Ramy Hamdy, Mokhtasar Gamal Al-Alam (A summary of the World’s Beauty), Nahdet Misr Publishing House, 2024, pp294
The protagonist of this novel, Ramy, is a depressed young man recently bereaved of his mother. Finding solace in the love of food and writing, he decides to open four restaurants in the metaverse. He chooses four virtual locations in Tanta, Venice, Paris, and Switzerland, meticulously building his eateries.
Then the guests start to arrive, famous real-life figures for whom Ramy cooks exquisite meals with their own interesting history. First is Ernest Hemingway, with whim he talks about death, suicide, and writing. Then, the Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid discusses the beauty of architecture and how it reflects life. But then Ramy surprises us and brings up two illnesses: cancer and fibromyalgia, raging and blaming them for the suffering they inflict on their bearers.
Afterwards, Ramy comes back to host none other than Edgar Allan Poe. They talk about loss, sadness, and love, but mostly about Poe’s deceased lover and his downfall who was, till the day he died, his muse. Ramy also tells him about the five stages of grief which explains his state of mind before dying.
Before the next guest appears, Ramy ponders wars, the innocent children whose only fault is being born in a country ravaged by war. He delves deep into the idea of how photos carry so much meaning and how important their impact is. In walk four children who are the victims of unforgiving wars, whose photos have changed something in the world. Maybe it cracked through the rough surface or became a catalyst that the world needed to do something. They are led by the famous Palestinian reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, recently killed by Israeli gunfire.
The next pair of guests are quite the fairy tale ones: Beauty and the Beast. They talk about love in both time periods. Then the conversation shifts to music, with none other than the great singer and heartthrob Abdel Halim Hafez. They talk about music and songs and how music conveys our state of mind: happy, sad, in love, broken…
Last but not least, Ramy becomes a contestant in a cooking competition with judges who have a huge impact on society: the chef José Andrés, Mother Teresa, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, and Shala the Sumerian goddess of grain and weather.
His task is to cook a meal out of the ingredients found in Svalbard’s Global Seed Vault. A meal that is nutritious, satiates, and satisfies poor people. It must also be luxuriously presented, easy to make, cheap in components, and rich in flavor. However, Ramy must cook it while experiencing what poor people and homeless children feel: extreme hunger and fatigue. And with extreme hunger and fatigue he cooks a meal that satiates everyone, lentil soup, before moving onto the next level.
Ramy Hamdy is an Egyptian writer born in Tanta in 1986. This is third novel after Philia (2018) and Collage Painting (2020).
* A version of this article appears in print in the 4 July, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
Short link: