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The transformation of reality and the Arabic novel's aesthetic response

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Sabry Hafez
Sabry Hafez
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, London
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Extract

The rapid pace of the change sweeping through the Arab world over the last few decades has profoundly affected both its various cultural products and its writers' perception of their national identity, social role and the nature of literature. The aim of this paper1 is to discuss the major changes in the sociopolitical reality of the Arab world, the cultural frame of reference and the responses of one of the major literary genres in modern Arabic literature: the novel. It is assumed here that there is a vital interaction between the novel and its socio-cultural context, in that novels encode within their very structure various elements of the social reality in which they appear and within whose constraints they aspire to play a role. Their generation of meaning is enmeshed in a variety of cultural, psychological and social processes, and their reception therefore brings into operation an array of experiences necessary for the interpretive act.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , February 1994 , pp. 93 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1994

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References

1 The author wishes to thank Dr. Owen Wright who meticulously read an earlier version of this paper and to acknowledge his valuable suggestions, intellectual provocation and instructive comments.

2 The heroine of his novel Zaynab (Cairo, 1912)Google Scholar.

3 The heroine of his novel al-Ard (Cairo, Dār Rūz al-Yūsuf, 1954)Google Scholar.

4 The heroine of his novel Mirāmār (Cairo, Maktabat Miṣr, 1967)Google Scholar.

5 As is the case with Saniyya in al-Ḥakīm's, Tawfiq ‘Awdat al-Rūh (Cairo, Maktabat al- ādāb, 1932)Google Scholar.

6 See Laṭifa al-Zayyāt, , al-Bdb al-Maftūḥ (Cairo, Anglo Bookshop, 1960)Google Scholar.

7 Ghānim, Fatḥi, Zaynab wa'l-'Arsh (Cairo, Rūs al-Yusuf Publications, 1978)Google Scholar.

8 Bahā, ‘Ṭāhir, Qālat Ḍuḥā (Cairo, Dār al-Hilāl, 1985)Google Scholar.

9 al-Takarli, Fu'ād, al-Raj'al Ba'Td (Beirut, Dār Ibn Rushd, 1980)Google Scholar.

10 Haydar, Ḥaydar, Walīmah li-A'shdb al-Bahr (Beirut, Mu'assasat al-Abḥāth, 1979)Google Scholar.

11 al-Shaikh, Ḥanan, Ḥikayat Zāhara (Beirut, 1980)Google Scholar.

12 Barrāda's, MuḥammadLu'bat al-Nisyān (Rabat, Dār al-Amān, 1987)Google Scholar.

13 For a detailed study of this process see Hafez, Sabry, The genesis of Arabic narrative discourse: a study in the sociology of modern Arabic literature (London, Saqi Books, 1993)Google Scholar.

14 Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal, the pioneer of the Arabic novel, modelled his Zaynab, which is widely considered the first mature Arabic novel, on the French novel.

15 For details, see Sabry Hafez, op. tit., 108-11 and 129-36.

16 See Yūsuf Idrīs, ‘Nahwa Masraḥ Misri’, al-Kātib, January, February and March 1964, in which he elaborated the affinity of his new theatrical endeavour with the semi-dramatic tradition of the popular commedia del'arte style comedies known as the village ‘Sāmir’, the Qaraqūz (puppet shows), Muḥabbiẓīn (popular entertainers) and the more literary type of dramatic spectacles known as Khayāl al- ẓill (shadow play).

17 This was his play al-Farāfir which is available in English translation as Flipflap and his master, see Manzalaoui, Mahmoud, Arabic writing today: drama (Cairo: Publications of American Research Centre in Egypt, 1977), 335–454Google Scholar.

18 The most successful experiment in the Arabic novel is Jamāl al-Ghīṭāni's work, particularly his al-Zayni Barakāt (1974), Khuṭaṭ al Ghīṭāni (1980) and his trilogy, Kitāb al-Tajalliyyat (1983-6). But there are several others such as Najīb Maḥfūẓ's Layāli Alf Layla (1982), Al-Ṭāhir Waṭṭār's al-Ḥawwāt wa'1-Qasr (1974) and ‘Urs Baghl (1988?) and the Tunisian ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Bū-Jāh's Mudawwanat al-I'tirāfāt wa'l-Asrār (1985).

19 The most influential text in this respect is The Arabian Nights with its elaborate and highly sophisticated narrative structure.

20 Jakobson, Roman, Language in literature, Krystyna, Pomorska and Stephen, Rudy (ed.) (Cambridge, Mass., The Belknap Press, 1987), 19–120Google Scholar.

21 For a detailed study of the change of literary sensibility in Arabic see Ḥāfiẓ, Ṣabri, al-Qissa al-'Arabiyya wa'l-Ḥadāta: Dirāsa fī āliyyāt Taghayyir al-Ḥasāsiya al-Adabiyya (Baghdad: Dāral- Shu'ūn al-Thaqāfiyya, 1990)Google Scholar.

22 These are terms coined in Richards, I. A., The philosophy of rhetoricGoogle Scholar, to distinguish the two elements in a metaphor or simile. In the ‘ships ploughed the sea’, the ships’ movement is the tenor and ‘plough’ is the vehicle.

23 See Ullmann, Stephen, Style in the French novel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957), 214Google Scholar, quoted in Lodge, David, Modes of modern writing: metaphor, metonymy and the typology of modern writing (London: Edward Arnold, 1977), 75Google Scholar.

24 The adherence to chronological time was a vital part of the metonymic rules of reference, since chronological time is the only one that governs external reality. This was no longer the case when the rules of reference were not dependent on those of external reality, thus allowing for when the more importantly for the relinquishing of chronological time.

25 The Trilogy was completed in 1952 and was serialized in al-Risāla al-Jadīda in the following year, but it was published in book form in 1956-57; Bavn al-Qaṣrayn (1956), Qaṣr al-Shawq (1957) and al-Sukkariyya (1957). The Trilogy is now available in English and French translations.

26 There are also many novels by those writers listed in the first group which demonstrate I this position.

27 A clear example of this can be found in the novels of Idwār al-Kharrāṭ, Ilyās Khūri and Muhammad Barrādah.

28 For a detailed study of this change and its impact on the structure of the novel see Martin, Wallace, Recent theories of narrative (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1986), 15–30Google Scholar.

29 See for example Jabrā Ibrāhīm Jabrā's al-Safina (1970), al-Ghuraf al-Ukhrā (1986) and ‘ālam bilā Kharā'iṭ (1982) which he co-authored with ‘Abd al-Raḥman Mumīf.

30 As in the novels of Ḥanān al-Shaykh, Salwā Bakr, Badr al-Dīb and Ḥaydar Ḥaydar.

31 As in the work of Muḥammad Shukri.

32 As in the novels of Idwār al-Kharrāṭ, Ilyās Khūri and also in Rashīd al-Ḍa'īf's Fisḥa Mustahdafa bayn al-Nug'ās wa'l-Nawm (1986).

33 Émile Zola's Le roman experimental (1880) suggests that the novel is modelled on the procedures of experimental science. In fact the whole treatise is inspired by Claude Bernard's highly influential book, Introduction ả l'étude de la médecine expérimentale (1865).

34 These are al-Qāhira al-Jadīda (1945), Khān al-Khalīli (1946), Zuqāq al-Midaqq (1947), Bidāya wa-Nihāya (1949) and the Trilogy.

35 This is also evident in the novels of Ḥannā Mīna, ‘Abd al-Karīm Ghall‘b and Ghā'ib Firmān.

36 Many novels, such as those of Jamāl al-Ghīṭāni, al-Ṭāhir Waṭṭār and Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Bū -Jāh, are indeed more concerned with textuality than with referentiality.

37 Jabrā Ibrāhīm Jabrā and ‘Abd al-Raḥman Munī's ‘ālam bilā Kharā'iṭ is a good example of this as also are Munī's al-Nihāyāt (1978) and Mudun al-Milḥ (1984-9).

38 For a detailed discussion of the concept of syllogistic progression see Burke, Kenneth, Counter statement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), 120–3Google Scholar.

39 Most if not all the novels in the first group relied on syllogistic progression.

40 For a detailed discussion of the concept of qualitative progression see Burke, Kenneth, op. cit., 124–8Google Scholar.

41 See for example most of Jabrā Ibrāhim Jabrā's novels, particularly al-Safina and al-Ghuraf al-Ukhrā; Kanafāni's, GhassānMā Tabaqqā Lakum (1966)Google Scholar, Ilyās Khūri's novels and Idwār al- Kharrāt's Rāma wa'l-Tinīnm.

42 See Eco, Umberto, The role of the reader: explorations in the semiotics of texts (London: Hutchinson, 1979), 3–43Google Scholar.

43 For a detailed discussion of the formation of this reading public and its cultural condition see Hafez, S., The genesis of Arabic narrative discourse, 63–104Google Scholar.

44 As in the novels of Iḥsān ‘Abd al-Quddūs, Yūsuf Idrīs, ‘Abd al-Raḥman al-Sharqāwi and Ghā'ib Ṭi'ma Firmān.

45 Many novelists perceived themselves as playing a major cultural and political role and commitment was seen as a natural course of action. Some writers were politically active, e.g. Ḥusayn, Idrīs, Sharqawi, MInā, Firmān and Kanafāni.

46 al-Sarāb (1948), which deals with the psychological and sexual problems of a young man. Despite its erotic overtones which ought to have won it wide popularity, the novel was both a literary and commercial failure.

47 In a number of interviews I had with him, Maḥfūẓ admitted that his attempt in al-Sarāb was not successful and he refrained from writing more of this type of novel. See Ṣabri, Ḥāfiẓ (ed.), Najīh Maḥfūẓ, Ataḥaddath Ilaykum (Beirut: Dār al-'Awdah, 1975)Google Scholar.

48 The political hero can be found in the novels of Idrīs, Sharqāwi, ‘Abd al-Quddūs, Kāmil, Mahfūẓ, Ṣafadi, Firmān and Ghallāb.

49 As in the novels of Ṣun'allāh Ibrahīm, Ḥaydar Ḥaydar, Muḥammad Shukri and Ghālib Halasā.

50 This is evident in Ṣun'allah Ibrahīm's Tilk al-Rā'iḥa.

51 Most of Maḥfūẓ's novels of the 1960s, from al-Liṣṣ wa'l-Kilab (1961) to al-Simmān wa'l- Khwīf (1962), al- Ṭarlq (1964), al-Shaḥḥadh (1965) and Tharthara Fawq al-Nīl (1966) resort to psychological and symbolic presentation.

52 See the novels of Ilyās Khūri, Idwār al-Kharrāt, Muḥammad Zifzāf and Aḥmad al-Midīni.

53 He wrote three historical novels, ‘Abath al-Aqdār (1939), Radūbīs (1943) and Kifāḥ Ḥiba (1944), before moving on to social realism in which he wrote seven more (those known as the Cairene novels listed above, n. 34) and then to the new or critical realism in which he wrote six novels during the 1960s, and so on.

54 Hafez, Sabry, ‘The Egyptian novel in the sixties’, in Boullata, Issa J. (ed.), Critical perspectives on modern Arabic literature (Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1980), 186Google Scholar. This essay provides many examples of this feature from the Egyptian novels of the 1960s.

55 Clear examples of this are found in the novels of Muḥammad ‘Abd al-Halim ‘Abdulla.

56 This is evident in the novels of the Lebanese civil war, particularly in the work of Ilyās Khūri, Rashīd al-Da ‘īf and Ḥanān al-Shaykh, and in the novels of Egyptian expatriation in the Arabian Peninsula during the 1970s, particularly in Muḥammad al-Mansī Qandīl's Bay’ Nafs Bashariyya (1987) and Inkisār al-Rawh (1992), Jamāl al-Ghīṭāni's Risālat al-Baṣā'ir fi al-Maṣā'ir (1989) and Ibrāhīm ‘Abd al-Majid's al-Balda al-Ukhrā (1991).

57 As in Jabrā and Munīf's ‘Ālam bilā Kharā'ṭ and Ilyās Khūri's Mamlakat al-Ghurabā’ (1993).

58 As in Ibrāhīm Aṣiān's Mālik al-Ḥazin and Wardiyyat Layl (1992) and Muḥammad al-Bisāṭi's al-Maqhā al-Zuādji (1979) and Buyūt Warā’ al-Ashjār (1993).

59 As in Munīf's al-Nihāyāt, Muḥammad ‘Izz al-Dīn al-Tazi's Raḥīl al-Baḥr (1983) and Fawq al-Qubūr Taḥt al-Qamar (1989) and Ḥaydar Ḥaydar's Marāyā al-Nār.

60 This was the case in Maḥfūẓ's Cairene novels and in most of the novels of the first group.

61 As is (he case in the work of Halasā, al-Shaikh, Barrāda and Ṣāliḥ.

62 As with the heroes of Rāma wa'l-Tinnīn, al-Zaman al-Ākhar and Mamlakat al-Ghurabā‘.

63 Classic examples of this are al- Ḥaklm's ‘Awdal al-Rawḥ and Maḥfūẓ's al-Qāhirā al-Jadlda and Biddyāh wa-Nihāya.

64 See e.g. al-Ḍa'īf's Fisha Muslahdafa bayn al-Nu'ās wa'l-Nawm (1986), Taqniyāt al-Bu's (1989) and Ghiflat al-Turāb (1991) and Salīm Barakāt's Fuqahā’ al-Ẓalām (1985) and al-Rīsh (1990).

65 Al-Kharrāṭ's al-Zaman al-Ākhar and Khūri's Mamlakat al-Ghurabā’ are among the clearest examples in this respect. The character narrates certain events only to contradict them or to tell us that none of them took place. In the latter novel characters shift, change roles, names and places, tend to confuse what happened to them with what happened to others, and accept versions of events knowing them to be false.

66 The anti-hero is the protagonist of the majority of the novels in the second group which present a fecund variation on the alienated, rejected and rejecting character.

67 Such as Maḥfūẓ's Ḥadīth al-Ṣabāḥ wa'l-Masā’, Khūri's Mamlakat al-Ghurabā’, al-Shaykh's Misk al-Ghazāl and Bakr's al-'Araba al-Zahabiyya lā Taṣ'ad ilā al-Samā’.

68 As is the case in the novels of Maḥfūz in the 1960s and of those of al-Kharrāṭ.

69 Sabry Hafez, ‘The Egyptian novel in the sixties’, 177.

70 ibid., 181. This feature is prevalent in many novels such as Ṣun'alla Ibrāhīm's Tilk al Rāiha, al-'Ayyūṭi's, Amīnal'l-Ṣamṭ wa'l-Ṣadā (1969), Muḥammad Yūsuf al-Qa'īd's al-ḤidādGoogle Scholar (1969) and ‘Abd al-Fattāḥ al-Jamal's al-Khawf(1912).

71 As is the case with many of Maḥfūẓ's Cairene novels and the novels of Muḥammad ‘Abd al-Halīm ‘Abdulla and Fatḥi Ghānim's al-Rajul alladhi Faqad Ẓillah.

72 Many examples of this can be found in Maḥfūẓ's Trilogy, Sharqāwi's al-Arḍ, Idrīs's Qiṣṣat Ḥubb and al-Bayḍā’ (1959).

73 By Diyāb, Mahmūd (1963)Google Scholar.

74 Hafez, Sabry, ‘The Egyptian novel in the sixties’, 182Google Scholar.

75 Aḥzān Nūḥ is by Shawqi ‘Abd al-Hakīm (1964) and the situation of its hero is similar to that of the heroes of the novels of Bahā’ Ṭāhir, Ibrāhīm Aṣiān, Muḥammad al-Bisāṭi, Maḥmūd al-Wirdāni, Yūsuf Abū Rayya and ‘Alyā’ al-Tābi'i.

76 In the novels of Laṭīfa al-Zayyāt, Raḍwā, ‘Āshūr and Salwā Bakr in Egypt, Laylā Ba'albakki, Imīli Naṣralla and Ḥanān al-Shaykh in Lebanon, ‘Ālyah Mamdūr and Lutfiyya al- Dulaymi in Irāq, ‘Alyā’ al-Tabi'i in Tunisia and Aḥlām Mustaghanimi in Algeria.

77 As is the case in most of the novels of Nawāl al-Saՙdāwi, Ḥannā Minh, Ghā՚ib Ṭi'ma Firmān and ‘Abd al-Karim Ghallāb.

78 See for example al-Kharrāṭ's Makhlūqāt al-Ashwāq al-Tā'ra (1990) and Hijārat Būbillū (1993), Imīl Ḥablbi's Ikhṭiyya (1985) and Sarāyā Bint al-Ghūl (1992), ‘Alyā’ al-Tabi'i's Zahrat al- Ṣabbār (1991) and Aḥlām Mustaghāanimi's Dhākirat al-Jasad (1993).

79 As in ՙAbd al-Fattāḥ al-Jamal's al-Khawf (1972) and Muḥibb (1992) and Al-Shaykh's Ḥikāyat Zahra (1980).

80 As is the case in Maḥfūẓ's, Malḥamat al-Harāfish (1977)Google Scholar.

81 As is the case in Maḥfüẓ's Cairene novels.

82 This is evident in Kh'ayri Shalabi's Awalunā Walad (1990) and Wa Thānīnā al-Kūmi (1993).

83 Weedon, Chris, Feminist practice and poststructuralist theory (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), 22Google Scholar.

84 ibid., p. 25.

85 See Foucault, Michel, The archaeology of knowledge and the discourse on language, tr. Smith, A. M. Sheridan (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972), 21–76Google Scholar.

86 As in Ibrāhīm al-Kūni's Nazīf al-Hajar (1990) and al-Tibr (1990), Khayri Shalabi's Awalunā Walad, Wa Thānīnā al-Kūmi and Wikālat ‘Atiyya (1992), Yūsuf Abū Rayyah's Aṭash al-Ṣabbār (1989), and Khayri ‘Abd al-Jawwād's Kitāb al-Tawahumāt (1992).

87 As in Maqqār's, Shafīqal-Kalām (1987)Google Scholar.

88 As is the case with al-Ghīṭāni's al-Zayni Barakāt.

89 This is a prevalent feature in many works, from Maḥfūẓ's al-Lişş wa'l-Kildb and al-Shaḥḥādh and Maḥmūd al-Mas'adi's Ḥaddath Abū Hurayra Qāl (1972) and Mawlid al-Nisyān (1979) to al-Ghīṭani's Kitāb al-Tajalliyyāt and Risāla fi al-Ṣabāba wa'l-Wajd (1987) and Sa'īd ‘Abd al- Fattāṭ's Maqāmāt al-Faqd wa'l-Taḥawwul (1991).

90 As in the novels of al-Kharrāṭ, Jabrā and Barrādah.

91 See Shafīq Maqqār's al-Kalām.