Alexandrian Summer

by Yitzhak Gormezano Goren, Yardenne Greenspan (Translator), André Aciman (Introduction)

Alexandrian Summer is the story of two Jewish families living their frenzied last days in the doomed cosmopolitan social whirl of Alexandria just before fleeing Egypt for Israel in 1951. The conventions of the Egyptian upper-middle class are laid bare in this dazzling novel, which exposes startling sexual hypocrisies and portrays a now vanished polyglot world of horse-racing, seaside promenades, and elegant night clubs. Hamdi-Ali senior is an old-time patriarch with more than a dash of strong Turkish blood. His handsome elder son, a promising horse jockey, can't afford sexual frustration, as it leads him to overeat and imperil his career, but the woman he lusts after won't let him get beyond undoing a few buttons. Victor, the younger son, takes his pleasure with other boys. But the true heroine of the story—richly evoked in a pungent upstairs/downstairs mix—is the raucous, seductive city of Alexandria itself. Published in Hebrew in 1978, Alexandrian Summer appears now in translation for the first time.

Yitzhak Gormezano Goren was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1941 and immigrated to Israel as a child. A playwright and novelist, Goren studied English and French literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University. In 1982, he cofounded the Bimat Kedem Theater.

“Helps show why postwar Alexandria inspires nostalgia and avidity in seemingly everyone who knew it … The result is what summer reading should be: fast, carefree, visceral, and incipiently lubricious.”— The New Yorker

“Luminous … One of the great triumphs of Alexandrian Summer is the richness of the evocation of this city and the multiple cultures pressed within it … A sultry eroticism pervades.”— The Forward

"Alexandria, a lush paradise by the sea, comes to antic, full-bodied life ... Gormezano Goren’s characters are vividly depicted as they grow up or grow older in a city of conflicting loyalties, riven by resentment, ready to revolt. Readers will be transported."—Publishers Weekly

"This novel recalls one gloriously golden summer in a cosmopolitan city on the verge of upheaval ... Fluidly written and soberly enticing."—Library Journal

"A gifted writer ... Gormezano Goren defines the city and its ambiance in lush, sensuous terms ... He also describes so well the Diaspora Jew’s knack for downplaying the danger of gathering storms of hatred, a tendency not limited to Alexandria or to any particular era of exile."—The Jerusalem Post

"A powerful novel of tensions–sexual, familial, religious, and political–and an affecting but unsparing portrait of the petit bourgeois world of Egyptian Jews standing obliviously on the edge of a precipice. Alexandria-–sensual and enchanting-–shimmers in these pages." —Dalia Sofer, author of The Septembers of Shiraz

"A fine work of art . . . riveting from the first page to the last."—Zo Haderekh

"A reason to rejoice. . . . You can't help but keep on smiling with great pleasure."—Maariv

"A profound literary experience."—Ahshav

Genres: Fiction, Egypt, Historical Fiction, Middle East, Jewish, Israel, Africa

200 pages, Paperback

First published April 27, 2015

Reviews

[Kamryn A · Rating 2 out of 5]

like a solid 2.75 not sure how i feel about it but it wasn’t the best

[Joan Kerr · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used to be Robert, too. Twenty years ago. I’m coming from twenty years away. I won’t interrupt, I just want to watch, I won’t interfere, God forbid. I just want to tell the story of one summer, a Mediterranean summer, an Alexandrian summer.

So Alexandrian Summer starts and finishes, with the writer returning to see his own ten-year old self, Robby, on the balcony of the old apartment taking down car licence numberplates. And at the end of the story, rain begins to fall on Robby, and he leaves his notebook discarded on the balcony:
The summer was washed off the streets. Winter came to Alexandria.

In between is a story as flexible as a silken rope, moving with the slightly-drugged hedonistic ease of summer days in cosmopolitan Alexandria at the height of the season. But we’re on the cusp of the Officer’s Revolution that ended the leisured, settled life of the Jews of Alexandria. Funny, sophisticated and knowing as it is, the book is full of the sad consciousness of a dying way of life and a future far from Alexandria.

The Hamdi-Alis, Joseph and Emilie and their two sons David and Victor, come from Cairo to spend the summer in Alexandria with Robby, his parents and his sister Anabella. Robby is soon enticed by Victor into sexual games while David pursues the unresponsive Anabella, hardly able to comprehend that she isn’t interested in such an Adonis as he knows himself to be. In Anabella, Goren beautifully captures the ecstatic irresponsibility of being young and uncommitted. But under its apparently meandering surface the story is building towards a confrontation; it’s the racing season and David, a prize-winning jockey is up against the local hero Al-Tal’ooni: he, David, the Jew, against the dark desert man. Handsome and sought-after as he is, David already carries the seeds of failure within him – it’s no stretch of the imagination to imagine him in ten years or so, the fair hair thinning, the waist spreading, the unrealistic dreams evaporated. This is as good as it will get – the heights of the summer season and the brief heroism of the racetrack. And weighed against this insubstantial young man is the tragic figure of his father Joseph, who gave up his Muslim faith and family for love of a Jewish woman and is now realising the price he paid. For him the question of whether David will win or lose against Al-Tal’ooni becomes an existential one that goes to his essence, his flesh…beyond winning or losing a race at the Alexandria Sporting Club.

Meanwhile the sheltered, powerless women play endless card games, gossiping and matchmaking in a lazy mix of French, Ladino, Arabic, Turkish and English; the Arab servants play a pragmatic game of give-and-take with their Jewish employers; and the Copts, Jews, Muslims, Catholics and Greek Orthodox, as Andre Aciman says in his introduction jostled each other without scruple…the tussling was amicable enough and never deadly. But no one was fooled for long.

Different as it is in style and scope, there are echoes of the doomed glamour of Death in Venice. I was reminded too of Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo trilogy and of Orhan Pahmuk’s The Museum of Innocence, both of which present a similarly rich and loving picture of the writer’s home city and its cultural life, and of the intimacies, bonds and unspoken laws of family nestled within it.

Alexandrian Summer was first published in Hebrew in 1978. It’s a classic of diaspora literature. New Vessel Press has done us a great favour in bringing out this English version.

[Carla (literary.infatuation) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let’s start by saying that I really really disliked this book. If you loved it and might get defensive about it, please stop reading.

But it is not all bad. Writing is solid, and there was a very good point made right from the beginning: the rift between Muslims and Jews in Egypt (author refers to Arabs and Jews, erasing all Arab Jews) was not ideological but rather economic. Jews considered themselves European (thus superior during the colonial regime), and were able to amass small fortunes or at least live a comfortable life in fancy apartments with Arab servants regardless of their wits or entrepreneurial spirit. They just benefited from proximity to whiteness.

But other than that, the book was incredibly boring and made some very dangerous choices on how to portray sensitive matters. I almost DNF it at the middle because the characters were so flat and they weren’t doing anything special other than gossiping and spending money in luxurious entertainment.

I found the fact that the gay character was ugly and regarded as an idiot and unloved said much about how the author feels about the LGBTQIA community. I found his stance terribly prejudiced, where the characters are supposed to be ashamed and their sexual exploration with other boys painted as perverse.

I also felt that the portrayal of suicide was dangerous and suspicion of converts was terrible and disrespectful to converts. And in general, the book was very prejudiced against Arabs, Turks, Muslims and it was very classist. There also body shaming and fatphobia.

[Sarahg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is beautiful and the words are too, evoking strong feelings and imagery. Very well written and translated.

[Spoilers!!]

In reading the first few chapters, I thought I wasn't going to love the book too much after all. I thought the boys' explorations into homosexual sex was pretty unrealistic. Would boys do that? Yes, I guess could believe that (although more awkward fumblings with hands and mouth would be more believable. Did they not feel pain?). But would all 5 boys? And no one had any reservations at all? I don't know. Maybe Victor had more charisma and ability to influence people than anybody realised. As I read on, I was able to put that aside because the other characters started to come alive.

The character who really touched me was Joseph/Yusef. His was a tragic story. The other characters are all beautiful in their own ways. Emile was kind, grandma was more compassionate and wise than her words sometimes suggest, and David was ... I feel sorry for him.

I think David got the looks, but Victor got the intelligence. Victor, despite his "ugliness" and relative youth, seems to me to be the more self-accepting and fearless of the two. He was pretty wretched most of the story, but I suspect he had to be this way to survive. David wouldn't survive in his brother's skin.

[J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quick Review: Glad to finally have an English translation available. This novel provides a fascinating look at a summer season in 1951 Egypt: the cosmopolitan atmosphere is fraught with ethnic, religious, and class tensions on the eve of King Farouk's overthrow. Treated with unsentimental language, readers are presented with nostalgia and its unmitigated irony, thus preventing a nosedive into clichés, etc. Yet, readers do come away with probing insights into the characters, their psychological motivations, and inner lives.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the introduction: "The peaceful co-existence of so many creeds and nationalities may have been asking too much of mankind and in the end was too good to be true. It never lasts: it never did." This author deftly handles extremely serious social issues through this story primarily about horse racing and the jockeys involved. There isn't a wasted word here in this very dense story, and I loved the final sentence (and I'm not giving anything away by quoting it here): "Winter came to Alexandria." Simple, and with multiple meanings, that's the way to end a novel!

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting time and place -- Alexandria Egypt of the early 1950s.
Kind of the lull before the very big storm. The many varied residents of the City actually got along in a sort of way but the lower class Arabs were just waiting to explode and over turn a rather decadent way of life to be replaced by even worse trouble. Lots of portent of what was to come without being too preachy about who was right and wrong.

[Joy · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[PS · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a patch on Out of Egypt by Andre Aciman.

[Ellis Shuman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alexandrian Summer – Yitzhak Gormezano Goren's 1978 novel now translated for the first time – is a nostalgic look at the life of secular bourgeois Jews in Egypt's second largest city.

It's the summer of 1951. Farouk rules as "King of Egypt and Sudan". Only in October will the Parliament cancel the treaty allowing the British to control the Suez Canal. In a year's time Gamal Abdel Nasser will overthrow the monarchy and lead Egypt into Arab nationalism. But meanwhile in cosmopolitan Alexandria, Egyptian Jews continue to enjoy a very sedate, dignified, European style of living. As they go to the track to watch the horses, or play cards and gossip, there is a growing awareness that something is about to happen.

The Alexandria described in the novel Alexandrian Summer (New Vessel Press, April 2015) is very sensuous. "Surrounded by water. Water, water, water. In the north, her full breasts dip in the water of the Mediterranean. In the south, the waves of Lake Mariout cool her behind with arousing caresses. In the east, her fingers flutter through the Nile as it runs its brown water with limp sleepiness."

As the first person narrator says in the opening pages, "The story of the Alexandrian summer does not present itself easily. It is wrapped in layers of nostalgia, of oblivion, of generalizations." The narrator speaks from his new home in Israel, having left "the Alexandria of the days of King Farouk" when he was ten years old, just as the author did.

Although it seems at times that Alexandria is the protagonist of the novel, it is actually the "story about the Hamdi-Alis, a family from Cairo that came to spend a summer of joy on the shores of Alex[andria]." This family, with its Arab last name, "embodies the joie de vivre, the unending Mediterranean energy." Arriving as guests in the home of ten-year-old Robby, they are the main characters we follow, as Robby's own tale does not capture our interest as fully.

The sensuality of the story is reserved for the city, with the exception of the pubescent experimentation of Robby and his friend, Victorico Hamdi-Ali. This entails a little too much homoerotic humping, in my opinion. Robby's sister is in a relationship with Victorico's brother David, a Jewish jockey competing with Muslim riders at the city's horseracing track. David's father stresses that winning races is a mission, not a game, but David is willing to give it all up to be with Miss Anabella, as her father affectionately calls her.

Robby's family talks about two older sons who are already living in the new State of Israel and there is a growing recognition that one day the entire community will have to emigrate. After all, the locals are shouting "Death to the Jews" at every opportunity. The family realizes that the bourgeois lifestyle they lead, with two servants in every home, "coquettish flirtation at the fashion hubs of Europe," and "French, sometimes English" as the lingua franca, will soon end. In the meantime, though, they can enjoy one last Alexandrian summer.

The action in the novel takes place on Rue Delta, a very real street as described in the book's introduction written by André Aciman, who was also a resident of Alexandria before making aliyah. We learn fascinating information about the city and its Jewish community from Aciman's words, which leave a long-lasting impression of a rich culture that no longer exists.

As the book's narrator says, "One day electric lamps would be installed on Rue Delta, and then the lamplighter would disappear from the landscape, fading along with our forgotten childhood, which grows distant with every passing day."

[Belle Hsu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every detail Yitzhak described in the story brings me back to the Alexandria I know from 2017 even though the book was published in 1978, based in the 1950s. Back then Alexandria was more diversed with religions, languages and race. It gave me a context of the history of Alex. It was more vibrant with international citizens compared to the Alex. I stayed for nearly a month in 2017. When I first visited Alexandria in 2017 I was amazed by the Mediterranean-like city in an Arabian country (definately not in my conceptions of "Egypt" would look like) I was so amazed by the old European-like buildings that exists in such beautiful coast lines of Alex. I fell in love with the people and the city right away. It is my home faraway from home. A city like Alex. definately has its stories. The writer did a fantastic job bringing the old city alive to its younger peak era. The story was told in a interesting manner. I learnt a lot about the Alexandrians back then. Some contexts also reminded me of the dear Alexandrians I know now :) It was a pleasure reading this book.

[Asser Mattar · Rating 3 out of 5]

A typically colonial text where the local natives (which the author calls Arabs) are usually in the background as merely non-dimensional servants/beggars drooling for tips from the European master, or people who are hostile for no reason, while the normal people with different true emotions in this segregated society are the diverse European or Jewish individuals who do not seem to have so much sense of belonging to the city or the country. Fragments of childhood memoirs that could have happened anywhere in the world with the setting having no significance. It only gets exciting near the end, where the only deep character is a Turkish convert into Judaism who clearly has an existential crisis and a sense of not belonging anywhere.

[Sean Gill · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's interesting to read about Jews in Egypt before they must flee in the 1950s (some Biblical mirroring) and a Jewish Patriarch who converted from Islam (which seems fairly uncommon?). The characters speak Ladino, derived from Spanish, Arabic, Greek, and perhaps a little Hebrew, which hints at their ancestors' rootlessness. Older siblings send coded messages from Israel via France which hints at further conflict. The narrative itself can be a bit hard to follow. Robby is the sort of pre-teen narrator-observer watching another family's tragedy unfold, but I liked him. It avoids the tropes of many coming-of-age stories, and feels fresh even though its from the 1970s.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the early 1950's Alexandria was a multicultural city, with a thriving Jewish community. This story is a look into life in that community through two families. Their life of horse racing, night clubs, restaurants is facing rising Egyptian nationalism, and the question of whether to emigrate to Israel. In a few years the military coup would install Gamal Nasser.

[Josh · Rating 1 out of 5]

Picked it up at the library on the Staff Recommends shelf. It’s a portrayal of post-WWII life for two Jewish families in Alexandria… where very little happens. I’m fascinated by and sad for the loss of the ancient Jewish communities throughout the Middle East so I was curious to learn about life in Egypt for Jews. I learned more from the introduction than the book itself.

[Perlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very mixed feelings about this book. The beginning was beautiful, then disturbing, then sad.
I didn't really related to anyone in the book. I'd love to learn more about the Egyptian Jewish community.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had hoped this book would provide much more of an insight into life for Jews in Egypt in the 1940-50s before they were forced to flee. In spite of this, I found the story entertaining and the character of Yusef was particularly well rounded. (I felt the salacious sex scenes were gratuitous)

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book as a Goodreads Giveaway.

In the English translation of Alexandrian Summer, Goren is enchanting and wistful, a powerful combination!

[Debby Hammer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am there among them growing into the woman I was meant to be free-spirited, worldly.

[K C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read about a lost age and place.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a lovely little novel about a summer in early 1950s Alexandria, Egypt, just before things got bad for the Jewish population there. I love the sparse sentences and the vivid imagery.

[Gokcan Demirkazik · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Que Dieu nous protège des mauvaises langues!" ("God save us from gossip!") says Madame Marika, after rumors begin to circulate about the possibility of Joseph Hamdi-Ali having drugged the horse of his son's rival. Gormezano-Goren's 1978 book "Alexandrian Summer," translated into English from Hebrew only this year, ushers the reader into the pre-Nasser glamor of the cosmopolitan Alexandria, fondly called "Alex" by its occidentally inclined residents who tend to pepper their everyday conversations here and there with French expressions.

The protagonist Joseph, happily married to Emilie Hamdi-Ali and father of two, is a Turk from Izmir, who converted to Judaism to be able to marry his beloved, and has to live with the trauma of not having made it to the top as a jockey in his youth. Save for Emilie and the Grandma of Robby (whose Alexandrian home welcomes the Cairene Hamdi-Alis during summertime), characters lack articulation, and come to be defined a little better with their--often mischievous--acts. "Alex," whose present-day reality is much different than what is used to be like sixty-five years ago, can only be glimpsed at a lovesick Jewish girl angrily gulping down slices of "baba au rhum" one after another at the Nautical Club, or men and women flocking to the hippodrome in their summer suits and wide-brimmed hats to watch the Sunday races.

"Alexandrian Summer," despite clearly being fueled by a strong sense of melancholy, evinces very little of this sentiment. Instead, one can continuously feel the rift between Muslims and non-Muslims, widening as the Muslim Brotherhood acquires more followers every passing day. The unfortunate events that drive the cosmopolitan population of Alex out of the city are hardly featured at all in Gormezano-Goren's book; instead, the author foreshadows these events by subtly hinting at the growing tensions by revealing the prevalence of racism and anti-Semitism/Islamophobia, how ingrained they are in everyone's daily lives. Gormezano-Goren's language can be a little flat often times, but the novel is a supple read, nevertheless -- like a soothing breeze in an Alexandrian evening.

[Blue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alexandrian Summer is a melancholy of a long-lost amalgam of cultures and peoples of Europe and the Near East. Not a single stone is left from Alexandria's ancient bones, yet Yitzhak Gormezano Goren's mourning is for the new old city; new compared to the ancient city that was the center of the world once upon a time, and old looking back from the end of the 20th century (and now, from the 21st century). The city itself is ever-present with its stifling hot summer, its traffic and noise, its cooling sea, but what lies in the heart of the novel is the people. People from everywhere. People living what seems like an ancient tradition, but is just a fleeting moment in history. Goren sets the story up as a longing for the past, a specific past, one that of a summer right before things changed in drastic ways.

Along the way, he describes exactly the way many cultures, ethnicities, and religions have lived "next door to each other, for centuries, in peace and with tolerance" in Anatolia, in North Africa, in Asia... He also explains, through the words of the card-game-addicted ladies, the horse-racing men, the sweaty, cruel boys, that the rifts that breathe open and closed have always been there, and perhaps, will always be there, as long as humans are human. He describes women of Egypt as shadows of their husbands, born and raised. He does the math when the little prince of the house gets a toy train set that costs seven times what the Arab servant makes in a month. He puts the old grandmas in harm's way during a protest, and let's them easily survive it by pretending to be Greek, with their perfect Greek, the language of their childhood. Alex, in Goren's eyes, is all about surviving, about belonging and never belonging, about living for the moment and never forgetting the past. Perhaps it is about forgiving the past, for how else could you live for the moment?

Recommended for those who like horse races, ice cream, summer heat, marbles, naughty boys, fast talking grandmas, and, of course, great, ancient cities.

[Rachel Sharf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable little book. The descriptions of the life in the sophisticated, multi-language, multinational and multi religion Alexandria, Egypt in the early '50s, before the king Farook was forced to leave remind me a lot of my mother's stories from her childhood in Istambul , Turkey. Some of the characters in the book are from Turkey, originally. The fact that the Jewish middle class did not even speak the language resonates with the stories my mother used to tell me. My mother and her parents emigrated from Turkey when she was 13 and she did not know a word of Turkish. Her parents spoke French at home and she went to a German school. The family togetherness, also remind me of my mother's stories. Life was good but changes were in the air.

[Caroline Igra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was intrigued by this book, just recently published in English. In general books by Israeli authors describing life in the countries in which they were born, usually dated around the time of the founding of Israel when there was a great deal of immigration, are fascinating. As a foreigner living in the Middle East I find it continually enlightening to hear about life in other Middle Eastern cultures; life as lived there by the Jewish population before they moved onward to Israel. Goren's book tells the tale of two families and one summer in Alexandria in 1951. It's a lovely nutshell look that reminds me of Mahfouz's Egyptian trilogy but telling a story that still aches to be heard.

[Leslie (updates on SG) · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable, quick read. Gormezano's Goren's vivid prose (compared to the inferior Beautiful Ruins) gives a vibrant portrait of polyglot Alexandria during the 1950's. A number of plot lines were not resolved, but perhaps that is just the author's invitation to continue Grandmother's conversations with her card buddies.

[Phyllis Krall · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a riveting story about two Jewish families , living their last days in Alexandria, Egypt before they have to flee to Israel. Every day was lived as if it were the last. Alexandria is depicted as a lost paradise, filled with political discord, and religious tension spilling over into everyday life.
A truly enjoyable read.

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another very enjoyable plunge into an Alexandrian summer in the 1950s, but not as good as Aciman’s Out of Egypt. Focus on a sprawling apartment close to the beach. The family let out rooms to families coming from Cairo for the summer; they know each other and share their summers. Beautifully and convincingly drawn, rather eccentric characters.

[Sami · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not what I expected but enjoyable nevertheless. Only slightly captures the cosmopolitan essence of Alexandria before the Nasser regime and the flight of Egyptian jews out of Egypt. No one can top Andre Aciman or Lucette Lagnado writing about that subject.

[The Jewish Book Council]

Review by Ranen Omer-Sherman for the Jewish Book Council.