parecido maravillosas:
Las descripciones, las del lugar, el mar bañando la Corniche de Alejandría, el milagro de las mañanas en Mandara, y, sobre todo, de los personajes. Todos ellos inolvidables, el tío Vili, turco-italo-anglófilo y aburguesado fascista judío… de profesión, espía británico; las abuelas, la princesa y la santa, enemigas íntimas; Gigi, su maravillosa madre, sorda; la inolvidable Flora, refugiada alemana… todos ellos, conjuntamente, forman un fresco interesantísimo sobre lo que ¿significa? ser judío (si es que algo tan significativo puede realmente significar algo)… plenamente conscientes de su origen, sin ser conscientes de ello en absoluto.
Y, segundo, cómo consigue narrar la historia desde su yo adulto, a través de los ojos de su yo niño, cómo van cambiando las sensaciones, cómo es de diferente la historia familiar, siempre propia, que le fue contada pero no fue vivida, terreno de leyenda, de la historia de su propia infancia feliz, de las emociones adolescentes cuando llega la incertidumbre, el miedo, la nostalgia anticipada. Antes de comenzar a leer, pensé que probablemente sería exagerada esa descripción que hace la editorial cuando habla en la contraportada de “ecos proustianos”, pero, es verdad, esto es el retrato de un tiempo perdido, de un tiempo asombrosamente recobrado.
…intuí que lo que hacía tan dolorosa la partida era saber que jamás habría otra noche como aquella, que jamás comería regaifas jugosas en el paseo marítimo, ni ese año ni ningún otro, que jamás sentiría la belleza desconcertante y súbita de ese momento, en el que quizá solo por un instante me había descubierto añorando una ciudad que hasta entonces no sabía que amaba.
September 16, 2024
Bine structurată povestea clanului de sefarzi și așkenazi care formează arborele genealogic al autorului, cu toate împachetările ,plecările, sosirile și fugile de-a lungul Europei secolului al XX-lea. O poveste cosmopolită, cu caractere bine construite și personaje memorabile și, deși tema principală este prigoana antisemită, nici un moment nu am simțit vreun iz de melodramă, ba mai mult, personajele au o doză mare de ironie și multe din dramele familiale-s tratate cu umor declanșând mult haz în timpul lecturii. Acum am înțeles perfect poliglotismul natural al familiei din Call Me by Your Name.
November 14, 2022
şimdi salonda boya yapılırken ben kalan 40 sayfamı okudum.
muhtemelen üstünden tekrar geçecek ve aile için soy ağacı çıkaracağım. andre acıman’ı ilk kez okuyorum. “adınla çağır beni”yi izlemiş ve kopan kıyamette pek de beğenmediğimi söylemeye çekinmiştim.
ama iyi ki bu görkemli anı kitabıyla okumaya başlamışım. mısır’da geçen her romanda aynı şeyi düşünüyorum, ne kadar ne kadar bize benziyor her şey. osmanlı’nın çöküşünden sonra o kozmopolitliği mısır yükleniyor önce. öyle güzel günler, renkli, zengin hayatlar. sokaklarda konuşulan farklı diller, birbirinin bayramını kutlayan farklı dinler…
oysa biz bu mozaiğin içinin ne olduğunu bilecek bir coğrafyadayız. andre acıman kendi anne ve baba tarafının arasında süren ırkçılığı bile dümdüz vermiş, bırakın arap, türk ırkçılığını… ladino-osmanlı baba tarafı sürekli sağır arap yahudisi anneyi aşağılıyor.
tüm bu karmaşanın ortasında yetişen andre acıman’sa nasıl zengin bir mirasın varisi. alışık olduğumuz şımartma biçimleri.
çok can yakıcı olan şey peyderpey giden ailenin ardından babanın mısır hükümetinin ona dokunmayacağını sanması, oğlunu okulda islam sınıfına vermesi, onlardan biri olmaya çalışması… tabii ki olmuyor. olmaz.
20’ yüzyıl başı romanlarımdan sonra milliyetçiliğin ve ulusa dayalı ülke talebinin insanlığa atılmış en büyük kazık olduğunu düşünüyorum. keşke imparatorluklar devam etseymiş. tabii daha iyi bir formda.
kalabalık bir kadro var kitapta, ailenin dışında hizmetçiler, dadılar, öğretmenler, aile dostları… rengarenk. ve ırkçılığın arasında yine de iyi insan olmanın özü. ki hizmetçiler olan bitene aileden daha çok üzülüyor.
şimdi “mısır’dan çıkış”tan sonra lawrence durrell’ler aklıma düştü çok fena… bakalım ne olacak.
kerem ışık çok iyi bir çevirinin altından kalkmış. ilk 100 sayfada kim anlatılıyor anlamak zor ama sanırım orijinalde de böyle. o kişi zamirinin kimi kapsadığı belli olmuyor. onun dışında yanlış kullanılan teyze, görümce gibi akrabalık isimleri var maalesef. teyzelerin hepsinin hala-büyük hala olması gerekiyor nerdeyse. ama kafanızda oturunca bir şekilde halloluyor.
sanırım daha uzun yazacağım bu kitaba dair.
muhtemelen üstünden tekrar geçecek ve aile için soy ağacı çıkaracağım. andre acıman’ı ilk kez okuyorum. “adınla çağır beni”yi izlemiş ve kopan kıyamette pek de beğenmediğimi söylemeye çekinmiştim.
ama iyi ki bu görkemli anı kitabıyla okumaya başlamışım. mısır’da geçen her romanda aynı şeyi düşünüyorum, ne kadar ne kadar bize benziyor her şey. osmanlı’nın çöküşünden sonra o kozmopolitliği mısır yükleniyor önce. öyle güzel günler, renkli, zengin hayatlar. sokaklarda konuşulan farklı diller, birbirinin bayramını kutlayan farklı dinler…
oysa biz bu mozaiğin içinin ne olduğunu bilecek bir coğrafyadayız. andre acıman kendi anne ve baba tarafının arasında süren ırkçılığı bile dümdüz vermiş, bırakın arap, türk ırkçılığını… ladino-osmanlı baba tarafı sürekli sağır arap yahudisi anneyi aşağılıyor.
tüm bu karmaşanın ortasında yetişen andre acıman’sa nasıl zengin bir mirasın varisi. alışık olduğumuz şımartma biçimleri.
çok can yakıcı olan şey peyderpey giden ailenin ardından babanın mısır hükümetinin ona dokunmayacağını sanması, oğlunu okulda islam sınıfına vermesi, onlardan biri olmaya çalışması… tabii ki olmuyor. olmaz.
20’ yüzyıl başı romanlarımdan sonra milliyetçiliğin ve ulusa dayalı ülke talebinin insanlığa atılmış en büyük kazık olduğunu düşünüyorum. keşke imparatorluklar devam etseymiş. tabii daha iyi bir formda.
kalabalık bir kadro var kitapta, ailenin dışında hizmetçiler, dadılar, öğretmenler, aile dostları… rengarenk. ve ırkçılığın arasında yine de iyi insan olmanın özü. ki hizmetçiler olan bitene aileden daha çok üzülüyor.
şimdi “mısır’dan çıkış”tan sonra lawrence durrell’ler aklıma düştü çok fena… bakalım ne olacak.
kerem ışık çok iyi bir çevirinin altından kalkmış. ilk 100 sayfada kim anlatılıyor anlamak zor ama sanırım orijinalde de böyle. o kişi zamirinin kimi kapsadığı belli olmuyor. onun dışında yanlış kullanılan teyze, görümce gibi akrabalık isimleri var maalesef. teyzelerin hepsinin hala-büyük hala olması gerekiyor nerdeyse. ama kafanızda oturunca bir şekilde halloluyor.
sanırım daha uzun yazacağım bu kitaba dair.
August 12, 2015
Unlike features of a landscape like trees and mountains, people have feet. They move to places where the opportunities are best, and they soon invite their friends and relatives to join them. This demographic mixing turns the landscape into a fractal, with minorities inside minorities inside minorities.
--Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of our Nature, p. 241
First read in 2008; given a thumbnail review in May, 2013:
Although I read this book in the past, I know the exact date for once, because in 2008 the local library conducted a five-book series on Jewish literature that I participated in. The book is a memoir of the author's family, whose life in Egypt came to an end in the 1960s (I think). It differed from my then-typical reading and therefore was a little hard to get into, but was evocative and memorable. It must be of the same genre as The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss, one of my current books. It's also said to be Proust-like, so related (it can seem) to what half of Goodreads is reading. But the reason I'm thinking of Out of Egypt today is that I just read a review of the author's new novel, Harvard Square. Although I had just been thinking that some book reviews are much worse than Goodreads reviews because they make me not want to read the reviewed book, this one resulted in my adding the book post-haste.
Second reading, completed October 2, 2014
I'm supposed to lead a discussion of the author's recent novel Harvard Square, which made me think it would be a good idea to reread Out of Egypt. I remembered so little of it and found it tough going, but some of what I did remember has proved important to me.
The memoir seems to me to be on the order of recording a dream--quick, before it melts away and is gone forever. It is about the motley crew of relatives with whom he grew up in Alexandria, their quirks and personalities, their lives and surroundings. His first ancestor showed up there in 1905, and by the time that fact surfaced near the end of the book I'm damned if I can remember which relative that might have been. It's hard to keep them straight. He often refers to them by their nicknames, or maybe sometimes by their main characteristic in his sight--"the Saint," and "the Princess," for example, for his two grandmothers, whom later he would devilishly call "my grandmother," leaving me trying to discern which one is intended. So obviously I was bestirring myself to read analytically and pin things down, while sometimes it's better to just let the impressions wash over one--yet at the same time I did want to pin things down a little more on this second reading!
And to add to the fun he can skip around in time. Now we're in his life as a boy growing up in Alexandria, and now we're in Paris visiting those relatives in their diminished and separate old age, afterward.
But mostly we're in Alexandria. His parents were born there. His grandparents--three of them, anyway, were Sephardic Jews from what was still Constantinople when they left. I cannot remember specifically what sort of upset at the first of the twentieth century led to their leaving. Those grandparents spoke five or six languages, with Ladino the comfortable old clothes they slipped into when the corset of French got too tight. They could look toward the west and look down on the east, styling themselves "Italian." One of the grandfathers was from Aleppo, and he definitely held a lower status among that generation, being an "Arab Jew." And one of the languages they learned was not Arabic. Theirs was a Eurocentric mentality. They lived among the Italian, Greek, French and English business class. They weren't exactly wealthy. The grandfather from Turkey had a billiard hall--I think! The Aleppo grandfather, he had a bicycle shop. But maybe it ended up being a factory. The Arab native population that we meet through their eyes are often the servant class. The grandmothers were out and about, making purchases, haggling, not cut off from street life, but they all had cooks and housekeepers. The author's father, though--he became rich in the wool industry. He did have a factory.
In the years leading up to the Second World War, more Jews from Europe showed up in the extended family there--"the Schwab," from Swabia in Germany who married into the family, and his sister Flora, pianist and love-magnet.... But the family remained a variety of Mediterranean people, emotional and effusive, demonstrative and superstitious. For example, the colorful curses: "May a curse fall on the orifice that spawned you and your mother's religion", and the relatively mild "May you rot in sixty hells." The author's father, and his father before him, had wandering eyes and various infidelities. There was the Greek governess who was outraged at the scurrilous lie about Jesus being a Jew. The family members had internalized negativity about Jews. When they argued, their anti-Jewish stereotypes could come out in the name calling. There was also the belief that "(i)t's because of Jews like them that they hate Jews like us" (that being a view from inside a stigmatized minority, but not the essence of racism).
There was nothing about synagogues in their life, that I remember, anyway, their religious life seeming to be more nearly in the realm of table fellowship and centered in the home. One of the few parts I did remember was the charming scoundrel of an uncle, Vili, who ended up with an anglicized name and a manor in England, but could still be heard under his door at night murmuring Hebrew prayers before bed.
Wikipedia says most Jews left Egypt after the formation of the state of Israel in '48, but, in this picture of Alexandria, the big blow was the Suez Canal crisis of 1956. Some of the last times the whole family was together were during the black-outs when attack by Britain and France was thought imminent. After that, their status changed, and that of the other expatriates, too, given the circumstances, but the Jews were singled out for some special opprobrium. They began to be called "dirty Zionists." Most of the family left then, but the woolens manufacturer was determined to remain if he could. They moved for a while to a different suburb. The author as an adolescent attended a school where he was beaten, until his mother flew off the handle, slapped the teacher, and removed him. The father's notion had been that the boy should adapt so that the family would pass under the radar. Of course ultimately that was not to be.
There was no mass persecution but rather a sort of rolling expulsion. Families kept suitcases at the ready, leather, in those days, and the leather odor became associated in the author's mind with the stigma of the fallen, those who had lost everything. The calls to the author's family began in the fall of 1964, the time of Ramadan and Passover coinciding, and finally the call announcing the nationalization of the wool factory, so that the father has "lost her" (the factory); and the call saying they had a week to leave, under which circumstance the last Seder took place with the family remnants together in one place for the final time, amid a sense of the exodus.
I'll just throw in that around that time and perhaps confirming that sense of exodus, quail really did fall from the sky, the idea being that after their long migration from as far away as Siberia they would literally fall exhausted to earth, whereupon the locals could catch them and feast. Who knew?
People who grew up near warm coasts, not only those born-and-bred Mediterraneans who were having to leave Alexandria, seem to have it in their blood. One of my sisters-in-law is deeply rooted in the Orlando area, and now her children, too, are rooted there. One of my husband's nieces moved with her husband to a part of North Carolina where the winters and the snow far outstrip ours here, but after a couple of years they were drawn back. My husband, in contrast, left Orlando and never looked back, but his parents were not originally from there. It doesn't look like I'm going to leave Atlanta nor have I had to be uprooted. For me it's the trees....
I've left out the whole saga of the author's mother, a beautiful and intelligent woman who was deaf and who came up in an era of forced integration into the hearing community via lipreading, leading to further challenges. Signing wasn't yet accepted. He wrote about her and her influence on him in this March, 2014 piece in The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...
October 24, 2023
Bu kitabı çok yanlış bir zamanda okudum o yüzden üzerine bir şeyler söylemem ne kadar doğru bilmiyorum. Bunu kolektif acıları karşılaştırmak olarak algılamayın lütfen; çok yakın bir coğrafyada öylesine büyük bir acı ve vahşete maruz kalıyorken okuduğumuz kitaplardaki acı ve kederi algılama eşiğimiz değişiyor bence. Özellikle de korku içinde haber almaya çalışırken, yaşanan vahşeti görsel bilgiyle destelemediklerinde anlaşılmadığına, ikna olunmayacağına inananlar ile kendisini en acı görsele en doğru cümleyi yazmaya mecbur hissedenlerin sayesinde, sosyal medyada karşılaştığımız hiçbir filtre ve sansürden geçirilmemiş açık görseller kanımızla birlikte ruhumuzu da katılaştırıyor muhtemelen. Ki bu durum bir noktada sosyal medya ile olan ilişkimi ve burada var olma fikrimi de çok keskin bir şekilde değiştirdi ama daha fazla kitaptan uzaklaşmamak için bu kısmı es geçeceğim.
Kitaba gelecek olursak, konusu ilk bakışta -ve temel olarak- acı bir geçmişin ve de talihsiz bir ailenin kuşaklara yayılan hüzünlü hikayesi olsa da Andre Aciman’ın kaleminde ve Iskenderiye sokaklarının edebiyattaki büyülü etkisiyle sizi sarıp sarmalayan bir aile hikayesine dönüşüyor. Çünkü Aciman ailesini - yaşanan bütün dramlara rağmen- oldukça eğlenceli, komik ve etkileyici bir şekilde anlatıyor. İyilikleri ya da kötülükleri parlatılmadan, bütün insani yönleriyle muazzam portreler çiziyor. Mısır’dan Çıkış gibi sonunun iyi bitmeyeceğini bildiğiniz tarihi gerçeklerin üzerinde yükselen kitaplarda beni en çok etkileyen şey dramın ana merkeze oturtulmadan, tıpkı hayatın akışı gibi inişleri-çıkışları ya da acıları-mutluluklarıyla ilerleyen anlatılar çıkması. Bu kitap da tam olarak böyle bir örnek. Bu arada, İskenderiye’de geçen her kitabın kaderi bu sanırım, -zira Durrell’in İskenderiye Dörtlemesi’nde de olduğu gibi- anlatı ne kadar güçlü ve sarsıcı olursa olsun İskenderiye bir anda kitabın ana karakterine dönüşüyor. Burada da sokaklarında bambaşka milletlerden insanların dolaştığı; Türkçe, İtalyanca, Ladino, Yunanca, Fransızca cümlelerin çınladığı, Andre Aciman’ın ailesindeki çeşitliliğin ve canlılığın birebir yansıması olan İskenderiye ailenin en önemli üyelerinden birisi gibi yer buluyor kendisine. Artık asla bulamayacağınız bir İskenderiye; caddeleri, kafeleri ve Akdeniz esintisiyle adeta bir kitap süresince yeniden varoluyor. Tabii 20. yüzyılın ilk yarısındaki bu çeşitlilik hali ilk olarak İkinci Dünya Savaşı sırasında Almanların Mısır’a yönelik planlarının yarattığı korkuyla, sonra da ikinci yarısına geçerken Avrupa’nın Mısır’dan elini eteğini çekmesiyle sona eriyor. Sonrası hem tarihte hem de günümüzde yaşanan olaylardan bildiğimiz üzere; yükselen milliyetçiliğin sorgusuz sahiplenilmesiyle, yerlerinden, yurtlarından, köklerinden edilen nice aileler, hayatlar. Aciman ailesi için de bu sürgün “bir Musa olmadan Mısır’dan Çıkış”ın ve Avrupa’nın çeşitli şehirlerine dağılıp yalnızlaşmasının hikayesi.
Bu arada okuduğum dönemden bağımsız, hem ailenin kalabalıklığı hem de kronolojik bir şekilde değil de zamanda zıplamalarla ilerleyen hikayelerin İskenderiye’nin karma dilinden esintilerle anlatılması kitabı okurken kaybolup gitme riskinizi arttırıyor. Ama tarihin gerçekleriyle bu kadar iç içe geçmiş bir aile üzerinden 20.yüzyılın ilk yarısıdaki büyülü İskenderiye’yi okumak isterseniz - doğru bir zamanda- mutlaka tavsiyedir. Son olarak şunu da eklemeden geçemeyeceğim, bu kadar çok etkileyici karakterlere sahip olmasına rağmen kitapta beni en çok sarsan annesi Gigi ve onunla kurabildiği derme çatma gibi görünen ama aslında çok daha güçlü bir bağ ile bağlı anne-oğul ilişkisi. Sanırım hem yazarın bu kadar tabulaştırılan bir konuda bu kadar dürüst olabilmesi hem de Gigi’nin duymamasına rağmen çevresini en iyi algılayıp çözen ve hiç korkmadan en dik duruşuyla tepki veren kişi olması beni çok etkiledi. Onun hikayesini ayrı bir kitapta uzun uzun okumayı çok isterdim. .
Kitaba gelecek olursak, konusu ilk bakışta -ve temel olarak- acı bir geçmişin ve de talihsiz bir ailenin kuşaklara yayılan hüzünlü hikayesi olsa da Andre Aciman’ın kaleminde ve Iskenderiye sokaklarının edebiyattaki büyülü etkisiyle sizi sarıp sarmalayan bir aile hikayesine dönüşüyor. Çünkü Aciman ailesini - yaşanan bütün dramlara rağmen- oldukça eğlenceli, komik ve etkileyici bir şekilde anlatıyor. İyilikleri ya da kötülükleri parlatılmadan, bütün insani yönleriyle muazzam portreler çiziyor. Mısır’dan Çıkış gibi sonunun iyi bitmeyeceğini bildiğiniz tarihi gerçeklerin üzerinde yükselen kitaplarda beni en çok etkileyen şey dramın ana merkeze oturtulmadan, tıpkı hayatın akışı gibi inişleri-çıkışları ya da acıları-mutluluklarıyla ilerleyen anlatılar çıkması. Bu kitap da tam olarak böyle bir örnek. Bu arada, İskenderiye’de geçen her kitabın kaderi bu sanırım, -zira Durrell’in İskenderiye Dörtlemesi’nde de olduğu gibi- anlatı ne kadar güçlü ve sarsıcı olursa olsun İskenderiye bir anda kitabın ana karakterine dönüşüyor. Burada da sokaklarında bambaşka milletlerden insanların dolaştığı; Türkçe, İtalyanca, Ladino, Yunanca, Fransızca cümlelerin çınladığı, Andre Aciman’ın ailesindeki çeşitliliğin ve canlılığın birebir yansıması olan İskenderiye ailenin en önemli üyelerinden birisi gibi yer buluyor kendisine. Artık asla bulamayacağınız bir İskenderiye; caddeleri, kafeleri ve Akdeniz esintisiyle adeta bir kitap süresince yeniden varoluyor. Tabii 20. yüzyılın ilk yarısındaki bu çeşitlilik hali ilk olarak İkinci Dünya Savaşı sırasında Almanların Mısır’a yönelik planlarının yarattığı korkuyla, sonra da ikinci yarısına geçerken Avrupa’nın Mısır’dan elini eteğini çekmesiyle sona eriyor. Sonrası hem tarihte hem de günümüzde yaşanan olaylardan bildiğimiz üzere; yükselen milliyetçiliğin sorgusuz sahiplenilmesiyle, yerlerinden, yurtlarından, köklerinden edilen nice aileler, hayatlar. Aciman ailesi için de bu sürgün “bir Musa olmadan Mısır’dan Çıkış”ın ve Avrupa’nın çeşitli şehirlerine dağılıp yalnızlaşmasının hikayesi.
Bu arada okuduğum dönemden bağımsız, hem ailenin kalabalıklığı hem de kronolojik bir şekilde değil de zamanda zıplamalarla ilerleyen hikayelerin İskenderiye’nin karma dilinden esintilerle anlatılması kitabı okurken kaybolup gitme riskinizi arttırıyor. Ama tarihin gerçekleriyle bu kadar iç içe geçmiş bir aile üzerinden 20.yüzyılın ilk yarısıdaki büyülü İskenderiye’yi okumak isterseniz - doğru bir zamanda- mutlaka tavsiyedir. Son olarak şunu da eklemeden geçemeyeceğim, bu kadar çok etkileyici karakterlere sahip olmasına rağmen kitapta beni en çok sarsan annesi Gigi ve onunla kurabildiği derme çatma gibi görünen ama aslında çok daha güçlü bir bağ ile bağlı anne-oğul ilişkisi. Sanırım hem yazarın bu kadar tabulaştırılan bir konuda bu kadar dürüst olabilmesi hem de Gigi’nin duymamasına rağmen çevresini en iyi algılayıp çözen ve hiç korkmadan en dik duruşuyla tepki veren kişi olması beni çok etkiledi. Onun hikayesini ayrı bir kitapta uzun uzun okumayı çok isterdim. .
August 15, 2023
"Biten şey gündelik hayatlarımızdı; dostlarımız, sahiller, bildiğim her şey, Ramazan, Roxane, Abdou, guavalar, barın üzerine sertçe çarpılan tavla pullarının çıkardığı ses, geç edilen yaz kahvaltılarındaki patlıcan kızartmalar, yağmurlu hafta içi günlerde dinlenen Radyo İsrail ve sinemadan sinemaya gitmek dışında yapacak bir şeyin olmadığı, yol boyunca arkadaş grubunun giderek kalabalıklaştığı ve sokaklarda dolaşırken birinin mutlaka tramvaya atlayıp San Stefano'dan Victoria'ya gidip sonra gerisingeri dönmeyi önerdiği İskenderiye'deki Pazar günleri."
Yolum yine ve yeniden İskenderiye'ye düşüverdi. Yüzyıl sonunda başlayan, Durrell'in meşhur dörtlüsünün geçtiği zamanı da içeren ve 1965'e dek uzanan bir hikâye okudum Andre Acıman'dan. Çoğunluğun aksine Beni Adınla Çağır filmini sevmediğim için filmin uyarlandığı kitabı da okumamıştım, dolayısıyla bu Acıman ile ilk tanışmam oldu. Ama ne görkemli bir tanışma.
Acıman, 1905'te Mısır'a yerleşen ailesinin İskenderiye'de geçirdiği 60 seneyi anlatıyor. İmparatorlukların çöküşüyle başlayan, iki büyük Dünya Savaşı ile süren karmaşa ve sonrasında Nasser'in iktidara gelmesiyle beraber yükselen Arap milliyetçiliği ile Mısır'ın aslında kendisinin organik parçaları olan, o topraklarda doğmuş, büyümüş, çoğalmış tüm "yabancı"ları yavaş yavaş uzaklaştırması süreci anlatılan. (Ne tanıdık, değil mi?) Yahudi olan Acıman ailesi de, yazarın babasının son ana dek direnmesine, evi bildiği toprakları terk etmeyi reddetmesine, hatta oğlunu Arapça öğrenmeye zorlamasına, entegre olmak için onca çabalamasına rağmen sürülüyor Mısır'dan.
Acıman, annesinin ve babasının, evlilik gerçekleşmeden çok önce birbiriyle komşu ve arkadaş olan ailelerini anlatarak başlıyor kitaba; kendi doğumundan çok evvel başlayan bir hikaye bu. Sonra kendi anıları giriyor işin içine, öyle güzel, öyle hüzünlü anlatıyor ki babaannesini, anneannesini, dedelerini, onların bitmeyen yurtsuzluğunu... Bir zamanlar bir arada yaşamanın sırrını çözmüş halkların nasıl birbirinden koparıldığını, böylece kente ve ülkeye çöken kasveti, karanlığı.
Çok sevdim Mısır'dan Çıkış'ı, çok. Keşke bunca tanıdık olmasaydı bu hikaye bize ve bizim topraklarımıza, keşke.
Yolum yine ve yeniden İskenderiye'ye düşüverdi. Yüzyıl sonunda başlayan, Durrell'in meşhur dörtlüsünün geçtiği zamanı da içeren ve 1965'e dek uzanan bir hikâye okudum Andre Acıman'dan. Çoğunluğun aksine Beni Adınla Çağır filmini sevmediğim için filmin uyarlandığı kitabı da okumamıştım, dolayısıyla bu Acıman ile ilk tanışmam oldu. Ama ne görkemli bir tanışma.
Acıman, 1905'te Mısır'a yerleşen ailesinin İskenderiye'de geçirdiği 60 seneyi anlatıyor. İmparatorlukların çöküşüyle başlayan, iki büyük Dünya Savaşı ile süren karmaşa ve sonrasında Nasser'in iktidara gelmesiyle beraber yükselen Arap milliyetçiliği ile Mısır'ın aslında kendisinin organik parçaları olan, o topraklarda doğmuş, büyümüş, çoğalmış tüm "yabancı"ları yavaş yavaş uzaklaştırması süreci anlatılan. (Ne tanıdık, değil mi?) Yahudi olan Acıman ailesi de, yazarın babasının son ana dek direnmesine, evi bildiği toprakları terk etmeyi reddetmesine, hatta oğlunu Arapça öğrenmeye zorlamasına, entegre olmak için onca çabalamasına rağmen sürülüyor Mısır'dan.
Acıman, annesinin ve babasının, evlilik gerçekleşmeden çok önce birbiriyle komşu ve arkadaş olan ailelerini anlatarak başlıyor kitaba; kendi doğumundan çok evvel başlayan bir hikaye bu. Sonra kendi anıları giriyor işin içine, öyle güzel, öyle hüzünlü anlatıyor ki babaannesini, anneannesini, dedelerini, onların bitmeyen yurtsuzluğunu... Bir zamanlar bir arada yaşamanın sırrını çözmüş halkların nasıl birbirinden koparıldığını, böylece kente ve ülkeye çöken kasveti, karanlığı.
Çok sevdim Mısır'dan Çıkış'ı, çok. Keşke bunca tanıdık olmasaydı bu hikaye bize ve bizim topraklarımıza, keşke.
August 3, 2014
3.5 stars.
One benefit of reading this memoir is what you learn about the climate of Egypt after the Egyptian revolution and the Suez Canal Company debacle, how it must have felt for a Jewish-European family living and doing business in Egypt. I must admit, I liked False Papers better because I love Aciman as an essayist. I probably cheated though, because False Papers is what comes after Aciman's exile from Egypt.
Andre Aciman came of age in Egypt during Nasser's pan-Arabic and anti-imperialist reign. His family members were Turks, Italians, and Frenchmen. They were a family of privilege, as you can tell in the beginning when he describes his grandmothers: "Each was accompanied by a boy servant whom neither trusted or talked to but whose job it was to trail behind his wise old mazmazelle--all European ladies of a certain age and station were called mademoiselle or signors in Egypt."
Throughout the book, he shows the family's fears of the Germans suddenly appearing and hauling them off to concentration camps. The story takes you with the family during the unrest in Egypt, and the war, when France, Israel, and England attacked after Nasser tried to nationalize the Suez Canal Company. Later, he shows how his family is at first annihilated and forced to leave Egypt because as a method of retaliating against the countries who warred with him, President Nasser forced their citizens to leave. And because of Israel, anyone who was a Jew was expected to leave as well.
How terrible it must have been for a young child, to see your father lose his entire business (his factory was forcibly closed), to be called "dirty Jew" on the streets, and not know what was really happening at the time.
The memoir is a family memoir that highlights classicism and civil unrest. It opens with explanations about what seems to be an aristocratic lineage, where grandmother is referred to as "The Princess."
The book is slow-going though, and I wasn't hooked until Aciman mentioned his deaf mother, because through her, I was finally able to see him. Her inability to hear during the blackout raids, her struggle to be accepted by society and by her in-laws, were emotional details that truly highlighted the severity of the situation for him, through her, especially since he was always with his mother. Only, she doesn't get mentioned until 100 pages in.
There were moments during the war, when the family had to seek shelter in the dark and Aciman tries to show what it must have been for his mother.
One benefit of reading this memoir is what you learn about the climate of Egypt after the Egyptian revolution and the Suez Canal Company debacle, how it must have felt for a Jewish-European family living and doing business in Egypt. I must admit, I liked False Papers better because I love Aciman as an essayist. I probably cheated though, because False Papers is what comes after Aciman's exile from Egypt.
Andre Aciman came of age in Egypt during Nasser's pan-Arabic and anti-imperialist reign. His family members were Turks, Italians, and Frenchmen. They were a family of privilege, as you can tell in the beginning when he describes his grandmothers: "Each was accompanied by a boy servant whom neither trusted or talked to but whose job it was to trail behind his wise old mazmazelle--all European ladies of a certain age and station were called mademoiselle or signors in Egypt."
Throughout the book, he shows the family's fears of the Germans suddenly appearing and hauling them off to concentration camps. The story takes you with the family during the unrest in Egypt, and the war, when France, Israel, and England attacked after Nasser tried to nationalize the Suez Canal Company. Later, he shows how his family is at first annihilated and forced to leave Egypt because as a method of retaliating against the countries who warred with him, President Nasser forced their citizens to leave. And because of Israel, anyone who was a Jew was expected to leave as well.
How terrible it must have been for a young child, to see your father lose his entire business (his factory was forcibly closed), to be called "dirty Jew" on the streets, and not know what was really happening at the time.
The memoir is a family memoir that highlights classicism and civil unrest. It opens with explanations about what seems to be an aristocratic lineage, where grandmother is referred to as "The Princess."
The book is slow-going though, and I wasn't hooked until Aciman mentioned his deaf mother, because through her, I was finally able to see him. Her inability to hear during the blackout raids, her struggle to be accepted by society and by her in-laws, were emotional details that truly highlighted the severity of the situation for him, through her, especially since he was always with his mother. Only, she doesn't get mentioned until 100 pages in.
Only then would it hit me, this truth about her ears, that she would always be deaf, never hear music, never hear laughter, never hear my voice. Only then did I realize what it means to be alone in this world, and I would run to find her in this large house that became so quiet, so empty, and so very dark at night, because nighttime in our part of Alexandria was always somber and murky, especially with my father out so late every evening.
There were moments during the war, when the family had to seek shelter in the dark and Aciman tries to show what it must have been for his mother.
I looked over to where my mother was sitting. In the dark, she could not read lips. I watched as she dreamily eased a bone from the fish, looking at no one in particular, talking to no one, yet obviously thinking about something, because, after bringing her fork to her mouth, she stopped chewing an instant and let an imperceptible shrug escape her shoulders. Mother caught me looking at her. "Why aren't you eating?" she asked merely by shaking her head at me. "It's horrible," I grimaced.
May 19, 2010
This book is utterly fascinating. This family of Turkish Jews speaks a form of Spanish (except the ones who speak German), tell people they are Italian, identify with France, and live in Alexandria Egypt, before leaving due to war and the same seizure of goods they suffered a generation or two earlier in Turkey. They have had many turns of fortune and fate, and the most successful family members double as spies/con artists as much as businessmen. The author is a much-loved, spoiled child of a tight-knit but not at all happy family, where everyone talks behind each others' backs and vies in competition and neurosis. The two grandmothers, the "Princess" and the "Saint", are the best-drawn characters, both madly in love with their grandson in their very different ways. His extravagant, wildly unfaithful father was apparently very briefly in love with his mother, the beautiful deaf girl that lived directly across the street. Status and superiority preoccupy the thoughts of the majority of the family members, and they can brood on their differences and unjust losses all their lives. They seem readier to forgive dictators than the other members of the family! He, the boy, adores all of them; he did then and he does at the time of writing, after they have been scattered to Italy, England, with him in NY, and nearly all are deceased, although they all seem to have lived too long for their own tastes.
May 2, 2024
Andre Aciman, Whiting Ödülü'nü kazanmış Mısır'dan Çıkış romanında kendi ailesinin 60 yıla yayılan hikayesini anlatıyor. İstanbul'dan Mısır'a taşınmak zorunda kalan ailenin hikayesini henüz kendisinin hayatta olmadığı dönemden başlayarak anlatırken anne ve babasının tanışma hikayesine, dayı ve halalarının başına gelenlere, farklı iki ailenin kültür ve geleneklerine detaylıca yer veriyor. Bunu bir anı kitabı gibi değil, başarıyla kurgulanmış bir roman gibi aktarıyor. Biz harika bir büyüme hikayesi okuyoruz aslında.
Romana ev sahipliği yapan İskenderiye ise farklı kültürlere, dillere, seslere, gelenek ve göreneklere de ev sahipliği yapıyor. Paskalya, Pesah, Ramazan...Kimi zaman aynı kökten gelen farklı kültürlerin mozaiğinin aile arasındaki tatlı atışmalarda kendini göstermesinin, Mısır'ın siyasi çalkantılarıyla birlikte nasıl gerilim yaratan bir unsura dönüştüğüne tanıklık ediyoruz. Siyaset kültür zenginliğine olduğu kadar Aciman'ın büyük ailesine de zarar veriyor ve yıpratıyor. Mısır'dan Çıkış'ı keyifle okudum. Bana Çemberimde Gül Oya dizisindeki o şenlikli, kavgalı, kalabalık ev ortamını hatırlattı. Kitabın her bölüm sonunda Aciman'ın yetişkinliğindeki an ve anılara geçme kısmını da çok sevdim.
Kitapla ilgili tek eleştirim, dilimizde hala, amca, dayı, teyze gibi ayrı kelimeler varken çeviride sadece amca ve teyze kelimelerinin kullanılmasına yönelik olacak. Çok fazla insan olduğu için bazen kimin kim olduğu konusunda kafa karışıklığına sebep oluyor çevirideki bu durum.
Romana ev sahipliği yapan İskenderiye ise farklı kültürlere, dillere, seslere, gelenek ve göreneklere de ev sahipliği yapıyor. Paskalya, Pesah, Ramazan...Kimi zaman aynı kökten gelen farklı kültürlerin mozaiğinin aile arasındaki tatlı atışmalarda kendini göstermesinin, Mısır'ın siyasi çalkantılarıyla birlikte nasıl gerilim yaratan bir unsura dönüştüğüne tanıklık ediyoruz. Siyaset kültür zenginliğine olduğu kadar Aciman'ın büyük ailesine de zarar veriyor ve yıpratıyor. Mısır'dan Çıkış'ı keyifle okudum. Bana Çemberimde Gül Oya dizisindeki o şenlikli, kavgalı, kalabalık ev ortamını hatırlattı. Kitabın her bölüm sonunda Aciman'ın yetişkinliğindeki an ve anılara geçme kısmını da çok sevdim.
Kitapla ilgili tek eleştirim, dilimizde hala, amca, dayı, teyze gibi ayrı kelimeler varken çeviride sadece amca ve teyze kelimelerinin kullanılmasına yönelik olacak. Çok fazla insan olduğu için bazen kimin kim olduğu konusunda kafa karışıklığına sebep oluyor çevirideki bu durum.
August 28, 2022
An incredibly moving memoir that details the intricate relationships of a multi-generational Jewish family in Egypt. I learned so much about recent Egyptian history and was given deeper insight into the continuing global struggles of the Jewish people. The role that British colonialism played in the safety of Jewish communities was entirely new to me and extremely eye-opening. I highly recommend this book to those who appreciate memoirs and Jewish history and to those looking to better understand Jewish culture and experiences.
The audiobook performed by Edoardo Ballerini is easy to follow and expressive. He does a wonderful job of bringing the memoir to life by finding the right energy and voice to put with each character. I'm thankful to Netgalley for the chance to review it.
The audiobook performed by Edoardo Ballerini is easy to follow and expressive. He does a wonderful job of bringing the memoir to life by finding the right energy and voice to put with each character. I'm thankful to Netgalley for the chance to review it.
October 12, 2021
Qué maravilla. Es probablemente el mejor libro que he leído en el año en el que más libros he leído de toda mi vida.
Es esta la historia de una familia, como tantas otras, con sus rarezas, sus chistes internos, sus familiares esperpénticos, sus idiomas inventados, y sus mitos, y sus costumbres, y sus malos humores, y sus amores y odios, y su cotidianidad.
André Aciman creció en una Alejandría que ni él mismo, declara hoy, a sus 70 años en entrevistas con motivo de la reedición de este texto, sabe si existió o se generó a raíz, entre otras cosas, del mito de Durrell. En cualquier caso, en ella pasó los primeros catorce años de su vida, entre inmigrantes griegos, turcos, italianos, británicos y franceses. Y en ella presenció los últimos estertores de un tiempo que dejó de existir, en el que aún persistían ecos del siglo XIX, con caballeros muy intelectuales, señoras muy devotas y aprensivas y empleados del hogar que se autodenominaban servicio.
Una mirada fresca y curiosa a un paraíso imaginado, pero sin duda real, como el que solo existe a través de los ojos de la infancia.
Es esta la historia de una familia, como tantas otras, con sus rarezas, sus chistes internos, sus familiares esperpénticos, sus idiomas inventados, y sus mitos, y sus costumbres, y sus malos humores, y sus amores y odios, y su cotidianidad.
André Aciman creció en una Alejandría que ni él mismo, declara hoy, a sus 70 años en entrevistas con motivo de la reedición de este texto, sabe si existió o se generó a raíz, entre otras cosas, del mito de Durrell. En cualquier caso, en ella pasó los primeros catorce años de su vida, entre inmigrantes griegos, turcos, italianos, británicos y franceses. Y en ella presenció los últimos estertores de un tiempo que dejó de existir, en el que aún persistían ecos del siglo XIX, con caballeros muy intelectuales, señoras muy devotas y aprensivas y empleados del hogar que se autodenominaban servicio.
Una mirada fresca y curiosa a un paraíso imaginado, pero sin duda real, como el que solo existe a través de los ojos de la infancia.
May 12, 2021
I agree with this appreciation.
September 30, 2024
"-Patológicamente sefardí- observó un día la tía Flora, que había presenciado la escena y no tenía paciencia para aquellas torsiones emocionales que en el mediterráneo reciben el nombre de amor".
December 28, 2021
Ako mi je ova knjiga nešto dokazala, to je da je Asiman jedan od boljih pripovedača sa kojima sam se susreo u poslednjih nekoliko godina. Sa Asimanom sam se upoznao sa romanom ''Zovi me svojim imenom'' koji i dan danas preporučujem - da, taj roman može mnogima biti otrcan ili izlizan, ali je toliko čulan i prelepo napisan da sam poželeo da čitam i ostala Asimanova dela. ''Odlazak iz Egipta'' je njegovo treće delo koje se našlo u mojim rukama, i iako mi nije toliko sjajan kao što su prethodna dva njegova romana koja sam čitao, ne mogu nikako da kažem da je loš.
''Odlazak iz Egipta'' je drugačiji. Ovo nije roman, ovo su njegovi memoari; odnosno memoari njegove porodice koja se preselila iz Aleksandrije. Knjiga počinje upoznavanjem sa vrlo upečatljivim likovima iz njegove porodice, ali nisu ti likovi ono što čini ovu knjigu. Asiman je odličan pisac i ima tu moć da nam predstavi okruženje o kom piše u samo nekoliko pasusa. Ukoliko vas zanima Egipat ili stara Aleksandrija, onda je ovo roman za vas. Kroz njegove rečenice moći ćete da prošetate tim starim ulicama, pomirišete sve što se oko likova nalazi. Sa te strane, ovo je zaista jedno jako dobro delo.
Međutim ono što mene lično nije kupilo jeste priča o Asimanovoj porodici. Da, tu su neki super likovi, Asiman ih je približio čitaocima na sjajan način, ali ja prosto nisam mogao da se nešto mnogo povežem sa njima. Postoje delovi koji me nisu preterano zanimali, i sva sreća pa je Asimanov stil pisanja perfektan da me dovoljno zainteresuje. Po mom mišljenju, nije njegovo najbolje delo od onih koje sam pročitao, ali je dosta lično i tu leži njegova magija.
Prepočujem Asimana svih srcem. Rekao bih da krenete od ove knjige, ali ja sam krenuo od njegovih romana i tako mi je bilo stvarno idealno. Ukoliko volite Egipat, zanima vas kako je tekao svakodnevni život u Aleksandriji a još na sve to volite porodične sage, onda uzmite ovaj roman u ruke. Ako ništa drugo, grejaće vas Asimanove rečenice.
''Odlazak iz Egipta'' je drugačiji. Ovo nije roman, ovo su njegovi memoari; odnosno memoari njegove porodice koja se preselila iz Aleksandrije. Knjiga počinje upoznavanjem sa vrlo upečatljivim likovima iz njegove porodice, ali nisu ti likovi ono što čini ovu knjigu. Asiman je odličan pisac i ima tu moć da nam predstavi okruženje o kom piše u samo nekoliko pasusa. Ukoliko vas zanima Egipat ili stara Aleksandrija, onda je ovo roman za vas. Kroz njegove rečenice moći ćete da prošetate tim starim ulicama, pomirišete sve što se oko likova nalazi. Sa te strane, ovo je zaista jedno jako dobro delo.
Međutim ono što mene lično nije kupilo jeste priča o Asimanovoj porodici. Da, tu su neki super likovi, Asiman ih je približio čitaocima na sjajan način, ali ja prosto nisam mogao da se nešto mnogo povežem sa njima. Postoje delovi koji me nisu preterano zanimali, i sva sreća pa je Asimanov stil pisanja perfektan da me dovoljno zainteresuje. Po mom mišljenju, nije njegovo najbolje delo od onih koje sam pročitao, ali je dosta lično i tu leži njegova magija.
Prepočujem Asimana svih srcem. Rekao bih da krenete od ove knjige, ali ja sam krenuo od njegovih romana i tako mi je bilo stvarno idealno. Ukoliko volite Egipat, zanima vas kako je tekao svakodnevni život u Aleksandriji a još na sve to volite porodične sage, onda uzmite ovaj roman u ruke. Ako ništa drugo, grejaće vas Asimanove rečenice.
November 19, 2023
This was a beautiful memoir, filled with World War II intrigue, the magic of the movies, and of Mr. Aciman's life in Alexandria, Egypt. The memoir contains beautiful, structured sentences that preview of what's to come out of Mr. Aciman's talent- Call Me By Your Name and Enigma Variations. This memoir was a joyful read, and reminiscent of (though he was not poor) of Angela's Ashes; Reading Lolita in Tehran, and other coming-of-age memoirs that could be read by high-schoolers.
March 31, 2020
Recensione originale: https://sonnenbarke.wordpress.com/202...
Premetto che non ho (ancora) letto il libro più famoso di André Aciman, Chiamami col tuo nome. Nonostante ciò ho voluto leggere questo suo libro di memorie, dopo aver letto alcune recensioni su Goodreads che mi avevano fatto pensare a un'altra autobiografia che ho molto amato, La lingua salvata di Elias Canetti.
In effetti, le due autobiografie presentano dei paralleli, dovuti principalmente al fatto che entrambi gli autori sono ebrei sefarditi.
Pensavo che la famiglia che Canetti descrive nel primo volume della sua autobiografia fosse unica nel suo genere, ma mi devo ricredere leggendo questo libro.
Gli ebrei sefarditi furono cacciati dalla Spagna nel 1492 e solo dopo quasi quattro secoli il loro paese di origine sancì il diritto alla libertà religiosa, consentendo così il loro ritorno. Nel frattempo però i sefarditi si erano spostati e insediati in vari luoghi soprattutto nel bacino del Mediterraneo. Gli avi di Aciman si erano stabiliti a Costantinopoli, ma successivamente si trasferirono ad Alessandria. Lo scrittore è dunque nato e cresciuto in Egitto, paese che abbandonerà definitivamente all'età di 14 anni, nel 1965, a causa delle "sottili pressioni" esercitate dal regime di Nasser.
In questo libro Aciman narra la sua infanzia e pre-adolescenza in Egitto e la storia della sua incredibile famiglia. L'autore ci accompagna solo fino alla cacciata dall'Egitto, fermandosi subito prima della partenza della famiglia. Perciò tutto il libro si svolge in Egitto, ad Alessandria.
La famiglia di Aciman, come quella di Canetti, è variopinta e variegata. Il primo personaggio che Aciman ci fa incontrare è lo zio Vili, un convinto fascista che però finirà per lavorare come spia per il governo britannico. Conosciamo poi tutto il resto della famiglia: le nonne (la Principessa e la Santa), le zie e gli zii, il padre e la madre. La vera protagonista di questo libro è la famiglia, in un certo senso André Aciman rimane un po' sullo sfondo: ci parla sì delle sue disastrose esperienze scolastiche, ma pare quasi farlo solo per poter meglio illustrare le reazioni della famiglia ai suoi fallimenti scolastici.
È anche difficile sottolineare singoli episodi o personaggi in questo libro che è quasi cacofonico, ma in senso buono. Lo zio Vili il fascista donnaiolo, la madre sorda tanto apprezzata dalla suocera solo finché era una semplice vicina di casa e poi considerata un'handicappata in seguito al fidanzamento con il suo bravo figliolo. Ma ogni componente della famiglia è un mondo in sé e la loro vita appare un tripudio di colore, per così dire. Non mancano inoltre, fra i personaggi, i servi della famiglia, a partire dal fedele Abdou per arrivare alla sfortunata Latifa.
Un mondo di suoni, colori, sapori, lingue. La lingua degli ebrei sefarditi è il ladino, da non confondersi con il ladino parlato nel Tirolo; ma la famiglia Aciman parla un misto di francese, ladino e italiano, con un potente odio per l'arabo e una quasi nulla conoscenza dell'ebraico, se si esclude lo zio Nessim. Pensiamo solo che per gran parte della sua infanzia il piccolo André è convinto di essere un cittadino francese, tuttavia frequenterà scuole inglesi sia ad Alessandria che in seguito, a Roma e a New York.
Questo come dicevo non c'è nel libro, ma la famiglia Aciman si stabilisce nel 1969 a New York e successivamente André ottiene la cittadinanza americana e avvia la sua carriera di scrittore e grande studioso di Marcel Proust. La scrittura di Aciman (che scrive in inglese) è meravigliosa e perfetta per rendere le particolarità della sua famiglia. Non vedo l'ora di leggere altri suoi libri, il suo stile è eccellente.
Premetto che non ho (ancora) letto il libro più famoso di André Aciman, Chiamami col tuo nome. Nonostante ciò ho voluto leggere questo suo libro di memorie, dopo aver letto alcune recensioni su Goodreads che mi avevano fatto pensare a un'altra autobiografia che ho molto amato, La lingua salvata di Elias Canetti.
In effetti, le due autobiografie presentano dei paralleli, dovuti principalmente al fatto che entrambi gli autori sono ebrei sefarditi.
Pensavo che la famiglia che Canetti descrive nel primo volume della sua autobiografia fosse unica nel suo genere, ma mi devo ricredere leggendo questo libro.
Gli ebrei sefarditi furono cacciati dalla Spagna nel 1492 e solo dopo quasi quattro secoli il loro paese di origine sancì il diritto alla libertà religiosa, consentendo così il loro ritorno. Nel frattempo però i sefarditi si erano spostati e insediati in vari luoghi soprattutto nel bacino del Mediterraneo. Gli avi di Aciman si erano stabiliti a Costantinopoli, ma successivamente si trasferirono ad Alessandria. Lo scrittore è dunque nato e cresciuto in Egitto, paese che abbandonerà definitivamente all'età di 14 anni, nel 1965, a causa delle "sottili pressioni" esercitate dal regime di Nasser.
In questo libro Aciman narra la sua infanzia e pre-adolescenza in Egitto e la storia della sua incredibile famiglia. L'autore ci accompagna solo fino alla cacciata dall'Egitto, fermandosi subito prima della partenza della famiglia. Perciò tutto il libro si svolge in Egitto, ad Alessandria.
La famiglia di Aciman, come quella di Canetti, è variopinta e variegata. Il primo personaggio che Aciman ci fa incontrare è lo zio Vili, un convinto fascista che però finirà per lavorare come spia per il governo britannico. Conosciamo poi tutto il resto della famiglia: le nonne (la Principessa e la Santa), le zie e gli zii, il padre e la madre. La vera protagonista di questo libro è la famiglia, in un certo senso André Aciman rimane un po' sullo sfondo: ci parla sì delle sue disastrose esperienze scolastiche, ma pare quasi farlo solo per poter meglio illustrare le reazioni della famiglia ai suoi fallimenti scolastici.
È anche difficile sottolineare singoli episodi o personaggi in questo libro che è quasi cacofonico, ma in senso buono. Lo zio Vili il fascista donnaiolo, la madre sorda tanto apprezzata dalla suocera solo finché era una semplice vicina di casa e poi considerata un'handicappata in seguito al fidanzamento con il suo bravo figliolo. Ma ogni componente della famiglia è un mondo in sé e la loro vita appare un tripudio di colore, per così dire. Non mancano inoltre, fra i personaggi, i servi della famiglia, a partire dal fedele Abdou per arrivare alla sfortunata Latifa.
Un mondo di suoni, colori, sapori, lingue. La lingua degli ebrei sefarditi è il ladino, da non confondersi con il ladino parlato nel Tirolo; ma la famiglia Aciman parla un misto di francese, ladino e italiano, con un potente odio per l'arabo e una quasi nulla conoscenza dell'ebraico, se si esclude lo zio Nessim. Pensiamo solo che per gran parte della sua infanzia il piccolo André è convinto di essere un cittadino francese, tuttavia frequenterà scuole inglesi sia ad Alessandria che in seguito, a Roma e a New York.
Questo come dicevo non c'è nel libro, ma la famiglia Aciman si stabilisce nel 1969 a New York e successivamente André ottiene la cittadinanza americana e avvia la sua carriera di scrittore e grande studioso di Marcel Proust. La scrittura di Aciman (che scrive in inglese) è meravigliosa e perfetta per rendere le particolarità della sua famiglia. Non vedo l'ora di leggere altri suoi libri, il suo stile è eccellente.
August 3, 2024
3.5⭐️
August 30, 2022
More than I bargained for, and not what I expected. The author relays the life of virtually every family member. This includes simple tasks and in-law relationships through three generations. They are Jewish and the book takes them through being forced out of Egypt.
I found the story too long. Each family member has unfavorable traits and are sneaky. I spent too much time wondering why the book was written.
The narrator was good.
Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for accepting my request to read and review Out of Egypt.
I found the story too long. Each family member has unfavorable traits and are sneaky. I spent too much time wondering why the book was written.
The narrator was good.
Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for accepting my request to read and review Out of Egypt.
March 18, 2024
This was a beautifully told memoir. It certainly did not stint in showing the racism and xenophobia which was rampant in all directions, and Aciman's schooling at the Victoria/Victory College sounded frankly terrifying at times. However the characters and relationships were full of poignancy and the sense of grief in being forced to leave a place you love was very powerful.
September 20, 2017
Uno spartiacque
Spesso la vita ha uno spartiacque e gli avvenimenti si collocano prima o dopo. Quello di André Aciman è l’addio ad Alessandria d’Egitto, dove le famiglie dei suoi genitori vivevano da 3 generazioni. E’ un addio annunciato da anni, col peggiorare dei rapporti diplomatici con Francia, Gran Bretagna e Israele durante la crisi di Suez: il governo egiziano spremeva bene bene le famiglie di origine straniera che avevano vissuto, lavorato, creato lavoro e arricchito la società egiziana con le loro culture variegate e poi: nazionalizzazione dei beni e fuori dall’Egitto entro la settimana. La nota malinconica del libro è rappresentata dall’ansiogeno studio della situazione politica, per capire quanto si potrà durare, le manovre per cercare di portare all’estero un po’ di soldi, infine la continua sorveglianza da parte dei funzionari del governo.
Poi c’è la parte dell’amarcord di Aciman che cerca di salvare dall’oblio la sua Alessandria, con fermate del metrò, vie e negozi, gli amici di famiglia, i domestici arabi, i familiari. I familiari sono raccontati con affetto ma anche per come sono: terribili. La nonna paterna, ebrea di Smirne, snobba la nonna materna, ebrea siriana, che pure è una sua cara amica e non la invita al ricevimento per il genetliaco della bisnonna. La nonna e la sorella litigano furiosamente, il padre tradisce la madre, la zia è innamorata del padre. Il padre non tollera le amiche sorde della moglie, conosciute nella scuola speciale. Insomma, chi non vorrebbe una famiglia così? Un po’ ho compianto il povero André, per la famiglia, più che per l’esilio: un po’ mi sono consolata, pensando che non sono l’unica ad avere una famiglia terribile. L’affetto senza riserve è per la madre, che cerca di farlo vivere nel modo più piacevole e sereno.
Aciman racconta con gentilezza la gente del popolo, servitori, commercianti, facendo intendere che il popolo non era partecipe delle vessazioni governative.
E’ un libro molto piacevole, la cui nota predominante è l’infanzia e l’adolescenza stralunata di Aciman, unico bambino in una ingombrante famiglia di adulti, strapazzato dalla scuola dove doveva imparare alla perfezione francese inglese arabo ladino italiano e greco un po’ per le necessità attuali, un po’ per prepararsi ai futuri esili.
Spesso la vita ha uno spartiacque e gli avvenimenti si collocano prima o dopo. Quello di André Aciman è l’addio ad Alessandria d’Egitto, dove le famiglie dei suoi genitori vivevano da 3 generazioni. E’ un addio annunciato da anni, col peggiorare dei rapporti diplomatici con Francia, Gran Bretagna e Israele durante la crisi di Suez: il governo egiziano spremeva bene bene le famiglie di origine straniera che avevano vissuto, lavorato, creato lavoro e arricchito la società egiziana con le loro culture variegate e poi: nazionalizzazione dei beni e fuori dall’Egitto entro la settimana. La nota malinconica del libro è rappresentata dall’ansiogeno studio della situazione politica, per capire quanto si potrà durare, le manovre per cercare di portare all’estero un po’ di soldi, infine la continua sorveglianza da parte dei funzionari del governo.
Poi c’è la parte dell’amarcord di Aciman che cerca di salvare dall’oblio la sua Alessandria, con fermate del metrò, vie e negozi, gli amici di famiglia, i domestici arabi, i familiari. I familiari sono raccontati con affetto ma anche per come sono: terribili. La nonna paterna, ebrea di Smirne, snobba la nonna materna, ebrea siriana, che pure è una sua cara amica e non la invita al ricevimento per il genetliaco della bisnonna. La nonna e la sorella litigano furiosamente, il padre tradisce la madre, la zia è innamorata del padre. Il padre non tollera le amiche sorde della moglie, conosciute nella scuola speciale. Insomma, chi non vorrebbe una famiglia così? Un po’ ho compianto il povero André, per la famiglia, più che per l’esilio: un po’ mi sono consolata, pensando che non sono l’unica ad avere una famiglia terribile. L’affetto senza riserve è per la madre, che cerca di farlo vivere nel modo più piacevole e sereno.
Aciman racconta con gentilezza la gente del popolo, servitori, commercianti, facendo intendere che il popolo non era partecipe delle vessazioni governative.
E’ un libro molto piacevole, la cui nota predominante è l’infanzia e l’adolescenza stralunata di Aciman, unico bambino in una ingombrante famiglia di adulti, strapazzato dalla scuola dove doveva imparare alla perfezione francese inglese arabo ladino italiano e greco un po’ per le necessità attuali, un po’ per prepararsi ai futuri esili.
January 3, 2016
An appealing memoir of Aciman's Sephardic family life in Alexandria in the 1950s and 60s, from his earliest childhood until the time the family was forced to leave Egypt when he was 15.
His grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles and wider circles of family and friends are sketched with perceptive wit and affection as the violent events of the Egyptian revolution and its aftermath swirl around them.
Loved it.
His grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles and wider circles of family and friends are sketched with perceptive wit and affection as the violent events of the Egyptian revolution and its aftermath swirl around them.
Loved it.
August 26, 2017
Beautifully written. Deliciously nostalgic, evocative, heart-warming and immediately addictive. Especially emotionally pertinent for anyone with a connection to Egypt, to reminisce on how this country was not that long ago a melting pot of tolerance, vibrance and sophistication. Cannot recommend it enough.
April 6, 2022
Knjiga je.... Pa, suvoparna i detaljna bez ikakvog razloga. Prilikom čitanja sam se gubila u mnoštvu glavnih i sporednih likova, nisam mogla da pohvatam ko je kome šta i sa kojom je namerom tu gde jeste. Jednom rečju, ništa posebno, a ponekad i jako dosadno. Samoj sebi se divim kako sam uopšte izdržala do kraja ☺️
February 13, 2022
Ugh, such beautiful writing. I may have cried a couple of times reading this.
November 20, 2017
“All those who discuss the departure from Egypt in detail are considered praiseworthy."
— Passover Haggadah
“Say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing."
— Cavafy, “The God Abandons Antony”
The phrase “Out of Egypt” is richly evocative. To a contemporary reader, it brings to mind Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen’s “Out of Africa”, a lyrical meditation on life as a member of a privileged colonial class. To anyone with a passing familiarity with the Hebrew Bible, it has a the significance of representing an escape from captivity, and a corresponding communal sense of obligation: — “I am the LORD that brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God; ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy”. This astonishingly rich memoir alludes to both aspects. But it is really about a second exodus out of Egypt. In the mid-twentieth century, most Egyptian Jews were driving from the country by the Nasser government’s official and militant anti-Semitism. The Aciman family were among them.
Lawrence Durrell famously celebrated Alexandria in the 1940s as a city of “Five races, five languages, a dozen creeds.” By the end of the twentieth century, it was a city of one language (Arabic), and of largely one race and one creed. This is the story of the transition between the two, as told by a man who lived through it as a child.
André Aciman was born in Alexandria in 1951. This makes him two years younger than my father. But his memoirs make his childhood sound like something out of the inter-war period if not actually La Belle Époque. This may reflect a life lived among grandparents who remembered the Ottoman Empire. It is probably also at least partially literary fancy. As an academic, Aciman specializes in Proust, and can’t quite resist making his childhood Proustian in every sense. Proust, however, was pretty clearly French. In contrast, Aciman’s family were true cosmopolitans, and this is a major focus of the book.
At one point, the young André is asked what nationality he is. He assumes that he must be French, as that is the language his family speaks at home. He is shocked and offended to discover that this is not true, that his family came to Egypt from Constantinople. He writes that
As in all cosmopolitan communities, questions of language are always at the forefront. The book is full of references to languages of diaspora. French is recognized to be not one language, but many. There is "good socialite French," and "the awkward way in which Armenians spoke French." Then there is the French heard over the radio from Europe:
Even the homey feta-like French was sometimes felt too formal for the Aciman family. In one of the most stunning passages in the book, the author describes his two grandmothers lapsing into Ladino or Judaeo-Spanish:
As Egyptian Jews, Aciman’s family were in an impossible situation. The first time we sense how much danger they are in comes when they take refuge from an air raid. They had been caught up in Operation Musketeer, an Anglo-French plan to capture cities along the Suez canal, including Alexandria and Port Said. The Aciman family found themselves sheltering from bombs dropped by the allies of Israel. Soon, though, they would find themselves victimized by the Egyptian government for being alleged Israeli sympathizers.
Most Egyptian Jews left the country after the war in 1956. The Aciman's stayed for another eight years. They attempted various forms of assimilation. One uncle finds a sympathetic Greek Orthodox priest who baptizes him whilst acknowledging that his practice will be "Communion on Sundays, but Fridays the Shema."
André's immediate family takes a different route, trying to become as much like their Arab neighbors as possible. André was enrolled in Victoria College, a public school run on British lines (and the alma mater of Omar Sharif and Edward Said, as well as Hussein I of Jordan and Simeon II of Bulgaria). By this point in history, the school's student body is almost entirely Arabic, and some of the lessons are taught in Arabic, a language André cannot speak.
There is one extended scene, which reaches Catch-22 levels of tragico-comedy. Young André’s father is furious that his son isn’t doing any of his Arabic homework, and insists on him memorizing the poem he has been set. The problem is that neither André, nor his parents, nor his governess can actually speak Arabic. So they call their servant, who speaks Arabic but does not read it. He calls his son, who can read and write. His son is ashamed that he has to teach André the poem because it is a crude piece of propaganda about how the heroic Egyptians under Nasser have triumphed over the Europeans and Jews. André is aware enough to realize he is being vilified but nevertheless takes some evident pride in finally making progress in Arabic. (This story, unfortunately, ends even less happily than one might imagine).
Despite this, the family persists in trying to be "good Egyptians." André acquires an Arabic tutor, who has him copy out Suras from the Quran. The whole family stands on the Corniche to cheer Nasser's motorcade as it passes. But their situation becomes more and more untenable.
In 1965, at Passover, the Aciman family left Egypt. At their last seder, the 14-year-old André refused to read the four questions. His grandmother rebukes him. "Are you ashamed of being Jewish? Is that it? What kind of Jews are we then?" His reply: "the kind who don't celebrate leaving Egypt when it's the last thing they want to do".
But leave Egypt they did. In 1965, Passover and Ramadan coincided, so their departure was to the sounds of fireworks. A noisy street festival, as heard by Cavafy's Antony.
— Passover Haggadah
“Say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing."
— Cavafy, “The God Abandons Antony”
The phrase “Out of Egypt” is richly evocative. To a contemporary reader, it brings to mind Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen’s “Out of Africa”, a lyrical meditation on life as a member of a privileged colonial class. To anyone with a passing familiarity with the Hebrew Bible, it has a the significance of representing an escape from captivity, and a corresponding communal sense of obligation: — “I am the LORD that brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God; ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy”. This astonishingly rich memoir alludes to both aspects. But it is really about a second exodus out of Egypt. In the mid-twentieth century, most Egyptian Jews were driving from the country by the Nasser government’s official and militant anti-Semitism. The Aciman family were among them.
Lawrence Durrell famously celebrated Alexandria in the 1940s as a city of “Five races, five languages, a dozen creeds.” By the end of the twentieth century, it was a city of one language (Arabic), and of largely one race and one creed. This is the story of the transition between the two, as told by a man who lived through it as a child.
André Aciman was born in Alexandria in 1951. This makes him two years younger than my father. But his memoirs make his childhood sound like something out of the inter-war period if not actually La Belle Époque. This may reflect a life lived among grandparents who remembered the Ottoman Empire. It is probably also at least partially literary fancy. As an academic, Aciman specializes in Proust, and can’t quite resist making his childhood Proustian in every sense. Proust, however, was pretty clearly French. In contrast, Aciman’s family were true cosmopolitans, and this is a major focus of the book.
At one point, the young André is asked what nationality he is. He assumes that he must be French, as that is the language his family speaks at home. He is shocked and offended to discover that this is not true, that his family came to Egypt from Constantinople. He writes that
Everyone in the family had talked almost daily about a faraway, gaslit world called Turkey, where ignorance, dirt, disease, theft, and massacres prevailed. It never occurred to me that I was Turkish because of this. I felt sullied, mocked, betrayed.
As in all cosmopolitan communities, questions of language are always at the forefront. The book is full of references to languages of diaspora. French is recognized to be not one language, but many. There is "good socialite French," and "the awkward way in which Armenians spoke French." Then there is the French heard over the radio from Europe:
the French of movie stars, the French my uncles mimicked but never mastered,
the French one made fun of but secretly envied, the French one claimed one didn't care to speak,
the way some might say that they didn't care for certain cheeses because no Brie or Saint André could ever compete with a good hearty slice of fresh Greek feta. ... It was a French that made us feel remote, dated, inferior.
Even the homey feta-like French was sometimes felt too formal for the Aciman family. In one of the most stunning passages in the book, the author describes his two grandmothers lapsing into Ladino or Judaeo-Spanish:
Ladino spoke of their homesickness for Constantinople. To them, it was a language of loosened neckties, unbuttoned shirts, and overused slippers, a language as intimate, as natural, as necessary as the odor of one's sheets, one's closets, of one's cooking. They returned to it after speaking French, with the gratified relief of left-handed people who, once in private, are no longer forced to do things with their right. All had studied and knew French exceedingly well, the way Lysias knew Greek — that is, better than the Athenians— gliding through the imperfect subjunctive with the unruffled ease of those who never err when it comes to grammar because, despite all their efforts, they will never be native speakers. But French was a foreign, stuffy idiom."
As Egyptian Jews, Aciman’s family were in an impossible situation. The first time we sense how much danger they are in comes when they take refuge from an air raid. They had been caught up in Operation Musketeer, an Anglo-French plan to capture cities along the Suez canal, including Alexandria and Port Said. The Aciman family found themselves sheltering from bombs dropped by the allies of Israel. Soon, though, they would find themselves victimized by the Egyptian government for being alleged Israeli sympathizers.
Most Egyptian Jews left the country after the war in 1956. The Aciman's stayed for another eight years. They attempted various forms of assimilation. One uncle finds a sympathetic Greek Orthodox priest who baptizes him whilst acknowledging that his practice will be "Communion on Sundays, but Fridays the Shema."
André's immediate family takes a different route, trying to become as much like their Arab neighbors as possible. André was enrolled in Victoria College, a public school run on British lines (and the alma mater of Omar Sharif and Edward Said, as well as Hussein I of Jordan and Simeon II of Bulgaria). By this point in history, the school's student body is almost entirely Arabic, and some of the lessons are taught in Arabic, a language André cannot speak.
There is one extended scene, which reaches Catch-22 levels of tragico-comedy. Young André’s father is furious that his son isn’t doing any of his Arabic homework, and insists on him memorizing the poem he has been set. The problem is that neither André, nor his parents, nor his governess can actually speak Arabic. So they call their servant, who speaks Arabic but does not read it. He calls his son, who can read and write. His son is ashamed that he has to teach André the poem because it is a crude piece of propaganda about how the heroic Egyptians under Nasser have triumphed over the Europeans and Jews. André is aware enough to realize he is being vilified but nevertheless takes some evident pride in finally making progress in Arabic. (This story, unfortunately, ends even less happily than one might imagine).
Despite this, the family persists in trying to be "good Egyptians." André acquires an Arabic tutor, who has him copy out Suras from the Quran. The whole family stands on the Corniche to cheer Nasser's motorcade as it passes. But their situation becomes more and more untenable.
In 1965, at Passover, the Aciman family left Egypt. At their last seder, the 14-year-old André refused to read the four questions. His grandmother rebukes him. "Are you ashamed of being Jewish? Is that it? What kind of Jews are we then?" His reply: "the kind who don't celebrate leaving Egypt when it's the last thing they want to do".
But leave Egypt they did. In 1965, Passover and Ramadan coincided, so their departure was to the sounds of fireworks. A noisy street festival, as heard by Cavafy's Antony.
July 22, 2016
A controversial humanitarian read, you can call it a story or a memorial (as the author did) or a partial biography of European Jewish family & community living in Alexandria - Egypt between the early years of the 20th century till the forced deportation of foreigners and Jews by Nasser regime (1900s-1960s).
Andre Aciman - family, extended family and community were rich Jews with European passports, they settled in Alexandria after moving from Turkey late in 1800s-eartly 1900s and established various businesses in textiles, trading, cars, etc..
The first half of the book (boring somehow) tells the story of the grandparents, grand-grandparents, fathers and mothers of Adnre as been told to him from various family talks, they were a rich gito, aristocrats thinking of locals as second degree human and servants, living together marrying from each other only and being part of great events of world war 1 then world war 2 in the 1910s-1940s, the idea of being a foreigner in a country like Egypt which was between two sides of the battle shows a different perspective of everything! moving to middle part of the book till its end (getting much more interesting) with Nasser era pan of Arab nationalism, the media and country direction of treating Jews as one package as enemies of the state, arresting, confiscation of their assets then force deportation out of Egypt which some of their generations are born in and others lived most of their lives in it.
Reading this from a Muslim, Human, Egyptian and Arab perspectives rang many bells in my head but always the master verse from Qura'an was " لا ينهاكم الله عن الذين لم يقاتلوكم في الدين ولم يخرجوكم من دياركم أن تبروهم وتقسطوا إليهم إن الله يحب المقسطين" so why shouldn't we apply it! yes we've problems with Jews but mainly with Israeli occupation, its supporters and people, anyone who act violence against Muslims or Humanity shall be our enemy, but what happen when we do this ourselves?
Andre Aciman - family, extended family and community were rich Jews with European passports, they settled in Alexandria after moving from Turkey late in 1800s-eartly 1900s and established various businesses in textiles, trading, cars, etc..
The first half of the book (boring somehow) tells the story of the grandparents, grand-grandparents, fathers and mothers of Adnre as been told to him from various family talks, they were a rich gito, aristocrats thinking of locals as second degree human and servants, living together marrying from each other only and being part of great events of world war 1 then world war 2 in the 1910s-1940s, the idea of being a foreigner in a country like Egypt which was between two sides of the battle shows a different perspective of everything! moving to middle part of the book till its end (getting much more interesting) with Nasser era pan of Arab nationalism, the media and country direction of treating Jews as one package as enemies of the state, arresting, confiscation of their assets then force deportation out of Egypt which some of their generations are born in and others lived most of their lives in it.
Reading this from a Muslim, Human, Egyptian and Arab perspectives rang many bells in my head but always the master verse from Qura'an was " لا ينهاكم الله عن الذين لم يقاتلوكم في الدين ولم يخرجوكم من دياركم أن تبروهم وتقسطوا إليهم إن الله يحب المقسطين" so why shouldn't we apply it! yes we've problems with Jews but mainly with Israeli occupation, its supporters and people, anyone who act violence against Muslims or Humanity shall be our enemy, but what happen when we do this ourselves?
April 30, 2018
3.5 stars. Parts of OUT OF EGYPT were fascinating and other parts confusing and boring. André Aciman's account of growing up in Alexandria, Egypt, from his birth in 1951 to his large, quirky Jewish family's regretful departure from the city in 1965 actually delves farther into the past when some in the family arrived from Constantinople in 1905 with others joining later when their second homes in Europe became unsafe or economically unviable during world wars and other political events. Family members held a variety of nationalities, largely Italian, and spoke many languages, mainly French and Ladino.
Family relationships were complex, especially among the women, and I found it hard to sort out the grandmothers, the aunts, and the wives and what they were always arguing about. The constant bickering did not make pleasant reading and it was difficult to like these women excepting perhaps André's mother, the beautiful deaf woman who struggled to communicate by lip reading and speaking as best she could.
André's formal schooling was a nightmare but he did have some interesting private tutors. For a boy who didn't naturally take to his studies, he turned into a fine reader and an equally fine writer. He is today a novelist (CALL ME BY YOUR NAME has just been made into a popular movie) and college professor (he is a Proust specialist).
The city of Alexandria shines like a jewel here, but everything comes under the shadow of Gamal Abdel Nasser and his nationalization program. First came the Suez Canal, then "foreigners" were not allowed to take money out of the country, and then one by one they were expelled and their businesses taken over by the Egyptian government. This happened to Aciman's family, and they suffered harassment and uncertainty before the final blow fell. The description of this experience is one of the most compelling parts of the book.
Family relationships were complex, especially among the women, and I found it hard to sort out the grandmothers, the aunts, and the wives and what they were always arguing about. The constant bickering did not make pleasant reading and it was difficult to like these women excepting perhaps André's mother, the beautiful deaf woman who struggled to communicate by lip reading and speaking as best she could.
André's formal schooling was a nightmare but he did have some interesting private tutors. For a boy who didn't naturally take to his studies, he turned into a fine reader and an equally fine writer. He is today a novelist (CALL ME BY YOUR NAME has just been made into a popular movie) and college professor (he is a Proust specialist).
The city of Alexandria shines like a jewel here, but everything comes under the shadow of Gamal Abdel Nasser and his nationalization program. First came the Suez Canal, then "foreigners" were not allowed to take money out of the country, and then one by one they were expelled and their businesses taken over by the Egyptian government. This happened to Aciman's family, and they suffered harassment and uncertainty before the final blow fell. The description of this experience is one of the most compelling parts of the book.
August 29, 2009
André Aciman's memoir of growing up Jewish -- and speaking French -- in post-World War II Alexandria. His family had moved to that city from Constantinople in 1905, back when both cities lay within the Ottoman Empire. Aciman found his native city -- along with his family -- to be a treasure chest of strange sights, quirky personalities and bizarre events. He lovingly describes each of his dysfuntional family members, relying on his own memory,the memories of others, and stories and documentation describing those who had lived their lives before his birth in 1951. Aciman, a scholar of Proust who is now a professor at CUNY, lovingly weaves together a montage of his own memories and those of his relatives, bringing back to life a city that sadly no longer exists. Together with the rest of Alexandria's large Jewish population -- in fact, together with virtually all non-Muslims -- he and his family went into forced exile in the 1960's. The Arab nationalist government of Egypt confiscated all their property, leaving the family scattered about Europe, living in poverty. There is no poverty in Aciman's imagination, however, or in his use of the English language.
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