Milo and the Calf

Author: seanv2

  • Review: Le Carre’s Our Game

    Our Game John LeCarre Perhaps the best of LeCarre’s non-Smiley novels this one centers on the relationship of a fellow traveler socialist turned British Cold War spy and his longtime handler and what happens in their broken lives when the Cold War that framed their identities ends. Like most Le Carre novels, the plot is…

  • Eisler’s Rain Fall, Blood from Blood, and Choke Point, Killing Rain

    A Clean Kill in Tokyo (Previously Published as Rain Fall) (A John Rain Novel) A Lonely Resurrection (Previously Published as Hard Rain and Blood from Blood) (A John Rain Novel) Winner Take All (Previously published as Rain Storm and Choke Point) (A John Rain Novel) Redemption Games (Previously published as Killing Rain and One Last…

  • Ben Ezra, Old Cairo, Geniza Documents

    So I am done with work here in Cairo, and just hanging out for the week until my flight for London on Saturday. Originally, I was planning on going to Dahab (a beach resort spot) for a couple of days this week. But really, going to a beach resort spot by yourself can be kind…

  • Review: Mahfouz’s Adrift on the Nile

    Adrift on the Nile Nahgib Mafouz I was told to read this because it was supposed to be “the perfect treatment of life under Nasser”. It’s the story of a group of pseudo intellectuals and broken men who meet on a house boat every night to get high, until a tragic event befalls them leading…

  • ,

    Impressions of Muslim Brotherhood

    I wrote this originally in 2007 and, again, it seems terribly naive and dated, but I’m keeping it as is.   The Muslim Brotherhood (lets call it MB from here on out) is a massive organization, the biggest opposition group by far in Egypt, and everyone I have asked here had an opinion about it.…

  • Review: Raymond’s Cairo

    Cairo Andre Raymond Its amazing to me that a city with a history so rich, that spans such important events in history of the world, can be turned into such a boring book. I think Raymond is aping Braudel in this book with his focus on the economics and geographical changes that happened in Cairo’s…

  • Alexandria

    I drove up to Alexandria this weekend with a group of women on their way to a wedding. One of them said along the way “the problem with Egypt is we have too much of a past and not enough of a future”. This is a pretty melodramatic thing to say, and reflects the severe…

  • Review: Mahfouz’s Sugar Street

    Sugar Street: The Cairo Trilogy, Volume 3 Nahgib Mahfouz Maybe I read it all too fast and got spoiled by all the excellent character development and believable dialogue, but Sugar Street, the third volume of the Cairo Trilogy was a bit of a disappointment. Perhaps Mahfouz was just running out of steam, but I was…

  • Pyramids

    Look Mom, I made it to the pyramids! Some impressions: 1. They are very large. Bigger than I thought they’d be. I was expecting the size of them to be a bit of a let down after a lifetime of hearing about them, but nope, they’re huge. 2. They’re basically right in Cairo (or the…

  • Review: Mahfouz’s Palace of Desire

    One of many posts originally written for a now long dead livejournal account. Palace of Desire: The Cairo Trilogy, Volume 2 Nagib Mafouz Palace of Desire is slower than the Palace Walk. The chapters are longer, as if the pace of the novel reflected the pace of mid-life. Major event continue to sneak up on…