Mathaf el Nesyan (The Oblivion Museum), by: Mahmoud Abdel Ghani, (Cairo: Rawafed), 2012.

A novel that can only be described as absurd, Mathaf el Nesyan ("The Oblivion Museum") is a confusing work.

Some critics have classified it wrongly as a historical novel. Actually, it is not. The main character is an Egyptian history professor who travels to a conference in London, then Paris, then Washington DC, in a delusional pursuit of a village that does not exist on the map in Upper Egypt called Kom Abou Sheel.

The novelist, Mahmoud Abdel Ghani, began with a strong start regarding the world of academia and a history conference that gives the impression that we will be reading an Egyptian version of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. When the writer chose two parallel lines of narration between life in that non-existent village in the past and the present time, where the search continues for it, the excitement continued.

The chapters are divided into two parts, entitled Manuscript and The Museum. Jumping back and forth between the two stories added to the excitement. Then the disappointment came when the characters of the mysterious forgotten village became the centre of the world, existing for thousands of years. The writer decided that Jesus Christ, Noah, Che Guevara, the French Expedition invasion of Egypt, the Mamlouk Sultans have not passed by it and yet they exist in the question raised about the village, adding to the absurdity of the novel. No one is able to find Kom Abou Sheel in our modern day. Sometimes it is explained that they built passageways and corridors that lead any visitors out of the village without passing through it. Then a chapter later asserts that these passages were not built and that simply no one came to that village that does not exist. The writer takes the reader to another conclusion that the village changes its place every now and then, in order to remain hidden from the evils of this world, then destroying that argument, saying that no one changed the village’s place, according to one of the elders.

Reading the novel as two parallel novels — one in the present and one in the past — does not clarify things any better. The present time professor (who does not have a name throughout the whole novel) continues his pursuit with a conclusion that the village does not exist, while the ancient time narrator seems more like a person high on drugs who leaves the reader confused about that village and whether it has a philosophy to its existence or is isolated from the world yet watching everything in it.

The writing style of the novel is mediocre. Many of the chapters are one long sentence that continues for two or three pages, or a thought carries on for two or three long paragraphs. Absent is a full stop, and commas are lightly used. This is a gross mistake by any novelist. The long phrases style confuses the reader and jumps from one idea to another within the same paragraph without giving the reader a chance to follow the sequence comfortably.

Another big oversight from the writer is the marginalisation of the other characters in the novel. Flat insignificant characters with no depth and that have no real roles in the novel. The writer chose female characters to be in the main character path, but they could have been men easily without any influence on the sequence of the novel or its events. It is simply a novel about one person that could have been much more interesting if the writer has put some effort into adding depth to the professor character, or the concept of rewriting history mentioned in the beginning and brushed upon lightly.

The main conference is about the British Empire and how it still tries to control its ex-colonies through history and culture, studying them as if they are still colonies belonging to the crown. An intelligent term used in the novel was “colonisation by remote control” or “long distance colonisation”, terms that could have enriched the novel if elaborated.

By all means the writer has introduced a new type of character that is not usually represented in Egyptian novels (the academic researcher), while brushing on the methodology of historical inquiry. But beyond that, one is left nowhere.