- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Faber Finds (April 16 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0571251110
- ISBN-13: 978-0571251117
- Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.6 x 2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 259 g
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Product Details |
Product Description
Product Description
The setting of "The Picnic at Sakkara", a delightful comedy, is Egypt in the days of King Farouk. Edgar Perry, a lecturer at Cairo University, finds himself in a world on all sides less well-ordered than himself. His own wife deceives herself, it not him; his illustrious private pupil, Tureiya Pasha, encourages him to believe in something like a mirage; his students, in the intervals of hearing from him about the beauties of George Eliot, take part in violent political demonstrations; and one of them, Muawiya Khaslat, an attractive rogue hardly able to reconcile his devotion to Perry with his membership of the Moslem Brotherhood, almost turns the picnic into a tragedy. Newby's Egypt is more than credible and wholly entertaining. 'The light but intelligent novel is always a rare and attractive bird. Such a novel is "The Picnic at Sakkara" - a book that combines gaiety and shrewdness, a sense of fun and a sense of drama, that treats an important and absorbing subject in a light-hearted and light-handed way' - "Daily Mail". 'His most successful novel' - "Times".
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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2.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
No picnic, Nov 4 2007
By Brian V. Hunt "Brian V. Hunt" - Published on Amazon.com
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This review is from: The Picnic at Sakkara (Hardcover)
P.H. Newby was an author and director of the BBC. He spent the war years in Cairo and penned this little novel sometime after (pub 1955). It's occasionally entertaining, has a good feel for some of the political and social confusion of Egypt at the time, and strives to be more than it is. The story is disjointed and wandering at times, not really a comedy, which is how the dustjacket describes it. The characters' emotional states don't ring true from moment to moment.I got the book for research so it was useful in some of its details. As entertainment, it's dull going except when the author strikes the rare authentic note. The title choice is odd. An incident takes place during the eponymous picnic that is important to the ending of the story but the actual picnic is given no more weight than other events that seem to have no particular importance.
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