BOOKS: Out of Egypt

Alexandria

Andre Aciman is a cross between Lawrence Durrell and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, writing with the sensuousness of Durrell and the magical realism of Marquez. No where is this more evident than in “Out of Egypt,” Aciman’s beautifully written memoir of his eccentric family’s life in Alexandria, Egypt. This is not a self-absorbed memoir. Aciman is too skillful for that. With beauty of language and an enveloping sensuousness he chronicles his life in the cosmopolitan and the polyglot city of Alexandria during the first half of the 20^th century up until the 1960’s when his family fled to Paris. What makes these memoirs stand out is Aciman’s acute sense of observation and his ability to render it in simplistic prose. All the smells and sounds of Alexandria are here. He has achieved something very evocative. Aciman absorbed all the peculiarities of his surroundings and has painted a recollection of a boyhood and a time that no longer exists. He brings to life a marvelous collection of characters (his family) which include: Uncle Villy, the spy, the fascist, and the soldier; the very pessimistic Aunt Flora and two grandmothers who gossip in six languages. Though joyful, melancholy pervades these memoirs as the reader gets a sense that Aciman never wanted to leave. And through his story we learn the “bigger story” of how and why the “Egyptian Jews” were driven out of Egypt during the Arab-Israeli conflicts. Today Aciman is professor of comparative literature at the City University of New York. Also check out his much praised novel set on the Italian Rivera, “Call Me By Your Name.”