Self and Other: The Short Fiction of Yusuf Al-Sharuni 9781463204099, 2014026850, 1463204094

Table of contents :
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
1. SELF AND OTHER BETWEEN PAST AND PRESENT
2. SELF, OTHER AND THE DESIRE FOR A NEW REALITY
3. SELF AND OTHER IN THE NEW REPUBLIC
4. SELF AND OTHER BEYOND THE NATION-BUILDING PHASE
5. SELF AND OTHER IN A FRAGMENTING SOCIETY
CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

Citation preview

Self and Other

Gorgias Studies in the Modern Middle East

60

In this series Gorgias publishes monographs on the history and literature of the modern Middle East. Gorgias particularly welcomes proposals from younger scholars whose dissertations have made an important contribution to the field. Studies of language and linguistics, Judaism and religion in general each have their own series and will not be included in this series.

Self and Other

The Short Fiction of Yūsuf al-Shārūnī

Kate V. M. Daniels

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34 2014

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2014 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2014

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9

ISBN 978-1-4632-0409-9

ISSN 1935-6870

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Daniels, Kate. Self and other : the short fiction of Yusuf al-Sharuni / by Kate Daniels. pages cm -- (Gorgias studies in the modern Middle East ; 60) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4632-0409-9 (alk. paper) 1. Sharuni, Yusuf--Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. PJ7862.H273Z63 2014 892.7’36--dc23 2014026850 Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface ...................................................................................................... vii Acknowledgements ................................................................................. ix Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 Identity: An Introduction ............................................................... 3 Author and Genre ......................................................................... 13 Approach and Methodology ........................................................ 25 1 Self and Other Between Past and Present ................................. 29 “Jasad min Ṭīn,” 1946................................................................... 34 “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū,” 1948 ................................................... 42 “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt,” 1949 ....................................................... 52 “Sariqa bi’l-Ṭābiq al-Sādis,” 1950................................................ 60 2 Self, Other and the Desire for a New Reality ........................... 71 “Al-Qayẓ,” 1950 ............................................................................ 74 “Al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa,” 1950 ................................................ 83 “Risāla ilā Imra’a,” 1951 ............................................................... 92 “Al-Ḥidhā’,” 1951........................................................................101 3 Self and Other in the New Republic ........................................113 “Anīsa,” 1954 ...............................................................................120 “Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl,” 1955 .............................................................127 “Al-Nās Maqāmāt,” 1956 ...........................................................136 “Nashrat al-Akhbār,” 1957 ........................................................146 4 Self and Other Beyond the Nation-Building Phase ...............157 “Al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn,” 1961 .....................................................164 “Al-Ziḥām,” 1963 ........................................................................176 “Naẓariyya fi’l-Jilda al-Fāsida,” 1966 ........................................185 “Lamaḥāt min Ḥayāt Mawjūd Abd al-Mawjūd,” 1969 .......196 5 Self and Other in a Fragmenting Society .................................209 “Al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh,” 1970 ...................................................216 “Shakwā al-Muwaẓẓaf al-Faṣīḥ,” 1976–77 ..............................226 “I tirāfāt Ḍayyiq al-Khulq wa’l-Mathāna,” 1981 ....................239 v

vi “Al-Waqā’i al-Gharība li-Infiṣāl Ra’s Mīm,” 1993 ................249 Conclusion .............................................................................................261 Bibliography ..........................................................................................269 Index .......................................................................................................283

PREFACE This study, produced as a doctoral thesis at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, examines aspects of the relationship between identities and narrative. More precisely, it examines how self and other are perceived and represented in the short stories of the Egyptian prose writer and critic Yūsuf al-Shārūnī (b. 1924). Over five chapters it traces how these perceptions and representations transform and develop, through a chronological study of a selection of al-Shārūnī’s short fictional texts. The structuring of this project is, accordingly, linear: its introduction begins with a historical and theoretical overview of the discourse of identity, and then locates itself in the domain of literary theory, where it explores the concepts of narrative identity and the narrative self. Moving on to a discussion of al-Shārūnī and the short story genre, it considers the origins, form and nature of the modern Arabic short story and provides biographical data on this understudied author. It concludes with a discussion of the hermeneutic processes deployed herein, and outlines its pluralistic theoretical and methodological approach. Each succeeding chapter is placed within a specific time frame and its historico-political context. The study evolves out of the epoch of the Second World War and its aftermath, through Egypt’s pre-revolutionary period and the early years of the new regime, beyond Nasser’s rule and the shift towards autocracy, and ends with the eras of Sadat and Mubarak. Further, each chapter investigates reproducible concepts: the narrative identities of self and other, character prototypes, key motifs and themes, and the relationship of the individual to the collectivity. The overall analysis supports the following hypothesis: that al-Shārūnī’s short stories demonstrate an evolutionary view of reality, focalized through a dynamic, evolving narrative self and other, and that his texts are underpinned by an vii

viii evolving ideological discourse informed by the socio-political contexts of their production. Most importantly, this study considers al-Shārūnī’s contribution to the development of the modern Arabic short story. In particular, it reveals how many of his key moods and trends predate those of his successors by more than twenty years, making him an early pioneer of modernist prose fiction in Arabic. Kate V. M. Daniels Cambridge March, 2014

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS With sincere thanks to Yūsuf al-Shārūnī and his wife, Narguis, for their time and generosity.

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INTRODUCTION The present study is an examination of the relationship between identity and narrative fiction. More specifically, it investigates the multiform ways in which self and other are perceived and represented in the short stories of the Egyptian prose writer and critic, Yūsuf al-Shārūnī (b. 1924). It attempts also to trace how these perceptions and narrative representations develop, via a chronological critique of a selection of al-Shārūnī’s texts. In all, this analysis argues that al-Shārūnī’s short stories demonstrate an evolutionary view of reality, focalized through a dynamic, evolving narrative self and other, and that his texts are underpinned by an evolving ideological discourse informed by the sociopolitical contexts within which they were produced. This topic of study was first inspired by a reading of the 1944 short Bildungsroman, Qindīl Umm Hāshim (Umm Hāshim’s Lamp), 1 by the Egyptian prose fiction writer, Yaḥyā Ḥaqqī (1905–92). Its protagonist, Ismā īl, born into a traditional Islamic community in Cairo, is sent as a young man to study ophthalmology in Britain. He returns seven years later to his place of origin, where he establishes himself as a clinician. On account of his formative experience in Europe, Ismā īl finds himself torn by two parallel, and often competing, conflicts: first are his feelings as an individual, articulated by his ambivalence towards a west, which, in spite of all it offers in terms of learning, modernity and “progress,” remains somehow beyond, outside or alien to him. Second are his feelings as part of his collectivity, as he struggles to reconcile his scientific logic with its age-old traditions, rituals and values. The narrative concludes with what appears to be a compromise: Ismā īl’s social and spiritual crises are resolved via a re-affirmation of his

1

Yaḥyā Ḥaqqī, Qindīl Umm Hāshim (Cairo: al-Hay’a al-Miṣriyya al- Āmma li’l-Kitāb, 1975).

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faith and a re-embracing of his local identity, coupled, we understand, with a continued commitment to the scientific principles of his medical instruction.2 Ḥaqqī’s poignant and still highly topical novella marks an important and relatively early contribution to what has become a wealth of modern fiction in Arabic exploring the tensions between the cultures of the Arab world and the west. 3 Further, the text is a good example of the many variables in the relationship between self and other, and treats identity themes via the protagonist’s everyday uncertainties, dramas and aspirations. Finally, and perhaps most significantly for myself, Qindīl Umm Hāshim led the way to numerous other texts addressing the Arab-western/self-other dichotomy,4 as a result of which the project of this research was conceived. While not wishing to lose sight of the literary foundations of this study, the first part of this introduction will be devoted to a brief, but necessary, historical and theoretical overview of the concept of identity. Its necessity lies in the fact that any investigation into identity themes in fiction will encroach onto other domains and disciplines, among them philosophy, social and developmental psychology, sociology and anthropology. The significance of this interdisciplinary diversity is that it illustrates the sheer

2

In fact, the resolution to the narrative is ambiguous, though Badawi asserts that the general idea of the novella is “an elaboration of Einstein’s dictum that science without religion is blind.” In Yahya Haqqi, The Saint’s Lamp and Other Stories, trans. M. M. Badawi (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973), xii. 3 Early examples of note include Muḥammad al-Muwayliḥī’s Ḥadīth Īsā Ibn Hishām aw Fatra min al-Zamān, first serialized in Miṣbāḥ al-Sharq, 1898–1900, and Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm’s Uṣfūr min al-Sharq (Cairo: Lajnat al-Ta’līf wa’l-Tarjama wa’lNashr, 1938). 4 Among the more distinguished examples are al-Ṭayyib Ṣāliḥ’s novel Mawsim al-Hijra ila’l-Shamāl (Beirut: Dār al- Awda, 1967); Abd al-Ḥakīm Qāsim’s Qadar al-Ghuraf al-Muqbiḍa (Cairo: Maṭbū āt al-Qāhira, 1982); Abd al-Raḥmān Munīf’s Mudun al-Milḥ (Beirut: al-Mu’assasat al- Arabiyya li’l-Dirāsāt wa’l-Nashr, 1984); and Bahā’ Ṭāhir’s short story “Bi’l-Ams Ḥalamt Bik” in the collection Bi’l-Ams Ḥalamt Bik (Cairo: al-Hay’a al-Miṣriyya al- Āmma li’l-Kitāb, 1984). Two further novels of note employ this theme, both by Egyptian authors and written in English: Waguih Ghali’s 1964 novel Beer in the Snooker Club (London: Serpent’s Tale, 1987), and Ahdaf Soueif’s In the Eye of the Sun (London: Bloomsbury, 1992).

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breadth and hybridity of the discourse of identity, a fact which will come to light throughout this analysis. The first part of this introduction will be devoted to those theories and modes of reference employed herein which find their origins beyond the realm of literary theory. As much of the discourse of identity is rooted in philosophy and psychology, the first section will give a brief overview of the historical and scholastic contexts within which identity arises in these disciplines. More importantly, it will attempt to provide workable definitions of the terminology most relevant to this research: identity, self and other. The second part of the introduction will turn to the field of literary theory, and will explore the concepts of narrative identity and the narrative self, which build on many of the premises discussed in the earlier section. It will then move to a discussion of al-Shārūnī and his genre, providing a personal and professional biography for the author and considering the origins, form and nature of the modern Arabic short story. This should go some way towards explaining my reasons for having selected al-Shārūnī and the short story genre for analysis. The final section will present a discussion of the theoretical and methodological bases to this research, and will give a breakdown of the structure of its findings.

IDENTITY: AN INTRODUCTION The concept of identity will be the main philosophical, theoretical and critical point of departure for this research and its conclusions. As such, what follows will attempt a rudimentary survey of the (largely philosophical and psychological) body of thought relating to this concept, and will define the term and its attendant notions of self and other. A Historical and Theoretical Overview Within the western scholastic tradition at least, theories of identity find their origins in the fields of theology and philosophy, and are rooted in an eclectic assimilation of pre-Christian, Greco-Roman, Judaic and Islamic references. Broadly speaking, pre-Enlightenment philosophical and theological discussions of identity were limited to monotheistic and monistic explanations of “being,” and descriptions of the self in terms of its various functions: operational functions, such as speech and action, were

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seen to be faculties of the mind, whereas questions regarding intentionality and responsibility were attributed to the incorporeal yet essentially conscious soul. 5 Plato, for example, identified the soul with the rational, decision-making and acting person—an incorporeal “substance” occupying a corporeal being. 6 This Platonic paradigm of the soul-cum-person is perhaps the earliest identifiable model of the self. As the post-Reformation era ushered in rapid developments in the spheres of physics and mathematics, scholars such as René Descartes (1596–1650), Baruch Spinoza (1632–77), Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) began to apply new methods of “mathematical” reasoning to their philosophical analyses. 7 Philosophy’s reinvention as a so-called natural science led in turn to a change of focus in the theorizing of identity, favoring a mechanistic examination of the body over the (by now interchangeable) mind and soul. This methodology is exemplified in the theory of Cartesian dualism, which rests on the distinction between the mental and the physical. Another Cartesian contribution to the emergent discourse of the self is the coining of the “I,” the incorporeal yet essentially reflective substance of the proposition cogito ergo sum—“I think, therefore I am.” As Descartes asserts, the function of thinking (cogitatio) encapsulates not only intellectual but also volitional activities, such as willing and affirming, and the mental dimensions of imagining and perceiving.8 From the time of the Enlightenment onwards, philosophical methodology became entrenched in the principles of empiricism, that is, observation and experiment, since only the “measurable” properties of what the senses revealed were deemed worthy of full examination. It was as a result of the development of epistemology, or the philosophical theory of knowledge, its existence and acquisition, that the concept of identity and its antithesis diversity were first given substance by John Locke (1632–1704), in 5

Frank Johnson, “The Western Concept of Self,” in Culture and Self: Asian and Western Perspectives, ed. Anthony J. Marsella, George De Vos and Francis L. K. Hsu (New York and London: Tavistock Publications, 1985), 98. 6 Pan Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd ed., s.v. “soul.” 7 Isaiah Berlin, The Age of Enlightenment: The Eighteenth Century Philosophers (New York: Mentor, 1956), 14–15. 8 Pan Dictionary of Philosophy, s.v. “Descartes, René.”

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his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Locke perceived the “I” to be a substantial center of conscious experience, and described identity as “the first act of the mind [...] to perceive its ideas; and, so far as it perceives them, to know each what it is, and thereby also to perceive their difference, and that one is not the other.”9 It is this perception of the agreement (or disagreement) of two ideas which forms the basis of personal identity, the theory of which is further expounded in David Hume’s (1711–76) Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), in which the self is perceived as “a theater of the sequence of impressions and ideas.”10 From a cultural and artistic perspective, the birth of the Romantic movement and the novel of first-person sensibility served also to consolidate the thesis of the “I” of reflective consciousness. Meanwhile, scholars continued to focus on the purely measurable aspects of human reality, thus, as logical positivism and empiricism continued apace, the abstractions of philosophy gave way to the methodologies of psychology. In time, the notion of the self as a philosophical-psychological construct came to be overlooked in favor of the monitoring of physical, neurochemical and electrical processes, such as sensation, perception and motor actions, 11 a trend which continued well into the mid-nineteenth century. It was through the studies of theorists of human behavior such as Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), Carl Jung (1875–1961) and William James (1842–1910) that the subjective self re-surfaced at the turn of the twentieth century, constituting a central component of psychoanalytic and phenomenological theory. Hence, a new body of ideas concerning the psychic dimensions of the self was developed, as was much of the extant vocabulary of psychoanalytic practice and thought. In Freudian parlance, the Cartesian “I” came to be replaced by the conscious mind or ego, a locus of perception of the outside world, of the body and all experiences that shape an individual’s identity.12 In lay terms, ego continues to be used to

9

John Locke, “Of Knowledge and Opinion,” in Berlin, op. cit., 86. Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, “Introduction,” in The Identities of Persons, ed. Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 11. 11 Johnson, op. cit., 99. 12 Pan Dictionary of Philosophy, op. cit., s.v. “ego.” 10

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speak of the self of an individual, or simply of a person’s self-image or morale. With the advance of radical individualism, perhaps the two most influential (and, in terms of this study, relevant) philosophical considerations of the self came from Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80) and Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), who conceptualized consciousness as “the quest for its own definition in the face of its non-Being.”13 Philosophical studies aside, from the 1940s to date, the concepts of identity and selfhood have established themselves as key modes of reference in the literatures of the social sciences, particularly sociology and psychology.14 More recently, self and other have emerged as important criteria for the conceptualization and analysis of literary texts, as this study seeks to demonstrate. Defining Identity, Self and Other Of the terms “identity,” “self” and “other,” identity is perhaps the most complex and enjoys the greatest number of variables in its meanings and applications. Further, “identity” subsumes the terms “self” and “other” to the extent that to speak of identity is always to speak of the self, and to speak of the self inherently evokes an other. Identity is necessarily classificatory and associative. A social anthropological definition of the term is supplied by Richard Jenkins, who states that, as “a very basic starting point, identity is the human capacity— rooted in language—to know ‘who’s who’ (and hence ‘what’s what’).” 15 Thus, who we think we are is closely related to who we think others are, and vice versa. Adding that identity is not a “thing” and never just “is,” Jenkins claims that it should be treated as a process: “identification.” 16 Further, he cautions against an essentialist consideration of the term, asserting: To insist that identity is not fixed, immutable or primordial, that it is utterly socio-cultural in its origins, and that it is somewhat negotiable

13

Rorty, op. cit., 11. See studies by George H. Mead, Charles H. Cooley and Georg Simmel. 15 Richard Jenkins, Social Identity (London and New York: Routledge, 2008), 5. 16 Ibid., 17. 14

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and flexible, is the right place to begin if we are to understand how 17 identification works.

The psychoanalytic critic Norman Holland cites identity theorist Heinz Lichtenstein, who suggests that, in an everyday sense, identity refers simply to an individual’s characteristics or personality. This personality, he claims, is founded on a constant “primary identity” or simple subject, collapsing selfhood, humanness, gender, kinship and ethnicity, which undergoes an infinite number of transformations throughout an individual’s lifetime.18 In this way, identity may be seen as a synchronic concept, drawn from the self and its various biological and emotional experiences, and founded on a combination of physical, that is spatio-temporal, and psychological criteria.19 The self, meanwhile, is not dissimilarly defined as the “distinct individuality or identity of a person,”20 suggesting that “identity” and “self” are essentially interchangeable. As a distinct individual that knows itself to be, the self is perceived as a thinking, internal subject, with the capacity to reconstruct its identity empirically. The self is likewise conceived as a kind of “personal essence, the underlying metaphysical being sustaining our awareness, experience and dignity.”21 Crucially, Jenkins distinguishes (after Marcel Mauss) the “private, internal” self from the “public, external” person, proposing that “the self is the individual’s private experience of himself or herself,” whereas “the person is what appears publicly in and to the outside world.” 22 Feminist, structuralist and postmodernist theorists assert that the self is both an illusory and contingent construct, and that we have a multitude of selves for different situations, desires and emotions. In this way, the self cannot be said to be irreducible, and is an inherently mutable, unstable concept.

17

Ibid., 19. Norman Holland, “Unity, Identity, Text, Self,” in Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism, ed. Jane Tompkins (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1981), 120. 19 Ibid., 122. 20 The Collins Concise Dictionary Plus, s.v. “self.” 21 William L. Benzon, “The Evolution of Narrative and the Self,” Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems 16:2 (1993): 129. 22 Jenkins, op. cit., 50. 18

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Distinctions will be made here between the following: the inner and outer (public) self and the individual and collective self, in the hope that these will prove fruitful in our analysis of al-Shārūnī’s short stories. First, since most theorists perceive the self as a phenomenological object, it is useful to distinguish between phenomena relating to the inner self and those relating to the outer.23 The realm of the inner self is that of internal perspective, functioning apart from the external social reality and engaging a level of personal consciousness given to introspection, fantasy, reverie, prayer, problem-solving and decision-making. Hence the inner self is the subject-of-experience, the decider and agent, the knower or interpreter, while its domain is that of rationale, will, creativity and spontaneity. 24 Conversely, phenomena relating to the outer self include externally located experiences, causality and conditioning, as in “acquired identifications,” which are socially and culturally determined values, rituals, symbols and practices. It is from these identifications that social groups are defined, and the identities of categories such as gender or class, or social systems such as national or religious groups, are constructed. Second, the self assumes both personal (or individual) and communal (or collective) dimensions. According to Paul Ricœur, there are two major meanings or “poles” of identity, both of which are drawn from the word “identical.” These definitions are rooted in the Latin words ipse (self) and idem (same), whereby “selfhood” translates as ipse- (or individual) identity, and “sameness” translates as idem- (or collective) identity. 25 Collective identity is shaped much as individual identity (that is, through the temporal dimension of human existence), though greater emphasis is given to acquired identifications. Adherence to acquired identifications is a powerful assertion of sameness, for these infer a symbolic sense of unity, real or imagined. Further, it is through acquired identifications that both the individual and the collective self may be apperceived by those within or without a particular culture, community or category.

23

Johnson, op. cit., 96. The psychoanalytic theories of Freud, for example, attempt a complex structuralization of the so-called inner self. 24 Rorty, op. cit., 12. 25 Paul Ricœur, Oneself as Other, trans. Kathleen Blamey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 2–3.

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Both personal and collective consciousness are central to the individual’s growth and survival. Assuming an essentially moral function, collective identity requires that the individual fulfill various social roles, as a unit of intentional, responsible agency. 26 The acquired identifications of collective identity supply the individual with an array of accepted or constant traits—such as moral intuitions, ideologies and even standards of “taste”—by which its actions and behaviors are assessed and, accordingly, gauged. Individuals who conform meet with approval and reward, while those who are seen to be “different” may be ostracized or otherwise punished.27 Having focused thus far on identity and the self, where may the other be located? Simply put, the other is that which is outside, distinct or different to the self, in individual or collective terms. For semioticians, the self can only acquire meaning within a system of such differences, and the other is a product of the self-uttering cogito.28 This assertion of selfhood, or ipse-identity, consists in a self-other dialectic articulated through a “discourse of difference,” which simultaneously brings into play all that is synonymous with or antithetical to the self. Indeed, Ricœur argues that this self-other dialectic marks the point where the poles of ipse- and idem-identity meet, since “the selfhood of oneself implies otherness to such an intimate degree that one cannot be thought of without the other, that instead one passes into the other.” 29 Commonly, that difference seen as defining the other is perceived to be negative, and becomes a spur for reinforcing the identity of a group. Hence, the group projects its fears or negative feelings onto its other, making it the devalued half in a binary opposition. The other is central to the theories of the psychologist Jacques Lacan (1901–81), who revisits and rewrites much of Freud’s body of thought. Isolating two categories of other, the “specular” and the “symbolic,” Lacan relates these to the mechanisms underpinning identification. Beginning in the moment when an infant first identifies with its mirror image, thereby

26

Rorty, op. cit., 4. Ibid., 4–5. 28 Raman Selden, Practising Theory and Reading Literature: An Introduction (New York and London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989), 75. 29 Ricœur, op. cit., 3. 27

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perceiving itself to be whole, 30 the self is constituted by this “specular” other, being the image of what the self wishes to be. Yet, Lacan claims, this image also alienates the self, since identification can only ever be imaginary and partial. Thus individuals strive for psychic integration but do not attain it, since they cannot succeed to become what they are “supposed” or wish to be. As for the “symbolic” Other (which Lacan capitalizes), this is understood as an alien entity that structures the self’s subjectivity. To expand, Lacan argues that “to be” is fundamentally “to speak,” and that to speak is to use a system of representations that precedes us, hence we as speaking selves are also “spoken” or “inscribed.” In this way, our consciousness is formed by external phenomena, among them linguistic structures loaded with social imperatives, rules, laws and categories such as “mother,” “daughter,” “child,” and so on.31 The Narrating Self and the Narrative Self The individual is a self-narrating subject. Given the temporality of human existence, the individual is entrenched in the ongoing processes of history, the experience of which it seeks constantly to translate, revise and update. Hence the self might be described as the protagonist of its own history or drama, while its pre-narrative experience is rendered as narrative in the form of thought processes, oral transmission, or in the concrete structure of any narrative genre. 32 Since the act of self-narration is both innate and interpretive (that is, both receptive and creative), 33 we may see why narratives—and literary texts in particular—are fitting modes for expressing

30

A concept derived from Freud’s theory of the “mirror stage.” Elizabeth Wright, Psychoanalytic Criticism: Theory in Practice (London and New York: Routledge, 1984), 108. 32 Anthony Paul Kerby, Narrative and the Self (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991). Kerby refers to the “pre-narrative” level of experience as “the quasinarrative structure [...] of experience, where the prefix should be taken to imply not the complete absence of narrative, as though it were prior to all narrative structure, but rather an earlier (and in a sense more primitive) stage of narrative structuration,” 8. 33 As Holland states, “interpretation is a function of identity,” and “interpretation re-creates identity,” op. cit., 123, 131. 31

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our understanding of the world and articulating the evolution of the “I.” Further, narratives help us to construct coherent selves; as Ricœur argues: In contrast to the tradition of the cogito and to the pretension of the subject to know itself by immediate intuition, it must be said that we understand ourselves only by the long detour of the signs of humanity deposited in cultural works. What would we know of love and hate, of moral feelings and, in general, of all that we call the self, if these had not 34 been brought to language and articulated by literature?

Besides the narrating (that is, the personal) self, this study will also consider the narrative self, constructed in or by the discourse of a narrative genre such as the short story. As with personal identity, narrative identity is constructed around a dialectic of selfhood and sameness and, just as Holland defines identity as a person’s “character” or “personality,” Ricœur and Anthony Kerby define a narrative self as any character or subject in a text. Likewise, just as Holland describes an individual as living out his or her “variations on an identity theme,”35 the narrative self functions similarly, but at the level of narrative emplotment. Thus the narrative self is dynamically constructed and reconstructed, transforming and adapting with a text’s events, crises and turning points. As with the narrating/personal self, the narrative self responds to its experiences, or to the succession of events recounted in its “story.” Hence Ricœur argues that it is the narrative which “constructs the identity of the character [...] in constructing that of the story told,”36 corresponding to the formalist and structuralist assertion that characters are the “products” of emplotment.37 Conversely, Amélie Rorty claims that it is the “dispositional characteristics” of narrative selves that drives narrative development, since “their natures form their responses to experiences, rather than being

34

Paul Ricœur, Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences: Essays on Language, Action and Interpretation, ed. trans. Introd. John B. Thompson (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1984), 143. 35 Holland, op. cit., 120. 36 Ricœur, op. cit., 147–148. 37 Seymour Chatman, Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1978), 111.

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formed by them.”38 From the two views above we may see that identity, and disputes as to whether it is given or constructed, are as central to literary studies as to other disciplines. Scholars argue, nonetheless, for specific—if subtle—differences between narrating and narrative selves. Kerby claims that the narrative self is distinct from the narrating self because it arises solely out of signifying practices, rather than existing prior to these as an autonomous or Cartesian agent. 39 To expand, the narrative self is a purely social and linguistic construct or nexus of meaning. Still others claim that the criteria for identifying (and re-identifying) the narrative self differ from those for the individual. Rorty, for example, argues that narratives place less emphasis on individuation, since characters are composed of reproducible configurations and elements.40 Thus narrative selves are predetermined character “types,” while it is the “predictable constitutions and temperaments”41 of characters which determine their evolution. Though seemingly skewed towards the Greek genre of “character” (reproducible literary archetypes of human behavior), this echoes the structuralist assumptions of theorists such as Algirdas Greimas, whose narrative scheme reduces characters to six actants (sender → object → receiver / helper → subject → opponent). 42 It is further argued that the narrative self, by nature more delineated within the confines of its genre or discourse, has fewer dimensions and is less unified than the narrating self. For example, Rorty asserts that narrative selves are, unlike their narrating equivalents, incapable of undergoing identity crises, despite their equal susceptibility to conflicts and trials. Rather, she claims that, in instances of narrative crisis, what results is mere “disharmony” among the dispositional traits of the self. As she explains: “Because characters are defined by their characteristics rather than by the ultimate principles that guide their choices, form their souls, they need not

38

Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, “A Literary Postscript: Characters, Persons, Selves, Individuals,” in The Identities of Persons, op. cit., 304. 39 Kerby, op. cit., 1. 40 Rorty, “A Literary Postscript,” 304. 41 Ibid., 304. 42 Greimas’s actantial model is first elaborated in his Sémantique structurale (Paris: Larousse, 1966).

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in normal circumstances force or even face the question of which of their dispositions is dominant.”43

AUTHOR AND GENRE There are many justifications for my choice of author here: al-Shārūnī is a leading proponent and practitioner of the modern Arabic short story and arguably one of Egypt’s most influential living writers, having built his literary career almost exclusively through the short story genre. Nonetheless, while his collections have been reprinted many times and are well read in Egypt, 44 there is little scholarship in Arabic and even less in English which discusses his particular contribution to the Arabic short story. In fact, he appears to have been excluded to some extent from the modern Arabic literary canon, if such a canon may be said to exist. This phenomenon may be traced back to 1954, when al-Shārūnī’s first anthology al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa (The Five Lovers)45 was eclipsed by that of his compatriot Yūsuf Idrīs (1927–91), whose Arkhaṣ Layālī (The Cheapest Nights)46 was published in that same year. Perhaps on account of its more avant-garde signature, al-Shārūnī’s collection received less critical attention, though it was lauded by writers of note, among them Fatḥī Ghānim (1924– 99) and Yaḥyā Ḥaqqī. Further, Idrīs became a highly prolific and public writer while al-Shārūnī’s fictional output remained modest (he would often write no stories for many years at a time), and he maintained a distance from the national media. Hence he is sometimes perceived as a “writer’s writer,” though it is hoped that this study will bring his broader contribution to the modern Arabic short story to light. Indeed, this research will reveal how many of al-Shārūnī’s key moods and trends predate those of his successors by up to twenty years, making him a true pioneer of modernist narrative in Arabic. Equally, there are numerous justifications for my choice of genre: though the novel is the predominant literary form in the west, since the

43

Rorty, op. cit., 305. His first collection was reprinted for the third time in 1995, over forty years after its first publication. 45 (Cairo: Rūz al-Yūsuf, 1954). 46 (Cairo: Rūz al-Yūsuf, 1954). 44

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Second World War at least the short story has been the most popular literary genre in the Arabic-speaking world, transcending the tastes and sensibilities of all social strata.47 Yet, despite a highly discriminating reading public, large-scale output and a long tradition of innovation and experimentation, there has been a dearth of critical material focusing explicitly on the Arabic short story (again, particularly in the English language), with greater emphasis having been given to the novel. Again, it is hoped that this study will go some small way towards righting these aspects of the short story’s predicament. What follows will attempt a concise introduction to the modern Arabic short story, locating its historical origins and giving a condensed overview of its development. Certain aspects of its form and nature will be considered, inasmuch as limitations of space permit. It is not my intention to attempt an expansive sociopolitical or cultural analysis of the emergence and development of the modern Arabic short story; those seeking a more comprehensive source should consult Sabry Hafez’s The Genesis of Arabic Narrative Discourse: A Study in the Sociology of Modern Arabic Literature 48 and The Quest for Identities: The Development of the Modern Arabic Short Story,49 which foreground the evolution of this genre in Egypt. I will then turn briefly to al-Shārūnī and his career and to the significant, though often under-recognized, contribution he has made to the modern short story in Arabic. A Brief History of the Modern Arabic Short Story To date, scholars have tended to take two approaches when considering the history of the modern Arabic short story. The critical objective behind both has been to locate sources for the short story in its modern form, be these indigenous or “imported.” First is the attempt to root the genre in the

47

As Sabry Hafez writes: “In the Arab world [...] for various reasons the short story has emerged as the most popular and arguably the most significant literary medium.” “The Modern Arabic Short Story,” in The Cambridge History of Modern Arabic Literature, ed. M. M. Badawi (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1992), 270. This supports the view of Ian Reid, who writes that the short story is “probably the most widely read of all genres” worldwide, in The Short Story (London: Routledge, 1977), 1. 48 (London: Saqi Books, 1993). 49 (London: Saqi Books, 2007).

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classical Arabic literary heritage, which contains many examples of short narrative in a variety of forms. Of these, Mahmoud Manzaloui cites the fully narrative sūra of Yūsuf in the Qur’ān; the maqāma form; 50 the ḥikāya (tale); the anecdotes of al-Jāḥiẓ (c.776/7–868/9) in his Kitāb al-Bukhalā’ (The Book of Misers); 51 the cante-fable of al-Iṣbahānī’s (897–c.972) Kitāb al-Aghānī (The Book of Songs); 52 historical epics and romances and the definitive example of Alf Layla wa Layla (The Thousand and One Nights) 53 . 54 Western scholars, meanwhile, have tended to focus on the influence of RussoEuropean and North American writers, whose short stories were first developed from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. Among those commonly cited are Nikolai Gogol (1809–52); Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821– 81); Guy de Maupassant (1850–93); Ivan Turgenev (1818–83); Anton Chekhov (1860–1904); Gustave Flaubert (1821–80); and Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49), the latter being widely designated as the originator of the modern short story. As Hafez argues, however, neither comparison with the western model, nor the sifting through of pre-existing forms of indigenous short prose, give sufficient recognition to the fact that the modern Arabic short story is a hybrid product of its own unique sociopolitical and historical making. Since the onset of the nahḍa, the cultural renaissance beginning at the start of the nineteenth century in Egypt and the Levant, both the genre and its readership have transformed. This has occurred via the interrelated processes of western colonization and associated cultural and intellectual exchange; the proliferation of state-run education; the spread of the media and particularly of the press; and the waves of migration from rural regions to urban centers.

50

Translated into English as “session” and French as “scéance,” the maqāma is a short narrative genre, usually containing adventures of beggars or rogues, rendered in ornamental rhymed prose. 51 Abī Uthmān Amr ibn Baḥr al-Jāḥiẓ, Kitāb al-Bukhalā,’ 2 vols. (Cairo: Maṭba at Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya, 1939–40). 52 Abū’l-Faraj al-Isbahānī, Kitāb al-Aghānī, 25 vols. (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 2004). 53 Muḥsin Mahdī, ed. The Thousand and One Nights, From the Earliest Known Sources (Leiden: Brill, 1984–1994). 54 Mahmoud Manzalaoui, ed. introd., Writing Today: The Short Story (Cairo: The American Research Center in Egypt, 1968), 17.

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By the mid-nineteenth century many old maqāmāt were being reprinted, encouraging writers to attempt new forms of the genre while treating contemporary themes. Also, a great deal of western prose fiction (in English, French and Russian in particular) had been translated by this time into Arabic, a process undertaken by a newly emerged Egyptian and Levantine intellectual elite who had been grounded in European education systems, abroad or in regional confessionary schools. It was this elite who, in the face of the colonial presence, began to look towards the potentialities of fiction as a mode by which to articulate their transforming and increasingly complex realities. There then followed a rapid flowering of original, indigenous narrative forms which, alongside their translated cousins, began to appear in the fast-proliferating Arabic-language newspapers and magazines. Thus we may see that there is a hiatus of just two or three generations between the nascence of the western modern short story and what we might loosely describe as its Arabic-language “equivalent.” The emergence of the latter was no mere exercise in mimesis, but the expression of a regional cultural revival, engineered by a newly politicized, erudite local elite. As Hafez explains, “The emergence of a new literary genre is part of a lengthy and intricate process that changes people’s understanding of their society and their perceptions of themselves before changing the discourses that process their experience.”55 With links to the press and high-ranking occupations, this elite introduced innovations into Arabic fiction that were as much experiments with narrative form as articulations of their evolving self-awareness. This is noticeable in their musings on notions such as national identity, and their analyses of their experience, status and rights as citizens under colonial rule. Given the journalistic boom at this time, much of their experimentation with short narratives took the form of essays or tracts, often with polemical or didactic dimensions. Abdel-Aziz Abdel-Meguid describes the initial, “embryonic stage”56 of the modern Arabic short story as being from 1870 to around 1914, marked by the publication of Salīm al-Bustānī’s (1846–84) “Ramya min Ghayr

55

Hafez, “The Modern Arabic Short Story,” 271. Abdel-Aziz Abdel-Meguid, The Modern Arabic Short Story: Its Emergence, Development and Form (Cairo: al-Maaref Press, 1955), 77. 56

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Rāmin” (“The Shot that Nobody Fired”), in the magazine al-Jinān in 1870. Al-Bustānī, who translated fiction alongside his journalist father Buṭrus (1819–83), is favored by many as a leading pioneer of the modern Arabic short story. However, al-Bustānī’s credentials as a pioneer of the genre may be re-appraised when we consider the overall impact of his work. While it is true that he, along with many of his Levantine peers, broke new ground in the field of short fictional prose, addressing themes of contemporary sociopolitical and cultural import, his lexis and style were directed towards, and hence effectively limited to, his highly educated, cosmopolitan contemporaries. By contrast, Hafez nominates the Egyptian essayist and self-made intellectual Abd Allāh al-Nadīm (1843/4–96) as “the most outstanding pioneer of the short fictional form in embryo.”57 A participant in the Urābī rebellion of 1879–82, a journalist and distinguished orator, al-Nadīm’s fictional narratives, which he published in his magazine al-Tankīt wa’l-Tabkīt, tapped into the tastes and everyday social concerns of growing local readerships, including women. He created a simpler literary language, experimented with dialogue in the colloquial, and tackled topics of contemporary pertinence such as the impact of western culture on society, the role of women and the injustices of the feudal system. Further, he succeeded to articulate the new social reality without “reverting” to the maqāma form or merely emulating foreign genres. Also salient is the link al-Nadīm’s mode of writing forged between this nascent literary genre and issues of national, cultural and religious identity.58 Abdel-Meguid’s second, or “trial,” stage (1914–1925)59 of the modern Arabic short story is dominated by the person of Muḥammad Taymūr (1892–1921), more commonly designated as the creator or originator of the genre. 60 While short stories from this time may be deemed technically underdeveloped, two texts are cited as generic “points of departure”: 61

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Hafez, “The Modern Arabic Short Story,” 272. Ibid., 273. 59 Abdel-Meguid, op. cit., 102. 60 Ibid., 103. 61 Hartmut Fähndrich, “Fathers and Husbands: Tyrants and Victims in Some Biographical and Semi-Autobiographical Works from the Arab World,” in Love and 58

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“Sanathā al-Jadīda” (“Her New Year”), by the mahjar writer Mīkhā’īl Nu ayma (1889–1989), originally published in 1914,62 and “Fi’l-Qiṭār” (“On the Train”), by Muḥammad Taymūr, originally published in 1917.63 Abdel-Meguid’s third, or “formation,” stage (from 1925 onwards), 64 opens with Muḥammad Taymūr’s brother Maḥmūd (1894–1973), whom Badawi claims is “regarded as chiefly responsible for the development and popularization of the genre.”65 His collection al-Shaykh Jum a wa Qiṣaṣ Ukhrā (Shaykh Jum a and Other Stories),66 which features identifiably Egyptian (rural and urban) characters and treats local social contexts and topics, is seen to be one of the earliest attempts at a specifically Egyptian national literature. According to Hafez, the finest example of a “mature” and artistically coherent form of short fictional prose in Arabic emerged in 1929, with the publication of “Ḥadīth al-Qarya” (“Village Talk”) by Maḥmūd Ṭāhir Lāshīn (1894–1954), of Jamā at al-Madrasa al-Ḥadītha, or “The Modern School.”67 In the decades that followed, the short story having crystallized as a genre in its own right, various literary movements and trends emerged, among them romanticism, realism and modernism. What endured, however, was the relationship between short narrative as an expression of individual and collective experience and the sociopolitical milieu in which it evolved. Thus certain themes have dominated: colonialism and anti-colonialism; the drive for independence; economic crises; the Second World War and the colonialist withdrawal; and the creation of the state of Israel and the ensuing wars and displacement of the Palestinians. In the Egyptian context, perhaps the most significant event was the 1952 revolution and its attendant ideas of pan-Arabism and populism. This

Sexuality in Modern Arabic Literature, ed. Roger Allen, Hilary Kilpatrick and Ed de Moor (London: Saqi Books, 1995), 107. 62 Reprinted in the collection Kān mā Kān (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1937). 63 Reprinted in Mā Tarāh al- Uyūn (Cairo: Maṭba at al-I timād, 1922). 64 Abdel-Meguid, op. cit., 109. 65 M. M. Badawi, A Short History of Modern Arabic Literature (Oxford: O.U.P., 1993), 234. 66 (Cairo: al-Maṭba a al-Salafiyya, 1925). 67 The group, which also included Muḥammad and Maḥmūd Taymūr and Yaḥyā Ḥaqqī, was organized around the periodical al-Fajr (1925–27).

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declaration of national and political independence paved the way for a socialist-realist trend which soon shaped much of the narrative fiction in the region. The Form and Nature of the Short Story While there are pitfalls in attempting to define the short story, especially within a cross-cultural context, certain features emerge as characteristic of the genre: a concentration on a limited number of characters or sometimes only one character; an often uncomplicated plot, usually deriving from an isolated incident or event; a time-span simultaneously capturing a sense of past, present and future; swift dénouement; and economical, dense writing.68 Some scholars argue that the modern short story is fundamentally indefinable, its essence lying in an inherently organic quality from which stem its infinite potentialities for form. To take Claude Brémond’s premise that the modern short story consists in “une séquence élémentaire,” 69 or a requisite three-phase group of events, the modern short story may not be confined within one particular narrative paradigm. Indeed, there are no fixed structures, actions or themes in the short story, and as a genre it is essentially protean in nature.70 Nor can the genre be definitively defined as “short,” for the length of the modern short story is a divisive point among theorists. Ian Reid, for example, argues against a generic definition of the short story in any sense, stating that the term may be applied to “almost any kind of fictitious prose narrative briefer than a novel,” encapsulating therein a text of just a page or two, Poe’s definition of the “tale” (being that which is “capable of being perused at one sitting”), and Henry James’s text of “between six and eight thousand words.”71 Similarly, Frank O’Connor asserts that the term “short story” is a misnomer, arguing that “the form of the novel is given by the length; in the short story the length is given by the form”72 (emphases added).

68

Longman Dictionary of Literary Terms, s.v. “short story.” In Reid, op. cit., 6. 70 Ibid., 3. 71 Ibid., 9. 72 Frank O’Connor, The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story (London: Macmillan, 1963), 27. 69

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Further, there is little to support the suggestion that, while generally shorter than the novel, the short story is a less complex form of narrative. O’Connor, for one, cites the short story as a “more artistic” genre than the novel, arguing that its success depends on the writer’s ability to provide the exact amount of information (in terms of the story’s exposition, development and dramatic elements) for the reader’s “moral imagination” to function. 73 Nor should the form’s inherent dynamism be overlooked; arguably, the modern short story has witnessed the most rapid development of all Arabic literary genres, and the most intense exposure to experimentation and innovation. Aḥmad Aṭiyya notes that, in the Arabic-speaking world, the short story is the literary genre most capable of articulating social change. This, he claims, gives it mass appeal, a fact enhanced by its brevity, guaranteeing it a broad and speedy reception.74 He argues further that the short story form is “the most sensitive and responsive to people’s pains and aspirations, and is closer and more faithful to the image of life as it is lived.”75 Nonetheless, despite its mass appeal, the short story is also characteristically individualistic, and is described by O’Connor as possessing an “intense awareness of human loneliness,” exemplified in the dramas of “submerged population groups” such as tramps, intellectuals, dreamers and “outlawed figures wandering about the fringes of society.” 76 Similarly, Bernard Bergonzi speaks of an “insidiously reductive effect” within the form, which is “disposed to filter down experience to the prime elements of defeat and alienation.”77 Lastly, Aṭiyya adds that, since Turgenev’s celebrated quote, “We have all come out from under Gogol’s ‘Overcoat’,” the short story has come to exemplify the concerns of the “little man” (al-rajul al-ṣaghīr).78 In the view of the present author, it is the individualistic nature of the short story

73

Ibid., 25–26. Aḥmad Muḥammad Aṭiyya, Fann al-Rajul al-Ṣaghīr fi’l-Qiṣṣa al- Arabiyya al-Qaṣīra (Damascus: Manshūrāt Ittiḥād al-Kuttāb al- Arab, 1977), 5. 75 Ibid., 5. 76 O’Connor, op. cit., 18–20. 77 Quoted in Reid, op. cit., 2. 78 Aṭiyya, op. cit., 7. 74

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that makes it characteristically modern, and explains its popularity as a vehicle for existential, and hence identity, themes. Yūsuf al-Shārūnī and the Arabic Short Story It was shortly after the Second World War that al-Shārūnī emerged on Egypt’s literary scene. Remarkably, even at this early juncture, there was a distinctively avant-garde slant to his writing, marking him—alongside his compatriot Idwār al-Kharrāṭ (b. 1926), the Iraqi Fu’ād al-Takarlī (1927– 2008), and the Syrian Zakariyya Tāmir (b. 1931)—as one of the pioneers of modernist Arabic literature during the 1950s and 1960s.79 Al-Shārūnī was born on the 14th of October 1924, in Munūf, a small town in the Munūfiyya province in the Nile Delta. His father was a Protestant clergyman and both he and al-Shārūnī’s mother came from villages in the Upper Egyptian province of al-Minyā. His family had converted to Protestantism during the time of his grandfather, a small landowner and trader from the village of Shārūna. 80 At the age of three, al-Shārūnī and his family left Munūf and settled in Cairo; he maintains that he is Cairene first and foremost and that his birthplace played no part in his formation or development.81 As a schoolboy, he distinguished himself in the study of the Arabic language and literature and began his first experimental compositions in rhymed prose. Later, as a student in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Cairo (then Jāmi at Fu’ād al-Awwal), some of his writings were published in the faculty magazine, most of it poetry heavily influenced by the mahjar group.82

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Hafez, “The Modern Arabic Short Story,” 318. There is little reliable contemporary data on Egypt’s tiny indigenous Protestant community, with most estimates indicating that they represent less than 0.2 per cent of the national population. For this reason, al-Shārūnī will be defined here by the generic term “Copt,” used in Egypt to signify an Egyptian-born, rather than a foreign-born, Christian. 81 Yūsuf al-Shārūnī, letter to the author, 9 July 1996. 82 Abbās Bayḍūn, “Yūsuf al-Shārūnī: Aḥsast bi-Khayba ba d al-Arba īn,” Mulḥaq al-Nahār, May 22, 1993, 16. Here, al-Shārūnī explains that the mahjar writers were very popular at this time, and cites Mīkhā’īl Nu ayma and Iliyā Abū Māḍī (1889–1957) as influences. 80

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While studying for a degree in philosophy and psychology, al-Shārūnī became involved with a number of student literary circles. He claims to have been attracted to the ideas of Spinoza and Søren Kierkegaard (1813– 55); the writings of Sartre and Albert Camus (1913–60); what he describes as “the intellectual heroism” of Ṭāhā Ḥusayn (1889–1973); the poems and essays of Abbās Maḥmūd al- Aqqād (1889–1964); and the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941). He also indulged his predilection for short narratives, from Dostoyevsky to Gogol, Maupassant to Chekhov and the fables of Kalīla wa Dimna to al-Jāḥiẓ.83 It was at university that al-Shārūnī became associated with a group of young scholars whom he nominates as “the experimental school” of that era.84 This included writers who, in 1948, established the ground-breaking magazine al-Bashīr, in which he explored instilling Arabic prose with modernist and avant-garde elements. An interest in French surrealism also drew the young al-Shārūnī towards Jamā at al-Fann wa’l-Ḥurriya (The Art and Freedom Group), whose organ al-Taṭawwur became a platform for Egypt’s advocates of modernism. While he never became a member of the group per se, al-Shārūnī claims: “[It] alerted me to the possibility of rebelling against the traditional rules and going beyond the fixed parameters agreed on in literary writing. This also encouraged me to depart from the literary norm of ‘story-telling’ represented at that time by Muḥammad and Mahmūd Taymūr.” 85 Al-Shārūnī also explains how, during his formative years, he sought to remain politically and artistically autonomous, arguing: “I have always desired to be independent, and have always been wary of becoming a member of any group, for doing so makes you responsible for others’ decisions.”86

83

Al-Shārūnī also claims: “[Chekhov’s] remark that ‘the short story is one with its introduction omitted,’ delighted and possibly influenced me.” Ibid., 16. 84 Yūsuf al-Shārūnī, personal interview, 1 April 1996. Similarly, Ghālī Shukrī cites al-Shārūnī as being part of an “experimental trend” that appeared in Egypt in the late Forties. See his Ṣirā al-Ajyāl fi’l-Adab al-Mu āṣir (Cairo: Dār al-Ma ārif, 1971), 134–135. 85 Bayḍūn, op. cit., 16. 86 Ibid., 16.

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After graduating in 1945, al-Shārūnī taught French for eleven years in Egypt and later Sudan. In 1956, he made his first attempts at what he has described as “absurdist” literature, establishing an irrationalist movement with other writers in Cairo. As he claims: “We broke all the rules; at that time our approach was not really appreciated.” 87 In the same year, al-Shārūnī took a post at the Supreme Council for the Arts, Literature and Social Sciences in Cairo, of which he later became deputy director. 88 In 1983, he was offered a position with the Ministry of Information in Muscat, Oman, where he worked for over ten years. Now long retired, he lives in al-Ma ādī, a suburb of Cairo, from where he continues to publish books and articles on literary criticism and writes occasionally for the Egyptian dailies. After more than sixty years’ dedication to the short story, his last major fictional project was a novel, al-Gharaq,89 an account of the sinking of an Egyptian passenger ferry, al-Maḥrūsa. In his early years as a writer, al-Shārūnī published most of his short stories in the Lebanese review al-Adīb, after which his fictional output remained consistently modest. His repertoire consists of numerous original and revised short-story collections, five of which will be investigated here: al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa; Risāla ilā Imra’a (A Letter to a Woman);90 al-Ziḥām (The Crowd); 91 al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh (The Mother and the Beast); 92 and al-Daḥk Ḥattā al-Bukā’ (From Laughter to Tears).93 Besides these, he has written and edited

87

In L’Observateur arabe, June 17, 1963, 44. Sabry Hafez and Catherine Cobham, eds., A Reader of Modern Arabic Short Stories (London: Saqi Books, 1988), 45. 89 Yūsuf al-Shārūnī, al-Gharaq (Cairo: al-Hay’a al-Miṣriyya al- Āmma li’l-Kitāb, 2006). 90 (Cairo: Rūz al-Yūsuf, 1960). 91 (Beirut: Dār al-Ādāb, 1969). 92 (Cairo: Dār Mājid li’l-Ṭibā a, 1982). 93 (Cairo: al-Hay’a al- Āmma li-Quṣūr al-Thaqāfa, 1997). Six further revised collections have also been published: Ḥalāwat al-Rūḥ (Cairo: Dār Akhbār al-Yawm, 1971); Muṭāradat Muntaṣaf al-Layl (Cairo: Dār al-Ma ārif, 1973); Ākhir al- Unqūd (Dār Akhbār al-Yawm, 1974); al-Karāsī al-Mūsīqiyya (Cairo: al-Hay’a al-Misriyya al- Āmma li’l-Kitāb, 1990); Ajdād wa Aḥfād (Cairo: al-Hay’a al- Āmma li-Quṣūr al-Thaqāfa, 2005); and the anthology al-Majmū āt al-Qiṣaṣiyya al-Kāmila, 2 vols. 88

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around fifty books, among them criticism, anthologies and other literary studies, a collection of rhymed prose, an autobiography and three plays translated from English. Despite being a less than prolific short story-writer, al-Shārūnī’s narratives have influenced later practitioners of the genre, particularly the Egyptian modernists of the 1960s. Indeed, Ḥāfiẓ has argued that the modern Arabic short story itself “has come out from under al-Shārūnī’s ‘Overcoat’.”94 He has been awarded a number of national and international awards for his short fiction, among them the state-sponsored Encouragement Prize in 1961 and 1969 (for his collection al-Ziḥām), the State Achievement Prize for the Arts in 2001, and the Sultan Bin Ali al-Owais Cultural Foundation Prize in 2007. Though coming very late in his career, these last two awards are indicative of al-Shārūnī’s enduring influence on modern Arabic letters. Thus far, much scholarly attention has been paid to the relationship between the emergence and development of short narratives in Arabic and the transforming sociopolitical and cultural milieu. In this regard, al-Shārūnī’s short stories hold particular interest in that, from the date of his first collection to the present, they document over sixty years of modern Egyptian history. Thus, in his earlier texts, we find glimpses of a pre-revolutionary Egypt, emerging from the Second World War and its aftermath and forging its new social, political and intellectual identity. Later texts address and re-assess the transforming realities of the Egyptian nation-state, particularly within the contexts of massive demographic growth, urban migration, the development of new political systems and ideologies, the emergence of new social and political elites, and the many wars and upheavals that mark this period. For much of his career, al-Shārūnī’s short stories have remained distinct in terms of their style and, frequently, themes. His style resists most attempts at categorization, consisting in a heterogeneous composite of expressionistic, impressionistic, realistic and symbolic elements. Perhaps his narrative’s one defining characteristic is its concern with the private and

(Cairo: al-Hay’a al-Miṣriyya al- Āmma li’l-Kitāb, 1993). A selected anthology also exists: Mukhtārāt: Qiṣaṣ (London: Riad el-Rayyes, 1991). 94 Ṣabrī Ḥāfiẓ, “al-Uqṣūṣa al-Miṣriyya wa’l-Ḥadātha,” Gālīrī 68, Oct. (1969): 86.

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public dilemmas of the modern Egyptian, making it especially suited to an exploration of themes of individual and collective identity. Further, al-Shārūnī’s philosophical and psychological grounding underpins his ability to penetrate and evoke the inner worlds of self and other. Though tending to privilege the more everyday, mundane aspects of human experience, al-Shārūnī’s short stories reveal the uncertainties and complexities of modern life. His narratives are typically built on recurring themes and subject groups; notably, his characters tend to be loners or outsiders, on the margins of society by necessity or choice. Alienated, isolated, victimized or vilified, his archetypal characters include madmen, the physically or emotionally disabled, misunderstood intellectuals and those excluded or otherwise split off from mainstream society. To use O’Connor’s term, al-Shārūnī explores the experiences of Egypt’s “submerged population groups,” revealing the angst and anomie of modern existence and of the modern short story form itself.

APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY As we have seen, the self undergoes a constant process of temporal re-identifications throughout its lifetime. With this in mind, this study will consider how al-Shārūnī constructs, defines and then re-constructs and re-defines both self and other in his stories, across a changing temporal context. It will examine how self and other are perceived and represented within different narrative environments, at different historical junctures and in different locations and settings, through a chronological analysis of a selection of his texts. These have been selected on the basis of their covering a reasonable spread of material within a given historical period, and because they introduce or illustrate themes and character prototypes which might be described as characteristic of this author’s fiction. To restate, this study aims to show how al-Shārūnī’s short stories demonstrate an evolutionary view of reality, focalized through an evolving narrative self and other. Further, it aims to reveal how these texts are underpinned by ideas informed by the sociopolitical contexts within which they were produced. Blending sociological enquiry with practical criticism and textual analysis, the methodology of this study is pluralistic and theoretically eclectic. In practical terms, it is organized as follows: it is divided into five chronological chapters, each of which contains analyses of four short stories. Each chapter is located within a specific time frame and its local historical, sociopolitical, economic and cultural context. In brief, these chapters cover: the Second World War and its aftermath; the

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pre-revolutionary period; the early years of the new regime; Nasser’s rule and the shift towards autocracy; and the eras of Sadat and Mubarak. In addition to providing basic political and cultural data for the given period, each chapter will discuss common concepts such as the narrative identities of self and other; prototypical characters and archetypal themes; the relationship between the individual and the collectivity; and ideology. The scheme of analysis for each text is as follows: first, a synopsis of the short story is provided; second, a pre-eminent, or defining, narrative self or subject is identified—being an implicit or explicit ego which maintains the discourse; third, the implicit or explicit other/s of this self is/are identified; and fourth, the narrative discourse of the text is examined. To expand, self and other are considered within the theoretical frameworks elucidated in this introduction, notably the theories of Descartes, Freud and Lacan, which are most pertinent and are even alluded to in instances by al-Shārūnī himself. The text, meanwhile, is critiqued from various angles: a general or global approach is taken, considering local social structures, the psycho-social condition of the writer (where appropriate), and the characteristics of the short story form. More specifically, the text is examined at the level of signifier, examining linguistic features (such as lexis, alliteration or assonance), and by analyzing its diegesis and elements of its discourse (such as speakers, narrative time or space). The text is further examined at the level of signified, within the contexts of nationalist ideology, gender or sectarian politics, and literary theory (e.g. psychoanalytic, structuralist, feminist or post-colonial). Lastly, it is considered within the context of a philosophical/epistemological reading, and by contemplating the text’s construction and its effect. In all, I attempt to provide both a poetic and a hermeneutic analysis of each short story. This analysis is therefore not grounded in one critical approach in particular. Loosely, it finds its roots in Marxist criticism, in that it takes the view that individuals (and texts) cannot be understood apart from their social and economic realities. These short stories are thus analyzed from the perspectives of various ideological, social and economic determinants, and the systems of which they are a part and from which they emerge. In particular, this study adheres to Lucien Goldmann’s view that texts are based upon perpetually evolving “trans-individual mental structures” or

INTRODUCTION

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“worldviews.”95 Hence I explore how these short stories reproduce differing worldviews and ideologies, among them national (Egyptian), socioeconomic (petit-bourgeois) and religious (Coptic Christian)—even (and especially) in instances where the author insists his texts are detached from ideology. My methodology, accordingly, owes a good deal to the conceptualizations of the New Historicists and the Cultural Materialists, chiefly Michel Foucault and Louis Althusser. Again, both Foucault and Althusser assert that human life is shaped by social institutions and ideological discourses (as situated within the institutions of religion, politics, the law and education). Further, both argue that dominant ideologies seek to sustain social divisions, keeping individuals (“subjects”) and groups “in their place.” 96 Such theories assist in revealing how social and political power operates through discourse, and how definitive (i.e. dominant) discourses structure society and social relations. It is my view that these theories constitute valuable tools for examining perceptions of, and relations between, self and other in narrative fiction. To close, while privileging the motif of identity, it is hoped that this study will illustrate the thematic diversity of al-Shārūnī’s short stories. For, though literary studies have placed much emphasis on the aforementioned Arab-western self-other dialectic, this represents but one from the array of identity themes explored herein.

95

Terry Eagleton, Marxism and Literary Criticism (London: Routledge, 2002), 30. For more, see Michel Foucault, Power, ed. James D. Faubion, trans. Robert Hurley et al. (London: Penguin, 2002), and Gregory Elliott, ed., Althusser: A Critical Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994). 96

1 SELF AND OTHER BETWEEN PAST AND PRESENT This first chapter is placed within the historical, sociopolitical and cultural contexts of the aftermath of the Second World War. The texts examined were published between August 1946, date of al-Shārūnī’s first short story, “Jasad min Ṭīn” (“Body of Clay”), 1 and June 1950, when he published “Sariqa bi’l-Ṭābiq al-Sādis” (“A Burglary on the Sixth Floor”).2 During these four years al-Shārūnī published ten short stories, most in the Beirut-based journal al-Adīb. This chapter takes four of these texts for close analysis, on the grounds that they cover a reasonable spread of material within the given historical period, and because they introduce or illustrate themes and character prototypes which might be described as characteristic of his fiction. These texts are: “Jasad min Ṭīn”; “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū” (“The Killing of Abbās al-Ḥilū,” 1948); 3 “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt” (“Zayṭa the Cripple-Maker,” 1949); 4 and “Sariqa bi’l-Ṭābiq al-Sādis.” My analysis will begin with a brief overview of the political, social and economic transformations that evolved in Egypt as a result of the Second

1

First published in the magazine al-Sīnimā, Cairo, August 1946. The story was omitted from the first edition of al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, but appeared in the second edition (Cairo: Dār al-Qawmiyya li’l-Ṭibā a wa’l-Nashr, 1961), 173–176. 2 First published in al-Fuṣūl, Cairo, June 1950. Reprinted in al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, 31–50. 3 First published in al-Adīb, Beirut, December 1948. Reprinted in al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, 59–68. 4 First published in al-Adīb, Beirut, June 1949. Reprinted in al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, 51–58.

29

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World War, and a discussion of the literary scene in Egypt at this time. Al-Shārūnī’s early contribution to the short story genre will be considered, and will be followed by critiques of the above four narratives.

THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH Egypt was officially neutral for much of the Second World War, though it served as a military base for the British and other troops and several critical battles were fought on its soil. Britain’s military presence left its imprint on economy and society: reduced imports and troops’ spending meant that local industry thrived, while some 200,000 Egyptians found employment with the British army and many others became its middle-men or suppliers.5 Conversely, the war brought rampant inflation, chronic shortages and the flourishing of the black market, leading to worsened conditions for the country’s impoverished majority. Thus, despite the entrepreneurial possibilities created by the war, most of Egypt’s wealth remained where it had always been—in the hands of traditional elites and a commercial middle class consisting largely of foreigners. Most significantly, the Second World War signaled the end of British hegemony in Egypt, owing to the high financial and human toll it exacted. Egypt emerged from this war amid a national mood of anger, uncertainty and optimism. Demands were made for a revision of the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian treaty, which had established the two sides as allies and promised the eventual withdrawal of British troops. This was followed by calls for the removal of King Fārūq, reduced to puppet status under Britain’s imperial rule. Extra-parliamentary groups proliferated, posing a challenge to Egypt’s established order, while the public—long weary of British meddling and corruption among local elites—began to envision the overturning of the national status quo. By 1946, when al-Shārūnī published his first short story, a nation-wide patriotic democratic movement had surfaced in Egypt. For six years, school and college students, factory workers and government employees led strikes, riots and demonstrations, while British military installations and businesses were attacked. The government responded with new restrictions

5

Derek Hopwood, Egypt: Politics and Society 1945–1984 (London: Unwin Hyman, 1985), 18.

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on the freedoms of meeting, speech and the press, and by arresting antigovernment agitators en masse. As Derek Hopwood writes: The pressure of those years, with disturbances, tension, extremism, terrorism, the failures of the King and politicians, was something that had eventually to explode. It can now be seen as one of those periods of 6 desperation that inevitably lead to radical change.

The rise of Nazism and Fascism in Europe and the challenge these presented to the western democratic model of constitutional government, were being watched with growing interest in Egypt at this time. Home-grown political movements such as the religio-political al-Ikhwān al-Muslimūn (The Muslim Brothers) and the far-right Miṣr al-Fatāh (Young Egypt) emerged, offering what many perceived to be viable alternatives to Egypt’s failed liberal democratic experiment. The disastrous Palestine war of 1948, and the subsequent founding of the state of Israel, proved effective in promoting the cause of the Ikhwān. The movement’s growth met with an upsurge in political violence, culminating in the murder of Prime Minister Maḥmūd al-Nuqrāshī—also in 1948—and it was only with the assassination of the Ikhwān’s founder, Shaykh Ḥasan al-Bannā, that their activities were curtailed temporarily. Unsurprisingly, sectarian tensions surfaced during this period, as one commentator explains: The decline of the Wafd [party] and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood re-awakened the fears of the Copts. It is significant that, at this time, the first criticisms by the Copts of the official population statistics were heard and both groups accused each other of benefiting from the British 7 occupation.

One last political group to gain momentum was Egypt’s Communists. The Communists lacked a support base of any size or real significance, there being no industrial working class to appeal to and due to their somewhat non-representative membership (an admixture of intellectuals, minority members and foreigners). In 1946, however, Egypt’s National Committee of Workers and Students was established, with the aim of

6 7

Ibid., 23. Chitham, op. cit., 108.

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centralizing the activities of the patriotic democratic movement. Hereafter, the Communists were able to consolidate their political influence through alliances with left-wing Wafdists, trade unionists and democrats. In line with this political change, Egyptian literature after the Second World War transitioned from old, established forms to newer, more relevant alternatives, particularly in the realm of the short story. According to Hafez, short story-writers at this time divided loosely into four trends: the sentimental and melodramatic trend; the romantic trend; the realistic trend; and the experimental trend.8 The first two failed to prosper due to their escapist and overly sentimental outlook, while the last two (particularly the realists) came to dominate the short story genre. Largely left-leaning, this group exposed the plight of the urban poor and privileged themes such as class and national independence. As Edwar al-Kharrat observes, “social” or “critical” realism had appeared much earlier in the works of Maḥmūd Taymūr and Maḥmud Ṭāhir Lāshīn, “but it was only in the late 1940s and 1950s that the genre became self-conscious and some writers dubbed themselves ‘realists’.”9 The experimental trend, of which al-Shārūnī was a proponent, had a far less immediate impact than did realism. It was, however, part of a nascent modernist sensibility which went on to resurface in and dominate Arabic literature in the 1960s. Like their realist counterparts, the experimentalists engaged with their social reality, albeit placing the individual, rather than society, at the center. They were the first to make detailed forays into the interior worlds of characters, their texts blending “symbolic, expressionistic and surrealistic traits.”10 The seeds of this experimental trend had been sown some years previously by writers such as Salāma Mūsā (1887–1958), Ṭāhā Ḥusayn and Luwīs Awaḍ (1915–90), and had taken shape in such avant-garde magazines as al-Taṭawwur, al-Majalla al-Jadīda, al-Bashīr and al-Fuṣūl. Ḥusayn’s al-Kātib al-Miṣrī was also influential,

8

Sabry Hafez, “Innovation in the Egyptian Short Story,” in Studies in Modern Arabic Literature, ed. Robin Ostle (Warminster, Wilts.: Aris and Phillips, 1975), 101–102. 9 Edwar al-Kharrat, “The Mashriq,” in Modern Literature in the Near and Middle East 1850–1970, ed. Robin Ostle (London and New York: Routledge, 1991), 181. 10 Hafez, op. cit., 102.

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being the first publication to introduce Egypt’s post-war generation to western modernists such as Joyce, Kafka, Eliot, Sartre and Camus. Al-Shārūnī has been nominated the chief exponent of the post-war experimental trend in Egypt11 and was one of its most innovative writers at this time. In the mid-1940s, when he published his first short story, little new material was emerging from former stalwarts of the genre, such as Haqqī, Maḥmūd al-Badawī (1911?–85) and Najīb Maḥfūẓ (1911–2006), who had since turned to writing novels. Meanwhile, a proliferation of sentimental and technically uneven texts were being published.12 Given the exigencies and uncertainties of the period, Egypt’s more competent writers sought more intuitive and responsive literary idioms. As al-Kharrat explains, both realist and modernist writers were responding to “some inherent necessity within the cultural enterprise itself; some urge for inner growth.”13 Like others in his circle, al-Shārūnī explored new paradigms for narrative fiction, though he strove to maintain his distinctness and independence. He cites two intellectual influences at this time: the existentialism of Sartre and Camus, to which he had become exposed through al-Kātib al-Miṣrī,14 and Marxist ideas, though he claims he was never a Marxist per se, but remained a supporter of the nationalist liberal Wafd.15 Rather than embrace realism, al-Shārūnī moved in a more avant-garde direction: he extemporized with symbol and metaphor, plumbed the psychological depths of his characters through techniques such as interior monologue, and began to juxtapose global and local considerations of time and space. In short, his narrative innovations were indicative of a protomodernist sensibility, the modernist trend not crystallizing in Egypt for a further decade or more. Having established the sociopolitical and cultural

11

Ibid., 103. Ibid., 103. 13 Al-Kharrat, op. cit., 180. 14 Yāsīn Rifā iyya, “Izdādat Khibratī wa Qillat Dahshatī,” in Mukhtārāt min Ḥiwārāt Yūsuf al-Shārūnī, ed. Yūsuf al-Shārūnī (Cairo: Maṭbū āt al-Hay’a al- Āmma li-Quṣūr al-Thaqāfa, 1999), 381. 15 Bayḍūn, op. cit., 16. Traditionally, the Coptic vote had always lain with the Wafd, strengthening after the Ikhwān grew in influence. 12

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framework for this chapter, I shall now turn to the analyses of the four selected stories.

“JASAD MIN ṬĪN,” 1946 “Jasad min Ṭīn” (“Body of Clay”) marks an apposite opening for this study, since it initiates numerous prototypical elements of al-Shārūnī’s œuvre. Among these are “misfit” protagonists on the margins of society; Coptic characters and existents; allusions to Biblical narratives, motifs and themes; and an early preoccupation with philosophical and psychoanalytic ideas. Further, it attests to al-Shārūnī’s early, if modest, experimentation with the short story form in Arabic. “Jasad min Ṭīn” is the laconic account of a brief, but destructive, affair between a devout young Coptic woman, Līzā, and her Muslim neighbor, Muḥyī. Both are unmarried and each is lonely and frustrated, and following a short flirtation they meet in one devastating intimate encounter. Though stirred by the same desires, the response of each character to his/her transgression is oppositional: Līzā is wracked by shame and jumps from a window to her death, while Muḥyī feels neither guilt at their “crime” nor responsibility for her suicide. Subtly ideological, “Jasad min Ṭīn” may be analyzed allegorically, revealing much about the moral imperatives of Egyptian society in the post-war period, about the status of women and relations between the sexes in general, and about relations between Egypt’s Coptic and Muslim communities. It is also significant in that it introduces the most enduring theme in al-Shārūnī’s fiction, being that of the conflict between the individual and the collectivity. Self and Other: Distance and Desire The narrative self of this story is its Coptic protagonist, Līzā,16 described by the narrator as “a very religious girl.”17 At the age of twenty-eight she suffers the stigma of being unmarried, and has grown anxiously to suspect that she may never experience love. Līzā fails to attract admirers since her face is scarred by pockmarks, though she invests firmly in her belief in her fine,

16

While Līzā’s religious identity is not stated, her name and other incidental details indicate clearly that she is a Copt. 17 “Jasad min Ṭīn,” 173.

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seductive body. Men seem oblivious to her physical charms, however, while even her less attractive friends succeed to find husbands. The narrator notes: She accused these young men of being stupid and inattentive, because they failed to notice her body, which she would feel, so soft and warm, whenever she curled up in bed on a cold night, murmuring, ‘How happy 18 the man who holds me close to him will be!’

Meanwhile, as Līzā oscillates between the spiritual and the sensual and desire and its mortification, she finds herself suspended between her imaginative hunger, her moral conscience and the uncontrollable urgings of her flesh. Līzā’s other is her neighbor, Muḥyī, the twenty-year-old medical student from provincial Sohag who becomes her lover. Similarly repressed and inexperienced, he is keen to shake off his adolescence and make the sexual transition to manhood. Though self and other are subject to the same interdictions and taboos, there is great emotional and ideological distance between them: unlike Līzā, Muḥyī never contemplates love in its spiritual dimension, and is concerned solely with experiencing the pleasures of the flesh. What is more, his quest for sexual knowledge disregards all moral, ethical and even aesthetic considerations, his one motivation being to make the transition from “a life of fantasy to one of action.”19 Interaction between these characters is underscored by distance and difference. Across the street that divides them they embark on a dance of voyeuristic reciprocity, after Muḥyī looks from his window one evening to catch sight of Līzā, half-naked on her bed. Overjoyed to be the object of this young man’s gaze, she thereafter submits to it nightly, as she feels herself become “more beautiful day by day.”20 Līzā’s justification is that Muḥyī’s sightings of her are “coincidences,”21 though she notes the conflict between “the demands of a body of clay and her soul’s demands for

18

Ibid., 173. Ibid., 176. 20 Ibid., 173. 21 Ibid., 174. 19

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salvation and that she remain chaste and pure.”22 Thus Līzā goes so far as to convince herself “that the Devil had chosen this young man to seduce her,”23 while longing “more and more to give her body freely to this Devil.”24 Gender Realities and Sectarian Worldviews The narrative discourse of “Jasad min Ṭīn” conceals ideological inflections which may be exposed by an analysis of the relationship of self to other. A reading informed by gender politics, for example, reveals the uneven power relations between man and woman, and the subject position of the female to her male other. Al-Shārūnī reconstructs this relationship by locating self and other in oppositional worlds, each character articulating his/her gender reality and gendered worldview. Tellingly, the self is defined solely by external criteria, such as her conformity (or otherwise) to aesthetic ideals and, more significantly, her social conduct.25 For, while Līzā’s age and looks are sufficient to discourage suitors, it is the loss of her virginity which proves her undoing, since without it she can never marry. Tragic even before she takes her own life, Līzā is a self on the fringes of human existence, condemned to loneliness and social exclusion. This self has little agency, her potential for action confined either to the psychic and spiritual domains or the space of her bedroom; indeed, the only occasion on which Līzā leaves her room is when she leaps to her death. This is not to imply that she lacks the will for action, but that, as a woman within a patriarchal social organization, she is by means of that defined and delimited. Thus we observe the dynamism of her inner world, and the possibilities of her desiring imagination: in her dream life she flies to unexplored and magical lands, “where she would roam freely, constantly and curiously, as though searching for treasure, until her breaths became exhausted and her body trembled.”26 Besides articulating Līzā’s repressed

22

Ibid., 174. Ibid., 174. 24 Ibid., 174. 25 By contrast, the only details we have for Muḥyī are his age and place of origin. 26 “Jasad min Ṭīn,” 173. 23

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sexuality, these dreams permit her to go beyond the parameters prescribed by society for her gender, and to know a facet of her self independently of the other. As Salman Rushdie states: The dream is part of our very essence. Given the gift of selfconsciousness, we can dream versions of ourselves, new selves for old. Waking as well as sleeping, our response to the world is essentially imaginative: that is, picture-making. [...] We first construct pictures of the 27 world and then we step inside the frames.

Unsurprisingly, the other is beset by few such anxieties or inhibitions: he is younger than Līzā, has greater social power, and is less susceptible to the suggestions of metaphysics and theology. Firmly positivist, he disregards all moral judgments and aesthetic criteria in his bid to make the transition from fantasy to action. Thus, as metaphors for gendered difference, Līzā and Muḥyī denote the asymmetries between men and women, Līzā’s subordination affirmed by the omnipotence of Muḥyī’s gaze. Though it may be countered that the woman first invites and sustains this gaze, it should also be noted that these parties are not equals, and that Līzā must sacrifice herself in service to male desire. At the core of Līzā’s predicament is her lack of a coherent identity: she possesses the body of a woman but feels experientially and emotionally “incomplete.” Thus she seeks the wholeness of union with a man, though there is dramatic irony in the fact that Muḥyī, whose name means “the one who gives or brings to life,” inspires her self-destruction. Just as Eve was created from Adam’s rib, Līzā represents how woman is constructed and defined by and vis-à-vis man: by the dictates and norms of patriarchal religion and society; by her need to be given existence by man; and by her losing this existence in sacrifice to the other. As Julien Benda states: The body of man makes sense in itself quite apart from that of woman, whereas the latter seems wanting in significance by itself. [...] Man can

27

Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981–1991 (London: Granta, 1991), 377–378.

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SELF AND OTHER think of himself without woman. She cannot think of herself without 28 man.

Perhaps the most suggestive image of Līzā is found in the story’s title: her “body of clay” is a passive and malleable vessel—waiting, as it were, for man to “breathe life into” it. Self-other interactions also allegorize inter-faith relations, each character symbolizing his/her faith community. Power asymmetry and distance are again in evidence: Līzā and Muḥyī can never be compatible and they relate tentatively, with mutual ambivalence. Though there is commonality in that they both seek sexual contact, the text offers no further opportunities for sameness. Indeed, it underscores their difference by comparing their interpretations of sin and responsibility. For Līzā, sin is a pre-given element of her identity, reflecting the Christian notion of the “original sin” committed by Adam with Eve, for which she should accept to live a righteous life of suffering, shame and hardship. Muḥyī rejects such doctrine, however, taking the Islamic view that sin is not inherited but, since human beings are created or finite, they are therefore limited, weak and subject to temptation.29 Inasmuch as Muḥyī views sin as an act of disobedience to God, it is nonetheless one of which he is capable of redemption or reform. Alongside sin is the notion of responsibility, and of individual and communal moral decision-making. For Līzā, sin is transferable and/or communal, and it is for perhaps this reason that she takes her own life, since her actions bring shame to her, her family and also her larger faith group. In contrast, Muḥyī feels no compunction to suffer vicariously or to atone for Līzā’s suicide, which may represent the Islamic view that each individual is responsible for his own deeds, and that no person can bear another’s responsibility. As the Qur’ān (6:164) reads: “No bearer of burdens can bear the burden of another.”30

28

Cited in Simone de Beauvoir’s “Woman and the Other,” in Literature in the Modern World, ed. Dennis Walder (Oxford: O.U.P., 1990), 307. 29 John L. Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path (Oxford: O.U.P., 1994), 29. 30 The Holy Qur’an, trans. Abdullah Yusuf Ali (Lahore: 1938). See also Q. (17:15); (35:18); (39:7); (53:38).

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“Jasad min Ṭīn” may evoke the interpretation that its antagonist preys on its innocent protagonist. Certainly, Līzā imagines Muḥyī as an instrument of Satan, if not Satan himself: She grew convinced that it was no man that had held her lovely body that night, but an evil spirit that had seduced her before leaving for its world. She began to recount all the legends and stories she had heard as a child about how demons had succeeded to tempt virgins such as 31 herself.

Even the story’s narrator appears to take a circumspect view of Muḥyī, describing him as “a ravenous wolf, searching for prey wherever he could.”32 Yet, on closer inspection, we find that the narrative is more evenhanded: each character tempts and is tempted in equal measure, and exploits the other for his/her own ends.33 Further, we see how Līzā feigns her resistance to Muḥyī and is well aware of her transgression: She resisted him at first. She told him how life is a vale of hardship and tears, and how the body and spirit have conflicting demands, and how we must triumph in this battle—despite our pain—and quell the body’s desires and passions and elevate and purify the soul. She saw consternation in the student’s eyes, and feared that he might be 34 convinced by what she was saying...

Finally, relations between Copts and Muslims in this text should be considered in the light of the sociopolitical context of its production. As has been suggested, the post-war era in Egypt was one of tensions and political violence, when individual freedoms were restricted and sectarian sentiment was rising. As the Wafd, traditional champions of national unity and equality, lost political ground to the Ikhwān, Egypt’s Copts became more anxious that their interests remain secure. This had the paradoxical

31

“Jasad min Ṭīn,” 175. Ibid., 174. 33 Interestingly, this concurs with the Islamic view that Adam and Eve were tempted equally by Satan, as in Q. (7:20): “Then began Satan to whisper suggestions to them, bringing openly before their minds all their shame that was hidden from them (before).” 34 “Jasad min Ṭīn,” 174. 32

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outcome of making some Copts more isolationist, a phenomenon reflected in the contrast between the two characters: Muḥyī is willing and able to be self-determining, while Līzā’s is a narrow, fearing and somewhat hidebound existence. It should not be understood from “Jasad min Ṭīn” that the Coptic and Islamic communities were discrete entities at this time. That Līzā and Muḥyī live in such close proximity reminds us that these communities interacted in almost all spheres of daily life. Nor can it be ignored, however, that there is real estrangement between self and other and no prospect of any lasting union between them. One interpretation of this is that, while nationalist consciousness was heightened in this era, there was as yet no reality of a secular, national identity that would unify Egypt’s Copts and Muslims as equals. Rather, the political scene was a fragmented forum for the conflicting views of innumerable interest groups, who often viewed each other with suspicion and, at times, antipathy. An interesting feature of “Jasad min Ṭīn” is that it reveals a fusion of traditional and modernist narrative elements. Thematically and structurally it is a modern tragedy, in that it dramatizes the conflict between the vitality of the individual and the higher powers of God, life, society, its limits and laws. Līzā, therefore, is a modern tragic heroine,35 whose violation of a taboo leads to new heights of experience, but whose downfall is determined by her hubristic act. As the text reveals the institutions, discourses and practices that shape her “fate,” we learn that Līzā’s salvation can come about only by way of her death. As a Christian writer treating an inter-sectarian theme, al-Shārūnī uses intertextual allusions to the Old and New Testaments, drawing on themes and motifs from the Book of Genesis in particular, bringing elements of the traditional and the modern into play. Detailing Līzā’s descent from innocence to sinful understanding, the text unambiguously reworks the Fall of Adam and Eve, who ate of the Tree of Knowledge, upon which shame and death came into the world. The Biblical significations of a “body of clay” are many: on the one hand, it connotes God’s creation of Adam from

35

In the sense that she is an ordinary character in a quotidian setting, in contrast to the great and powerful heroes of Aristotelian tragedy.

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the dust of the earth;36 similarly, its evocation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the idol with “feet of clay”37 implies an underlying weakness or character flaw, reproduced in the figure of Līzā; while clay in its Biblical symbolic significance can refer to God’s sovereign control,38 the human body as distinguished from the spirit, and man’s mortality.39 Evidence of early experimentation with modernist techniques includes al-Shārūnī’s exploration of the psychic lives of his characters, which he achieves through the use of an omniscient narrator with access to aspects of each character’s subconscious. Al-Shārūnī also makes tentative use of free indirect style, which renders thought as reported speech and gives access to his characters’ cognitive processes: She felt that this young man had humiliated her. She tried in vain to understand why she had not emerged triumphant. Had she not got what she had wanted? Then there was her conscience—her conscience, which she had quelled when her body had rebelled but which had now returned anew, to crush her almost without mercy. And then there was society—what if she were pregnant? And what if her friends and family 40 found out?

Al-Shārūnī also exploits metaphor and symbol; even space is deployed symbolically, reinforcing the text’s thematic development. To give one example, the bedrooms Līzā and Muḥyī inhabit serve as physical, emotional and mental prison cells, and eyes through which the outside world is kept under surveillance. Imprisoned in her room, Līzā evokes Gilbert and Gubar’s “madwoman in the attic,”41 since her desire endangers both herself

36

This refers to a lexical peculiarity of the Arabic translation of the Bible (and the text of the Qur’an), in which it is stated that God created Adam from ṭīn (clay), rather than turāb (soil or dust). 37 See Dan. 2:33–46. 38 See Paul’s analogy of the potter and the clay, Rom. 9:21–24. 39 See Job 10:9. 40 “Jasad min Ṭīn,” 175. 41 Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979).

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and others, and thus she is sequestered in a space representing the strict confines and codes of gender conduct. Among the many themes in this text, perhaps the most salient is that of the conflict between the individual and the collectivity, which is arguably the most prominent in al-Shārūnī’s entire œuvre. It is also the most politically and artistically forceful, and a conduit for much of the ideological content of his short stories. The collectivity, as we encounter it here, symbolizes the wider society, its many institutions, discourses, practices and laws. Thus, in their respective conflicts with this society, Līzā and Muḥyī bring a subversive dimension to the narrative. Consider Muḥyī’s declaration: It was a bit of a struggle, but I overcame it. It wasn’t a struggle between the demands of the body and the spirit, but between my own demands and those of society. I saw society’s demands as cruel and tyrannical, 42 whereas mine were just and delicious! And so the struggle ended.

Hence, this text does not pass judgment on the characters’ “crime,” but rather questions those conventions which brought about this doomed affair. Similarly, the reader is not so much shocked by their sexual transgression as by the futility of Līzā’s death and the injustices that spurred it. In 1946, when this story was first published, the “fallen woman” motif was not new to Arabic literature. Yet this narrative marks a particular development in that it scrupulously avoids authorial intrusion. Rather, al-Shārūnī relies on a direct yet intimate narrative voice, which offers no moral judgments or conclusions to the narrative, but invites readers to arrive at their own.

“MAṢRA ABBĀS AL-ḤILŪ,” 1948 “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū” (“The Killing of Abbās al-Ḥilū”) is the first of two short stories by al-Shārūnī that employ characters and events from Najīb Maḥfūẓ’s 1947 novel Zuqāq al-Midaqq (Midaq Alley),43 set in Cairo’s al-Azhar quarter towards the end of the Second World War. Abbās al-Ḥilū, in both Maḥfūẓ’s novel and al-Shārūnī’s text, is a humble and timorous

42

“Jasad min Ṭīn,” 174. (Cairo: Maktabat Miṣr, 1947). Appears in English as Midaq Alley, trans. Trevor Le Gassick (London: Heinemann, 1975). 43

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barber who, at the instigation of his ambitious friend Ḥusayn and aspirational fiancée Ḥamīda, leaves his home and business in Midaq Alley to seek his fortune with the occupying British army. During his absence, Ḥamīda absconds with Ibrāhīm Faraj, a wealthy man whom she believes wishes to marry her, but who is in fact a conman who lures women into prostitution. Some time later, Abbās encounters Ḥamīda, plying her trade in Cairo’s backstreets. She insists that she was duped into leaving the alley, and persuades Abbās that her—and his—honor must be avenged. Abbās agrees but, before his plan can be put into action, he spots Ḥamīda in a bar amid a crowd of British soldiers. Momentarily incensed, he attacks her and breaks a bottle in her face, whereupon the drunken soldiers beat him to death. Published one year after Zuqāq al-Midaqq, “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū” selects just one of the plot-lines from Maḥfūẓ’s novel, reproducing aspects of the original narrative, expanding on others and, in many cases, adding new material. Among the themes shared by the two texts are those of Egypt’s shift from the premodern to the modern age, and the local social and cultural changes that came about at the time of, and as a result of, the Second World War. Both texts have a strong historical element and give a faithful representation of Egyptian society during the war years, its morals, manners, norms and contesting ideas. Further, both reference events and personages of the era, and illustrate how war can contribute to the dissolution of class, age and gender barriers. Thus, one of the principal themes of both texts is that of the conflict between tradition and modernity. Self and Other between Tradition and Modernity The narrative self here is Abbās al-Ḥilū, representing the traditional element in Midaq Alley. He is a kind, benign, if lackadaisical young man, firmly rooted in its conventional life. As the narrator tells us, “Al-Ḥilū’s life was slow and repetitive; he did not tire of its monotonous continuity, nor did he strive to alter or change it.”44 To Ḥusayn and Ḥamīda, Abbās’s traditional identity is stale and apathetic, and they chastise him for his parochial outlook. Yet, as both Maḥfūẓ and al-Shārūnī demonstrate, Abbās

44

“Maṣra

Abbās al-Ḥilū,” 62.

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is not as unshakably inert as other residents of the alley, such as Amm Kāmil the basbūsa (a type of sweet) seller, and the venerable and pious Raḍwān al-Ḥusaynī. For, despite initial misgivings, Abbās is persuaded to discover what life beyond the alley can offer, and finds himself gravitating (albeit uncertainly) towards it. Ḥusayn is a salient factor behind this shift, “filling him [ Abbās] with a certain doubt regarding the value of the life he led, and the true meaning of the values to which he clung, which found their bases in the scent and gloom of the alley.” 45 Thus, Ḥusayn destabilizes Abbās’s traditional identity, a process compounded when Abbās finds himself alone and decontextualized in the modern metropolis. Though on a very small scale, Abbās is a symbol for a traditional Egypt, inching tentatively—and at times reluctantly—towards the modern era. Indeed, he seems at times like a curious infant, taking his first exhilarating yet perilous steps into the unknown. Before him lies the promise of “another world, crowded with ambitious schemes and designs, clamoring with disputes and struggles for control over power and money,”46 which dazzles and yet disturbs him, and where “his values are demolished and his personality diminished.”47 This is a world for those such as Ḥusayn, Ḥamīda and Ibrāhīm Faraj, who have become disenchanted with the stultifying space of Midaq Alley. Further, these are characters spurred by wealth, opportunity and social mobility, embodying the capitalist economic consciousness of the era. Significantly, all three interconnect with the colonizing, capitalist west: Ḥusayn is in the pay of Britain’s military authorities, while Ibrāhīm Faraj supplies commodified sex to its soldiers via women such as Ḥamīda. Self and other are constructed as binary opposites: Abbās, the premodern self, is shaped by the community, culture, sights, sounds and smells of the traditional alley. He is conservative but virtuous, simple and acquiescent, understanding the world about him via internalized collective “truths.” In contrast, Ḥusayn and Ḥamīda have relinquished their primary identities and reshaped themselves in line with life in the modern city. As such, they are rational, dynamic and unwaveringly individualistic. It should also be noted that, while Abbās’s identity remains essentially communal,

45

Ibid., 62. Ibid., 62. 47 Ibid., 62. 46

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his sense of self is undermined and eroded throughout the text, reflecting the emerging primacy of the individual in modern life.

Zuqāq al-Midaqq and “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū” Though Zuqāq al-Midaqq and “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū” share many elements, al-Shārūnī’s short story contains much that distinguishes it from Maḥfūẓ’s text. First, and most significant, is the type of narration itself: Zuqāq al-Midaqq is a third-person narration rendered by a relatively anonymous, undramatized narrator. “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū,” on the other hand, is presented as an address, delivered by a dramatized narrator as though before a court of law, or at an inquiry or inquest. The narrator’s identity cannot be ascertained; he affirms that he is “not a legal specialist,”48 yet is well educated and demonstrates an awareness of court protocol (as when he addresses his monologue to “Your Honors, Your Worships”),49 and deploys terms from legal discourse.50 Beginning with the first-person “I,” the narrator gradually assumes the plural “we,” presenting himself as a spokesperson for Abbās, if not for the alley, Egypt, or all humanity (as will be shown below). Unlike the narrator of Zuqāq al-Midaqq, the narrator here is highly confrontational. He discredits the investigator’s report into Abbās’s death, which gives the identities of Abbās’s killers as “unknown.” Rather, he declares that he and his supporters prefer to “disregard this official report”51 and draw their own conclusions as to the crime and its perpetrators. Likewise, he contends that culpability for Abbās’s death transcends official explanations: We have found that the best means of ensuring that we identify those accused is to accuse the entire era. [...] To this end, our accusation includes those soldiers who dealt him the fatal bottle blows to his head and neck, those who took part in producing those bottles, and those who gave birth to those soldiers in the first place. Our accusation also

48

Ibid., 60. Ibid., 59. 50 Thus it is unlikely that the narrator is a resident of Midaq Alley. Rather, I would argue that the narrator is a persona for al-Shārūnī himself. 51 “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū,” 60. 49

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SELF AND OTHER includes those closest to Abbās, who knew him and kept his company, and even those world leaders who declared this war and placed those soldiers in that bar on the night of the incident. It would seem, Sirs, that the killing of Abbās al-Ḥilū, a young man of twenty-three working as a barber in Midaq Alley in Cairo, was in fact a crime committed by an 52 entire era.

Despite his scathing address, the narrator remains formal at all times, presumably to lend gravitas to his narrative and imbue his testimony with authority. He enhances its rhetorical quality with dramatic elements, and makes ample use of irony, showing a keen sardonic streak: No doubt you will laugh at the futility of this accusation, for it concerns an abstract term and does not refer to distinct individuals whom we can see, touch, hate and punish with the “justice” to which you constantly 53 aspire.

Indeed, he is unequivocal in his contempt for Egypt’s so-called “justice” system, describing it as “blindfolded”54 and retorting that, while the identities of the soldiers who killed Abbās are known, “no one dares to prosecute them, for they are the imperial masters of Egypt, beyond the reach of the law.”55 Thus the narrator accuses Egypt’s government of collusion with, and submission to, its occupying imperialist overlords. The narrator smooths his critique with supercilious respect, as when he assures his audience, “Nevertheless, we shall of course observe your traditions,”56 before proceeding to offer his own “bill of indictment.”57 Further, he claims that his own investigation into Abbās’s death “throws better light on the tragedy than does the [official] report,”58 adding, “It may be that my lack of legal specialization permits me to think and accuse freely,

52

Ibid., 60–61. Ibid., 61. 54 Ibid., 61. 55 Matti Moosa, The Early Novels of Naguib Mahfouz: Images of Modern Egypt (Gainesville, Fl.: University Press of Florida, 1994), 97. 56 “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū,” 61. 57 Ibid., 64. 58 Ibid., 60. 53

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something not permitted of the professional investigator.”59 He vents his spleen at the authorities and his compatriots, claiming, “We were all there on the night of that incident, going through our motions, bearing the history of mankind on our shoulders, [and] yet we did nothing for him.”60 Describing Abbās’s death as an act of “liberation,”61 the narrator explains how the victim paid “the price”62 for this crime and was forsaken by those who “breathed the same air as him and ate bread with him, perhaps made in the same bakery or from the same wheat field.”63 He depicts Abbās as a martyr or hero of the era and its conflicts, explaining how he offset the excesses of the alley’s other residents, such as Amm Kāmil, lazily ensconced in its “dreamlike stupor,”64 and Ḥusayn and Ḥamīda, colluding shamelessly with imperialist exploitation. Thus, the narrator accuses all Egyptians of cowardice and complacency, arguing, “We denied him his right to liberation in case he liberated us with him, and we took refuge in our ignorance and past and future good deeds.”65 Given the historical context of this text, the “liberation” promised by Abbās’s death could be interpreted as being from a venal foreign elite and a corrupt, selfserving establishment, or from the suffocating forces of tradition. As does Maḥfūẓ, al-Shārūnī makes symbolic use of narrative space, presenting the alley and the city almost as characters in their own right. The alley—or site of traditionalism—is isolated and confined, while the modern city beyond it—site of industry, capital and mass society—finds no parameters in any form. What is notable is that al-Shārūnī introduces a third spatial/thematic/experiential dimension: the global, or universal. Besides focusing on the interplay between the alley and the metropolis (with modern Cairo, as the center, symbolizing the nation), al-Shārūnī adds a universal element. This mimics one of the processes of modernization, where formerly disassociated communities with discrete cultures and codes

59

Ibid., 60. Ibid., 68. 61 Ibid., 67. 62 Ibid., 67. 63 Ibid., 68. 64 Ibid., 61, a repeated trope evoking mimesis and the “opiate” of religion. 65 Ibid., 68. 60

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become subsumed within integrated, larger-scale societies. Thus, “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū” reveals a world that is both shrinking and expanding, and where the general becomes the personal and the local the universal. Al-Shārūnī has explained his literary treatment of this phenomenon in a brief critique of his short story “al-Wabā’” (“The Epidemic”), published shortly after “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū” in October 1950. Here, he claims, the epidemic motif has both local and universal resonance: on the one hand, it refers explicitly to the pestilence that swept Egypt immediately after the Second World War; on the other, it symbolizes the global conflicts of that era. Thus, he weaves his text with two threads, one vertical (i.e. the warp, being the plotlines pertaining to its two main characters), and the other horizontal (i.e. the weft, relating to the global “epidemic” of conflicts and discord).66 Arguably, al-Shārūnī employs the same technique in “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū,” interconnecting the global event of the Second World War and its local specificity with Abbas’s individual destiny. A further feature of al-Shārūnī’s text is that it adds new material to the tale of Abbās’s death. For example, he expands on characters’ motivations and invents additional details, such as the name of the bar in which Abbās was slain, and the personal histories of two of the British soldiers who killed him. Similarly, his narrator claims that a jeweler who made items for Ḥamida worked in the same street as another who made a necklace Abbās had bought for her. This detail, he continues, was uncovered only after Abbās’s death, taking Maḥfūẓ’s original narrative beyond its temporal limits. Additional environmental details and other data set the context for a consideration of predestination, with the narrator contesting traditional notions of “fate.” As he observes: Six years earlier, Hitler had declared war on England and then on Russia. With this, the destinies of millions of humans were decided by what you call “fate.” It was decided that this person would die by drowning, and that these would be bereaved and those widowed, that Ḥamīda would become a prostitute and her fiancé, Abbās al-Ḥilū, would be killed at age twenty-three. For this conflict was not confined at

66

Yūsuf al-Shārūnī, “Mulāḥa÷āt alā Qiṣaṣ min Majmū atayy al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa wa Risāla ilā Imra’a,” in Ma a al-Qiṣṣa al-Qaṣīra (Cairo: al-Hay’a al-Miṣriyya al- Āmma li’l-Kitāb, 1985), 274–275.

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this time to those who had begun it, declared it and taken part in it, but extended to others who held no opinion on it and tried vainly to avoid being burnt by it. And so each one took part with what he possessed or was able to do: Ḥamīda with her body, and Abbās al-Ḥilū with his 67 “destiny.”

For this narrator, “fate” is a mere ploy by which mankind can absolve itself of any accountability. As he argues, each actor prepared for his/her “role”68 in Abbās’s killing, thus this was an act of will, rather than a random or foreordained event. The last arena of difference between al-Shārūnī and Maḥfūẓ relates to narrative ethos. In Maḥfūẓ’s novel, the self-containment and timelessness of the alley are foregrounded, as is its general imperviousness to change. According to Matti Moosa, “Zuqaq al-Midaqq is overshadowed by pessimism, gloom and misfortune,”69 while Robin Ostle notes, “In the Cairene novels of Mahfuz, most of the characters are blocked. They suffer from an inability to transform their fate by normal endeavor and action. Ambition and reality are somehow incompatible.”70 By contrast, al-Shārūnī’s text perceives possible change and is more open in outlook. Further, it views Abbās’s killing as a catalyst for transformation, rather than accepting it as an irreversible fact of “fate.” “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū” shows how al-Shārūnī takes one of the plotlines from Maḥfūẓ’s novel and adapts it to the short story form. He achieves this by various means: first, while Maḥfūẓ’s novel has no dominant character and illustrates the processes of time and change over a lengthy period, al-Shārūnī’s text privileges one key character and focuses on one critical moment when that change crystallizes. Second, he places Abbās al-Ḥilū’s death under a microscope, enlarging its scope and impact from micro to macro and local to global. Hence, Abbās’s death, which occurs in a bar in a back street in Cairo, becomes a subject of universal political and moral import. Similarly, al-Shārūnī expands the code of causality, revealing

67

Ibid., 63. Ibid., 66. 69 Moosa, op. cit., 102. 70 Robin Ostle, “The Arab World,” in Modern Literature in the Near and Middle East, 1850–1970, 114. 68

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how this seemingly random event was the culmination of a series of interrelated factors and incidents, conducted by a global network of actors and middlemen. Below, the narrator explains how the murder weapon, a wine bottle, found its way to Abbās’s killer: Ten years ago in Paris workers manufactured empty bottles. Nine years ago in Lyons there were others who filled these bottles with wine. These bottles travelled; some were exported to the west, others to the east. Some bottles rolled from the hands of one merchant to another, their numbers becoming fewer and fewer each time, until some came to rest in a street in Cairo. And two days prior to al-Ḥilū’s death, one of these bottles found its way onto a shelf in the Victory Bar, within the reach of 71 one of the soldiers...

Thus al-Shārūnī ponders the overdetermined nature of Abbās’s death, reminding us of the complex interconnectedness of life in the modern age.72 Some critics have argued that “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū” lends nothing new to the story first offered by Maḥfūẓ. Certainly, parts of this text are mere synopses of original events, and certain phrases or passages are reproduced verbatim. As Aṭiyya states: It is a credible intellectual analysis, but I believe it is just that, and not a story. He [al-Shārūnī] does not elaborate on the known incident of al-Ḥilū’s death, and does no more than analyze the facts of the known 73 story, other than [to say] it is also a tragedy for humankind.

71

“Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū,” 65. In a preamble to “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū” on its publication in al-Adīb, al-Shārūnī draws a comparison with the emergence of international organizations in the post-war period. As he writes: “This story parallels the presence of UNESCO in Beirut, for both reveal the degree of unity that links the world. Abbās al-Ḥilū’s story expresses this artistically, whereas UNESCO expresses this practically.” Quoted by Ḥusayn Muruwwa in “Yūsuf al-Shārūnī bayn al-Rūmānsiyya wa’l-Wāqi iyya,” in Yūsuf al-Shārūnī Mubdi an wa Nāqidan, ed. Nabīl Faraj (Cairo: al-Hay’a al-Miṣriyya al- Āmma li’l-Kitāb, 1995), 20. 73 Aḥmad Muḥammad Aṭiyya, “Ma a Insān al-Shārūnī min al-Azma ila’lNaksa,” in al-Iltizām wa’l-Thawra fi’l-Adab al- Arabī al-Ḥadīth (Beirut and Tripoli: Dār al- Awda/Dār al-Kitāb al- Arabī, 1974), 195. 72

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Similarly, Fawzī al- Intīl complains: Yūsuf’s work is no more than that of a reader moved by a character; it is not the work of a storyteller. As a storyteller who understands his craft, Najīb Maḥfūẓ would never interfere in the reader’s domain, informing him that “ Abbās al-Ḥilū died because of the war,” or, as Yūsuf says, “Al-Ḥilū returned from al-Tall al-Kabīr to find everything set in place 74 for his death.”

Al- Intīl also claims that “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū” is not a story in its own right, but merely a critique of Maḥfūẓ’s novel that does no more than elaborate on Abbās’s death. This, he contends (with no little incredulity), would imply that al-Shārūnī finds Maḥfūẓ’s novel wanting, or incomplete. In al-Shārūnī’s defense, such criticisms fail to recognize the generic specificities of “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū,” and overlook the conscious points of divergence between it and Zuqāq al-Midaqq. It may also be argued that al- Intīl’s charge that this is “not the work of a storyteller” stems from inattention to al-Shārūnī’s early use of modernist devices (such as interior monologue and perspectivism), compared with Maḥfūẓ’s accessible, naturalistic prose. Furthermore, these critics fail to note al-Shārūnī’s use of intertextuality, and the modernist acceptance of voluntary limitations to narrative. For, while “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū” is largely faithful to Maḥfūẓ’s novel, it also generates a new narrative in its own right. Lastly, it should be considered that, while this is not one of al-Shārūnī’s most “original” creations, it nonetheless indicates an early willingness to experiment with both subject matter and form. Further, it demonstrates his ability to identify a future “classic”; written just months after Zuqāq al-Midaqq was published, al-Shārūnī reminds us that in 1948 Maḥfūẓ was still a relatively new writer, and that his novel did not enjoy its current canonical status.75 A friend and colleague of al-Shārūnī, Maḥfūẓ is not known to have taken issue with “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū,” or with the next story here, also inspired by Zuqāq al-Midaqq.

74 75

Fawzī al- Intīl, “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa,” in Faraj, op. cit., 128. Yūsuf al-Shārūnī, personal interview, 1 April 1996.

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“ZAYṬA ṢĀNI AL- ĀHĀT,” 1949 “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt” (“Zayṭa the Cripple-Maker”) was published in the year al-Shārūnī left Egypt to work as a teacher in Sudan, a post he held until 1952. As with “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū” it is “dedicated to Najīb Maḥfūẓ, originator (ṣāḥib) of Zuqāq al-Midaqq,” from which it takes its principle character, Zayṭa. In Maḥfūẓ’s novel, Zayṭa is a minor personality yet possibly also its most unique. Unlike Abbās al-Ḥilū, who is central to the life and action of the alley, Zayṭa is a shadowy, peripheral man who lives in a hovel alongside Ḥusniyya’s bakery, emerging only at night to engage in grave-robbing and, principally, cripple-making. This “extraordinary art,”76 as Maḥfūẓ describes it, entails maiming, blinding and disfiguring the poor, so that they may find work as professional beggars. Despised and feared by the residents of the alley, Zayṭa rarely ventures out to face their loathing and contempt. The last we see of him in Zuqāq al-Midaqq is when he and his accomplice, the dentist Dr. Būshī, are imprisoned for stealing gold teeth from a recently-interred corpse. In contrast, “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt” sees Zayṭa take the pivotal role of protagonist, with the alley and its other residents relegated to the background. It begins where Maḥfūẓ’s novel ends, the narrator informing us that it has now been two years since Zayṭa’s arrest, and that he died in prison a few days ago. The narrative recycles much of the biographical data provided by Maḥfūẓ, explaining how Zayṭa was the son of professional beggars and once a make-up artist with a traveling circus. It also describes his childhood as one of extreme poverty, grotesque filth, isolation and social exclusion. Al-Shārūnī synthesizes Maḥfūẓ’s description of Zayṭa’s formation in the following: Zayṭa was raised in the dirt and lived in the dirt. His mother would leave him to crawl freely, grazing among the garbage and insects, savoring the mud and exploring amid the footprints. Scraps of parsley, tomato skin, vermin floating in stagnant water—this was his unique and beautiful world. He felt pleased to be caked in mud, something that others pretended to fear and disgusted to even go near. [...] His loathsome smell ostracized him from others, his filthiness spared him their

76

Maḥfū÷, op. cit., 71.

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curiosity and stares. They did not interact with him, nor did he with 77 them.

As in “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū,” al-Shārūnī augments or reworks Maḥfūẓ’s story. First, he continues with and expands on the theme of the conflict between tradition and modernity, locating it once more within various levels of narrative experience, from the local to the global. Second, he embarks on an overtly ideological mission: to expose the yawning chasm between social appearances and reality. Self and Other: Distancing and Exclusion One of the key themes of “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt” is that of the individual versus the collectivity, with Zayṭa, the narrative self, squatting alongside polite society. Huddled in the darkness of his squalid den, in which he performs his grisly rituals of maiming and dismemberment, Zayṭa is perceived as diabolical and subhuman. Striking terror and revulsion into all who cross his path, he is defined by criminality, filth and amorality. His other is the prevailing social order, originator and arbiter of all deemed to be “correct.” It views Zayṭa as pernicious and defiantly deviant; thus, for the sake of the “common good,” it rejects him and denies him any sanctioned role or activity. Relations between self and other evoke bilateral distancing and exclusion. Though an outcast, Zayṭa embraces his isolation since it enables him to create in private what he is so publicly denied: an identity. He does not yearn for the acceptance of society; rather, he loathes and spurns its hypocrisies and pretensions. He prefers to be creator of his parallel universe, a hell on earth or nocturnal underworld which he populates with his “cripples” and rules with autocratic rigor and efficiency. Zayṭa’s world even boasts its own institutions and agencies, such as his revenue service, which levies “taxes” from his cripples’ income. Zayṭa is a complex and self-contradictory character, displaying evidence of humanity despite his gruesome profession. For, though he profits from his social ostracism, he also betrays signs of self-loathing and alienation, conditions typical of many of al-Shārūnī’s protagonists. At the heart of his self-loathing is his righteous indignation at how poverty has

77

“Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt,” 52–53.

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debased him and deprived him of the love he craves. This incites his desire to take revenge against society; as the narrator reminds us: “We are not claiming that he chose this occupation out of compassion for humanity or benevolence towards it. What made him choose it was a hidden need for cruelty in a society so merciless it had made him eat dirt.”78 While Zayṭa’s distancing from society is to a great extent self-imposed, there are nonetheless hints of his longing for communion with the other, illustrated in his unrequited desire for Ḥusniyya: Zayṭa hoped that one day she would need him as so many others had. He had tried to seduce her on more than one occasion, and his head was filled with feverish fantasies, but he met only with cruelty and rebukes from her. Ḥusniyya did not need a cripple-maker to make problems for her marriage, for she had all she wanted in this life and 79 required no assistance from him.

Zayṭa thus buries his own pain by inflicting pain on others, and by compelling society to confront his disturbing creations. According to Moosa: “His desire to hurt other people apparently gives him a sense of being, an identity.”80 Yet, inasmuch as his creations are central to his own sense of self, Zayṭa is central to the construction of others’ identities. For, through bodily reconstruction, his cripples can transcend their poverty and redefine their place in the world. As Anthony Giddens notes: The body is an object in which we are all privileged, or doomed, to dwell. [...] It is not just a physical entity which we “possess,” it is an action-system, a mode of praxis, and its practical immersion in the interactions of day-to-day life is an essential part of the sustaining of a 81 coherent sense of self-identity.

By remaining invisible to society and limiting his work to the hours of night, Zayṭa escapes the moral judgments and intrusions of the other. He

78

Ibid., 55. Ibid., 56. 80 Moosa, op. cit., 100. 81 Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), 99. 79

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feels no shame at his profession and deems his actions both altruistic and self-serving. The narrator concurs, rationalizing, “His concern, like that of every great creator, was to meet a specific need while meeting a general need, and in this way he earned a living while creating a way of life for others.”82 In fact, al-Shārūnī’s text sustains the view that Zayṭa’s “antisocial” activities are largely philanthropic, since they offer services and employment and promote self-esteem. To the social order, however, his project remains anarchic and aberrant.

Zuqāq al-Midaqq and “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt” Again, one of the most striking distinctions between this and Maḥfūẓ’s text lies in the form of narration. Al-Shārūnī deploys another first-person narrator, who delivers an impassioned, eulogizing monologue with shades of funerary oratory. There are many similarities between this narrator and that of “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū,” and seemingly both texts feature the same narrative voice. Indeed, this narrator is even more heartfelt: his support and sympathy for Zayṭa, whom he champions as a craftsman, philanthropist and savior, bears an intensity that borders on religious zeal: Zayṭa died in prison a few days ago. I thought to put in a request to the relevant authorities, demanding that they make a statue of him and erect it at the top of Midaq Alley. I hoped that Their Excellencies would differentiate between that “additional” work, for which he was imprisoned and punished, and this heroic work, on which his very life depended. I hoped that they would understand the wondrous meaning of the word “cripple,” which only he—with his intuition and genius— understood, and how only he could stand up to the roaring, chaotic city 83 and attend devotedly to its crucial and pressing needs.

A further distinction between these two texts lies in how each presents Zayṭa. According to Moosa, in Zuqāq al-Midaqq he is morbid, melancholic and sadistic, a character “utterly devoid of human feeling or values” to whom Maḥfūẓ ascribes a “repugnant role.”84 Furthermore, Moosa states

82

“Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt,” 55. Ibid., 51–52. 84 Moosa, op. cit., 99. 83

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that Zayṭa “has lost touch with humanity and has no sympathy for others.”85 By contrast, al-Shārūnī’s text elevates Zayṭa to hero and miracleworker, explaining how his role in Egyptian society is both positive and vital. Further, al-Shārūnī’s Zayṭa has a highly developed sense of humanity, his cruelty to others masking a deep-rooted desire to belong, and to benefit those others whom society has spurned. He achieves this by turning morality (as we understand it) on its head: all pre-given “truths” and values are reversed, so that Zayṭa’s dark, malevolent world becomes one of enlightenment and charity, while his filth and vindictiveness become purity and compassion. Further, in al-Shārūnī’s text, society no longer sets the standards for ethics and propriety, but is exposed as cruel and hypocritical. Like Zuqāq al-Midaqq, “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt” critiques social injustice but with a more subversive discourse. This is filtered through the narrator, who states that Zayṭa makes cripples just as “ Amm Kāmil makes basbūsa and Ḥusniyya the baker and her husband Ja da make bread.”86 In this way, he provides a social service whilst profiting personally from his enterprise. Meanwhile, for those whose only hope is to exist via mendicancy, he offers a way to generate income and, thereby, raise self-esteem. As the narrator explains: They would come to him healthy, their health an impediment, just as morals impede an idealistic youth. They would stretch out their hands and people would send them back empty; they would demand their rights in life and others would deny them. So they came to Zayṭa, leaving him blind, paralyzed, hunchbacked, lame, [or] with broken arms or legs. And in this way he would grant them their rights, and exonerate 87 them by making them fully qualified for their profession.

Finally, for those able-bodied citizens who offer their hard-earned cash in alms, Zayṭa’s beggars offer a guarantee of value for money:

85

Ibid., 99. I do not agree wholeheartedly with Moosa, and would argue that Maḥfūẓ’s novel is never entirely devoid of compassion for Zayṭa, or indeed any of its characters. 86 “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt,” 51. 87 Ibid., 54–55.

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Whenever they found one of them [the beggars] to be of sound health and body, with a gleam in his eyes or articulate and plump, they would look askance, as would a company head or factory owner with an unqualified job applicant. These were practical people, willing only to part with their money if the disfigurements pleased them, and not wishing to squander it on the undeserving. Before handing over some of what they might spend on their girlfriends, they wanted blindness, 88 lameness and imbecility.

The narrator’s defense of Zayṭa and his work goes further: by contrasting Zayṭa’s skilful, pragmatic cripple-making with the wanton mass destruction of war, he insists that this craft is a thoroughly moral, even nationalistic, endeavor: Our society’s need to create disfigurement is both urgent and necessary. Some of this is destructive disfigurement, such as that which wars and air raids create, and some of it is creative disfigurement, such as that 89 which Zayṭa created.

Perhaps most striking is that the narrator presents Zayṭa as a Christlike figure: And two thousand years ago Christ came into the world, and that holy man went forth curing the sick, the blind and the lame and giving them new life, and so he was called the miracle-maker. And in the twentieth century Zayṭa came into the world creating the sick, the blind and the lame and giving them new life, and so he was called the cripple-maker. And it may come to pass that his picture is found in bedrooms and places of worship, and statues of him are sold in shops and on saints’ 90 days, and books are written about his life and deeds.

Besides the same narrative voice and subversive ethos, “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt” shares other features with “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū.” Notably, both allude to the many local and global processes of modernization, though in “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt” these have more absurd and even

88

Ibid., 54. Ibid., 57. 90 Ibid., 58. 89

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apocalyptic undertones, reflecting the general chaos and anxieties of the era. To give examples, the horrors of war are juxtaposed with the growth of the cosmetic surgery industry, and Zayṭa’s artificial disfigurements appear alongside reports of babies born with bizarre and hideous defects. The theme of relations of production is deployed in both texts; even the craftproduction of Zayṭa’s cripple-making is an expression of capitalistic enterprise, competing freely with the new, evolving industries of the war years. A central theme in “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt” concerns the control and construction of the body, a trope which, from as early as “Jasad min Ṭīn,” appears throughout al-Shārūnī’s fiction. According to the narrator: In the elegant parts of the city the beauty industry had spread, making the fat thin and the thin fat, removing hair and acne, making bottoms pert and breasts shapely. And salons popped up where wrinkled ears could be evened out, flabbiness reduced, crooked noses straightened and thick lips made thin, and where youth could be restored to silver91 haired, upper-class women.

Thus, just as the beauty industry sells new selves to those with wealth and status, Zayṭa’s cripple-making serves the poor and disadvantaged. For him, creating cripples from healthy, but otherwise impoverished, bodies is as legitimate a means of “permitting the individual to attain his existence in society as [...] the prostitute’s allure, the student’s qualifications, the politician’s hypocrisy, and titles and wealth.”92 Further, in contrast to the narcissistic impulses that drive the cosmetic industry, Zayṭa’s enterprise finds new communicative and utilitarian possibilities for the body. Like “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū,” “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt” is seen by some critics as problematic, and has been dismissed for being derivative and adding little to Maḥfūẓ’s narrative.93 Critics again fail to consider al-Shārūnī’s use of intertextuality, a consciously modernist device and a vital factor in this short story’s conception. Al-Shārūnī does not set out to

91

Ibid., 53. Ibid., 56. 93 Al- Intīl goes so far as to claim that this short story, along with “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū,” has “no place” in the collection al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, op. cit., 128. 92

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plagiarize here (as is clear from his referencing Maḥfūẓ at the start of the story), but to respond to and transform Zuqāq al-Midaqq, generating a new and critically different narrative. Nonetheless, some critics have been skeptical, taking the view that meanings are “givens,” set and agreed on between author (that is, Maḥfūẓ) and reader. Consider al- Intīl’s complaints: “Having had Najīb Maḥfūẓ present Zayṭa to us as a proud, strong, if deprived man, we do not need Yūsuf to tell us […] that ‘Zayṭa had his lascivious dreams, just as you and I do’,”94 and: “He [al-Shārūnī] endows neither of them [Zayṭa or Abbās] with anything new, for their lives were concluded in Zuqāq al-Midaqq and laid out in the minds of its readers.”95 While it is true that this short story owes its very existence to Zuqāq al-Midaqq, it is nonetheless a discrete and distinctive text. Perhaps its most salient feature is its use of the aforementioned warp and weft, which, as in “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū,” lends a multi-dimensional perspective to the text and reveals the interrelationship between general and specific, local and global. This is clear from the opening paragraph, in which the narrator compares the different forms creation may take: Make, made, maker. The factory makes cars and factories make bombs—for they are industry and these are products. Amm Kāmil makes basbūsa and Ḥusniyya the baker and her husband Ja da make bread. Umm Ḥamīda the matchmaker made families, Christ made 96 miracles, and Zayṭa made cripples.

By placing Zayṭa’s creations alongside Christ’s miracles, the narrator implies that these are less abhorrent than the making of bombs, and as fundamental to human existence as the making of bread and families. In this way, the narrator challenges the reader to question norms and re-assess “truths,” such as the inherently unstable binarisms of good and evil, right and wrong.

94

Ibid., 128. It is unclear why al- Intīl should find this objectionable, since Maḥfūẓ novel is no less frank in its portrayal of Zayṭa’s sexuality. 95 Ibid., 128. 96 “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt,” 51.

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“SARIQA BI’L-ṬĀBIQ AL-SĀDIS,” 1950 “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū” and “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt” introduce two of al-Shārūnī’s character prototypes: the Christ-like savior, and what we might loosely call the “misfit.” Of these, the misfit is the most significant in that it applies in some degree to almost all of al-Shārūnī’s protagonists. In the stories from within this time-frame we find various social outcasts, all in some way defective, deficient or deviant. Examples include Līzā, the pockmarked “old maid” of “Jasad min Ṭīn”; Zayn, the bald, exploited peasant girl of “al-Mu adhdhabūn fi’l-Arḍ” (“The Wretched of the Earth”),97 and Zayṭa, Midaq Alley’s filthy pariah. Others, such as the mysterious stranger in “al- Awda min al-Manfā” (“The Return from Exile”),98 or Muḥammad Afandī Ajūr, the downtrodden civil servant in “al-Ṭarīq” (“The Road”),99 and even Abbās al-Ḥilū, are misfits in the sense that they feel caught between two eras or worlds and, as such, between two identities. Of all these characters, however, it is Sayyid Afandī Āmir, the protagonist of “Sariqa bi’l-Ṭābiq al-Sādis” (“A Burglary on the Sixth Floor”), who is most representative of the misfit prototype during this period. Sayyid Afandī Āmir is a nonconformist loner: friendless and eccentric, he is a primary school teacher and aspiring artist. Following a failed romance he lives as a recluse, shunning all but the most essential of human contact. In his rented room on the roof of an apartment block, he attempts to recreate the image of a former sweetheart, first through drawing, then through painting and, finally—in three-dimensional form— through sculpture. His solitude is shattered, however, by a mysterious incident: he is burgled, the thief stealing only his clothes and shoes. The

97

First published in al-Adīb, January 1948. Reprinted in al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, 108–114. Also republished under the title “Zayn” (“Zayn”) in al-Majmū āt al-Qiṣaṣiyya al-Kāmila (hereafter al-Majmū āt), 1, 133–140. As al-Shārūnī explains: “The [original] title was derived at that time from a collection of short stories published by Ṭāhā Ḥusayn, to whom my story was dedicated.” Yūsuf al-Shārūnī, personal interview, 12 September 1998. 98 First published in al-Adīb, October 1948. Reprinted in al-Ziḥām, 119–124. 99 First published in al-Bashīr, Cairo, October 1948. Reprinted in al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, 91–99.

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changes effected by this crime are remarkable: first, Sayyid Afandī Āmir is astonished—and alarmed—to find himself the object of his neighbors’ scrutiny and concern. Second, he learns that this violation of his domestic space has robbed him of the privacy to which he once clung. Hence, this maligned outsider whom society once spurned is now unwittingly drawn back under its aegis. “Sariqa bi’l-Ṭābiq al-Sādis” says less about its historical or sociopolitical context than about the complexities of human isolation. Further, through the voice of a gently ironic narrator, it explores existentialist themes such as freedom, action, choice and responsibility. Lastly, the text reveals how societies instinctively fear and mistrust the perceptibly different, and seek to regulate and assign meaning to them, in order to harmonize social relations and reinstate the “order of things.” Self and Other: Willed Exclusion, Forced Inclusion Sayyid Afandī Āmir shares certain characteristics with his narrative predecessor, Zayṭa, though his is a far more benign personality. He too finds his existence on the fringes of social activity, his idiosyncratic habits leading others to scorn and despise him. Further, he accepts his ostracism, finding comfort and autonomy in his self-determining universe. To illustrate, witness the dynamic between Sayyid Afandī and his colleagues: He withdrew from them as did they from him, harboring something akin to dislike of him, because he was preoccupied with himself, rather than listening to them, admiring their personalities or complimenting them on their work. Thus they satisfied themselves with what amounted to a feud, whispering remarks about how he wore his fez, and how it came down over his ears like one of those nineteenth-century pashas, and about how he was always sleepy between lessons—and even in the classroom, in front of his pupils—and about his way of walking, which was rather mechanical, his arms moving at his side like one of those 100 wooden children’s toys...

His neighbors are similarly disdainful; despite “befriending” him after the burglary, the narrator notes of one neighbor, “Whenever he caught sight of

100

“Sariqa bi’l-Ṭābiq al-Sādis,” 33.

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Sayyid Afandī Āmir going up and down the stairs like some idiotic goose, he would not conceal the smirk that played about his lips.”101 As with other protagonists in this chapter, Sayyid Afandī’s other is society in its constituent parts. His relationship to it is ambivalent: the other has power yet is predatory, is alluring and yet appalling, is overt and yet opaque, is all-knowing and yet unknowable. This is expressed most tangibly in Sayyid Afandī’s interactions with women; as the narrator explains, “He did not know women or how to love or make love to them. Instead, he feared them and feared society, filled with their scent and their eyes.”102 Two iterations of the female other emerge, being the dual dimensions of one feminized entity. First is woman as desexualized madonna or goddess, an object of pure and spiritual love, captured in the idol Sayyid Afandī sculpts of his beloved. He murmurs this woman’s name “the way the Believer murmurs his prayers,” 103 inspired by her memory, “which continued to nourish him with feelings of adoration and fear, holiness and sin.”104 As the narrator observes: It was as though all of his capacity for spirituality had been directed towards her. He sought inspiration from her in all the decisions he took, and consulted her on things happening to him. He devoted all the powers of mysticism in his soul to her, to a point where he felt his life was no more than an endless path towards her and a relentless struggle 105 to win her back.

Second is woman as sex object or seductress, represented by Gloria, Sayyid Afandī’s Italian neighbor. “A young woman of remarkable beauty,” 106 Gloria also possesses great sexual power. Sayyid Afandī notes that “whenever her firmly-built, polished white body came into contact with his, he felt something in the way of submissiveness before it.” 107 Fully

101

Ibid., 35. Ibid., 38. 103 Ibid., 32. 104 Ibid., 37. 105 Ibid., 33. 106 Ibid., 34. 107 Ibid., 35. 102

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cognizant of her erotic allure, Gloria revels in her feminine potency and, on one occasion, challenges Sayyid Afandī to seduce her. She rationalizes this as follows: It would seem she was conscious of the feelings she aroused in him, and thought for a moment that she could have some fun and torment him before giving him the brush-off. Besides, her nature thought this justifiable, since she was doing a noble deed by trying to draw this man 108 out of his wooden disposition.

Though Sayyid Afandī makes bodily contact with Gloria, he is quickly unnerved and retreats. Before he can muster the confidence to repeat his actions, she decides “that he should not touch her again, and that she would not expose her body to him another time. She felt her control over him and a tremendous exultation at this.”109 What is clear is that Sayyid Afandī is profoundly fearful of women. In the case of his former sweetheart, this fear is founded on a reverential awe and dread at his memories of her fading. In the case of Gloria, it is founded on her very palpable physical and sensual power, and the anxiety of inciting her (inevitable) rejection and ridicule. This is apparent in the narrator’s description of him as “a dwarf, shrinking before her giant, libidinous body.” 110 Both women are unattainable to Sayyid Afandī, be this in the context of the cold statue of his former love, or the warm, live flesh of Gloria. As the narrator explains, he is unable to grasp “the woman herself, but merely her general features.”111 His tension with Gloria illustrates the power imparity between self and other: the self is helpless and at first rejected then reeled back in. As with Abbās al-Ḥilū, the self maintains cherished routines which, though banal, give a semblance of meaning and order to his existence: As usual, he climbed the ninety steps of the stairs, and glanced at the stout Italian woman standing in front of her door on the fifth floor. As he was about to pass her on his way to his room on the roof (or “sixth

108

Ibid., 42. Ibid., 43. 110 Ibid., 43. 111 Ibid., 46. 109

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SELF AND OTHER floor,” as he liked to call it), she had just finished with a salesman with a basket on his head, and was closing her door. He passed her in silence, for they had never once greeted each other since this building had brought them together. When he arrived at his room, he stopped for a while so that his sweat might dry off. Then he began to search in his pockets with one hand. He would always begin with the left-hand pocket. Then he used both hands, thinking quickly and seemingly of nothing, until he came to the inside pocket and felt the hardness of the 112 key.

Sayyid Afandī attempts to understand himself through art, as the following demonstrates: 113

No-one could quite comprehend how this constant dreamer could be so preoccupied with drawing and sculpture. This is neither exceptional nor unusual, however, for I know a businessman so keen on drawing that, when I saw his pictures, I thought they had been stolen from a museum. I also know another, a postman in one of the villages who, just as soon as he has finished his working day, devotes all of his time to making amazing clay statues. Thus it is not implausible that Sayyid Afandī is one of those for whom art fulfils their [most] personal and essential needs. Through art they feel they have a private life beyond their general routine, and beyond their day’s work in which they hire their lives out to others for a salary from which to eat, drink and raise children. They do not aspire to fame or the admiration of the masses. Rather, art for them is a sense of being able to communicate, express 114 themselves and innovate.

For Sayyid Afandī, art is also a means by which to mediate his authenticity and survive the many assaults on his fragile ego. Art’s role in his “losing” and re-finding his self is reproduced in the narrator’s comparisons between the stages of creativity and Sufi worship. Though on the whole the self eschews human contact, there is evidence (if slim) that it seeks communion with the other. The self’s

112

Ibid., 32. A description also given to Amm Kāmil in “Maṣra 114 “Sariqa bi’l-Ṭābiq al-Sādis,” 33–34. 113

Abbās al-Ḥilū.”

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solitude is a carapace behind which it might be protected, yet is also a source of ennui and alienation. Thus the self skirts around society, as when Sayyid Afandī visits his favorite café, where he gains vicarious pleasure from watching those about him: In the café was his temporary salvation. His need for it was revived with the coming of each new day and the fresh melancholy it brought, which weighed down ever more heavily on him. As night fell, this melancholy condensed in his soul and overwhelmed him, and his room would expel him to that noisy, crowded place, where he would retire contentedly, watching the others, sipping his coffee and thinking terrible, wonderful 115 [thoughts].

Significantly, it is in the café that Sayyid Afandī expresses his fear of “losing himself in the midst of this crowd,” 116 a Kierkegaardian motif which will emerge as one of the most salient in al-Shārūnī’s œuvre. As for the other, in the wake of the burglary it affects concern for Sayyid Afandī and is quick to offer assistance and advice. Meanwhile, it feeds on his misfortune while urging him to assume accountability: Sayyid Afandī longed now to return as quickly as he could to his room and sleep, but realized that they did not wish the matter to pass without an outcry... Four, five, then six more of them came, whom Sayyid Afandī recognized but whose names or occupations he did not know. And now they were all at his service: one informed him of his need to exercise his legal rights—this must be a lawyer—while another insisted that the burglar be punished, so that he would not dare break in a second time—perhaps this was one of those who fear for their possessions and for themselves. And now the matter of defending these 117 people was in Sayyid Afandī’s hands.

Long used to being the object of the other’s ridicule, Sayyid Afandī is surprised and, initially, flattered by its solicitude. Unlike the narrator, however, he is not alert to the maleficence that lies behind this. Hence,

115

Ibid., 38. Ibid., 38–39. 117 Ibid., 35. 116

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when Gloria’s mother lends him some of her late husband’s clothes, he experiences a “confused feeling, somewhere between pride, martyrdom and gratitude at being associated with such decent, generous people … though he would have preferred not to become involved with them.”118 For, as with previous protagonists, Sayyid Afandī soon finds himself destabilized, impinged and imposed upon. Further, he shares the trait of being a self shaped by and fixed in the past,119 his dilemma stemming from his inability to reconcile this with his present. Gendering Anti-Colonial Discourse “Sariqa bi’l-Ṭābiq al-Sādis” features an undramatized narrator who narrates largely in the third person, breaking frame on just one occasion to use the first-person “I” (see note 114 above). This narrator sets a tragi-comic tone from the outset, insisting casually that the thief “may not really have wished to commit this of all crimes,” and even proposing that the burglary might have been “accidental.” 120 That even thieves may not deem Sayyid Afandī worth stealing from is further evidence of this protagonist’s status. Likewise, the narrator notes that no serious search has been conducted for the thief, hinting at the authorities’ negligence or lack of concern. Unlike in “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū” and “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt,” the narrator’s feelings for Sayyid Afandī are not expressed overtly; inasmuch as he shows no sympathy, nor does he express antipathy. What is more clear is the narrator’s opinion of society, and through subtle irony he exposes its cruelty and hypocrisy. The narrator’s language is coolly formal and denotative, though on occasion it is poetic, as in passages where he uses tropes and figures to express Sayyid Afandī’s range of feeling. One device he deploys is defamiliarization, which, of the four stories in this chapter, is used here to

118

Ibid., 37. The narrator notes that, by the time Sayyid Afandī began work as a teacher, “the manner of his private life had been decreed.” This suggests an unwillingness or inability to evolve or transform on his part. Ibid., 33. 120 Ibid., 32. 119

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most vivid effect.121 Though certain tropes are more powerfully utilized than others, they demonstrate al-Shārūnī’s early interest in stylistic experimentation. Consider the following: The café in which Sayyid Afandī Āmir sat was very elongated and low, like a nightmare. Those who sat in and around it were scattered loosely 122 about, like the remnants of the roots of an enormous, upended tree. He glanced at his face repeatedly, two or three times, and found it yellow and very pale, his eyes almost hollow and his cheekbones sticking 123 out, as though almost taking leave of it. He found himself with the messenger boy, walking in a district with a peculiar air about it, for the houses became higher and higher as the roads became narrower and narrower, like the furrows dug by the nails 124 of a madman.

In “Sariqa bi’l-Ṭābiq al-Sādis” there are two ideological angles to the discourse. First is its anti-colonial message, expressed in the tensions between Sayyid Afandī and the text’s European, or foreign, characters. 125 Gloria, the beautiful Italian, features centrally, her exotic appeal lying in her “polished white body” 126 and her “delightful, foreign, faltering” 127 way of speaking Arabic. Yet she is also a dangerous woman of questionable virtue, in direct contrast with Sayyid Afandī’s former sweetheart, whom he sanctifies as an icon and worships accordingly.

121

Another short story which experiments with defamiliarization is “al- Awda min al-Manfā,” though I would argue that, on the whole, it limits itself to more readily accessible symbols and metaphors. 122 “Sariqa bi’l-Ṭābiq al-Sādis,” 38. 123 Ibid., 39. 124 Ibid., 48. 125 After “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū,” this is the last of al-Shārūnī’s texts until 1976–7 to feature western characters, perhaps reflecting the fact that, by 1953, most Europeans had left Egypt and the national political discourse during Nasser’s presidency was dominated by nationalist and pan-Arab ideas. 126 “Sariqa bi’l-Ṭābiq al-Sādis,” 35. 127 Ibid., 35.

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Anti-colonial tensions may be observed in the tortured stand-off between Sayyid Afandī and Gloria, where, in a reversal of the gender roles seen in “Jasad min Ṭīn,” she exploits her erotic potency in order to diminish and disempower him. In a further gendered reversal, Gloria metonymically symbolizes the western colonizer, 128 as she emasculates and degrades him. Duly subdued and shamed, Sayyid Afandī is thus [...] seized by a satanic desire to hit her … to hit this plump, tender body in some rough and pleasurable way. On some obscure level, he was certain that she would then relinquish her resistance, that she would enjoy his slaps and submit herself to him this time. But he did not advance. It was as though something abominable were paralyzing him, obscuring the curves of her body from him. He yearned to be the victor 129 but was fearful of defeat.

A second ideological theme lies in the text’s exposé of contemporary social norms where, again, difference equates with deviance and is swiftly subsumed by the collectivity. For, by the story’s end, the narrator reveals how Sayyid Afandī has been drawn back into the other’s socializing fold: He went to his room and tried to sleep, but without success. So he got up and left his room, though this was not something he usually did at this time of day. On the stairs he met the Italian lady with her daughter, and he smiled at them. Then he met the senior official, accompanied by one of the residents, and he greeted them too. Upon reaching the 130 doorman, he returned his greeting.

In a second example, the narrator reveals how this resolute loner must now engage with all whom he encounters: He became bound to the entire city, and suddenly every person acquired significance for him! He began to scrutinize the people as they came and went, or as they sat on the floor or in the cafés or looked down from

128

This stands in contrast to colonial narratives, where colonized territories are conventionally feminized. 129 Ibid., 43. 130 Ibid., 50.

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their balconies—as though something that were his were in each house 131 or behind each window.

Thus “Sariqa bi’l-Ṭābiq al-Sādis” is no mere tale of an “accidental” burglary. For, besides trespassing onto Sayyid Afandī’s inner world, the thief destroys all that has hitherto defined him as unique. It is also symbolically pertinent that the burglar steals only his clothes and shoes, since this ensures that, exposed and vulnerable, he is most susceptible to schemes to re-present him in the garb of conformity. Conclusion In this first chapter, the Egyptian nation is shown in its early stages of modernization. All four texts at this time are characterized by a loss of certainty and ontological ground, with values and identities no longer reliable or knowable. The themes of science, industrialization and capitalism are prominent, as in “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū” and “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt,” while society is marked in all texts by an oppressive, often hypocritical moralism. Due to growing exposure to other cultures and worldviews (particularly the culture and worldview of the western colonizer), local culture is losing its center and bearings, while traditional values are collapsing or are deemed less relevant. In particular, traditional communities or collectivities are losing ground to the growing primacy of the individual, as shown most clearly in “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū.” As a result, narrative paradigms are shifting from a closed, finite world to an open, changing, layered and often alien universe. In “Sariqa bi’l-Ṭābiq al-Sādis” we also see a shift towards the mystical and symbolic, as a means of recovering a sense of the sacred and recreating a sustainable ontological ground. The narrative self in this chapter tends to withdraw from, rather than confront, the social and symbolic order. Among the types of self we encounter are the emasculated “little man” of the Russian short story mold ( Abbās al-Ḥilū, Sayyid Afandī Āmir); the Christ-like figure or savior ( Abbās al-Ḥilū, Zayṭa); and the misfit (all four protagonists). Notably, all express existential angst, fear and self-loathing to varying degrees, and at this stage in their evolution they are striving to forge their own subjectivities. Yet, as the self tries to reconcile or negotiate between the

131

Ibid., 50.

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various criteria for identification, it is undermined by a hostile, coercive other that forces it into exile or self-imposed exclusion. Though generally timorous, the self engages (if tentatively) with the exigencies of its present, thus there is a strong emphasis on survival, and the sex instinct is dominant. Nonetheless, the self is not yet suitably placed to create a coherent form of self-consciousness. The self is ambivalent in desiring contact with the other, since relations are fraught and the two are essentially incompatible. Thus ill-fated relationships appear throughout, such as those between Līzā and Muḥyī, Abbas al-Ḥilū and Ḥamīda, Ḥamīda and Ibrāhīm Faraj, and Sayyid Afandī Āmir and Gloria. The relationship of narrative self to other may be summarized in the following table:

SELF

OTHER

Introvert Extrovert Fear and self-loathing Courage and self-belief Exclusion from society Inclusion within society Scapegoat and victim Blamer and tormentor Suspended between past and Firmly in present, vision of present future Incoherent identity Coherent identity Passive Active Dependent Independent

2 SELF, OTHER AND THE DESIRE FOR A NEW REALITY This chapter covers the period from August 1950, when al-Shārūnī published his short story “al-Qayẓ” (“The Heatwave”),1 to February 1952, date of his last publication before the July 1952 coup, “Difā Muntaṣaf al-Layl” (“A Midnight Defense”). 2 Though spanning less than two years, this period was one of the most turbulent in Egypt’s modern history, and was dominated by the rise of the popular patriotic and democratic movements, which set the scene for the final overthrowing of the ancien régime. Four stories from this period will be analyzed here: “al-Qayẓ”; “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa” (“The Five Lovers”); 3 “Risāla ilā Imra’a” (“A Letter to a Woman”); 4 and “al-Ḥidhā’” (“The Shoes”). 5

1

First published in al-Adīb, Beirut, August 1950. Reprinted in al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, 84–90. 2 First published in al-Adīb, Beirut, February 1952. Reprinted in al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, 115–132. The story’s title was changed in 1973 to “Muṭāradat Muntaṣaf al-Layl” (“A Midnight Pursuit”), when it appeared in a reformatted collection with the same name. 3 First published under the title “Ayyām al-Ru b” (“Days of Terror”), in al-Adīb, Beirut, September 1950. Retitled “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa” in al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, 5–13. 4 First published under the title “Risālatān: Min Najwā wa ilā Najwā” (“Two Letters: To and From Najwā”), in al-Adīb, Beirut, March 1951. Retitled “Risāla ilā Imra’a” in Risāla ilā Imra’a, 46–59. 5 First published in al-Adīb, Beirut, April 1951. Reprinted in al-Ziḥām, 83–91.

71

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EGYPT IN THE PRE-REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD From 1950 onwards, the popular patriotic and democratic movements in Egypt made steady gains in size and strength. A major factor was the disastrous Palestine war of 1948, which dealt a severe blow to Egyptian national pride and exposed the shortcomings of the Egyptian state apparatus. Soon, a new political force began to emerge: the Free Officers’ Movement (Ḥarakat al-Ḍubbāṭ al-Aḥrār), a clandestine nationalist organization which rose within the ranks of the Egyptian regular army. Mostly of middle- and lower-middle-class origins, the Free Officers set as their objectives the expulsion of the British and the overthrowing of the monarchy. They also began to envision various programs of reform: for the army, the state structure, the economy and the agrarian system. As Mahmoud Hussein explains: “The army’s projected role was thus both political and ideological—to restore cohesion and authority to the state and to infuse it with efficiency.”6 In the new Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1951, Britain offered to withdraw its troops by 1956. Egypt rejected these terms and took the defiant step of abrogating the Treaty. A state of emergency was proclaimed and Ikhwān commando units began to launch attacks against the British along the Suez Canal. On 25 January 1952, following an attack on the British garrison at al-Tall al-Kabīr, the British killed more than fifty of the Bulūk al‐Ni÷ām, an auxiliary police force sympathetic to the popular movement, at their barracks in Ismā īliyya. Once news of the operation reached Cairo, the police marched on the palace in protest, while laborers, students and civil servants assembled in a mass demonstration of unprecedented size. Meanwhile, enraged mobs attacked properties associated with the imperialists and set alight department stores, cafés, casinos and foreign businesses. By the end of that day, over 750 establishments had been burned or destroyed in the “Cairo Fires,” and eleven British and other foreigners were dead.7 King Fārūq was able to

6

Mahmoud Hussein, Class Conflict in Egypt 1945–1970, trans. Michel and Susanna Chirman, Alfred Ehrenfeld and Kathy Brown (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973), 78. 7 Hopwood, op. cit., 31.

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capitalize on the popular mood by overthrowing the governing Wafd party and imposing martial law, but it was not long before both the Ikhwān and the Free Officers had initiated their own separate plots to seize power. While the former had the advantage of commanding huge support throughout Egypt, the latter had the advantage of being an integral part of the state apparatus. On the cultural level, the revolutionary fervor and dynamism of this period found its expression in all disciplines of the arts, including painting and sculpture, music, criticism, the novel and, of course, the short story. Al-Shārūnī, for one, was enjoying what may now be seen to be the most prolific phase of his entire career, publishing five stories in 1950 and another five in 1951.8 The impact of Egypt’s fraught political climate meant that short story-writers began to infuse their texts with a more radical spirit, though the conditions of censorship under which they worked meant that their critiques were often couched in metaphor and ambiguity. Similarly, ontological fears and existentialist themes were pronounced, yet these were often denied explicit expression. Instead, writers returned to their earlier modernist experiments, probing deeper into the unconscious workings of characters and placing emphasis on the processes of perception. They also began to question the “essence” of human experience and to exaggerate and distort language, in an attempt to represent the perceived irrationality of their world. It is significant that the experimentalist trend coincided with this volatile phase in Egypt’s history for, according to Ceza Kassem Draz, “The rejection of traditional forms implies the rejection of the society that produced these forms, and the aim of this rejection is to awaken the reader to a new reality, or, at least, to the necessity for a new reality.”9

8

Only in 1992 did al-Shārūnī beat this record, when he published six stories. On average, he published between one and two stories a year. 9 Ceza Kassem Draz, “Opaque and Transparent Discourse in Sonallah Ibrahim’s Works,” in The View From Within: Writers and Critics on Contemporary Arabic Literature, ed. Ferial J. Ghazoul and Barbara Harlow (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 1994), 135.

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“AL-QAY÷” (1950) In “al-Qayẓ” (“The Heatwave”) we encounter another of al-Shārūnī’s character prototypes: the middle-class intellectual. There are undoubtedly more educated, middle-class protagonists in his stories than any other type of character, presumably replicating his own socio-economic and professional profile. As Ḥaqqī points out, al-Shārūnī “does not write about sectors of society with which he is not familiar,”10 though adding that he offers no specific middle-class prototype. Al-Shārūnī is acknowledged as a writer of learning, and critics such as al- Intīl note that he is “an educated and culturally mature writer; his erudition floats intentionally to the surface of the story yet is also hidden within its folds, marking his style with a particular character.”11 This also leaves its trace in al-Shārūnī’s use of themes, settings and subject groups, and he is inclined to privilege characters such as academic professionals, students, or lovers of culture and the arts. We find evidence of such characters in his very earliest stories, among them Muḥyī the medical student in “Jasad min Ṭīn”; the teachernarrator of “Zawjī” (“My Husband”);12 Professor Qadrī the microbiologist in “al-Ṭarīq”; and Sayyid Afandī Āmir, the teacher and sculptor in “Sariqa bi’l-Ṭābiq al-Sādis.” It may even be proposed that al-Shārūnī writes with an educated, middle-class audience in mind; in a 1993 interview he asserted: “Yes, I do feel that I am a writer for an elite and a minority.”13 The temporal parameters for “al-Qayẓ” are twenty-four hours during a deadly heatwave in Cairo. The narrative is focalized largely through its central character, Maḥmūd, to whom the narrator ascribes the generic appellation “an intellectual,”14 but who engages in no meaningful intellectual activity. Rather, Maḥmūd is an inert malcontent, who attempts to give substance to his existence by fabricating trivial problems and setting himself pointless challenges. As those around him struggle with the enervating heat

10

Yaḥyā Ḥaqqī, “Yūsuf al-Shārūnī wa Risāla ilā Imra’a,” in Khuṭuwāt fi’l-Naqd (Cairo: al-Hay’a al-Miṣriyya al- Āmma li’l-Kitāb, 1976), 224. 11 Al- Intīl, op. cit., 129. 12 First published in al-Fuṣūl, Cairo, January 1947. Reprinted in al-Majmū āt, 1, 203–209. 13 Bayḍūn, op. cit., 17. 14 “Al-Qayẓ,” 84.

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and the exigencies of everyday life, Maḥmūd contemplates such nebulous notions as his “freedom,” which he expresses with the futile gesture of giving up smoking, for all of one day. Absorbed in the trivialities of his “torn, depressed life,”15 he is blind to the terrible dilemmas and burdens forced upon those less privileged than he. As with many of al-Shārūnī’s short stories, “al-Qayẓ” is a discourse on a perceived degeneracy in contemporary Egyptian society. Singling out the bourgeoisie for its criticisms, it illustrates the moral and political apathy of that class—many members of which were either working for the establishment or reluctant to challenge it at this time—during a period of profound political turbulence. Similarly, it highlights the lack of engagement among many of Egypt’s thinkers and intellectuals, revealing them to apply their energies to abstract, and generally unproductive, ideas rather than proposing practical solutions to the country’s ills.16 It should be stressed, however, that “al-Qayẓ” does not express a phenomenon specific to one group or class, but speaks of a broader, more general malaise, rooted in an apathy stemming from a prevailing climate of fear and political repression. Self and Other: A Split Subjectivity Maḥmūd, the narrative self of “al-Qayẓ,” is a so-called “young intellectual” (shābb muthaqqaf),17 who is bourgeois, conservative, idle and egocentric. Selfinterested and self-serving, his is a character defined by narcissism and ennui, and an agenda utterly lacking in any moral or social imperative. Maḥmūd is a self of cogitation and cognition, rather than of action, and

15

Ibid., 90. With the flowering of the socialist realist trend shortly after the Egyptian revolution, such charges of “lack of engagement” came to be leveled at al-Shārūnī himself. As Hafez and Cobham note in A Reader of Modern Arabic Short Stories, op. cit., 46: “He seems to have responded in a more inward-looking and cerebral way than many of his contemporaries to the troubles and changes experienced by his generation; as a result, many of his early works were overlooked in the 1950s when nationalist and socially conscious (quasi socialist realist) literature found more of a response.” It is the view of this author that, while never falling behind a socialist realist agenda, al-Shārūnī preferred to treat sociopolitical themes through dramatic irony and characters’ internal worlds. 17 “Al-Qayẓ,” 84. 16

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though he displays a keen appetite for reflection, his self-perception is inherently defective. As with characters such as Līzā, Abbās al-Ḥilū and Sayyid Afandī Āmir, Maḥmūd’s ego is weak and crushingly subject to psychic constraints, though on the whole these are inconsequential and, invariably, of his own making. In particular, he privileges his petty existential anxieties, vacillating somewhere between grandiosity and deep despair. Appearing at first to be a man of some complexity, Maḥmūd is revealed to be contrary and beset by affectations. Further, he is contradictory: he feels bored, alone and misunderstood, yet alienates people with his bogus riddles and spurious demands. Phlegmatic and dispassionate, Maḥmūd fails to perceive the hardships that weigh so heavily on society, preferring to contemplate life with cool abstraction. In interaction with Maḥmūd, the story posits two narrative others. The first and most prominent is also called Maḥmūd, and for the purposes of this analysis is designated “Maḥmūd (B).” A working-class cigarette seller, Maḥmūd (B) presents in contradistinction to Maḥmūd (A), on the socioeconomic, intellectual and cultural levels. Their class distinctions are especially pronounced: Maḥmūd (B) addresses Maḥmūd (A) by the honorific titles “Bey” and “Sīdī,” while other narratological indices of class emerge, such as the fact that Maḥmūd (A) employs servants and frequents fashionable uptown cafés, while Maḥmūd (B) inhabits the impoverished Ḥārat al-Mugharbilīn quarter of Cairo. Even the narrator is at pains to stress that, while the two men share the same name, it must not be presumed that they have anything else in common. For example, he18 cautions the reader against jumping to conclusions and imagining that, by some fantastical narrative twist, the two men might be revealed to be dating the same woman, “since the gulf between these classes makes it rare for such coincidences to occur.”19 There are also clear behavioral and attitudinal distinctions between self and other. Maḥmūd (B) is a man of tradition and convention, whose identity is shaped by observing collective rituals and honoring social duties. Highly practical, his priorities stem from his everyday realities and he has

18

The narrator’s gender is not indicated in the text and thus “he,” in this instance, is assumed. 19 “Al-Qayẓ,” 88.

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neither the time nor need for ineffectual speculation. Above all, his very real and immediate problems—such as his lack of money and his search for housing—mean that he has no compunction to create additional difficulties for himself. Witness his response to Maḥmūd (A)’s query concerning whether he has set any “conditions” on his impending engagement: “What? … Oh … There are so many terms and conditions in these matters, Sir, but they come more from her family’s side than from mine.”20 Unlike Maḥmūd (A), Maḥmūd (B) sees himself as part of a larger social framework: “Like all those around him, he concerned himself with the general situation so as to see where he was in the overall picture.”21 Maḥmūd (A), meanwhile, sees his place in the world in solipsistic terms, considering himself a “free agent” and rejecting social conventions, since these place limits on his “freedom.” On contemplating marriage, for example, he concludes that he “could see no freedom in binding himself to a habit that he might enjoy or become accustomed to, as Maḥmūd the cigarette seller and others like him could.”22 Self and other emerge as discrete narrative entities, and their interactions are generally distant and superficial. It may be argued, nonetheless, that they are a self and other in dialogue, to the extent that they might be read as one split subjectivity. Certainly, they share many characteristics, though these may not, on first inspection, be apparent. Firstly, both men betray signs of the self-loathing and alienation of earlier characters, and as the narrator illustrates, even “commonsense” Maḥmūd (B) is given to pride and bashful self-consciousness: The cigarette seller was a young man who had lost an eye in some accident or other (I may tell you this story some other time), and so had placed a lens from a pair of sunglasses over it and tied this to his ears with two strips of fabric, leaving his other eye to enjoy its freedom. As he saw it, this would conceal his disability from all the wooden-clogged maids who came to buy cigarettes for their masters from him. This was

20

Ibid., 87–88. Ibid., 87. 22 Ibid., 89. 21

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SELF AND OTHER not my view, however, for all those passing must have realized that, 23 behind this dark lens, hid something shameful to its owner.

Secondly, it may be argued that each man has the same life objective— ontological security—and that each is as self-preoccupied as his other. In one amusing episode, the narrator recounts how each man reacts to the news that compulsory conscription has been introduced in Egypt. Maḥmūd (B)’s response is one of knee-jerk fear, since he worries (quite irrationally, on account of his infirmity) that he will be forced to sign up in the event of a Third World War. Maḥmūd (A), on the other hand, adopts a pseudoexistentialist stance, reflecting that “conscription and war would free him from so many things rotting within him, and would transform his sluggish, monotonous life.”24 Thirdly, it is clear that neither man succeeds to challenge the status quo or indeed truly attempts to do so, although they are both its victims, if in different ways. Thus by the story’s end each proves as diminished and passive as his other: each lacks courage and self-awareness, neither is capable of volition or action, and neither attains mastery over his self or his environment. In line with what has gone before, it may be reiterated that, despite the narrator’s playful obfuscations, this other is more properly an other within, internalized by or inhabiting the self. Hence, much of the tension in the text and the characters’ abstinence from action is precipitated by this structuring of the self. Given that the narrative makes knowingly ironic nods to “philosophical” (largely existentialist and absurdist) precepts, the two Maḥmūds articulate the correspondence between free will and determinism. Egotistical Maḥmūd (A), for example, claims to be intent on exercising his free will, though he is an altogether unconvincing agent of action—action being the very essence of free will. Maḥmūd (B), on the other hand, acquiesces to predeterminism, given that he is stoically (if passively) bound by the vicissitudes of daily survival. Irrespective of each man’s individuated Weltanschauung, the narrative closes with neither having altered or achieved anything, and with both persisting in an undifferentiated state of stasis.

23 24

Ibid., 86–87. Ibid., 87.

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A second, and less immediate, other is the stultifying, tyrannical heatwave itself, ironic protagonist of the text and metaphor for Egypt’s state structure. As Hafez and Cobham note, “The heatwave, rather than either of the characters, is the hero of the story, like the plague in Camus’s novel of that name.”25 Owing to its brutal omnipresence, the narrator complains bitterly of “this cursed heatwave, which had engulfed the entire day since the first light of dawn.”26 The suffocating atmosphere it engenders expresses the political despotism and repressions of the era, and symbolizes popular lassitude and lack of resistance, be this in the form of Maḥmūd (A)’s intellectual torpor or Maḥmūd (B)’s unwillingness to look beyond the customary and quotidian. The Mirrored Self and the Seeing/Unseeing ‘I’/Eye A striking narratological feature of this text is its deployment of the two Maḥmūds. As we have seen, they appear at first to present two oppositional points of view, lending a duality of perspective to the narrative. Conversely, they may be read as one split subjectivity, representing the inverse images— or lateral reversals—of one unitary self, an argument supported by the use of two symbols, the mirror and Maḥmūd (B)’s (one-eyed) blindness. With both symbols, aspects of perception and apperception are summoned, particularly with respect to subjectivity. Maḥmūd (A) first catches sight of himself in a mirror at the entry to Maḥmūd (B)’s shop, in a scene which illustrates how the self is simultaneously “I” and other: “He saw himself coming towards himself in the mirror that the cigarette seller had hung outside his shop.”27 Similarly, on leaving, “Maḥmūd was unable to look at himself in the mirror as he drew further and further away from himself.”28 Here, after Lacan’s discussion of the “mirror stage,”29 Maḥmūd (A) identifies with his mirror

25

Hafez and Cobham, op. cit., 46. “Al-Qayẓ,” 84. 27 Ibid., 87. 28 Ibid., 88. 29 For more on this stage of infant development, which Lacan first posited as occurring at between six and eighteen months, see Jacques Lacan, “The Mirror 26

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image, recognizing the reflected subject as both subject and object, and suggesting an identificatory process whereby the image is one’s own, is oneself. Following his encounter with Maḥmūd (B), however, who also takes the form of a specular other, we see how Maḥmūd (A) feels alienated from this other, misrecognizing a partial version of himself. The mirror symbol confirms that each Maḥmūd is a self of reflection, rather than of action, and that this governs their perception of the world (Maḥmūd (A) introspectively, Maḥmūd (B) extrospectively). More importantly, it demonstrates that each fails to recognize the liberating possibilities in their respective reflected images. The mirror also gives rise to allusions to narcissism, particularly in the case of egocentric Maḥmūd (A), whose “vain” attempts at self-understanding fail to arrive at any meaningful “truth.” As Giddens reminds us, narcissism is not so much associated with self-admiration as with the shame of not living up to one’s “ideal selfimage,”30 a fact confirmed when we consider both men’s alienation. By extension, we should note Maḥmūd (B)’s shame at his ocular disability, and his deluded attempts at its concealment behind his reflective, “corrective” lens. The second symbol supporting the argument for a split subjectivity is Maḥmūd (B)’s blindness in one eye. His capacity to see only half of a situation and his blinkered, somewhat circumscribed, outlook on life, also express his defective perception and distorted view of reality. In “al-Qayẓ,” as in the myth of Oedipus, the blindness of the seeing eye represents the blindness of the seeing “I.” Thus, Maḥmūd (A)’s incessant examining of the self is ironic, since his is, ultimately, an inaccessible soul, governed and repressed by his intellect. Another feature of “al-Qayẓ” is its narrator: garrulous and unashamedly intrusive, he is an undramatized yet conspicuous presence. Narrating in the third person, he routinely breaks frame to pass comment on events, and to offer opinions on the actions or thoughts of characters. At times disparaging, gossipy, exasperated or sardonic, the narrator’s deadpan irony lends humor and subverts the text’s realistic discourse. He is

Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience” [1936], in Écrits (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2006), 75–81. 30 Giddens, op. cit., 68–69.

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unrelenting in his treatment of Maḥmūd (A), whose pseudo nonconformity engenders numerous scathing remarks: Maḥmūd is a young intellectual—which is curse enough in this day and age—and is obsessed with creating difficulties and claiming he will overcome them. For example, when he woke this morning he got it into his head that his smoking had become an absurd habit which had got him in its grip, and that he wanted to be free [of it]. Freedom for him was often little more than attempting to break a habit such as smoking, which is why he decided that, from this day onwards, he would cease to do it. He didn’t know why he had chosen this of all days, or this of all 31 seasons. I shall not delude the reader by saying that I do not know what conversation passed between them [Maḥmūd (A) and his girlfriend, Ilhām], though I am aware of how the reader would really like to know about it. I am sincere, however, in saying that it is not implausible that 32 theirs was a stupid and inane discussion.

In view of the narrator’s insights, one might safely assume that he too is of an intellectual bent. A further indicator may be found in his pedantic insistence on providing the standard Arabic equivalent (ḥaflat al-qirān) of the colloquial expression katb al-kitāb (the Islamic ceremony of the marriage contract). This is not to imply that the narrator empathizes with Maḥmūd (A), since the only affinity he indicates is with the (unidentified) narratee, whom he addresses with familiarity and candor. Conversational and rhetorical expressions such as, “Perhaps I’ll tell you this story some other time,”33 and, “Wouldn’t it be better if you made up some condition which, in your estimation, would be sufficient to create a predicament were it not to be carried out?”34 suggest that the narrator relates to the narratee as an acquaintance or intellectual equal. Arguably, this narrative voice is also a persona for our author himself, appealing to his aforementioned educated, middle-class readership. The

31

“Al-Qayẓ,” 84. Ibid., 89. 33 Ibid., 86. 34 Ibid., 89. 32

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effect of utilizing this self-conscious narrative voice is to detract from the text’s ostensible “realism,” a modernist technique which al-Shārūnī was among the first Arab writers to exploit. Through his ironic strategy of bringing attention to the act of narrating, he diminishes the text’s emotional intensity, and foregrounds its lack of depth and the attendant shallowness of its characters. Further, the narrator’s pre-eminence in the text allows him to assume authority over it, and to ensure that the reader’s response to the two Maḥmūds is, on the whole, unsympathetic. Other novel and modernist textual traits include the fact that it lacks a conventional (i.e. linear) plot, consisting in a set of loosely related episodes, often with little continuity. This shifting from one character and setting to another belies an uneasiness or underlying tension, and reproduces both the psychological state of Maḥmūd (A) and the broader mood of a society undergoing great turmoil. Then there is al-Shārūnī’s inventive imagery: in this irrational and upside-down world, inanimate objects assume human qualities while humans are, conversely, objectified. The heatwave, to give one example, is described as “lying prone” on the city while the street is “tortured by thirst,”35 and Maḥmūd (A)’s girlfriends are described as being “like the carriages of a train.”36 Al-Shārūnī also crams the text with grotesque images, such as of people perspiring heavily, men pressing themselves against women in trams, donkeys urinating, milk curdling and corpses decomposing.37 These combine to present a vision of a hellish, amoral world, underpinned by the narrator’s jaundiced remark: “A rumor spread in the city that the whole world had become evil, so God thought he would save himself the trouble of transporting all the people to hell by making a hell of the earth itself.”38 A final feature of “Al-Qayẓ” is its psychological depth and dynamism, which betrays a growing interest in psychoanalysis among Arab intellectuals

35

Ibid., 85. Ibid., 86. 37 A great many of the stories al-Shārūnī produced during this two-year period contain shocking, sinister, repugnant or perverse imagery. Most striking is the pronouncedly Kafka-esque “Difā Muntaṣaf al-Layl,” which utilizes a plethora of such images to evoke associations of social and moral sickness and decay. 38 “Al-Qayẓ,” 85. 36

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at this time. The text is clearly inflected by the ideas of Freud, with al-Shārūnī making direct allusions to the psychoanalytic concepts of Oedipal conflict and mother fixation.39 There are also existentialist/ absurdist shades of Camus, with the heatwave assuming a role similar to that of the plague in Camus’s La Peste.40 In “al‐Qayẓ,” the individualized suffering of the two Maḥmūds is shown to be meaningless, and the men surrender to that over which they believe they have no control. Similarly, asocial Maḥmūd (A) brings to mind Mersault, the anti-hero of Camus’s L’Étranger, since he too is detached and irretrievably removed from his and others’ emotions. Indeed, there exists no deep human connection between any of this story’s characters, and it is their inability and unwillingness to unite and confront the “heatwave” that is at the heart of their existential despair.

“AL- USHSHĀQ AL-KHAMSA,” 1950 Published just one month after “al-Qayẓ,” “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa” (“The Five Lovers”) portrays the young Egyptian intellectual in a far more sanguine light. It paints an evocative and, at times, romantic tableau of the climate of vitality and experimentation among Egypt’s young artists and writers during the post-war, pre-revolutionary period. Articulated via the voice of a dramatized narrator, it spotlights the activities of five talented and creative young men, at the head of whom is the sensitive poet, Ḥāmid. Each of these men is in love with Salwā, a bright and beautiful young woman who, for two years, is the prime source of inspiration for their circle. However, not one of these “five lovers” confesses his feelings to Salwā, for they are content solely to draw intellectual and artistic inspiration from their muse. As the narrator informs us, “thus one of them found that he was her painter and another her musician, while Ḥāmid found that he was her poet and my friend thought himself her sculptor, until finally the

39

As Hafez and Cobham note: “Freud’s works were in vogue at the time, particularly The Interpretation of Dreams, which was translated into Arabic for the first time in the late 1940s,” op. cit., 55. 40 Cf. also al-Shārūnī’s short story “al-Wabā’” (“The Plague”), first published in al-Adīb, October 1950, reprinted in al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, 100–108.

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fifth one came along (and he was the youngest), and philosophized the entire matter.”41 Yet tragedy lurks behind this adolescent idyll, for in the background social unrest unfurls and a pall of anxiety hangs over the national landscape. With the horrors of the atomic bomb still looming, the young men’s fears are heightened as they contemplate new forms of global warfare.42 More immediately, the catalyst for the unmaking of the five lovers comes about when Salwā announces her engagement to her university lecturer, at which Ḥāmid falls ill and, unexpectedly, dies. The group’s dynamic now shattered, the remaining four lovers disband and, as the narrative closes, set out— tipsy and laughing—towards an “endless, still, nocturnal freedom.”43 Their pains and personal tragedies aside, it is understood that their youth, vitality and creative ambitions will ensure a future filled with promise and bright eventualities: For at that time a treatment for polio had been discovered, a new method to stop metal and machines from rusting had been devised, a machine had been invented to solve one hundred thousand problems in one minute, while with another scientists could measure things three hundred times finer than the human hair. Another magnetic pole had been discovered in the northern hemisphere, experiments had been conducted to bring the dead back to life, and capital punishment had 44 been abolished in certain corners of the world.

Al-Shārūnī has conceded (albeit reticently) that “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa” was inspired by his days as a university student in Cairo.45 Thus,

41

“Al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa,” 8. Hence al-Shārūnī’s initial title for this story, “Ayyām al-Ru b” (“Days of Terror”). Al-Shārūnī claims that his editor chose to re-title the text on the publication of his first collection in 1954. This decision was taken chiefly for aesthetic reasons, though a less “negative” title was also deemed preferable, at what was then a more optimistic post-revolutionary juncture. Yūsuf al-Shārūnī, personal interview, 12 September 1998. 43 “Al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa,” 12. 44 Ibid., 13. 45 Yūsuf al-Shārūnī, letter to the author, 9 July 1996. Interestingly, though he singles out a number of fellow students in this letter, among them Fatḥī Ghānim 42

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this narrative captures the political, intellectual and artistic milieu of pre‐revolutionary Egypt, with its commingled atmosphere of optimism and fear, and its hopes for freedom in all forms: from foreign occupation, a derelict political regime, and outmoded social constraints and ideas. Self and Other: Young/Dynamic versus Old/Static The narrative self of “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa” is the young, industrious, progressive intellectual, represented by each of the five lovers and their female counterpart, Salwā. Unlike Maḥmūd, the so-called shābb muthaqqaf of “al-Qayẓ,” this is a self characterized by energy and activity, hope and a sense of openness to new ways of thinking and being. A collective identity is discernible among the lovers, who “felt that they had one generation in common, one fear and one hope, and that they were united by one person.”46 Thus the collective self is that entire generation of young Egyptians who led the post-war drive towards sociopolitical and cultural change, and to whom the narrator introduces us at the opening of the text: In the middle of the twentieth century in Egypt there lived a younger generation, who had seen the past die out behind them and the future go to everyone besides them, and whose feet were unable to stand firmly in the present. This generation would read literature by the light of paraffin lamps, and would study against the blare of the radio in the nearest café. They sought joy in vain while all around them disease and pain proliferated. They endured anxiety and deprivation yet forged on heroically, until their nerves became shattered and isolation rent their 47 insides, and they lost faith in themselves and in the world.

If to analyze this text in terms of gendered relationships, Salwā is a feminized other to her five male admirers, and is love object, muse and mother-figure rolled into one. A source of comfort in the face of their uncertainties (“Salwā” means “comfort” or “solace”), she is also the key

and the critic, poet and historian Maḥmūd Amīn al- Ālim (1922–2009), al-Shārūnī fails to mention the writer and critic Laṭīfa al-Zayyāt (1923–96), on whom the character of Salwā is commonly thought to have been based. 46 “Al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa,” 7. 47 Ibid., 6.

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protagonist or agent of action: as passions intensify and rivalries surface, each youth becomes more inspired in his ideas and creations. Meanwhile, their willful and confident heroine is fully conscious of her power to inspire: [Her] nineteen-year-old body teemed with dreams and imagination and a poetic, virgin spirit issued forth from her. In her small, confined environment she had explored her budding talents, and was aware of the extent to which her gentleness and resolve could fill those around 48 her with ambition and joy…

Salwā is a romanticized prognostication of al-Shārūnī’s idealized, emancipated, modern Egyptian woman. She leaves the provinces for Cairo and embarks on her ambitious “reflexive project of the self,”49 seeking to transcend traditional society’s expectations for her and her sex. She denotes progress and promise for the nation’s future, given that she defies the timidity and tentativeness of her peers. One of the lovers says of Salwā: “We admired her courage at a time when eastern women had removed the veil but had not yet freed themselves from it,”50 while his friend adds: “We admired her will and her ability to choose, at a time when we still saw women coming to men out of a sense of compliance and submission, rather than volition and the desire to give.”51 As a symbol for the (commonly feminized) nation, Salwā is also an idealized projection of a modern Egypt, participating freely and with confidence in new social and intellectual configurations. There is little dissonance between self and other in this text. Yet, despite endless hours spent in political debate, study circles and on educational excursions, there remains an unbreachable distance to their interactions: Salwā is the beating heart of the group but is always beyond the young men’s grasp. Indeed, the five lovers remain passive in their longing for her, and can neither win nor retain the object of their love. The

48

“Al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa,” 7–8. Giddens, op. cit., 9. 50 “Al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa,” 9. 51 Ibid., 9. 49

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narrator shows this below, where the men’s growing love for Salwā is conflated with their burgeoning creativity: Making progress in their creations they would stop awhile, fearing that such overt statements or forms of expression would fail to meet their aims. They often doubted the power, truth and value of what they were 52 doing, and so would not hesitate to put that thing aside or postpone it.

Confounded by and yet drawn to the other, the self cannot readily voice its inner world of experience. Even Ḥāmid, the most eloquent of the group, is self-conscious and inhibited before his muse, and can make only oblique references to her through his art: And then the morning comes, and then the afternoon, and the day presses on, and he longs fearfully to reveal his true feelings. And yet he also dreads it, knowing that to confess them in his poems is expression, whereas to confess them to her is action. He was content to express without action, and to make efforts but not the effort of trying to win her. And so the days passed, and all that his confessing achieved was to consolidate their [the five lovers’] longing, leaving them incapable of making such efforts themselves. Thus they too found an excuse for not 53 attempting what they feared might not succeed.

Just as they cannot express their love to Salwā, the lovers are unable to express themselves authentically or credibly. Suspended between their creative, optimistic inner urgings and their fear of exposing these before a skeptical public, they crave new idioms and a more representative lexicon. With scant belief in their own potential, the lovers’ condition is that of Egyptians after centuries of alien rule. In particular, the suppressed desires and ambitions of these five men symbolize the frustrated dreams of Egypt’s youth, before whom stood the gatekeepers of redundancy and obsolescence. As the narrator explains, all hopes and aspirations in Egypt’s young have been suppressed:

52 53

Ibid., 9. Ibid., 9.

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SELF AND OTHER At that time, the youth of that generation were spread throughout Egypt’s cities, killing time in cafés or loitering after girls in the main streets. They were connected by a sense of desolation and fear, and wavered between a great despair and an even greater hope… Old age had grayed their sideburns and decrepitude had filled their souls, though they were all in the prime of their youth… And so the young peasants in the villages and countryside of Egypt withered and dropped down into the land … into their land … 54 into our fertile, silt-black land.

An Emergent Vision of a New National Community “Al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa” demonstrates a fusion of romantic, realist and modernist narrative elements. Though romanticism was on the wane by the time it was written, its romantic coloring is nonetheless pronounced. First, it dwells on two of the key themes of the romantic sensibility: art and love. As had writers such as Maḥmūd Taymūr before him, al-Shārūnī attempts to elevate the status of the Egyptian artist, making heroes of these five adolescents. He also dwells on their torments in love and charts their conflicts of the intellect, heart and soul. Ḥāmid, in particular, is the text’s romantic hero; as Hafez explains, the romantic hero of the Arabic short story is traditionally “presented as having emotions, ideas and aspirations that cannot be adequately satisfied within the society in which he must operate.”55 Ḥāmid also testifies to the romantic hero’s talents and depth of perception, his dreams and aspirations revealing “a new ethical scale superior to that of the existing morality.”56 Last, the text embraces some of the more overtly ideological themes of romanticism, such as nationalism and rebellion against intellectual apathy and moribund institutions. The tone of “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa” is by turns melancholy, humorous, impassioned and poetic, and is resonantly bitter-sweet. Though never straying into archaisms or over-embellishment, al-Shārūnī employs elegant vocabulary, favoring the use of epithets, symbols and metaphors

54

Ibid., 8–9. Hafez, “The Modern Arabic Short Story,” 293. 56 Ibid., 293. 55

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over simple, denotative Arabic. Passages relating to the natural environment are particularly dreamlike and mellifluous: That day, for the first time, Cairo had inhaled the scent of winter unfolding. After setting, the sun had left a divine, pure light behind, which enveloped the western horizon a long while. And in the east the moon appeared, wrapping itself then re-appearing amongst its soft, white, luxurious clouds. The cool breeze began to brush against the rooftops, flooding the room of that great secret with its youthful bloom, proceeding on its nocturnal journey across cities and villages, deserts 57 and seas. The sky was almost clear of the clouds that had clung there at the start of the night; the moon was revealed, calm and silent, half-way between the earth and the sky. The roads of the city stretched as though without end, as the lights from the street lamps, erect, alert and tranquil, glistened on the wet ground. A breeze quivered, laden with dew and a 58 sweetness pregnant with movement and life.

Meanwhile, synonyms and metaphors are simple to the point of cliché, as when the narrator describes Salwā as “like a gazelle,”59 lending the text an unaffected naïveté that complements the youthful simplicity of its heroes. Perhaps the most salient metaphor is of the woman as goddess, encountered first in “Sariqa bi’l-Ṭābiq al-Sādis.” Here, as there, the woman is deified and worshiped as a remote and unattainable idol. Rendered in a portrait of the virgin Isis suckling the infant Horus, this is a particularly indigenous image (ancient Egyptian with later Christian inflections), representing her as the most sacred of the ancient Egyptian goddesses. In a strongly romantic vein, she is the sanctified and unblemished object of the five lovers’ longings: serene, wise and untouchable, she is as noble as the ancient Egyptian civilization itself. Again, we find a gendered symbol of the nation: Salwā as Isis is the Egyptian motherland, an image reinforced by the

57

“Al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa,” 6. Ibid., 12. 59 Ibid., 9. 58

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narrative’s many allusions to birth and renewal, as when the narrator speaks of humanity’s “labor pains”60 during this grim and unsettled epoch. Via the suggestive deployment of narrative space, the author demonstrates how potentially transformative activities were taking place on the fringes of society, far removed from the awareness and interventions of the authorities. Ḥāmid’s room, on the top floor of a building at the end of a dead-end street, is where most of the narrative action occurs, the mysterious allusions to this room’s “great secret”61 stressing the covert nature of the activities therein. For it is here that a future Egypt is being created and a vision of a new national community is taking shape: There was “The Princes’ Laundry,” where their clothes were washed and ironed; there was “The Happiness Hair Salon,” where they would go for a haircut or shave; there was “The Liberty Restaurant,” where they would sometimes have a meal; and “The Honesty Grocery,” where they would find all the cigarettes, coffee, tea and sugar they needed; and then there was “The National Café,” where they would sit, especially on 62 summer days.

Unlike in “al-Qayẓ,” “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa has a fully sympathetic, relatively non-intrusive narrator, who expresses solidarity of sentiment with his narrative subject group. Though a narrator-character, he remains on the periphery of the five lovers’ tale. All we learn of the narrator is incidental data: that his name is Ḥamdī, that he is a friend of the sculptor’s, and that he walks with the aid of a stick. We may infer that he too is a gifted man, since “no one without talent—not even a pretender—was permitted to join their special circle.”63 Ḥamdī fulfils two critical functions: first, in his capacity as a self-conscious, omniscient narrator he is a conduit for the self’s suppressed inner voice. Second, he explains the role played by these youths within their sociopolitical milieu, since “it was from among this generation that Egypt looked for the leaders who would save it from

60

Ibid., 7. This expression, and the notion of a people suffering in bondage and decay, but with the promise of future glory before them, can also be found in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, 8:18–26. 61 “Al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa,” 6. 62 Ibid., 6. 63 Ibid., 8.

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dissolution and backwardness, and from all the forms of suffering it had endured.”64 With its outspoken protests against government and society, “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa” is more explicitly ideological than the five stories analyzed thus far. Al-Shārūnī remains, nonetheless, characteristically circumspect, placing temporal distance between the narrator and events, so as to blur their immediate identification with the present. Thus, while the story is clearly set within a contemporary context, Ḥamdī appears to narrate ex post facto, proffering explanations of the historical and sociopolitical context as though to a narratee who is not of, or has no knowledge of, that era. At the time of its publication, such a device would have distorted the immediacy of the text’s political message, and protected the author to some degree from possible censure. In the true spirit of romanticism, “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa” is also tragic: its detailing of unrequited love, alienation and death combine with numerous manifestations of individual and collective suffering. Behind its many frustrations and setbacks, however, its mood is one of faith in the human spirit, while the promise of salvation is never absent from the text. Though referencing the convulsions rending contemporary society, the discourse does not linger on morbid content, using ellipses to circumvent the two most tragic events, Salwā’s abandonment of the group and Ḥāmid’s illness and untimely death. Similarly, it stresses the inevitability of change, foregrounding the hourly chime of the university clock and emphasizing the dynamism and irreversibility of time. Above all, with its irrepressibly optimistic narrator, this text finds hope in even the bleakest of predicaments: I understood that the death of their friend had discouraged them, but realized also that this pain was the beginning of the road, for I know that tragedy is just one aspect of the matter. And I know also that each tragedy carries within it the essence of its own salvation, and that a light 65 will shine forth in the darkness.

64 65

Ibid., 6. Ibid., 12–13.

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“RISĀLA ILĀ IMRA’A,” 1951 “Risāla ilā Imra’a” (“A Letter to a Woman”) takes up some of the minor themes left undeveloped in “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa.” Again, we encounter an educated young man who falls in love with a bright and beautiful young woman, who then breaks his heart when she leaves him to marry another. “Risāla ilā Imra’a” goes further than “al- Ushshāq l-Khamsa,” however, in that it offers greater insight into the gender politics of this period, returning to the theme of the status of the Egyptian woman amidst prevailing tensions between tradition and modernity. Hence, the text explores the topics of love, sex and marriage in the light of new ideas and social mores, with particular respect to the liberation of women.66 Further, it focuses on the ideals and expectations of the young, middle-class Egyptian male, and the conflict between traditional values—defined here largely in terms of family or group loyalties—and the emancipatory promise of individualism. As Hilary Kilpatrick notes: The search for love is intimately connected with the individual’s desire for freedom and fulfillment, while the frank affirmation of sexuality, of whatever kind, represents a challenge to a rigid and hypocritical social order […]. Much more than in most West European literatures, discussions about love and sexuality in modern Arabic literature are intricately connected with ideas about society and the individual’s place 67 in it.

The woman to whom the “letter” of this story is addressed is Najwā, a shy, attractive, middle-class girl who has had some semblance of a liberal education.68 The reader does not learn the identity of her lover, since the narrator prefers to refer to him, obliquely, as “my friend.” This friend, we

66

These seem to have been themes of some significance to al-Shārūnī at this time; a similar short story is “Nāhid wa Nabīl” (“Nāhid and Nabīl”), published one year after “Risāla ilā Imra’a” in al-Adīb, Beirut, October 1952. Reprinted in Risāla ilā Imra’a, 60–65. 67 “On Love and Sexuality in Modern Arabic Literature,” in Allen, Kilpatrick and de Moor (eds.), op. cit., 15. 68 The narrator notes that Najwā “had made some attempts at art and drawing” and that she had been heard “talking of Dickens and Oscar Wilde.” “Risāla ilā Imra’a,” 47.

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are informed, has a clear philosophy: that love between the sexes must be a partnership of equals, in which each respects and is responsive to the other’s needs. He rejects the traditional conception of woman as subordinate and sex object, a view with which Najwā concurs, despite her conservative upbringing. The love affair blossoms and the couple broach the subject of marriage, until Najwā unexpectedly retreats from the relationship. Her family has decreed that she should marry her wealthy cousin, and so she finds she has been “reserved,” “as one would book a seat at the cinema.”69 Najwā is seen to have failed to rebel against her family, since this would entail “too much effort” on her part.70 For the narrator, Najwā’s collusion with her family is a betrayal of the man who loved her, and an abdication of her duties as an “emancipated” modern woman. The Self and Its Ideal(ized) Other To once more consider self and other in gendered terms, the narrative self is our unidentified male suitor, while Najwā is his female other. A self in the mold of the aforementioned five lovers, he is young and enlightened, spurns bourgeois petty-mindedness, and seeks the freeing of both sexes from tired convention. He is also seemingly unworldly regarding women for, in spite of numerous romantic liaisons, his experience has been limited to two female “types”: Those who readily and cheerfully gave him what he desired (as they did other men, thereby depriving him of the true pleasure of attaining it), and those who had learned from the lessons of the first type. These were cautious and reminded him with every step they took, and so he felt a tension between him and them. He excused this second type […] since their common belief (which had its origins in society) was that the

69

Ibid., 56. This aspect of the story parallels the conflict between Maḥmūd and his girlfriend Ilhām in “al-Qayẓ.” At their last meeting, Maḥmūd asks of Ilhām that she become “more mature and cultivated,” a request she finds “meaningless and obscure.” She refuses to comply on the grounds that this would “require a degree of effort on her part, and she did not see why she should have to make any more effort than she had for the last twenty years.” See “al-Qayẓ,” 89–90. 70

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SELF AND OTHER longer the woman denied herself to a man the higher her status, and the more convinced he would be of her morals. Thus, if a woman was “loose” he would be overcome by doubt, and she would vanish from his soul just as soon as he had had her. In this way, [when it came to women], his past experiences had taught him on the whole to be 71 pessimistic.

On meeting Najwā, however, this young idealist learns that his goal is not to “have” her, but to attain a meeting of hearts and minds “on a path on which two people meet and journey together.”72 Such a partnership, he maintains, entails a form of reciprocity, which the narrator explains to Najwā as follows: He [should] gain knowledge from you at every moment, and likewise you from him. In this way you would discover your selves through each other, reaching worlds that man can only explore through woman, and 73 vice versa.

The text thus presents us with something akin to an Aristotelian self, seeking wholeness via an idealized, gendered other. To illustrate, the narrator remarks of his friend that Najwā was “a means by which he could realize himself and his existence.”74 Najwā resembles Salwā from “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa,” though she seems less able to free herself from the yoke of social strictures.75 Wary and apprehensive, she has been molded by an over-protective family, expressing anxiety as her admirer takes her “from one unknown to another.”76 In her gauche attempts to make sense of and control her life, she proclaims: “I

71

“Risāla ilā Imra’a,” 47. Ibid., 48. 73 Ibid., 48. 74 Ibid., 46. 75 In what is surely no coincidence, a very similar female protagonist—also called Najwā—appears in al-Shārūnī’s short story “Hadhayān” (“Delirium”), published just one month after “Risāla ilā Imra’a” in al-Adīb, Beirut, April 1951. Reprinted in al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, 156–160. 76 “Risāla ilā Imra’a,” 48. 72

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want to understand … I want to be.”77 Yet Najwā’s “Ideal-I”78 proves illusory, for she remains bound by her bourgeois tutelage, and hers becomes the “problem of a young girl who belongs to a conservative milieu, acts as a free agent, gives her word and is ready to keep it—for as long as the milieu does not respond.”79 Meanwhile, for Najwā’s parents, she remains little more than an object within an order of exchange. Though Najwā considers her potential freedom with equivocation, this is perhaps indicative of many young women of her class in this era. Her lover complains that she seems merely to “act out” against patriarchy, rather than truly confront the conditions to which, as a woman, she finds herself subject. Yet there is evidence that Najwā’s self-perception evolves, as shown below: As you sat and sipped grape juice with him in that chic little bar, you realized, right there and then, that he had distanced you from that conventional history of womankind to which you had long felt spiritually, intellectually and materially bound. You felt something attract you to him, though this was the very thing that frightened you. For, little by little, he was removing you from that lofty ideal that had reigned for generations over woman: that she is a body for man, who crushes her with his strong arms and stirs her with his hot breaths, and with whom she lives meekly like a parasitic animal. He was challenging you, so that you might become an autonomous being, willful and liberated, since your relationship would never be one of a servant and master but of two friends, its depth increasing with commitment and social co-operation, 80 and through physical interaction and procreation.

For much of this short story, self and other interact through mutual affection and intellectual congruity, though Najwā’s abandonment hints at an unbreachable divide. Binaristic tensions reverberate throughout, underpinned chiefly by gender variance and the clash between stasis and

77

Ibid., 54. Lacan. op. cit., p. 76. 79 Raymond Francis, “Youssef El-Charouni: Lettre à une femme,” in Aspects de la littérature arabe contemporaine (Beirut: Dar al-Maaref, 1963), 177. 80 “Risāla ilā Imra’a,” 51. 78

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change. Key to these antagonisms is women’s liberation, understood here in terms of their access to education and their right and readiness to query tradition. Yet there is unwitting irony in the self’s idealization of a “new” other, since this merely replaces—and reproduces—her contingent construction of old: You found he insisted repeatedly that you read, explaining to you that, throughout his long history, man has not only distinguished himself by his physical power but by his learning, and that though woman cannot be physically stronger than man she can equal him in knowledge, being the principal means today by which she can free herself, body and soul. First, he encouraged you to read what had been written about women, then to expand into a study of the art in which you specialized, and then he suggested some novel or other and asked you, finally, to tackle the newspaper. He said that, by doing so, you would be participating in the world as a whole and living fully in the mid-twentieth century. He took 81 you to bookshops, museums, cinemas and the Opera House.

In constructing this idealized other, the self assumes that Najwā will aspire to “more” than to marry and procreate, and encourages her “to rebel against a life of monotonous servitude.”82 At first, Najwā seems appalled by such circumscribed life prospects and protests: Do you think I am like just any girl, whose sole concern in life is that bond and to live only for its sake? What would be the point of my living, then? I would be like an animal, living only to eat and reproduce! 83 A life like that would be soulless and superficial!

Yet Najwā “reverts to type” by the story’s end, abnegating her right and ability to be modern, and acquiescing to her traditional, subject gendered position.

81

Ibid., 50. Ibid., 49. 83 Ibid., 52. 82

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A Feminist Re-interpretation of “Risāla ilā Imra’a” “Risāla ilā Imra’a” is in fact a paradox, since this text does not take the form of a letter. Though it alludes to some of the hallmarks of the Arabic epistolary genre, such as its treatment of moral or semi-philosophical ideas, it breaks form by omitting the requisite formulae of a letter, such as an opening reference or salutation, and bears no signature for its author. Its style is informal, its language having many characteristics of speech, such as the repeated use of the vocative particle (“yā Najwā”), and occasional exhortations, such as: “Believe me, Najwa!”84 Further, it would appear that the narrator is not writing to Najwā, since he speaks of holding a “conversation”85 with her (though, equally, there is no evidence of dialogue). Rather, this “letter” reads as one long, uninterrupted internal monologue.86 As with Najwā’s lover, the narrator’s identity remains a mystery, though he too conforms to the now familiar model of the educated, middle-class youth. His view of women is more ambivalent, however, as the following demonstrate: I cautioned him with my customary wisdom saying, “We may be delighted by a word from a young woman’s mouth, much as by a word from a child’s mouth when it reaches speaking age. This is not because it presents us with something we didn’t know, but because it articulates 87 something we didn’t anticipate.” When he came to me that night, overjoyed by your overcoming those obstacles together, I offered my usual cautionary advice: “My friend, the

84

Ibid., 53. Ibid., 46. Note that the name “Najwā” translates as “a confidential talk” or “secret conversation.” 86 In an interesting reversal, internal monologue is seen to be more in keeping with the women’s literary tradition. 87 “Risāla ilā Imra’a,” 47. The fact that the narrator equates a woman’s speech with a child’s speech is also consistent with the “mirror stage” theme, given that Lacan locates this stage of identification in the pre-linguistic realm, where “the I is precipitated in a primordial form, prior to being objectified in the dialectic of identification with the other, and before language restores to it, in the universal, its function as subject.” Lacan, op. cit., p. 76. 85

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SELF AND OTHER woman in our society—before marriage at least—is quite capable of adapting herself to the man she will commit to, becoming a believer if 88 he is, or even an atheist.”

What is puzzling is this narrator’s relationship to Najwā, given that he claims to have met her just once, in a crowd of friends. This then raises the question as to his purpose in composing this “letter,” since his acquaintance with her is, by all accounts, slight. One interpretation is that he is petitioning Najwā, in a bid to persuade her to reconsider her jilting of his friend. This is supported by his opening line: “I write to you finally in the hope that you might take a heroic stand alongside him, for fear that he might lose his faith in humanity, since you were his one true link to the real world and mankind.”89 A second, and more tenuous, interpretation is that the narrative voice is that of the spurned lover’s ego, deploying the distancing persona of a “friend.” Certainly, for one who claims not to know Najwā well, the narrator enjoys near-omniscient insight into her (and her lover’s) experience. On rare occasions, the tone of this narration is fervent and sentimental, once more indicating the residual influence of the romantic sensibility. This is clear in such impassioned exclamations as: “My friend had fallen headlong into you with all the love and devotion he possessed,”90 and: “He drowned in your honey-colored eyes and golden hair, until he was overcome by intoxication.”91 The narrator’s friend assumes the role of romantic hero, reciting love songs to Najwā’s eyes and making zealous pronouncements, such as: “Love has huge potential within our selves, which society may bury alive or crush!”92 Similarly, on the battlefield of love, our hero is noble and resolute, while Najwā is the coward who capitulates to love’s enemies. A last example of residual romanticism lies in the text’s idealizing of platonic and spiritual, rather than erotic, love. Thus, “Risāla ilā Imra’a” is a well-argued disquisition, passing judgment on and making often acerbic reference to contemporary gender

88

“Risāla ilā Imra’a,” 52. Ibid., 46. 90 Ibid., 46. 91 Ibid., 47. 92 Ibid., 46. 89

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politics. The narrator makes only superficial and passing use of figurative language in his bid to impart authority and, critically, reason to his “letter.” Figurative language, such as it exists, consists in simple and somewhat commonplace metaphors: this love affair is a “battle” or a “journey,” while Najwā is described as “a piece of cloth, to which her family has the right to sell to the highest bidder.”93 As the critic Raymond Francis writes: “In ‘Risāla ilā Imra’a’ the narrator makes no […] sacrifice to false eloquence,”94while adding an observation regarding the structure of the text: In [it] the bachelor of philosophy recalls the lessons of those who instructed him. The “letter” that he writes to “a woman” […] at times assumes the form of a good student presentation: the facts, the ideas, the hypotheses, the proof, the premises, the conclusions—all are in 95 evidence.

From a feminist critical perspective, “Risāla ilā Imra’a” reveals not only the extent to which male hegemony structures Egyptian society, but also the extent to which this hegemony structures this narrative and its discourse. For, in spite of its ostensibly egalitarian message, it may be argued that Najwā is denied her subjectivity, and reduced—as ever—to “an object: of representation, of discourse, of desire.”96 Two related phenomena support this view: first, this text is the gendered expression of a male author and a male narrator, and second, it asserts or affirms, rather than dismantles or disrupts, a pre-eminent, masculine discourse. This is discernible in various textual cues, chiefly the privileging of the male voice over that of the female. Equally, the author constructs self and other along conventional, patriarchal lines: male and female are binary opposites to the point of being stereotypes—the man capable, solid and masterful, the woman childlike, venal and weak. Albeit perhaps unconsciously, the male self sees the female as inscrutable, and thus his primary motivation is to know and, thereby,

Ibid., 56. Francis, op. cit., 175. 95 Ibid., 177. 96 Luce Irigaray, “Any Theory of the ‘Subject’ Has Always Been Appropriated by the ‘Masculine’,” in Self and Subjectivity, ed. Kim Atkins (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 271. 93 94

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control her. With no little irony, while the self accuses the other of resistance or reluctance to change, the narrative discourse reveals an intransigence or one-sidedness to his argument. This is shown in his conviction at the rightness of his project, along with the fact that, while he sets about constructing the other and her reality, this stimulates little re-appraisal of the self. Further, in his egotism, the male’s fantasy of equality is to construct a mirror-image for the woman, suggesting complete identification with himself. Thus, to fail to stand as his comrade-in-arms is to stand against him, indicated in the narrator’s remark that Najwā “could not simply be something neutral in his life.”97 That this “letter” reads as a monologue also underscores its one-sidedness, since it permits no way for Najwā to defend her decisions or actions. Considered thus, our hero’s idealism seems naïve and uncompromising, while his egalitarianism is diminished in the light of his egocentrism. A feminist re-interpretation of “Risāla ilā Imra’a” would also find irony in the fact that, as in “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa,” the male’s identity is founded on an ego of the heart, while the female is his pragmatic polar opposite. This subverts the notion of the emotional, irrational woman, particularly when we consider that Najwā remains emotionally even throughout the text and, unlike her admirer, does not fall prey to unguarded infatuation. Also questionable is the view that, by agreeing to marry a family member rather than opting for a love-match, the woman refuses to break free of the bondage of patriarchy. For, given that Najwā’s social reality remains structured by gender inequalities, it is clear that she has little control over her existence, and is compelled to make prudent, rational choices. As Lacan maintains: “That the woman should be inscribed in an order of exchange of which she is the object, is what makes for the fundamentally conflictual, and, I would say, insoluble, character of her position: the symbolic order literally submits her, it transcends her.”98 Charles Vial suggests that “Risāla ilā Imra’a” is “in effect destined to show that it is impossible to ‘liberate’ a woman if she does not want to be

97

“Risāla ilā Imra’a,” 52. Jacques Lacan, The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, trans. Sylvana Tomaselli (Cambridge: C.U.P, 1987), 304–305. 98

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liberated—for can she be?”99 Further, we should ask whether it is possible to liberate a woman if intellectual or attitudinal change is not commensurate with the necessary structural and societal change. As “Risāla ilā Imra’a” reveals, Najwā is ultimately identified by her otherness and not her self, and is condemned to failure since her aspirations cannot translate practically into reality. Though receptive to the ideal of a progressive, liberal model of gender identity, it is social exigencies that compel her to maintain her pact with patriarchy.

“AL-ḤIDHĀ’,” 1951 The last short story to be analyzed from within this two-year time span is “al-Ḥidhā’” (“The Shoes”), in which themes and motifs taken from “al-Qayẓ” and “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa” are presented in a more evolved form. Al-Shārūnī has described “al-Ḥidhā’” as “prophetic” and claims that, of all his stories, it is this which predicts the 1952 revolution most emphatically.100 Bluntly ideological, it condemns social injustice in Egypt while expressing a clear desire and will for change, much in the manner of later committed literature (adab multazim). What is also of interest is that “al-Ḥidhā’” was not reprinted until 1969, when it appeared finally in al-Shārūnī’s third collection, al-Ziḥām.101 This eighteen-year hiatus between publications reveals how innovative a narrative it was, and how it laid many of the foundations for the Arabic modernist sensibility (which had reached its apogee by the time al-Ziḥām was published). The fabula of “al-Ḥidhā’” details the ongoing battle between Ma’mūn, a frustrated young man in his early twenties, and his decrepit shoes, which are worn out almost beyond repair. Ma’mūn is an office messenger boy in a department at the Ministry of Finance, whose meager salary cannot extend to buying new shoes. Rather, he must be content to have his old pair patched repeatedly, each time becoming more tight and uncomfortable. In 99

Charles Vial, Le Personnage de la femme dans le roman et la nouvelle en Égypte de 1914 à 1960 (Damascus: Institut Français de Damas, 1979), 345. 100 Al-Shārūnī, personal interview, 1 April 1996. 101 Al-Shārūnī claims that he would not publish the story in either of his earlier collections because “it was not of a good artistic standard.” Personal interview, 12 September 1998. Al-Shārūnī is an extremely fastidious writer, subjecting many of his stories to numerous revisions.

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despair at his existence, Ma’mūn feels deep antipathy towards those around him. Repressed and voiceless, his inner rage is articulated via fantasies and dreams, some of which border on the anti-social or violent.102 On one occasion, he fantasizes about assaulting a police officer, on another, about stealing laundry, and in others still, he imagines himself molesting women. Throughout the narrative, Ma’mūn takes his old shoes to be mended many times, each visit to the cobbler coinciding with a tragic incident. On one such visit his mother dies, while on another a political demonstration is held and a number of protesters are killed. On his eleventh visit the shoe mender refuses to make the repairs, though after a protracted dispute he consents—but for the last time only. Ma’mūn’s shoes are now so heavily patched that their stiffness has become disabling and unbearable. In the story’s final scene, Ma’mūn tears them from his feet and frees his toes from their dreadful imprisonment. Then, delirious with pain, he crawls on all fours to bed and to the refuge of sleep. Self as National Subject, Other as State Abject and exploited, Ma’mūn, the national subject, is the narrative self of this text. His lowly profession is an index of his social status: a mere lackey, he serves coffee and tea, runs errands and speaks only when spoken to. Brooding and melancholy, he hovers on the fringes of events, looking on without knowing what he is seeing, and hearing without ever being listened to himself. As with many of the characters analyzed thus far, Ma’mūn lacks both a voice and a vocabulary, and it is only in the unconscious solitude of sleep that his unarticulated self can find its expression. This condition of “bitter madness,”103 described familiarly as Ma’mūn’s “great secret,”104 is where he nourishes his “authentic, independent existence.”105 From a collective perspective, Ma’mūn represents the Egyptian masses, similarly oppressed and locked into servitude. Yet, as so often with al-Shārūnī’s protagonists, there exists a gulf between the self and the 102

This aspect of the text evokes Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, allusions to which emerge throughout al-Shārūnī’s entire œuvre, most noticeably from “al-Qayẓ” onwards. 103 “Al-Ḥidhā’,” 84. 104 Ibid., 84. Cf. also the five lovers’ “great secret” in “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa.” 105 “Al-Ḥidhā’,” 84.

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collectivity, for Ma’mūn feels no affinity with it and is estranged from the wider society. The collectivity, for him, is compliant and unquestioning, and he feels disaffected by others’ mindless chatter and stoicism, plus their unpresuming goals for themselves and others like them: He meets them in the streets, on the trams and in the cars, and finds them talking and smiling. And he looks at himself to find that he, too, is talking and smiling. So he asks himself whether, behind their small talk and smiles, there isn’t a bitterness slumbering in some remote corner of 106 their hearts…

In this double existence, Ma’mūn’s personal identity is uncertain and fragmented. Though recognizing that such duplicity is essential to his survival, he remains confused and alienated. As the narrator explains: “Ma’mūn does not know if he feels as other people do. Do you suppose that they, too, cling on to a pain that may never end, or do you suppose they forget it, renewing their lives each dawn and carrying on?”107 Fear is an identifying characteristic of this self, and is cathected both inwards and outwards: He began to fear himself, and to fear the forces of depression and lust that jostled within him. He began to feel that he was being pushed towards some terrible, unknown crime. He did not know where or when it would happen, but knew that the reasons for it stirred in his body and 108 in his consciousness.

The narrative other is Egypt’s government and its agencies, locus of control in Ma’mūn’s disordered world. It appears in three key abstractions of power: the state bureaucracy, represented by the clerks for whom Ma’mūn works at the Ministry of Finance; the state security forces, emerging amidst the many demonstrations and public strikes; and the cobbler who, ultimately, decides his fate. Self and other are distant and irredeemably at odds, their interactions descending into conflict and discord. Such tensions are clear between Ma’mūn and his superiors: these

106

Ibid., 83. Ibid., 83. 108 Ibid., 85. 107

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clerks form an elite group, described by the narrator as a “small community.”109 They possess a confident joie de vivre that is inaccessible to the self, their exciting lives attested to by the anecdotes and gossip they share. They also enjoy thriving careers, engaged as they are in “the most important—and serious—of state work.”110 Ma’mūn savors “the spirit of fun-making”111 among the clerks, and takes hidden pleasure in overhearing tales of their amorous exploits. Yet he also envies them, cynically querying whether their jokes conceal “something bitter and truly heinous that squats in each of their souls.”112 For, despite their many privileges, these clerks are no less passive and conformist than the powerless majority. Existential angst finds its full development in “al-Ḥidhā’”: Ma’mūn takes a pessimistic view of his life and its future prospects: He went on picking up papers and carrying away teacups, and heard them talking and having fun as he went up and down and down and up. He felt that his job was dull and monotonous, and that his skills qualified him for a different position, though he could not figure out what, exactly. […] He was seeking something that might challenge him, but the urbanity and wit of those around him and their polite overlooking of his dreams and capabilities negated the potential that burned in his depths. He felt a sort of decrepitude overwhelm him, and he was uneasy. It increased whenever he realized that he was tied to a wheel from which there was no release, and that with every day that passed—every day and every moment, even—he became tied ever tighter to that wheel, causing him to lose all hope of progressing or of getting ahead in this world. And so he became ever more limited to this 113 type of work and estranged from any other possibilities.

A Modernist Vision of Social Disintegration Though the narrative does not state it explicitly, “al-Ḥidhā’” may be located in the socially disintegrating climate of late 1940s Cairo. We may infer this

109

Ibid., 84. Ibid., 83. 111 Ibid., 83. 112 Ibid., 84. 113 Ibid., 85. 110

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from certain textual clues, such as allusions to incidents that took place over a three-year period in the second half of this decade: the violent students’ strikes of 1946 and the press restrictions imposed in that same year; the clashes which took place between striking workers and police in 1947 and 1948; a cholera epidemic which broke out in October 1947; and the assassination of Egyptian Prime Minister Maḥmūd al-Nuqrāshī in 1948.114 These events occur as a counterpoint to Ma’mūn’s ongoing struggle with his shoes, as the following demonstrate: And on the day that the students went on strike and the demonstrations started, and the people cheered, and three of them were killed in the 115 main square, he had his shoes mended for the fifth time. Then the yellow fever spread, and the teachers and students went on strike, and his mother fell ill, and the universities were closed and surrounded. And meetings were banned and newspaper after newspaper after newspaper was suspended, and his brother committed suicide, as 116 he went to have his shoes mended for the tenth time.

Of all the short stories al-Shārūnī wrote during this period, “al-Ḥidhā’” is the most experimental and modern. This is demonstrated in its denaturalized language, the mechanical texture and rhythm built into the narrative, and its extensive use of metaphor and symbol. The text’s most potent symbol is that of the shoes, a compelling metaphor for the other: stifling, troublesome and now long past its best. Each repairing of the shoes is another concession to “make do and mend,” rather than replace that which is broken with a new and more suitable model. For, as the narrator informs us, the folk of Egypt “would patch everything: their shoes, their clothing and [even] their way of life.”117 When the cobbler repairs the shoes

114

In the version of “al-Ḥidhā’” published in al-Ziḥām, there are also two references (on Ma’mūn’s last visit to the shoemender) to Cairo’s great fire of 26 January 1952, and the martial laws that followed it. Since the story was first published in 1951, this indicates that the text was subject to later revisions. 115 “Al-Ḥidhā’,” 84–85. 116 Ibid., 86. 117 Ibid., 88. The patching of the shoes, and the stand-off between Ma’mūn and the cobbler, is reminiscent of the scene between Akakii Akakievitch and Petrovich the tailor in Gogol’s “The Overcoat.” We also find similarities between

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for the very last time, al-Shārūnī deploys perfunctory, impassive, mechanical language, denoting the hollow, delusive nature of this undertaking: He saw him hammer a nail and then pierce with his awl, then pick up the needle and call to his apprentice, light the lamp and hammer a nail, pierce with the awl and then with his needle, spit, reach for a thread and then another, cut a piece of leather with his knife and then another, then 118 a third, and a fourth.

Also significant is that, after this final attempt at patching, Ma’mūn now feels irreconcilably removed from his rotten old shoes: Each time Ma’mūn had his shoes mended he became ever more estranged from them. He would see that they had become even more decrepit and vainly reinforced. This time, however, he not only saw that they had changed, but when he tried once more to force his feet inside, 119 he felt that they had become strangers to him.

Thus the ongoing battle between the shoes and Ma’mūn’s feet is allegorical: if the shoes, as we have argued, represent the Egyptian state, then the feet represent the national collectivity. Further, the steady swelling of the feet within these cramped and ancient shoes suggests a people fit to burst from their intolerable confinement. Certainly, the emergence of a new national consciousness is hinted at, as in the following, which contains unmistakably revolutionary imagery: He quickly pulled off his shoes and socks, considered his socks and considered his feet. By now, his shoes had become solid, stiffened, dusty and ugly. As for his socks, he threw them far away onto the floor, where they lay like two black, putrid creatures, the holes in them like old, forgotten protests. As for his feet, their toes began to move, rubbing against each other as though whispering some strange, painful complaint amongst

Ma’mūn’s relationship with the clerks and that between Akakii Akakievitch, a minor functionary, and the other young officials in his government department. 118 Ibid., 89. 119 Ibid., 89.

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themselves, as they shook off the sweat which rose like the smell of 120 vinegar towards a hidden, invisible world. It was as though his feet, which had enjoyed some freedom in these 121 brief moments, had grown bigger—visibly, truly and tangibly bigger.

In what seems a self-conscious attempt to express modern conditions, al-Shārūnī uses an unprecedented range of modernist techniques, particularly when representing the narrative other. First, he employs defamiliarization, as in similes such as: “Then he would notice his enormous, ancient shoes, extending before him like a caution or a warning,”122 evoking the other’s authoritarianism. Second is his use of metonymy, which he deploys in describing the Egyptian police and army as “batons and helmets and guns and buttons,”123 reducing them to dehumanized objects of state oppression. Third is the Nietzchean imagine of Ma’mūn “tied to a wheel,” suggesting a monstrous apparatus to which workers are bound and sacrificed. Meanwhile, the disintegrating sociopolitical order is miniaturized in Ma’mūn’s family which, with a dying mother, a brother who kills himself and a father visible only by his absence, offers neither caregivers to guide nor any system of affiliation. By extension, the absence of a father in this patriarchal context speaks of a rudderless society, devoid of leadership. The tension in “al-Ḥidhā’” is sustained by various means, such as its incremental building of mounting political crises, and its hell-like representations of the metropolis of Cairo, many of which are reminiscent of “al-Qayẓ”: He had to walk and keep on walking down the city’s roads and alleys, burning with the blazing heat, suffocating in his clothes, maddened by 124 his great secret, which spread everywhere …

120

Ibid., 90. Ibid., 89. 122 Ibid., 86. 123 Ibid., 90–91. 124 Again, as in “al-Qayẓ,” the combination of pathetic fallacy, inner turmoil and images from city life, is strongly evocative of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. 121

108

SELF AND OTHER He walked with his shoes through the great, wide streets and through the damp, suffocating alleys, on the burning ground in the glare of the sun and through the mud that clogged the corners and bends … He trod with his shoes on the people’s litter, on the cigarette butts and on 125 the flies buzzing peacefully…

There is also a repeated rupturing of the narrative discourse, signaling Ma’mūn’s anxiety and inner torment. At its most acute the narrative is hallucinatory, whereas at more reflective junctures it merely meanders. This attempt at reproducing a psychological texture may be seen in the following, which begins in a downbeat, labored vein but degenerates rapidly into delirium: Then he turned towards his bed and began a slow, anguished crawl … A voice called out to him to eat, as he crawled, crept and crawled, and his soul turned in on itself. And the day began to disintegrate as the feelings crowded within him, and there was a city in which the fire reigned and in which gunfire rang out from time to time, and batons and helmets and guns and buttons and coffee cups and the functionaries’ papers … going up and down and down and up … and stickiness, as his brother commits suicide, and putridity and the strike, as his mother dies, and the alleyways during the wars in the mud, in the 126 girls, in the women…

Likewise, the text is filled with trance-like lexical repetition, passages of free indirect discourse and sentences woven from countless, stumbling clauses. Combined, these emulate the mechanisms of Ma’mūn’s unconscious mind. In “al-Ḥidhā’” we understand what literary modernism can offer: we can discern a congruity between Ma’mūn and the story’s author, since both aspire to political freedom and social justice. Further, the regressive power of poverty is at the heart of the narrative discourse: the narrator explains how the cobbler earns more from mending old shoes than from making new ones, “for this war and these high prices and the poverty in which these people live do not prompt them to think of having new shoes made.

125 126

Ibid., 86. Ibid., 86.

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Rather, they prefer to have their old shoes repaired.”127 New shoes are for a very privileged few, and remain a covetable and exotic luxury: From behind the shop windows, he [Ma’mūn] began to familiarize himself with the world of shoes in all their types and sizes. He saw white and yellow shoes, white and red, red and black; shoes for children and shoes for adults; summer shoes and winter shoes; women’s shoes for the feet of women, and men’s shoes for the feet of men. All ornate, brand-new and sturdy, and in abundance behind the glass. Glass, crystal and deprivation… …And then [there were] the barefoot, the uncountable, innumerable barefoot, treading through the winter mud and the burning heat of summer, walking on towards unknown destinations and stolen 128 needs and goals with neither beginning nor end.

In spite of the text’s allusions to disease and political violence, it nonetheless harbors an inherently utopian outlook, and hints at an alternative life that might be lived in Egypt’s future. This is best illustrated in the narrator’s closing and prescient remark that “there was a great and momentous event for which he [Ma’mūn] waited, but did not fear.”129 As he does in “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa,” al-Shārūnī formulates an enigmatic ending, presaging a revolutionary impulse which looms on the national horizon. It is chiefly on this account that this text may be deemed “prophetic.” Conclusion Most of the short stories al-Shārūnī wrote from 1950 to 1952 feature a transparently ideological, if not revolutionary, subtext, tapping into the contemporary sociopolitical context. This subtext demands a repudiating of Egypt’s old and corrupt regime, its outmoded inequalities and its oppressive rule. It rejects the notion of “making do” with structures or values which are no longer relevant or legitimate, as is evident in “Risāla ilā Imra’a” and

127

Ibid., 87. Ibid., 87. 129 Ibid., 91. 128

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“al-Ḥidhā’.” Further, these texts reveal how the dominant culture has stifled the national subject, denying it any chance to achieve its ambitions and creating a crippling dependence culture. Hence, the desires of the national subject remain unarticulated, with most sustaining the status quo out of habit or fear of the consequences. With their barely-concealed allusions to current affairs and social unrest, these texts also function as fictionalized eyewitness accounts, countering establishment and dominant culture narratives. Further, they contain a covert, cautious optimism, being the only source of hope amidst turmoil and uncertainty. Considered in the light of social and political transformations prefiguring the revolution, these texts speak directly of concerns with individual and collective identity. In particular, these four texts demonstrate that the two main arenas for social change at this time related to gender and class. Women are represented as active participants in the new nation-inthe-making, and are shown contemplating new ideas and roles (if idealized). With the rise of the patriotic democratic movement, we find evidence of a crystallizing national consciousness, particularly in the short story “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa.” There are also indications of new dialogues and correspondence between social groups, as with that between men and women in “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa” and “Risāla ilā Imra’a,” a shift away from the melodrama of “Jasad min Ṭīn.” This correspondence is underscored by the favoring of omniscient, omnipresent narrators, whose unchecked intrusions and uninhibited opinions (see “al-Qayẓ”) engender an affinity between narrator and narratee via the intimation of shared ideals and worldviews. Prototypical models of narrative self include the young, middle-class intellectual and the “modern, liberated” Egyptian woman, while existentialist themes predominate alongside permutations of social chaos and malaise. Though short stories such as “al-Qayẓ” and “al-Ḥidhā’” reveal al-Shārūnī’s facility for experimentation with modernist narrative techniques, “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa” and “Risāla ilā Imra’a” show the residual influence of romanticism. However, many of the stories al-Shārūnī wrote in these two years betray a darker side to the national political landscape, with themes such as paranoia, surveillance and interrogation emerging. Two notable examples are “Difā Muntaṣaf al-Layl” and

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“al-Ṭarīq ila’l-Masaḥḥa” (“The Road to the Sanatorium”),130 in which we find characters who have been arrested, imprisoned or otherwise incarcerated, but who have no idea why, or by whom. As shall become clear in what follows, these sinister, often Kafka-esque scenarios return with increasing frequency in al-Shārūnī’s later stories. By the end of this stage in the evolution of the narrative self, it has established some semblance of a collective identity, but has yet to articulate itself as an individual. Nonetheless, it is growing in assurance and autonomy, evidence of this being that its exclusion comes largely from within, rather than without, the self. Once more, we may reduce relations between self and other to the following paradigm:

SELF

OTHER

Growth in assurance Interrogation of the self Dynamic Open to new ideas Rejects past and present, oriented towards future Identity in formation Growth in self-awareness and autonomy

Assurance in question Blind or blinkered self Static Closed, ambivalent to new ideas Clings to present, oriented towards past Identity in question Resistance to self-awareness and autonomy

130

First published in al-Adīb, Beirut, May 1959. Reprinted in al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, 133–142. The story also appears in al-Majmū āt, 1, under the revised title “al-Ṭarīq ila’l-Mu taqal” (“The Road to the Detention Camp”), 161–172.

3 SELF AND OTHER IN THE NEW REPUBLIC On 23 July 1952, the Free Officers took power in a coup d’état. King Fārūq abdicated in favor of his infant son, Aḥmad Fu’ād II, and sailed two days later from Alexandria into exile. Within one year, the monarchy had been abolished and Egypt declared a republic, bringing a new mood of euphoria and optimism to the nation. This chapter takes us through the early years of the new regime, beginning in February 1954, the publication date of al-Shārūnī’s short story “Al- Īd” (“The Eid”),1 and ending in October 1959, with the short story “al-Rajul wa’l-Mazra a” (“The Man and the Farm”).2 As ever, it begins by providing an overview of the main political events that defined this period, and considers the role played by the revolutionary regime in shaping a new nationalist ideology and pan-Arab vision. The four short stories which will be analyzed within these contexts are: “Anīsa” (“Anīsa”); 3 “Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl” (“Two in Holy Matrimony”); 4 “al-Nās

1

First published in the weekly Rūz al-Yūsuf, Cairo, 1 February 1954. Reprinted in al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, 14–23. 2 First published in the daily al-Masā’, Cairo, 16 October 1959. Reprinted in Risāla ilā Imra’a, 5–17. 3 First published in al-Ādāb, Beirut, October 1954. Reprinted in al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, 69–77. 4 First published in Akhbār al-Yawm, Cairo, October 1955. Reprinted in Risāla ilā Imra’a, 98–111.

113

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Maqāmāt” (“Every One in His Place”)5 and “Nashrat al-Akhbār” (“The News Bulletin”).6

THE EARLY YEARS OF THE NEW REGIME The July coup of 1952 was announced “in the name of the army on behalf of the whole of Egypt, not of a party, a revolutionary mass movement, or an ideology.”7 The figurehead of the coup was General Mohammed Naguib, under whom the new regime set about its first tasks of containing the popular movement and eliminating opposition. The coup brought to an end the old ruling alliance between the aristocracy, the monarchy and the British, and succeeded to paralyze the powers of the landed classes once wide-ranging agrarian reforms had been introduced. By as early as June 1953, all political parties had been dissolved, the monarchy had been abolished and the new republic had been created, with Naguib assuming the roles of Egypt’s first president and prime minister. Attempting a move towards a parliamentary republic, he met with opposition from other members of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), and within just one year was forced to resign by his deputy, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Founder of the Free Officers and a former major in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Nasser succeeded Naguib in November 1954, and was later elected president for a six-year term under Egypt’s new constitution. By now, institutionalized military rule had taken hold in Egypt and state power had become concentrated in the hands of the RCC. The RCC’s modernizing ideology visualized a strong, Egyptianized state supported by a modern, streamlined army and unfettered economic development. As old repositories of power faded, a new sector of the ruling class emerged, arising from the petit-bourgeois (especially military) elite. Social mobility was also encouraged by increased bureaucratization and the expansion of the state apparatus, which provided new forms of employment beyond the traditional agricultural sector. Further, the

5

First published in the daily al-Sha b, Cairo, 11 July 1956. Reprinted in Risāla ilā Imra’a, 66–82. 6 First published in the weekly Ṣabāḥ al-Khayr, Cairo, 12 December 1957. Reprinted in Risāla ilā Imra’a, 128–137. 7 Hopwood, op. cit., 38.

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government’s drive towards industrialization spurred a wave of migration from the countryside to the cities. Roger Owen describes the extent of the social transformations that followed the July coup: The ordinary citizen encountered the state at every turn, whether in the Mugamma, the huge building in central Cairo where it was necessary to go for passports, identity cards, export visas and the like, or out in the villages, where the local co-operative had replaced the landlords as a provider of seeds, fertilizers and credit. Meanwhile, regime policies were shaping people’s lives by opening up new possibilities, providing new resources, forcing them into new organizations and creating new relationships—between employers and employees, owners and tenants, 8 parents and children, and even men and women.

The new government defined itself in national terms, making Egyptian nationalism its raison d’être. This was due in part to pragmatism, since it was one way of containing the various political configurations that had participated in the revolutionary process. Central to this ideology was the construct of the nation, in Ernest Renan’s words “a large-scale solidarity, constituted by the feeling of the sacrifices that one has made in the past and of those that one is prepared to make in the future.”9 With Egypt’s colonial past still fresh in the collective memory, the nationalist ideal was highly resonant. The central advocate of Egyptian nationalism was Nasser, who aimed to forge a new spirit of civic consciousness through what Abdallah Laroui calls the “nationalist credo of the collectivity.”10 Founded on the premise that all Egyptians are united as one political community, irrespective of class or sectarian difference, this credo defines identity in external and collective, rather than internal and individual, terms.11 This is

8

Roger Owen, State, Politics and Power in the Making of the Middle East (London: Routledge, 1992), 42. 9 Ernest Renan, “What is a Nation?” in Nation and Narration, ed. Homi K. Bhabha (London: Routledge, 1990), 19. 10 Abdallah Laroui, The Crisis of the Arab Intellectual: Traditionalism or Historicism? trans. Diarmid Cammell (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 24. 11 Nasser’s concept of a collective national identity also finds its origins in what Egyptian intellectuals such as Muḥammad Ḥasanayn Haykal and Ṭāriq al-Bishrī have termed al-jāmi al-qawmī, or “the national unifier.” This refers to a whole

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not to suggest that personal identity is eroded within this paradigm, but that a modern, secular national identity is internalized as the dominant part structure of the self’s identity. In any analysis of state and society in post-revolutionary Egypt, Nasser emerges, incontestably, as the nation’s primary personality and force. The early stage of his career saw him quickly consolidate his position as populist leader, which he achieved by stifling all political opposition, silencing the press and getting Britain to agree to a withdrawal from the Canal Zone. He was also unremitting in his dealings with the Ikhwān, after one of its members attempted to assassinate him in 1954. Escaping unhurt from the attack, he responded by arresting and executing six of the Ikhwān’s leaders and imprisoning thousands of its members. Among the international factors which led to the securing of Nasser’s position were his plans to rebuild the High Dam at Aswan with Soviet aid, the Czech Arms Deal of 1955, and the triumph of the Bandung Conference in that same year, at which Egypt participated in the formulation of a new third world non-alignment. In July 1956 Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, which, as Hopwood notes, was “the final step in Egypt’s liberation, claiming as her own the symbol of and the reason for past imperial domination.”12 This move led to what is known as the “tripartite aggression”: an invasion by Israel of Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula, in alliance with Britain and France, who attacked Egypt two days later. Following the destruction of the Egyptian air force and considerable loss of life and property, Britain, France and Israel were forced to cease their attack under international pressure. By spring 1957, both Israeli and UN troops had evacuated Egyptian territory, a victory serving to enhance Nasser’s status at home and in the Arab world. Having achieved his shortterm nationalist goals, Nasser shifted his sights to Arab unity, or panArabism. He found a natural ally in Syria (where the political theory of Arab

tradition of culture, values, worldviews and political ideals which have flourished since the start of the modern national movement in the early twentieth century, behind which lies the assumption that “the great majority of Egyptians have been to a large extent united by a sense of common identity and interest.” Hani Shukrallah, “Political Crisis and Political Conflict in Post-1967 Egypt,” in Egypt Under Mubarak, ed. Charles Tripp and Roger Owen (London: Routledge, 1989), 63. 12 Hopwood, op. cit., 47.

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nationalism had first developed), and in 1958 the two countries merged, forming the United Arab Republic (UAR). One month later, Yemen joined the UAR, creating the United Arab States. In the cultural domain, the successes of the 1952 revolution coincided with the flourishing of Marxist Socialist ideology, giving rise to the realistic sensibility in Egyptian literature, frequently defined as “socialist realism” or “socialist romanticism.” Socialist realism concerned itself with the people, primarily the poor and underprivileged, and their struggles against oppression and economic hardship.13 A notable development emerging from this trend was the use of dialogue in Egyptian colloquial, and of narrative language tinged with the vernacular or idiomatic. Of the key socialist realist texts which appeared during this period, al-Kharrat selects Abd al-Raḥmān al-Sharqāwī’s (1920–87) novel al-Arḍ (The Earth)14 and Idrīs’s short story collection Arkhaṣ Layālī, both published in 1954, as “works of talent and distinction.”15 Much of the rest of this type of literature, he claims, was little more than “crude rhetoric,” with “characters reduced to stereotypes of the optimistic and activist mould.”16 Something of European influence survived, however: alongside this trend developed the concept of iltizām (political commitment), deriving from Sartre’s theory of littérature engagée. Iltizām was the antithesis of the concept of “art for art’s sake,” taking the view that literature should seek to change the world, rather than merely interpret or reveal it. It called for writers to demonstrate commitment to social issues and to express an ideological vision of society in their texts. Iltizām was first debated in the Egyptian press in the early 1950s, when it was taken up by such eminent writers as Ṭāhā Ḥusayn, and subsequently in the Lebanese literary journal al-Ādāb, founded in 1953 by Suhayl Idrīs (1923–2008). As Roger Allen notes: “Those many intellectuals who espoused the goals of the revolution [...] and who felt themselves able to function within prescribed guidelines

13

In many ways, this trend was an extension of the nationalist literature developed after 1919 by Maḥmūd Taymūr, Ṭāhā Ḥusayn, Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm (1898– 1987) and others, albeit shaped and informed by Marxist Socialist thought. 14 (Cairo: Rūz al-Yūsuf, 1954). 15 Al-Kharrat, op. cit., 182. 16 Ibid., 183.

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eagerly adopted iltizām as the organizing principle of their writing.”17 Of the outpouring of Marxist literary criticism that appeared during this period, perhaps the most significant example is Maḥmūd Amīn al- Ālim’s Fi’l-Thaqāfa al-Miṣriyya (On Egyptian Culture),18 a “committed” review of Egyptian literature. After 1952, much of Egypt’s cultural activity came under the direction of the state and its agencies. Most notable was the founding in 1956 of the Higher Council for the Patronage of the Arts, Letters and Social Sciences, established under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture. It employed many of Egypt’s leading writers and scholars at this time, among them al-Shārūnī. Meanwhile, the Egyptian short story continued to flourish, owing to projects such as the creation of the Nādī al-Qiṣṣa (The Story Club) by ex-army officer Yūsuf al-Sibā ī (1917–78) and the Rūz al-Yūsuf publishing house, and the emergence of the Iqra’ (Read!) series from Dār al-Ma ārif, the Kitāb al-Hilāl (Book of Hilāl) series from Dār al-Hilāl, and Rūz al-Yūsuf’s al-Kitāb al-Dhahabī (The Golden Book) series, within which al-Shārūnī’s first two collections were published. The first of these, al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, met with a favorable yet relatively low-key response.19 Like other writers of his generation, al-Shārūnī was keen to redefine and revitalize national culture and identity, after the distortions and suppressions of the British and the ancien régime. Yet he chose not to ally himself with the socialist realist trend, preferring to persist with the modernist and expressionist modes.20 Perhaps his only concessions to socialist realism may be found in his two short stories “al- Īd” and “Nagafa” (“Nagafa”),21 simple tales about poor country folk working as domestic servants in the city. The first, focalized through the eyes of a child, is infused with local color and sentimentality and features dialogue in the colloquial, while the second has a more revolutionary ethos, passing 17

Roger Allen, The Arabic Literary Heritage: The Development of its Genres and Criticism (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1998), 48. 18 (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr al-Jadīd, 1955). 19 For reviews of this and later collections, see Faraj, op. cit. 20 In view of the predominance of socialist realism at this time, this perhaps limited the appeal and accessibility of his writing. 21 First published in the weekly Ākhir Sā a, Cairo, 17 August 1955. Reprinted under the title “Ḥalāwat al-Ruḥ” (“Clinging to Life”), in Risāla ilā Imra’a, 83–97.

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polemical comment on transformations in Egyptian society, such as the end of the old feudal system and the fading influence of the rural aristocracy. In general, al-Shārūnī’s fictional output during the early years of the new regime was more subdued in its experimentation, tending to focus on realistic, simple portrayals of family life and lacking the ideological impetus and avant-garde signature of earlier texts. This is especially notable in his second collection, Risāla ilā Imra’a, published in 1960, which contains less overt political comment and fewer references to the social milieu than its predecessor, al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa. Interestingly, Ḥaqqī notes in his review of Risāla ilā Imra’a that this change in sensibility was no bad thing, commenting: Fortunately, his [al-Shārūnī’s] collection has come out “at the right time”—as they say—and to great demand, for it is a silencing riposte to the excesses of the attack being launched on the short story today by 22 some of our lesser-known writers.

This is an allusion to those socialist realists whom Ḥaqqī goes on to accuse of lacking the ability to criticize short narratives objectively, suggesting that they are overly preoccupied with political commitment at the expense of literary craftsmanship. A last point that may be noted about Risāla ilā Imra’a is that it possesses little of the optimistic, almost adolescent, passion of al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, which may be interpreted as a sign of al-Shārūnī’s artistic and ideological maturation and the stabilizing of the national political scene. In many ways, the characters of the stories in his second collection appear to take up where the young lovers of al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa leave off. The entire collection revolves around the experiential dimensions of the various rites of passage: the pleasures of falling in love and the acquisition of sexual knowledge; wooing and courtship, engagement and marriage; procreation, parenthood, aging and, finally, death. Indeed, on describing what he views as the “philosophy” of the collection, Ḥaqqi claims that it “seems to revolve around a manifestly biological, rather than social, expression of life.”23 Unlike in al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, the narrative self in Risāla ilā Imra’a

22 23

Ḥaqqī, op. cit., 223. Ibid., 229.

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appears resigned to the forces of its often bewildering existence, and rarely do we find characters who rebel or rail violently against life and its vicissitudes. One characteristic shared by the two collections, however, is the predominance of the middle class as the most frequently occurring narrative subject group, as will be seen from the analyses that follow.

“ANĪSA,” 1954 If only in theory, the new regime’s nationalist ideology was a great social leveler. This, combined with the increased availability of basic and higher education, led to new expectations and forms of expression among formerly under-represented groups, such as women, the rural and urban poor, and Egypt’s largest religious minority, the Copts. Since Egyptian nationalism proclaimed that all Egyptians were equal, irrespective of their ethnic origin or religious affiliation, it is appropriate that minority writers, al-Shārūnī among them, should have been more confident in exploring their own cultures in their writing at this time. An example of this phenomenon is al-Shārūnī’s short story “Anīsa” (“Anīsa”), written in 1954, which has entirely Coptic characters, references and settings. In “Anīsa,” al-Shārūnī gives a keenly observed account of life among “a family of Egyptian Copts, who held firmly and devotedly to the teachings of the faith.”24 Thus we see the little girl Anīsa and her family united in prayer, discussing the scriptures and observing their religious duties, and are given a glimpse of Anīsa’s religious instruction at school. Like her Coptic predecessor Līzā in “Jasad min Ṭīn,” Anīsa is a pious, Godfearing girl who struggles to contain her desires and impulses, but who finds herself rebelling on occasion against her deeply conservative culture. Like Līzā, she also commits a “trespass”: defying her mother’s orders not to do so, she disturbs a dove that has been nesting in her kitchen, killing its newborn chick and destroying an unhatched egg: To this day, Anīsa does not know whether the nest fell and scattered because of her, or because the dove flew suddenly away. All she knows is that before her, on the white kitchen tiles, she found some stalks of grass from the scattered nest, then the other egg. It had broken, and from within it another chick appeared, smaller in size and pulsing with

24

“Anīsa,” 70.

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life. Two drops of blood spotted its pale, thin skin. As for the other chick, it appeared to have fallen from the window and into the 25 stairwell.

Rather than confess to the accident, however, Anīsa blames the family’s servant boy, Ajīb. Though the boy protests his innocence, Anīsa’s parents beat him and accuse him of lying. Like Līzā before her, Anīsa is consumed by guilt and shame: she cannot eat or sleep and lives in constant fear that her treachery might be exposed. In school, as her teacher gives a lesson on Judas’s betrayal of Christ, Anīsa breaks down in tears at her deception. Ironically, the teacher interprets her distress as a heartfelt reaction to the tale of “Christ’s fate at the hands of this traitor,”26 unaware of the little girl’s struggle with her own concealed betrayal. The Other and Socialization of the Self The narrative self here is Anīsa, the main agent of action in the text. A lively, impetuous, mischievous child, she is also innocent, impressionable, and a self undergoing the process of socialization. As such, she is subject to an overwhelming mass of moral and social criteria, central to which is her Christian faith and culture. Her faith is also central to the shaping of her collective identity and, via means such as ritual and religious instruction, she is taught to recognize and cherish the distinctness of being a Copt. Class is also a factor in Anīsa’s socialization, her bourgeois background determining the many ways she should “be good,” within the contexts of moral codes, her behavior, education, and so on. There are numerous others in this narrative. First is Ajīb, the family’s boy servant, also a Copt and of a similar age to Anīsa, but an unschooled peasant from a poor village outside the capital. Then there is the faith group of which Anīsa is a member, and by which she is identified via authorities such as her parents and teachers, conveyors of all that is normative and “correct.” All interaction between self and other is vertical, replicating the ordering of Anīsa’s own stratified, patriarchal community. This community

25 26

Ibid., 74. Ibid., 77.

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is regulated and enforced by strategies of scaring (tarhīb) and enticement (targhīb),27 examples of which may be seen in the following: And every evening they would gather once more and chant a nightly hymn together, until they reached these two lines: “Should illness come in the night, or something fearful draw near, Strengthen my heart, my Joy, and cure my spirit, O Healer.” Anīsa felt fear and terror as she faced the night. She sensed she was entering a cave, and that she did not know what the outcome would be. Then, as soon as she went to bed, she knelt to say a prayer she had learned by heart, asking God to protect her from “the snakes and scorpions and all the forces of evil,” which she understood as a set phrase, rather than words in their own right—which was also how she understood the hymn. Thus, she used to imagine that the night was filled with scorpions, snakes and thieves, and that only these uttered 28 words would save her from these terrors. Her mother screamed at her instantly, threatening that if she said this 29 once more she would go to hell, “where the maggots would eat her.” [...] an image of a horrible punishment settled in Anīsa’s mind, be it in the form of death, or of an eternal fire, or of maggots that never die, or of a divine eye that never sleeps. This punishment was for all who lie, curse or swear falsely in God’s name, and it was inevitable that she, 30 having been tempted by Satan on occasion, would be among them.

Yet there is another, less tangible, other in this narrative, which combines in the forces of evil and sin and takes the imagined form of Satan himself. Anīsa is by no means a sinful child, her naughtiness limited to misdemeanors such as swearing and telling white lies, but with her betrayal

27

These are terms used in the analysis of Qur’anic discourse, and are utilized in their sociological context in Halim Barakat’s The Arab World: Society, Culture and State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 118. 28 “Anīsa,” 70. 29 Ibid., 71. 30 Ibid., 72.

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of Ajīb she fears hell will be her punishment. This prompts her “personal crisis”31 in the text, since she cannot reconcile her act of treachery with her emergent moral conscience. Nor can she reconcile it with her loyalty to those who love her and to whom she belongs. Her breakdown is thus an externalization of her psychic and emotional disorientation, and of her inward moral dilemmas. Two last points may be made about the narrative self, the first of which concerns the theory of identity it supports. The self may be interpreted in line with (or as a conflation of) numerous models of personal identity: that represented by the pre-Enlightenment mind/soul dialectic; that represented by the Cartesian mind/body dialectic; and that represented by Freud’s psychic interplay of ego and superego. Arguably, the theories of the latter predominate, notably in allusions to the primitive instincts of the id. Indeed, “Anīsa” might be described as a fairly conventional Freudian narrative, which, according to Roy Schafer, begins with: [...] the infant and young child as a beast, otherwise known as the id, and ends with the beast domesticated, tamed by frustration in the course of development in a civilization hostile to its nature. Even though this taming leaves each person with two regulatory structures, the ego and superego, the protagonist remains in part beast, the carrier of the 32 “indestructible id.”

The second point concerns the dominance of the collective self over the individual, a theme reproduced throughout all of the stories in this chapter. This phenomenon might be explained by the prevailing political context, and the longing for national unity as inspired by the revolution. Further, while shown to be controlling and even repressive at times, the collectivity is nonetheless a site of security and belonging, as in the scene of Anīsa’s breakdown, when the narrator tells us: “It was as though, by crying, she was attempting to alert this group of people so that they might gather around her and protect her from ‘the eye of God’.”33

31

Ibid., 73. Roy Schafer, “Narration in the Psychoanalytic Dialogue,” in On Narrative, ed. W. J. T. Mitchell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 26–27. 33 “Anīsa,” 77. 32

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The Shaping of a Coptic Discourse When examining the narrative discourse of “Anīsa,” it is useful to begin with the narrator. Gone is the intrusive, opinionated voice found in “al-Qayẓ” and “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa,” to be replaced by a non-intrusive, anonymous, omniscient narrator who takes us deep into the workings of Anīsa’s mind, heart and conscience. While keeping an impersonal distance and making no subjective comments or moral judgments, the narrator is nonetheless clear in his/her sympathy for Anīsa, and guides the reader’s responses to her predicament accordingly. Though we know nothing about this narrator in terms of gender or relationship to Anīsa, we can establish that s/he is an adult, for s/he has the insight to alert us to the dramatic irony of Anīsa’s dilemma, assuring us that she is not evil, but merely a willful child with predictably testing tendencies. The narrator uses conventional language and simple syntax, appropriate to an infantile drama on family life. This lends a story-telling tone to the narration, reproduced in the various settings of the text, such as the family gatherings and classroom scenes where Anīsa learns Bible stories. This story-telling tone is by no means didactic, but is shared and “homely,” implying a group of narratees alongside the reader. To turn to the structuring of the narrative discourse, we may see that it is ordered by numerous binarisms, among them morality/immorality, good/evil, innocence/sin, honesty/dishonesty, loyalty/betrayal, with the first term always promoted over the second. This binaristic structure is apparent in the following: For, by various means, they had taught her [Anīsa] at this early age that there is truth and dishonesty, that there is good and evil, that there are angels and demons, that there is Paradise and Hell, and that there is black and white. And they had explained to her where she should stand, 34 and what awaited her should she deviate.

Such binarisms underpin the hierarchies within Anīsa’s community, and the rigorously vertical nature of her familial and other relationships. A strong feature of this narrative is its intertextuality, consisting largely in allusions to Biblical exempla and archetypes, which reinforce the various

34

Ibid., 71.

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ideological/moral themes. Among the most prominent of these is the dove, a symbol of peace, love and—in certain usages—the Holy Spirit. In its Biblical context, the dove appears at the end of the flood, a punishment from God for humankind’s shortcomings. Thus, the arrival of the dove in Anīsa’s household is a good omen, signifying bright prospects after a period of hardship and dishonor, which may be interpreted as an allegory for the coming of the revolution. Another Biblical archetype is Jesus’s betrayer, Judas, a metaphor for treachery and covetousness. Judas is also ideologically pertinent, since the narrative stresses that “Christ loved all of his disciples,”35 emphasizing equality and implying that Judas betrayed both Christ and all who followed him. Again, this may be interpreted as an allusion to the egalitarian ethos of nationalism, and as a re-affirmation of the pre-eminence of the collectivity. Lastly, the text refers to the Biblical figures of Ananias and Sapphira, who are also symbolically significant in that they deceived, withheld money from and lied to Peter, their example being a caution against dishonesty and betrayal.36 “Anīsa”’s tone of “home” is supported by space and place. Both narrative settings, the family house and school, are definably Coptic spaces and sites of safety and belonging. Unusually, this peaceful domestic scene extends to the city of Cairo itself: the capital’s noise, crowds and squalor never intrude on this narrative, as in earlier short stories. Rather, we find the following scene of serenity: “Yesterday evening before dinner, the family was sitting on the north side of the balcony, its members enjoying the fresh, invigorating breeze as they stayed up late, chatting.”37 The text thus offers a far less fraught and angst-ridden metropolitan environment than that found in stories such as “al-Qayẓ,” “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa” and “al-Ḥidhā’.” It is salutary to consider al-Shārūnī’s relationship to “Anīsa” in view of his own background. Certainly, as the son of a clergyman and born into a solidly middle-class family, we sense that he is sensitive to the themes and morals in this text and is well versed in all aspects of Coptic religious instruction. Yet, despite his upbringing, al-Shārūnī is diffident in his use of

35

Ibid., 70. See The Holy Bible, King James Version, Acts 5:1–10. 37 “Anīsa,” 73. 36

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Christian themes and existents, “Anīsa” being one of just two stories he has written featuring solely Coptic characters and settings. In fact, throughout his literary career, al-Shārūnī has created many more Muslim characters, or at least characters of indeterminate faith, with generic Arabic names and no obvious indicators of religious identity. The fact that he foregrounds Coptic rituals, symbols, terms, traditions and customs in this text is thus significant, since this appears to reflect the general mood of confidence shared by most Egyptians after the revolution, inspired by the new regime’s egalitarian message. Hence, in spite of its minority coloring, “Anīsa” is also a nationalistic text, for, as critics such as Sāmī Khashaba have noted, it makes a valuable contribution to the hitherto under-represented Coptic dimension of Egypt’s national literature.38 It is therefore not merely a minority discourse, but also a self-confident celebration of Egypt’s larger social and cultural diversity. Besides offering insights into the construction of the Coptic identity, “Anīsa” also hints at the author’s relationship to certain Coptic institutions and values. Notably, it builds on themes in “Jasad min Ṭīn,” chiefly rebellion against religion’s more repressive applications. In particular, the text questions the methods used in Anīsa’s instruction, such as the tales and other tactics designed to scare her into obedience. Indeed, if we take Anīsa’s family as a Coptic collectivity in miniature, we find a somewhat austere community, where dissent from the norm is not accepted and always punished. Thus, beneath this veneer of piety and unity, the discourse ironically reveals the concealed intolerance and hypocrisy of Anīsa’s mentors (her parents), the main victim of whom is the boy Ajīb: The boy was terrified, as his mistress let out another scream: “Why did you do this? Why did you go near the nest, you heartless delinquent?” The other members of the family drew near at her screaming, Anīsa among them. Naṣīfa, the elder sister, cried, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, what happened?!” The servant shrieked, swearing that he had not gone near the nest, but that he had found the chick, flung to the ground. Since he had lied in the past, his mistress beat him, doubling his punishment each time he swore his innocence.

38

Sāmī Khashaba, “al-Baḥth an al-Jamāl wa’l-Ḥaqīqa al-Muzdawija,” in Faraj, op. cit., 207.

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Shafīq, the eldest son, yelled, “Shut up, you liar!” while the father said, “We will forgive you if you tell us the truth.” The only “truth” was that Ajīb should blame himself for what had happened to the nest, but 39 the boy insisted he had done nothing. It was impossible that one of Madam Umm Shafīq’s children might be lying, so she rounded once more on the boy and said, “You are going to teach our children to lie!” Anīsa stood observing what was happening, conscious not only that she had lied, but that an innocent boy was being punished in her 40 place.

Al- Intīl has argued that “Anīsa” is a moral tale, or one that is “pedagogical, to be precise.”41 A more nuanced assessment would be that its didacticism does not relate to moral themes only, but to ideas of far wider reach. For, by examining the text’s discourse, we find a much broader range of themes, including the tension between the individual and the collectivity, and ideas of equality, tolerance and mutual respect.

“RA’SĀN FI’L-ḤALĀL,” 1955 With the demise of the Wafd party after the revolution, Egypt’s Copts lost their main channel for political self-expression. As a result, they faced two choices: to turn inwards as a community, thereby protecting themselves and their interests, or to embrace the possibilities of this new stage in Egypt’s national trajectory. Al-Shārūnī backed the new regime with hope and enthusiasm, as is clear from the next short story, “Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl” (“Two in Holy Matrimony”). Delving deeper into the lives of Egypt’s Copts, it explores various customs and rituals of Coptic culture, particularly those relating to betrothals, marriages and deaths. A second dimension is its portrayal of relations between Copts and Muslims, which are shown to be cohesive and overwhelmingly harmonious. Optimistic throughout, the narrative offers an imaginative vision of a society founded on co-operation, shared goals, equality and unity. Perhaps uniquely, al-Shārūnī sets out to 39

“Anīsa,” 75. Ibid., 75. 41 Al- Intīl, op. cit., 127. 40

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create a narrative which contains both Muslim and Christian characters, but which privileges neither sect. Hence, the text promotes a common national identity over narrower group identities. This may reflect contemporary moves towards secularization, expressed most forcibly in the abolition of the religious (sharī a) courts in the year this story was written. “Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl” centers on a small Coptic family and their Muslim neighbors, who live in a Cairo apartment block. The Muslim narrator, Ṣiddīqa, relates how her Christian friend, Basīṭa, has found a husband after many years of spinsterhood. Basīṭa, it seems, had developed a “complex,”42 for though she had received many offers of marriage, she had rejected them to care for her two younger brothers, and at thirty-five feared she was too old to marry. The elder of Basīṭa’s brothers, Ḥabīb, wished to compensate her for her selflessness, suggesting that he and she marry another brothersister pair. This arouses much speculation, however, for while Basīṭa is beautiful, Ḥabīb’s betrothed, Dimyāna, seems far less appealing. Ṣiddīqa describes her first encounter with Dimyāna as follows: A few moments later, Iryān Afandī and a woman entered. Had she not been wearing a woman’s dress and shoes I would not have taken her for a woman, or even a human. She appeared to be in her forties, her head was mounted on two protruding veins, and she had no face—may God forgive me—but rather a huge nose, with what looked like eyes and a mouth set around it. I don’t like to mock a person’s physique (for I myself have four daughters, all of marrying age), but when I shook her 43 hand in greeting it felt like the hand of an ape or a monkey!

Nonetheless, Ḥabīb and Dimyāna’s engagement (janbayūt)44 takes place, and wedding preparations ensue, in spite of Ṣiddīqa’s foreboding. Tragedy strikes on the morning of Ḥabīb’s wedding, when he collects his suit from the tailor’s and dies of a heart attack on his way home. Basīṭa’s wedding is cancelled and the funeral is held, after which she and her family observe the traditional forty days’ mourning. Once this has passed, however, Basīṭa’s fiancé Iryān Afandī seems reluctant to reschedule the

42

“Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl,” 100 ff. Ibid., 101–102. 44 The official engagement ceremony held in accordance with the rites of the Coptic church. 43

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marriage, and Ṣiddīqa fears he has changed his mind. She intervenes and persuades him to proceed with the wedding and, unusually for al-Shārūnī, the story closes with a firmly resolved and happy ending. Albeit newly bereaved, Dimyāna consents graciously to her brother’s marriage, though she herself must remain unwed. In this way, the unfortunate Dimyāna emerges as both heroine and savior of the tale. Self and Other as Complementary Whole While lacking psychological complexity, the actors of “Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl” enjoy multi-dimensional identities. Two main indicators emerge—religion and gender—which the author foregrounds at different junctures in the narrative. Thus we find that Basīṭa and Ṣiddīqa function as oppositional symbols for their Coptic and Muslim communities respectively, while also sharing a common female identity. Likewise, Ḥabīb and Dimyāna are gender opposites sharing a common Coptic identity. What is interesting is that the text privileges no form of identity at the expense of another, making it difficult to identify a primary narrative self. For, while Basīṭa is unquestionably the focus of the narrative, she cannot claim the distinction of being the primary self, if only because her potential for action is so limited. By contrast, the dramatized narrator Ṣiddīqa, and even the relatively peripheral Dimyāna, possess greater agency and scope for initiating change, though, similarly, neither woman is the primary self. What this illustrates is the principle of egalitarianism shaping the text and its discourse. For, rather than present the self and its other as distinct and irreconcilable opposites, al-Shārūnī shows how they form the units of a complementary whole. Though Ṣiddīqa is Basīṭa’s Muslim other, al-Shārūnī elects to emphasize the qualities and characteristics they share. Indeed, as a more worldly character with greater agency than her Coptic neighbor, Ṣiddīqa represents a side of Basīṭa’s self which has yet to find its expression. It may also be argued that, their different personalities, appearances and temperaments aside, all of the women in this text form one unified female self. In order to illustrate this, it will be helpful to consider each woman in turn. First is Basīṭa, who, as her name in Arabic suggests, is simple, uncomplicated, trusting and “good-hearted, sometimes to the point of

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naïveté.”45 Though she is beautiful she is uneducated, and has the ambiguously innocent charm of a child-woman. Basīṭa is defined by her “remarkable beauty,”46 her compliant nature, and by her “feminine” roles of sister, wife, surrogate mother and caregiver. This is evident in her relationship with Ḥabīb, which contains elements of all of these: Her brother Ḥabīb was one year younger and worked as a teacher at Qaṭr al-Nadā secondary school. Her mother had died when Ḥabīb was a university student, since when Basīṭa had taken care of him just as though she were his mother. She would stay up late with him on the nights before exams, preparing him tea and snacks, she traveled with him to Upper Egypt when he graduated and was appointed there, then 47 went to live with him when he was transferred to Cairo.

Her fellow females are similarly defined: Ṣiddīqa is foremost a mother and home-maker while Dimyāna is a sister and, more problematically, a spinster. Still dependent on her family at forty years of age, her childwoman status is burdensome and without charm. Despite their individualised idiosyncracies, there is a congruity to the female characters that corresponds to the text’s ethos of harmony and unity. For example, at no point is Ṣiddīqa’s Muslim identity a source of tension with Basīṭa: there is nothing to suggest hostility between them and Ṣiddīqa is unwavering in her loyalty and support. A source of comfort and wisdom to her less experienced friend, Ṣiddīqa is also a mother figure and “one of the family.” As she explains: Despite my being no more than ten years older, she made me feel that I had taken the place of her mother, and always called me “Mama Ṣiddīqa” (with a double “d”). She would seek my advice on various matters that concerned her, she rarely chose a dress without knowing what I thought of it first, or picked out earrings or a necklace without 48 my being with her.

45

“Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl,” 99. She is described as being “fair skinned and slim built.” Ibid., 99. 47 Ibid., 99. 48 Ibid., 99. 46

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Even Dimyāna, despite her extraordinary appearance, has no essential feature of difference and is as benign and altruistic as her female peers. Thus it may be said that, rather than searching for or foregrounding difference, this text emphasizes an identity shared by all characters. Interaction between self and other is positive, the story concluding happily and harmoniously on all counts. Even in areas of potential cultural difference, such as the religious distinction between Basīṭa and Ṣiddīqa, commonality is sought, as in the scene at Ḥabīb’s funeral: We went to the church that day to pray over his dead body. This time, I saw the deacons and the precentor carrying out their funerary rites. Then the priest got up to preach, and I listened to him make a statement which seemed similar to what the preacher in our mosque says on such occasions (“...For this is the will of God, and we must show courage and not surrender to despair”), only he repeated the words “Christ Our 49 Lord” two or three times in his sermon.

Culture and tradition, stemming particularly from the intersection of religion with patriarchy, are the main elements structuring the identities of these characters. Religious identity is expressed in the descriptions of rituals, such as prayers and the ceremonies for engagements, weddings and funerals, while for the Muslims there are references to the conventions of the Ramaḍān fast. As we have seen, gender identity is constructed around “feminine” social roles which, in view of Egyptian women’s limited public life at this time, means that female characters are confined mostly to the home. Another structuring factor, which will be discussed in greater detail below, is the ideal of national unity and its relationship to national identity, which finds its origins in the sociopolitical context of the period. “Religion for God and Nation for All” Though “Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl” cannot be described as especially experimental, certain aspects of its structure and form are worthy of mention, due to the way in which they reinforce the narrative’s ethos. Clearly nationalist in orientation, “Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl” is informed by a post-revolutionary zeal, and is inspired by the principles of liberation, egalitarianism and nation-building.

49

Ibid., 106–107.

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This is in line with the ideals of social equality and national unity underpinning the new regime’s rhetoric, hence the portrayal of a diverse but cohesive community whose members exist as one happy, united family.50 Avoiding the unsubtleties of much of the propagandist fiction of this period, this text gives substance to its ideological ideals via a range of devices and techniques. Consisting in a simple summary of events, “Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl” begins during a visit by the narrator to Basīṭa’s home. The style is simple and uncomplicated, using prosaic language with little deployment of metaphor. Ṣiddīqa’s use of conventional, simple syntax takes its cue from Basīṭa herself, and is an expression of Ṣiddīqa’s affinity with her.51 This sense of empathy is strengthened by dialogue in the colloquial, allowing for local color and a common “Egyptianness” and classless-ness among characters. In fact, the title of the story finds its origins in the colloquial expression “Yā bakht mīn waffa’ rāsayn fi’l-ḥalāl,” or “How lucky is the one who joins two in holy matrimony.” Occasional interjections and exaggerations (such as in note 43 above) contribute to something verging on the vernacular, and enhance the text’s unaffectedness and informality. Further, this lends authenticity and sincerity to Ṣiddīqa’s narration, finding parallels with Ṣiddīqa’s name, which means “strictly veracious or honest.” This presents an idealized image of a simple, congenial world, with few cares or doubts and where problems are collectively resolved. In light of this, certain textual devices are worth examining, first being the structural aspect to interaction between self and other, which works in parallels, squares and triangles, signifying reciprocity, co-operation and unity. The ideological implications of this structuring are self-evident:

50

To illustrate this point, Ṣiddīqa describes how Basīṭa persuades her and her family to stay for food after the engagement party, though the Muslim family is fasting and wishes to rest before the saḥūr. As Basīta says to Ṣiddīqa, “We are one family. It would be a shame for you to go like this without us eating together.” Ibid., 104. 51 “Basīṭa,” as we have seen, means “simple” or “uncomplicated.”

THE NEW REPUBLIC Basīṭa

Iryān

133 Ḥabīb

Dimyāna

A further feature is the author’s use of names, which serve to illustrate particular character types or signify narrative themes. As we have seen, Basīṭa is a “simple” soul, her name corresponding directly to her nature, whereas Muṣṭafā Bayyūmī notes that the name Ṣiddīq (of which Ṣiddīqa is the feminine), relates to someone “who attests to [the truth of] his words by action.”52 Further, the name Ṣiddīqa is a direct indicator of her Muslim faith, since it is a reference to Abu Bakr, the first Muslim Caliph, who is known by the epithet “al-Ṣiddīq.” As Bayyūmī explains: It is not without reason that the character of the friendly Muslim woman, in a story which takes form in a purely Christian environment, bears such a meaningful name as this. Nor is it without reason that the character desires to “clarify” her name, in order to assure us of her role and artistic function: “[...] she made me feel that I had taken the place of her mother, and always called me ‘Mama Ṣiddīqa’ (with a double ‘d’).” She is not simply a “friend” (ṣadīqa, without a double “d”), but a “truthful friend” (ṣiddīqa), a loyal adviser and a warm character, expressing the total social harmony among Muslims and Christians in 53 the story.

52

Muṣṭafā Bayyūmī, Mu jam Asmā’ Qiṣaṣ Yūsuf al-Shārūnī: Dirāsa Taḥlīliyya (Cairo: Markaz al-Ḥadāra al- Arabiyya, 1999), 55. 53 Bayyūmī, op. cit., 55–56.

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Iryān Afandī is another character whose name bears meaningful associations. Used solely by the Coptic community in Egypt, it is a colloquial corruption of the classical uryān, which in its literal sense means “naked.” Symbolically significant in the context of this story, it describes the individual without the social markers of clothing, once more stressing an equality and lack of hierarchy among characters. From a Christian perspective, nakedness symbolizes humanity in its primal state, and the innocence of Adam and Eve before the Biblical Fall. Nakedness is also suggestive of the newborn which, in its vulnerability, is entirely at the mercy of higher forces or powers. Lastly, considered within the context of the narrative’s ethos, this nakedness is a metaphor for the nation-state in its infancy, an egalitarian utopia of collective hopes and dreams.54 The last name to be examined here is that of Dimyāna, an explicitly Christian name of Greek origin meaning “the triumphant” or “the victor, supported by divine power.”55 Seemingly ironic—when considered in the light of Dimyāna’s misfortune—this name in fact foretells her greatness and magnanimity. That Dimyāna is “supported by divine power” could also be an allusion to Christ himself, given that her fiancé, Ḥabīb, bears a name with the literal meaning “beloved,” an Arabic epithet for Jesus Christ. It is thus appropriate that these two characters promote a higher form of love that is chaste, self-sacrificing and takes the form of a bond of companionship. An additional feature of ideological significance is al-Shārūnī’s use of narrative space. The Cairo apartment block which the two families inhabit is a utopian microcosm of Egyptian society, its two main religious communities living side by side and enjoying an enriching, mutually supportive existence. Movement between the two homes is unlimited and free, to the point where each space becomes an extension of the other. What is more, al-Shārūnī reconfigures textual space to inscribe and describe, rather than circumscribe, the middle-class Coptic woman, in contrast to the use of space in “Jasad min Ṭīn.” Ideological intent may also be found in the deployment of time: the narrative moves in a chronological, linear progression, with closure satisfactorily attained at the end. Set against

54 55

Note that the name of Ṣiddīqa’s eldest daughter is Āmāl, or “hopes.” Bayyūmī, op. cit., 38.

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the backdrop of Egypt’s early post-revolutionary period, we may see how this shows a confident, forward-looking citizenry, fuelled by a collective embracing of national history and destiny. It may also explain the characters’ motivations: united by a sense of the common good, these brothers, sisters and neighbors assist one another unconditionally. Ironically, in spite of the author’s intention to stress the commonality of these characters, it is his very privileging of Coptic culture that exposes the myth of a unified society, for it demonstrates that aspects of his narrative remain “exotic” to the Muslim reader. Al-Shārūnī seeks seemingly to edify the Muslim majority, by balancing points of difference with subtle demystification. Some critics have commented on the success of this approach, such as Ḥaqqī, who writes: In “Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl” one finds a precise description of life in a Coptic family, and of its traditions [relating to] engagement and marriage. One indication of the author’s skill in his craft is that he narrates the life of this Coptic family to us through a Muslim neighbor, so as to make you feel at ease with her as you look out on an unfamiliar world. And I can confirm that, for the first time, I became acquainted with Coptic terms 56 that I had known nothing of before.

Western critics, to all intents versed in Christian tradition, make similar remarks: Vial notes that al-Shārūnī “has much to teach us about the Coptic petite bourgeoisie from which he descends.”57 Hence, in this short story al-Shārūnī treats a purely indigenous form of Christianity, as he did in “Anīsa” just one year earlier. It would seem that, in a newly independent post-colonial Egypt, the author’s desire was to promote autochthonous expression. Though al-Shārūnī attempts here to give voice to Egypt’s Coptic minority, this nonetheless reminds us that, even after the revolution, the discourse of power was still largely Islamic. For, though the action relates to a Christian family, this is focalized through and given voice by a Muslim narrator. Interestingly, the text does contain some subtle subversions of this paradigm, as in the elevated positioning of the Copts’ apartment above that

56 57

Ḥaqqī, op. cit., 224–225. Vial, op. cit., 142.

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of their Muslim neighbors. While barely discernible at a surface reading, this text’s attempt to dialogue with the dominant discourse hints at a new exuberance among Egypt’s minorities, though there is no suggestion of any desire to subvert the status quo. Another element undermining the ethos of egalitarianism is the proliferation of gender hierarchies in the text, confirming women’s persisting subject position to men. Examples are many, such as Basīṭa’s decision to place her brothers’ needs before her own; the objectification of Basīṭa and Dimyāna; and the attitudes of both sexes towards marriage, which is seen to legitimize the woman, giving her meaning and status, and as relieving her of a future of desexualized spinsterhood. Witness Dimyāna’s joy when she becomes engaged: On the night of Dimyāna’s engagement ceremony, I remarked on the futility of all she had done to hide the ugliness of her form and appear as a bride should. The entire time I was saying to myself, “Good God, girls, she looks hideous...” Nevertheless, I went to congratulate her, and she seemed as delighted as a girl of twenty as she replied, “May Āmāl 58 and the rest of your children be next.”

It should be stressed however that, while women are gender stereotyped in “Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl,” they are not denigrated. Further, some subtle subversions of male/female hierarchies exist, notably the fact that the main agents of narrative action are women. It would appear that al-Shārūnī transposes women’s realities into national realities, aligning women’s subject position alongside that of other minorities. Lastly, the collective identity of these women parallels that of the larger citizenry, for all are ready to make sacrifices for the sake of the “common good.”

“AL-NĀS MAQĀMĀT,” 1956 The question of an egalitarian society need not be confined to a discussion of sectarian difference, as the next short story demonstrates. “Al-Nās Maqāmāt” (“Every One in His Place”) illustrates the dynamics of class relations after the revolution, and exposes the chimera of the new regime’s

58

“Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl,” 103.

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attempts to transform Egypt’s class system.59 Related from the perspective of a young petit bourgeois, the story focuses on the socio-economic imperatives underpinning love and marriage, into which are woven recurring themes relating to patterns of social organization, such as class and family hierarchies.60 It was the new regime’s drive towards modernization, and its opening up of Egypt’s education system, which brought about many of the new opportunities for social mobility and the emergence of new social groupings and elites. Yet this process also accentuated differences between and within groups; thus, despite its expansion during this period, the internal restructuring of the Egyptian middle class rendered it at once more complex and less homogeneous than before. This aside, one characteristic of life for Egypt’s grande bourgeoisie was its continued tendency towards westernization, in terms of lifestyle, social behaviors and mores. Its actions were often aspired to and emulated by those below, as one commentator observes at this time: As a whole, the university students come from small towns and villages, the sons of the more conventional and conservative lower middle class. They initiate themselves—so to speak—into the western way of life through contact with their richer colleagues, and not only through American films (for too often Egyptian films imitate the latter), which introduce them to the interiors of the sumptuous apartments of 61 millionaires.

Set against this backdrop, “al-Nās Maqāmāt” gives an illustration of the complexities of class transformation during the early years of the postrevolutionary period. Its narrator, Sāmī, is a lower middle-class insurance salesman, whose best friend, Nabīl, is his wealthy employer’s son. Sāmī has long idolized and attempted to model himself on Nabīl, in a vain attempt to

59

This theme was also explored in 1956 by the Egyptian playwright Nu mān Ashūr (1918–87), in his play al-Nās illī Taḥt (The People Downstairs). 60 For an interesting discussion of Egypt’s petite bourgeoisie in the post-war period, their domestic arrangements, chosen professions, social relations and some intellectual and ideological trends, see Raoul Makarius’ La jeunesse intellectuelle d’Égypte au lendemain de la deuxième guerre mondiale (Paris: Mouton, 1960). 61 Ibid., 37.

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transcend his own humble social origins. He relates how, as a schoolboy, he would tell lies and improvise schemes, so as to procure money with which to impress Nabīl and his friends: I was forced to lie—to cheat—so as to get more than the two piastres I had asked for. Once I pretended that school was making us pay ten piastres to some charity, when in fact it was only asking us to pay five. That day I got together with Nabīl, Tharwat and Iṣām, and we drank Coca-Cola and smoked cigarettes together. Another time I pretended that I had broken a test-tube in the lab, and that I had been asked to pay a fifteen-piastre fine. This time it was clear that I had picked a lousy excuse, because I was forced to listen to a lengthy lecture from my father about negligence and its consequences, and to another from my mother about our financial situation. The important thing was that I had secured the fifteen piastres. That day, I was able to invite my three friends for a Coca-Cola and to smoke cigarettes, too. This made me feel equal to those in a class to whom 62 neither piastres nor pounds were of any concern.

As the narrative unfolds, we note Sāmī’s frustration as he compares his schoolmates’ affluent lifestyle with his own. He despises his parents for their sacrifices and struggles: on one occasion, he remarks that his father was recently promoted to the post of chief clerk, then dismisses him as “an employee, like so many tens of others.”63 Sāmī’s sense of inferiority is such that, from the obstreperous adolescent with a chip on his shoulder, evolves an angry and embittered young man, determined to be beholden to no one save himself. When Sāmī begins to sell life insurance, this owes as much to his desire to earn money as to his wish to be free of his dependence on his parents: I began looking for work—any work. Work had no meaning for me other than that I would get a wage at the end of the month, that I would have money of my own to spend as I pleased, and that I would not be

62 63

“Al-Nās Maqāmāt,” 67–68. Ibid., 67.

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forced into humiliating myself, lying (which was sometimes discovered), 64 or screaming and making threats (on most occasions to no avail). My finding work was in my interest and theirs. For my part, I would have my own private income which I could spend as I pleased, and for 65 theirs, this would lighten the burden of them having to pay for me.

Though Sāmī thrives in his new job, he remains disgruntled that his father had secured the post for him, and by the continued, dazzling influence of Nabīl. We see this in the following, where Nabīl invites Sāmī to the ballet one evening: Perhaps I accepted this invitation in commemoration of an old friendship, or so that I could get to know someone who, before long, would be one of the most senior employees in the company. Or perhaps it was simply my desire to attend this event, pictures of which I had seen on TV and in the papers. Before heading to the Opera House, Nabīl invited me for a light dinner, which I attempted feebly to pay for, in a vain bid to liberate myself from his wealth and affluence. I longed to walk freely alongside him, but felt as though I were walking behind him. When we entered the Opera House and Nabīl paid for the tickets I was seized by a sense of anxiety—that of an animal trapped in a cage. I felt I should never have accepted this invitation, and that I was exposing 66 myself to feelings I could well have avoided.

Thus “al-Nās Maqāmāt” critiques the continued significance of socioeconomic factors in determining the status and destinies of Egyptians, and appears to dialogue with much of the socialist rhetoric of this period. Self, Other and Enduring Class Realities Sāmī, the protagonist, is the narrative self of this text. A young man in his early twenties, he is distinguished by his utter ordinariness: he is the

64

Ibid., 69–70. Ibid., 70. 66 Ibid., 74–75. 65

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averagely intelligent son of an office worker of modest income, with mediocre qualifications and unexceptional professional prospects.67 He feels at home in no specific social setting or group, perceiving his family to be “beneath” him and his schoolmates to be “above” him. From the perspective of class, Sāmī oscillates between the strata of the lower and upper middle classes, reinforcing his lack of identification with any one group. Collectively speaking, Sāmī’s reality is indicative of the social and cultural disequilibrium experienced by Egypt’s bourgeoisie at this time. By necessity, Sāmī is a social chameleon, with a wide array of selves for multiple situations and others. He is also a self-in-progress, and is shown at the different junctures of his development. He is distinct from other characters in this chapter in that he feels neither security nor belonging within the collectivity. Further, he is unique in constructing himself in the form of a future-oriented schema of the self he aspires to be. Thus we may consider Sāmī’s identity using the following three categories: ACTUAL SELF

IDEAL SELF

“OUGHT” SELF

Petit-bourgeois

Grand-bourgeois

Average intelligence, ambitious, industrious Restricted by family and its limitations

Cultivated, successful, professional Autonomous, influential, wealthy

Social equal to friends (e.g. Nabīl) Respected, taken on personal merit Free to make own life choices

How he “is”

How he would “like to be”

How he “thinks he should be”

It is as a result of Sāmī’s failure to reconcile his actual and ideal selves that—during adolescence at least—he is driven constantly to disappointment and humiliation. Furthermore, his overall failure to reconcile his actual and “ought” selves explains his feelings of anger and social estrangement. Sāmī’s narrative others include Nabīl and his clique of wealthy friends, and his sweetheart, Fā’iza, daughter of the office errand boy. Though from

67

Ironically, the name Sāmī means “high” or “exalted,” and also bears the meanings “high-ranking” or “superior.” Bayyūmī, op. cit., 46.

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a background of socio-economic hardship, Fā’iza is a modestly refined and intelligent young woman. Within his family, Sāmī’s others are his parents, whose authority he seeks constantly to challenge and undermine, and his sister Sāmīa, his closest rival. Of these, Nabīl is his pre-eminent other, since it is through him that the theme of class relations is mediated most powerfully.68 As with previous characters, Sāmī is a contingent self who can perceive and “be” only in relation to Nabīl: I was ashamed that Nabīl would see my home. First and foremost, the street which led to it was filthy. Its inhabitants would compete in pouring dirty water in front of their houses, forming little puddles, and on visiting me that first time Nabīl was forced to step over them. Though this was a familiar sight in my everyday life, I only really become aware of the utter filthiness of the street once Nabīl was with 69 me. The first time I visited Nabīl’s home (or his villa, to be precise), I was dazzled by the carpets covering the floors of the rooms, and by the large pictures hanging on the walls, and the crystal chandelier suspended from the ceiling. That day, a young Nubian servant offered me a chilled, peeled pomegranate, after which I realized that I had never tasted “real” 70 pomegranate before.

Nabīl exerts his influence even during his adolescence, his power extending well beyond the boundaries of his group. In the following example, Nabīl disrupts the patriarchal voice of control: Nabīl had the ability to interrupt any teacher’s lesson and make the class roar with laughter, and in such a way that the teacher would not get angry. Instead, the teacher would join in the joke, if only with a smile. That’s because Nabīl’s way of speaking and gesturing could make even

68

Appropriately, the name Nabīl means “intelligent, noble, exalted, distinguished.” Ibid., 80. 69 “Al-Nās Maqāmāt,” 69. 70 Ibid., 68.

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For Sāmī’s parents, Nabīl arouses feelings of inadequacy and fear, prompting them to alert their son to the perils of keeping his company. As Sāmī explains: They began to warn me about being friends with Nabīl and others like him. My mother used to say to me: “Could Nabīl care less if he fails or succeeds? His father is rich, whereas we are just ordinary folk. You must get your degree; it is the only capital from which you can benefit in later 72 life. Pay attention to your studies, son, and stop fooling around.”

The socio-economic distinction between Sāmī and Nabīl places an inevitable, and unbridgeable, chasm between them. What is more, this chasm widens, rather than narrows, throughout the text, as Sāmī grows to be disdainful of Nabīl’s blasé outlook and further estranged from his own unattainable ideals. On meeting Nabīl after the latter’s return from a trip to France, Sāmī remarks: “On that day I felt a distance growing between my friend and me: he was in a car, while I was on foot; he had come from Paris, while I had never left Cairo; he was the company owner, while I was one of its employees.”73 Further, he is frustrated that Nabīl and others like him fail to note and pay due respect to his attempts to “get ahead.” This brings to mind Erving Goffman’s remark: When an individual […] makes an implicit or explicit claim to be a person of a particular kind, he automatically exerts a moral demand upon the others, obliging them to value and treat him in the manner 74 that persons of his kind have a right to expect.

Thus, to assuage his sense of social inferiority, Sāmī sets his sights on Fā’iza, the office errand boy’s daughter, to whom he is socially, culturally and intellectually more proximate. In so doing, he can realize his dream of

71

Ibid., 68. Ibid., 70. 73 Ibid., 72. 74 Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (London: Allen Lane, 1969), 11–12. 72

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self-advancement, since Fā’iza is the only character to whom he can feel “superior.” Ironically, this very detail leads Sāmī’s parents to forbid him to marry her, a pattern repeated when Nabīl seeks his family’s permission to marry Sāmīa. Sāmī’s relationship to Sāmīa also merits examination, since these characters are again lateral reversals of the same self. This may be discerned from the fact that each possesses the same name;75 that each is rivalrous, acquisitive and socially aspirational; and that each is at odds with his/her elders. For, while Sāmī complains that he has nothing in common with his parents, Sāmīa’s contrived airs and graces place her apart from her mother and father, leading one to imagine that she has been “raised in a life far more delicate and refined.”76 What is clear, nonetheless, is that these siblings are not equals: Sāmī believes that his happiness takes second place to that of his sister, and on being denied his parents’ permission to marry Fā’iza, he contemplates the truth behind this: “I found myself opposed by my father, mother and sister, because Sāmīa was looking for a husband of high standing, and how would such a husband come to her if her brother were to marry the errand boy’s daughter?”77 Similarly, Sāmī is dismayed to learn that his parents see no parity between their objection to him marrying Fā’iza and Nabīl’s parents’ objection to him marrying Sāmīa: My father alluded to what had happened yesterday, saying: “If his family objects because we are [only] from an average family, then what would happen if they knew that you were going to marry Fā’iza—daughter of Abduh the errand boy? Even if there were only a glimmer of hope, it would be completely lost!” He went on, defending and explaining the situation: “Son, because your mother and I have struggled a great deal, and because we want to secure a future for you and your sister, we would be pleased if she were to marry Master Nabīl, but we won’t 78 accept that you marry Fā’iza.”

75

Sāmīa being the feminine form of Sāmī. “Al-Nās Maqāmāt,” 69. 77 Ibid., 77. 78 Ibid., 82. 76

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Here Sāmī’s narration loses its bearings, since no accommodation between self and other is possible. The dispute between him and his family ends in deadlock, his love for Fā’iza remains forbidden and, despite Nabīl’s appeals for solidarity with Sāmī, the chasm between the two men is reinforced by their families’ bigotry. Just a hint of resolution may be sensed at the narrative’s end, when Sāmī sees his family fall victim to the same snobbery it directed at Fā’iza. Lastly, it becomes clear that Sāmī can equal his sister only in respect of failing, for though he cannot marry Fā’iza, nor can she marry Nabīl. The Dilemmas of the New Middle Class In “al-Nās Maqāmāt,” the optimism that infused the first two texts in this chapter has diminished rapidly, to be replaced by a mood of restlessness and cynicism. This is established from the narrative’s opening, where we encounter Sāmī grumbling about his interfering family: They were all against me marrying Fā’iza: my mother, my father and my sister Sāmīa. I know that no marriage comes without obstacles or objections; regardless of whether the matter is lawful or forbidden, there will always be those who object. But I believed I had reached the age where I could choose my wife for myself. [Then] I suddenly realized: I was just an individual in a group, a son in a family. I was neither autonomous nor solely responsible for my conduct. Rather, its implications affected my father, mother and sister, and so they had the 79 right to interfere. I wish they didn’t.

As in “Anīsa” and “Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl,” the group here is privileged over the individual, and the text appeals to a collective sense of accountability. There is greater evidence, however, of unease with this arrangement, and the controlling tendencies of the collectivity dominate. Indeed, in this short story, the group emerges as ruthless and even tyrannical: intra-group relations become destructive and coercive, and the desires of the individual are cold-bloodedly suppressed. As its title affirms, “al-Nās Maqāmāt” exposes Egypt’s still deeply divided class system. Without exception, all of its characters are “social

79

Ibid., 66.

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climbers,” laboring under the weight of their artifice and hypocrisy. Further, no character is free of the taint of social prejudice, and each is disingenuous and shamelessly self-serving. Even Sāmī, the principal victim in the narrative (for there are many), is deceitful and dishonest with his friends and family, and deems himself “better” than the lowly Fā’iza. Similarly, Sāmīa, with her carefully contrived elegance and refinement, sneers at Fā’iza for possessing “neither money nor beauty.”80 The most egregious snobs are of course Sāmī’s parents, who, despite their own sacrifices for their children, refuse to identify with Fā’iza’s father, who has given his life to better that of his only child. Their intolerance is magnified when we learn that Sāmī’s father is himself the son of an agricultural laborer, who rose to the rank of white-collar worker, upon which he was able to marry the daughter of a civil servant. The language and worldview of the narrative are shaped by Sāmī’s adolescent anecdotes, and his relentless pursuit of independence and selfadvancement. Appositely youthful in tone, his narration contains skaz-like elements, characteristics of informal spoken, rather than formal written, language. These include the repetition of discourse linkers (“as a matter of fact,” “actually”),81 sardonic asides, interjections and exclamations. Further, paragraphs are generally short and energetic; vocabulary and syntax are simple; there are occasional examples of vernacular diction;82 and dialogue is rendered in Egyptian colloquial. There is also a self-consciously spontaneous style to the narration, which peaks and dips with Sāmī’s volatile moods, being idealistic one moment, then ebullient, confiding, selfdoubting or indignant the next. In sum, these features combine to create an informal, authentic, and at times disarmingly candid narration. One of the main structural devices in the text is coincidence, which reinforces the moral message residing at its heart, but which detracts to some degree from its verisimilitude. Coincidence is evident in numerous parallel relationships: both women (Sāmīa and Fā’iza) wish to marry a man

80

Ibid., 77. “Al-wāqi anna,” 71 ff. 82 As when Sāmī notes that Nabīl, whom his parents used to warn him against, has now become farkha bi kishk (loosely “the bees knees,” or “the best thing since sliced bread”). See “Al-Nās Maqāmāt,” 81. 81

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“above” them, while both men (Sāmī and Nabīl) wish to marry a woman “beneath” them; both Sāmī and Nabīl’s parents disapprove of their sons’ “inferior” choice of marriage partner, while both Sāmīa and Fā’iza’s families want their daughters to marry husbands of “superior” standing. Again, these strictly vertical relations reflect the continued rigidity of Egypt’s class system, exposing the limited movement between its social strata. In this way, the text destabilizes the myth of Egypt’s new, post-feudal society, and questions the ideal of a united national entity. In line with the class theme, the most significant site of textual activity is Sāmī’s insurance company, itself hierarchically structured along class lines, with Fā’iza and her father at the bottom, Sāmī and his father in the middle, and Nabīl and his father at the top. This company enshrines certain social realities: the recurring motif of life insurance speaks of the anxieties of the Egyptian bourgeoisie, and of their commitment to investing in their future and that of their children. Indeed, Sāmī remarks that, of all the social classes, it is the middle class which is most likely to buy such insurance.83 The company also expresses the paradoxes of a nation undergoing huge change: on the one hand, it embodies the new regime’s vision of entrepreneurship unfettered by class constraints, while on the other, it conforms to traditional models of paternalism and patronage, supporting the maxim that, revolution or no, it is “not what you know, but who you know.” As such, this narrative articulates the view that, no matter how industrious one is, and regardless of the rewards one receives for one’s labors, to possess true social value one must still be born into privilege. Arrivistes, meanwhile, should be content to remain in “their place”— evidence, it would seem, of continued pre-revolutionary paradigms.

“NASHRAT AL-AKHBĀR,” 1957 Following the above three forays into middle-class life, “Nashrat al-Akhbār” (“The News Bulletin”) witnesses a return to the topos of the working-class alley, with al-Shārūnī setting the action amid the rumpus and squalor of another of his traditional urban microcosms.84 This short story is

83

Ibid., 82. For more, see “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū”; “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt”; “al-Mu dam al-Thāmin” (“The Eighth Condemned Man”), first published in al-Adīb, Beirut, 84

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a meshwork of themes, all oppositional in nature, ranging from the simple existential life/death binarism through to the intercourse between old and new ways of life. Other subordinate themes include Egypt’s poverty and underdevelopment vis-à-vis western technological advancement and the quest for transnational capital, and “eastern” spiritualism versus “western” materialism. Within the context of contemporary international politics, this story illustrates the impinging of the Cold War on Egypt’s everyday life, along with its contested discourses of communist and capitalist ideology. The story’s dramatic events are reported by its narrator: at 8:35 in a poor quarter of Cairo,85 an apartment block collapses, killing around two hundred and fifty people. On the top floor and roof of the building a wedding party had been under way, while directly below a Sufi group—the Association of Divine Mysteries—had been holding a commemoration service for one of its members. Among the survivors is the local busybody, Umm Khalīl, who had spotted dust falling from her ceiling and had tried to alert the party to the risk of danger. Ignoring her warnings, the revelers had ejected her, dismissing her as a “loud-mouthed gossip.”86 She then left to notify Umm Sayyid, the local shopkeeper, whereupon the building had collapsed. As the bodies of her dead son and husband are pulled from the rubble, Umm Khalīl is reminded of a dream she had the previous night, in which a stranger dressed in white had taken away her husband and child, and in which the stairway and half of the building had vanished inexplicably.87 As a counterpoint to the tragedy in the alley, and above the din of the party and the Qur’ān recitations at the Sufi service, a radio in Umm Sayyid’s shop blasts out the 8:30 news bulletin “as though she and all the residents

May 1950, reprinted in al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, 78–83; and “Qiddīs fi Ḥāratnā” (“A Saint in Our Alley”), first published in al-Adīb, Beirut, September 1952, reprinted in al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, 24–30. 85 Ḥārat al-Mugharbilīn, also mentioned in “al-Qayẓ.” 86 “Nashrat al-Akhbār,” 130. 87 We find a similar scenario in “Qiddīs fi Ḥāratnā.” Also set in a working-class alley, the text reveals how a childless woman, Umm Nādī, receives instructions in a dream from a mysterious white-robed figure, who tells her that she must feed and clothe the local vagrant, Amm Ismā īl. In return, she is told, she will be rewarded with a child.

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of the alley were practically deaf.”88 This bulletin, dominated by the story of the Soviet Union’s first satellite launch into space, is silenced by one surreal, final item: that “twenty people in New Guinea died today, after being struck by a laughing disease. To date, the number of those afflicted and hospitalized has reached seventy, the patients laughing night and day until they die.”89 “Nashrat al-Akhbār” juxtaposes the tragic alongside the comic, and the rational alongside the irrational, to wildly preposterous and perverse effect. Yet this is also a strongly polemical text, which critiques the disorienting absurdities and inequities of modern life, and the struggle for ascendancy over Egypt by the two new superpowers, the United States and Soviet Union. It is also deceptively complex and experimental, revealing a self-conscious attention to form that sets it apart from other stories in this chapter. As such, it marks a shift away from al-Shārūnī’s brief flirtation with realistic narrative, and shows a return to the modernist sensibility, which, as we have seen, he first began to explore over ten years earlier. Self and Other as Civilizational Contestants As in “Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl,” “Nashrat al-Akhbār” contains no character that might be identified as a primary narrative self. Rather, all its characters combine to form one collective narrative self, which may be taken as the Egyptian nation, or masses (jamāhīr). Equally, we find a collective, rather than individual, other, consisting in two distinct, competing cultures: the capitalist west (the United States and its ally, Britain), and the communist Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc. Together, these competing cultures seek power and influence over Egypt via economic, political, ideological or military means. Thus, the relationship between self and other reproduces the power relations of a civilizational contest. Allusions to Cold War ambitions over Egypt find their source in the fact that, in 1955, Nasser had frustrated Britain by negotiating an arms deal with communist Czechoslovakia, bringing an end to Egypt’s dependence on western arms. Then, in 1956, Egypt officially recognized the People’s Republic of China, angering the United States and prompting it and Britain

88 89

“Nashrat al-Akhbār,” 129. Ibid., 137.

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to withdraw funding for the Aswan Dam. Egypt’s response was to nationalize the Suez Canal, engendering the Tripartite Aggression and inciting the Soviet Union to threaten to intervene on Egypt’s behalf. As communist influence in Egypt took hold, the United States countered by promoting its ideologies of liberal democracy and the free market, largely via broadcasting and culture. Perhaps the clearest allusion to Cold War tensions is the text’s many references to the Space Race: just a few months before the publication of “Nashrat al-Akhbār,” the Soviets had launched their first intercontinental ballistic missile, then their first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1. It is this last event that is central to the news bulletin’s content. Despite being the object of the other’s competing ambitions, the self seems fully oblivious to this fact. Represented by the familiar motif of the closed alley, populated by the poor and unworldly, the self’s practices remain shaped by religion and tradition. Textual references to Islam are conspicuous, as in the pronouncements of the Qur’ān reciter; the ma’dhūn reporting the Sayings of the Prophet; descriptions of the rituals of the signing of the marriage contract; Umm Khalīl’s oaths to Allah; the cries of the dying: “Yā sātir, yā rabb!” (“O Protector, O Lord!”); references to the Prophet Noah—may peace be upon him; references to ritual purity, prayer, and so on. In addition, Umm Khalīl’s preoccupation with the premonitory nature of her dream, speaks of a worldview still shaped by fate and predestination. Further, religious practice seems reduced here to stock phrases and mimesis, while Umm Khalil’s vision is suggestive of superstition, evoking al-Shārūnī’s frequent connecting of apish religiosity and blind tradition with civilizational decline. With much black humor, the text represents the other as remote and somewhat absurd. Its signifying practices emerge through the radio bulletin, issuing freely and implacably across the borderless airwaves. Strange examples abound of the other’s philosophies—gross materialism and individualism, and the new colonization and commodification of space. Three news items give testimony: one states that “one of the advertising agencies in Detroit announced that it had begun to study ways of advertising in space”;90 another that “in America toy manufacturers had

90

Ibid., 135.

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succeeded in inventing a satellite for children”;91 and that “a young American had protested to the Soviet government about its violation of his legal rights in his own air space. The young man had gone so far as to register his own state, Celestia, with an agency in Chicago.”92 The news bulletin’s disseminations veer from the banal to the outrageous: in one item it is claimed that “the astrologer Chilo Antonio had assured people that the satellite would have no celestial effect on their destinies,” while in another “a Mrs. Spesliakion had claimed that she had been able, in her sleep, to hear signals issued by the satellite through her hairpins.”93 Embedded within is just one local item, a reminder of the imminent onset of Nile floods, with the warning that forty-two thousand homes in Cairo alone are at risk of collapse. This story’s subordination to others less immediate and consequential, reveals how the bulletin privileges the discursive power of the other. At times the self attempts to deflect these discursive encroachments, as when one of the shaykhs of al-Azhar announces that the satellite “should not be considered a challenge to the power of the Creator,”94 in response to England’s Archbishop of Canterbury, who has declared that “nothing is impossible in a world that has created a satellite.”95 Ordering a Chaotic Narrative World The most salient structural features of this text are layerings, binarisms and juxtapositions, which al-Shārūnī employs to elaborate effect. First, they impose a degree of order on what is fundamentally a profoundly chaotic narrative; second, they lend it a universal or transnational dimension;96 and third, they demonstrate the inescapable interconnectedness of relations between self and other. Elements of these organizing categories may be discerned in the collapsed building of this fictional mêlée: divided into two floors, each consists in two flats, producing two distinct spheres of activity,

91

Ibid., 135. Ibid., 131–132. 93 Ibid., 136. 94 Ibid., 136. 95 Ibid., 137. 96 Cf. also “Maṣra 92

Abbas al-Ḥilū” and “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt.”

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with the wedding party in the upper sphere and the Qur’ānic recitation in the lower. What is more, each floor contains parallel juxtaposed elements: upstairs is the ma’dhūn drawing up the official marriage contract, while downstairs is the Qur’ān reciter memorializing his dead colleague. Both men of religion are flanked by male neighbors, the ma’dhūn by Umm Khalīl’s henpecked husband, and the reciter by the young man Shalabi Shalabāya, whose pregnant wife has recently left him. The following figure illustrates the structure of the building: Roof: Wedding party (belly dancer and revelers) First floor Umm Khalīl’s dead husband Shaykh (ma’dhūn) Ground floor Shalabī Shalabāya Qur’an reciter and Sufi group In binaristic terms, these two local spheres of action may be interpreted as the material world versus the spiritual world, or as worlds signifying future and past. What is apparent is that the material world, with its raucous merry-making and the shaking flesh of the belly dancer, has spatial supremacy over the spiritual world, as we may see from the following: Zawāyid was dancing before two hundred men, women and children, her costume concealing half of her body and revealing the rest. Every bit of her flesh shook—as did the costume—as though each bit of her was detached from the other. The onlookers shook ... and the roof shook ... with the impact of her body, the impact of her feet, and the impact of the steady, rhythmical clapping, which the loudspeaker transmitted, proclaiming the audience’s approval. Meanwhile, the Qur’ān reciter of the Association of Divine Mysteries was reciting the following verse: “And there is nothing hidden 97 in the heaven or the earth but it is in a clear record.”

97

“Nashrat al-Akhbār,” 130. Note the irony implicit in the Qur’ānic verse, since the tragedy itself is absent from the bulletin.

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Thus the enduring power of religion is overlaid in the narrative, as is its role in this increasingly secular society. Layering is also apparent in the text’s tripartite time scheme, in which the narrative action is explicitly or implicitly played out. This time scheme consists in: an internal order, being the sum of the narrative action in the alley itself, which takes place within the ten-minute framework of the news bulletin; an external order, encompassing those events taking place in other parts of the world (as reported via the news bulletin); and a universal order, being a site of implied activity, evoking the infinity of outer space and the domain of the Divine. This universal order is especially significant, since it underscores the philosophical distinctions between self and other: “space” is represented in both absolute and abstract terms—in an absolute sense, it is the physical sphere of cosmonauts and satellites, while in an abstract sense, it is the heavens or sphere of God’s existence. A final example of layering appears in the alley’s “competing noises,”98 being (i) the proclamations of the news bulletin, (ii) the music and merry-making of the wedding party, and (iii) the Qur’ānic recitation. These channels collide in a competing hierarchy of discourses, all of which are silenced by the building’s eventual collapse. Besides narrative layering, binarisms and juxtapositions, “Nashrat al-Akhbār” contains other examples of narrative experimentation. One technique is the use of montage, by which al-Shārūnī disrupts the chronological ordering of events by interposing fragments of script from the news bulletin, alluding to disparate global locations and cultures. This repeatedly decenter the reader’s focus, generating a sequence of discrete micro-narratives, that relay the reader from scene to scene with all the speed of a satellite signal or radio wave. The purpose of such a device is twofold: first, it reinforces the motifs of technology and mass communications; second, it generates a narrative effect which mimics the contradictions and dislocations of modern life. A further device which serves to enhance this effect is the lack of closure at the end of the narrative, which, as we have seen, is indicated by the fantastically grotesque news of a fatal “laughing disease” in New Guinea. Within this darkly sardonic motif lies the gravest comment of all,

98

Ibid., 128.

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since it is a tragic caution against mindless existence and rank complacency. Oblivious to forces at work both within and without, the self exists in a state of false consciousness, deaf to warnings of imminent danger and living only for the moment. Hence the collapsed apartment block in “Nashrat al-Akhbār” takes on the associations of that other great ruin of pride (and site of competing discourses), the Tower of Babel. To extrapolate further, the collapsed building is also a symbol for Egypt itself—a structure that cannot hold. Behind the familiar persona of the omniscient narrator, we may locate the author’s appraisal of contemporary society. Primarily, we note unease at the privileging of materialism and greed, which motivates all characters, from the unscrupulous landlord of the collapsed building to those who profit from the tragedy, such as Umm Sayyid (whose takings soar with the custom of morbid onlookers), and even the hired women mourners who attend the death scene. Though we are now in the modern era, the lives of Egypt’s poor remain cheap and insignificant, for it is only with such a tragic event that this alley enters the consciousness of those who exist beyond it. As the narrator explains: In a matter of minutes—at 8:36 exactly—our alley had become highly significant. At least two hundred well-wishers landed on top of fifty at the memorial service (perhaps the bodies of the dancer and the Qur’ān reciter landed alongside each other). It made headline news for the morning papers and brought undreamt-of fame to our alley as a result. It was also a golden opportunity for the advertising divisions of 99 insurance companies...

Unlike “Anīsa” and “Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl,” “Nashrat al-Akhbār” exposes the prevailing complexities and harsh realities of Egypt’s post-revolutionary situation. For, despite programs of reform and a drive towards industrialization, poverty and poor education persisted, while the country teetered under infrastructural under-investment. Superficially, “Nashrat al-Akhbār” reads like a naturalistic text, with the alley’s residents at the mercy of their environment, yet this is arguably not the case. For, with al-Shārūnī, the power of human agency is always paramount, and his

99

“Nashrat al-Akhbār,” 133.

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characters are at least theoretically capable of determining their own futures. Lastly, while “Nashrat al-Akhbār” presents us with a squalid and meaningless tragedy, it is also a sobering reminder that, in a modern society, such tragedies can—and should—be prevented. Conclusion This chapter divides into two sections. The first, consisting in the stories “Anīsa” and “Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl,” speaks of nationalist ideology and betrays a national self-consciousness shaped by the rhetoric of the revolutionary regime. These stories express excitement and optimism, dwelling on themes such as national identity and unity; class transformation; co-operation for the common good; the dominance of the collectivity; and belonging and security. Accordingly, the key motifs are of family and home. There is also a strong moral ethos, indicating a turning away from earlier, more radical, sentiments. Further, we find a symbiotic relationship between self and other and an emphasis on altruism. Identity is founded on external criteria, and directed almost exclusively towards the needs of the group or collectivity. Particular interest lies in the ways selves negotiate between their interiority and group demands. Above all, the collective consciousness dominates, and is represented as a monolithic, and sometimes dogmatic and inflexible, entity. The emergence of a specifically Coptic discourse implies a new confidence inspired by the regime’s egalitarian message, yet it is not exclusivist. Rather, it celebrates Egypt’s social and cultural diversity while stressing a common Egyptianness among characters. By the second section, which consists in the stories “al-Nās Maqāmāt” and “Nashrat al-Akhbār,” we observe a sense of anti-climax and creeping disillusionment, evidenced by the re-introduction of themes such as the desire for justice and equality. Most significantly, national unity emerges as a fiction, distorted by power struggles and internal and external rivalries. Given the government’s drive towards industrialization and technology, science is seen to have trumped religion and tradition. Prominent themes in this section include familial discord and fragmentation, technology and materialism, cupidity and thwarted love. At this stage in the development of the dynamic narrative self, it is newly assailed by a variety of threats, including an overbearing other re-asserting its acquisitive, hegemonizing tendencies. Above all, there are now marked inequalities between self and other, and relations are fundamentally oppositional. Self-other perceptions for this chapter may be summarized as follows:

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SELF

OTHER

Confident At peace Active participant in society; “at home” Content with status quo Accepts present; hopes for future Collective sense of identity Narrative world of harmony and reason

Confident At peace Active participant in society; “at home” Content with status quo Accepts present; hopes for future Collective sense of identity Narrative world of harmony and reason

Section 1

SELF

OTHER

Controlled Uncertain, questioning On defensive Dissatisfied with status quo Uneasy with present, concerned for future Tension between individual and collective identities Narrative world of confusion, inequality, oppression

Controlling Certain, unquestioning On offensive Satisfied with status quo Content with present, preoccupied with future Collective identity dominates

Section 2

Narrative world of certainty, opportunity, domination

4 SELF AND OTHER BEYOND THE NATION-BUILDING PHASE By the early 1960s, Egypt had attained economic and military predominance in the Arab world, and popular enthusiasm for nationalism was at its highest level ever. Yet the optimism of the early independence years soon led to a mood of growing cynicism, as those who had supported the revolution began to question its efficacy. This intensified as Egypt shifted beyond its nation-building phase and back to authoritarianism and autocracy. Among the major political events of the decade were the breakup of the UAR in 1961, and Egypt’s defeat in the 1967 war against Israel. Both exposed the chimera of Nasser’s pan-Arab dream and, in Egypt at least, led to a move away from pan-Arab and national loyalties and back to personal or group identities and interests. The regime responded by neutralizing all forms of perceived opposition, returning Egypt neatly to the totalitarianism of the pre-revolutionary period. This chapter spans the period from January 1960, publication date of al-Shārūnī’s short story “Ḥāris al-Marmā” (“The Goalkeeper”), 1 to July 1969, when he published “Lamaḥāt min Ḥayāt Mawjūd Abd al-Mawjūd” (“Glimpses from the Life of Mawjūd Abd al-Mawjūd”).2 The four short

1

First published in the daily al-Jumhūriyya, Cairo, 20 January 1960. Reprinted in Risāla ilā Imra’a, 33–45. 2 First published in al-Majalla, Cairo, July 1969. Reprinted in al-Ziḥām, 25–42. A significantly modified version also appeared in Gālīrī 68, Cairo, February 1971, 48–57, and yet another version appeared in the critical anthology al-Khawf wa’l-Shajā a: Dirāsāt fī Qiṣaṣ Yūsuf al-Shārūnī (Cairo: Kitābāt Mu āṣira, 1971), 8–25.

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stories analyzed here are: “al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn” (“Flesh and Knife”);3 “al-Ziḥām” (“The Crowd”);4 “Naẓariyya fi’l-Jilda al-Fāsida” (“The Broken Washer Theory”);5 and “Lamaḥāt min Ḥayāt Mawjūd Abd al-Mawjūd.”

AUTOCRACY AND THE END OF THE PAN-ARAB DREAM Dominated by the person and ambitions of Nasser, the revolutionary regime in Egypt established the ascendancy of state over society. It placed absolute supremacy in the executive, headed by an all-powerful president, a state-form which one scholar describes as “Egyptian Bonapartism.”6 An authoritarian system in nature, a select few individuals were at the apex of the regime, holding large amounts of highly centralized power. Those groups that fell beyond the regime’s control were either restructured, assimilated or destroyed, while those that could be controlled were reorganized via parallel associations for students, women, doctors, lawyers and the peasantry.7 Thus, by the beginning of the 1960s, power in Egypt had become almost absolute, with no legal opposition in existence. By as early as 1961, Syria broke away from the UAR due to practical, political and economic differences with Egypt. Nasser’s pan-Arab dream was over almost as soon as it had begun, though factors such as the 1962 Algerian war of independence and the plight of the Palestinians continued

3

First published in the daily Akhbār al-Yawm, Cairo, 2 December 1961. Reprinted in al-Ziḥām, 67–82. The story also appears in al-Majmū āt, vol. 2, under the title “al-Ẓufur wa’l-Laḥm” (“Flesh and Nail”), 81–99. 4 First published in al-Ahrām, Cairo, 15 February 1963. Reprinted in al-Ziḥām, 5–23. 5 First published in al-Majalla, Cairo, February 1968. Reprinted in al-Ziḥām, 43– 65. The story also appears in al-Majmū āt, vol. 2, 55–80, with the slightly modified title “Naẓariyyat al-Jilda al-Fāsida” (“The Broken Washer Theory”). 6 Shukrallah, op. cit., 61. 7 For a discussion of the power and pervasiveness of the state apparatus in Egypt after the revolution, see Roger Owen’s “The Growth of State Power in the Arab World: The Single-Party Regimes,” in State Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East, op. cit., 33–54.

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to foster feelings of Arab unity.8 Nasser clung to his commitment to Arabism, however, convinced that revolution should still be exported to all Arab states. Unwilling to accept any criticism of his stance, his rhetoric was often at odds with popular sentiment. For example, projects which aimed to boost Egypt’s prestige in the region, such as intervention in the war in North Yemen, met with little popular support. Most damaging, however, was the 1967 defeat by Israel, which spelt the end for Nasser’s vision and, in various ways, his system of government. The third Arab-Israeli war had disastrous consequences, and led to the loss of the city of Jerusalem, plus the territories of the West Bank, the Golan Heights and Sinai. It exposed the Egyptian army’s technological and structural failings, generated a crippling financial burden due to the loss of equipment and overseas aid, and led to the closure of the Suez Canal. Worst was the realization that, “throughout the initial days of the conflict, the leaders of the Arab world [had] lied to their peoples. All the pretensions of previous decades were swept away, and what ensued was a moral crisis on the broadest scale.”9 His leadership weakened and Egypt’s regional status diminished, Nasser offered to resign the presidency, but Egypt’s citizens demanded he stay in power. As Hopwood notes, this represented “a dangerous identification of Egypt’s future with one man. Nasser had led the country to defeat. Egypt without Nasser was unthinkable.”10 A phase of recriminations and political scapegoating ensued, consisting in purges within the army and petty reprisals against Egypt’s Jews. The 1960s in Egypt were marked by purges of all descriptions, Nasser becoming increasingly authoritarian as public dissent rose to the surface. A resurgence in the activities of the Ikhwān in 1965 led to the execution in 1966 of their senior ideologue, Sayyid Quṭb (1906–66). Students, journalists and opposition groups of all political hues—communists in particular— were silenced by campaigns of coercion and intimidation, often carried out by the police force and intelligence services (mabāḥith amn al-dawla). Fear of

8

In fact, Hopwood claims: “By 1964, the Arab world was more divided than ever, despite the underlying desire for unity,” op. cit., 67. 9 Allen, op. cit., 49. 10 Hopwood, op. cit., 78.

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reprisals stifled public protest against these campaigns, and expressions of dissent remained muted until after the 1967 defeat. As Hafez observes: During this decade, there was no public activity not subject to official control, everywhere one encountered not living but official beings concealing their individual personalities beneath a carapace of conformity, people who acted out social roles and repeated, automatically, slogans that were often contrary to their real hidden 11 opinions.

The 1960s also witnessed the continued expansion of the state apparatus, leading to an over-extensive and inefficient bureaucracy. Compounding this problem was the shortfall between the skills of Egypt’s bureaucrats and the demands of its burgeoning public sector. As Galal Amin claims, the culture of the previous administration meant that “bureaucrats were extremely reluctant to delegate authority,”12 and efficiency waned under onerous workloads. While most petty bureaucrats exercised little real power, more senior officials enjoyed enviable privileges. A second factor was the government’s guarantee of employment to all graduates, demanding massive training programs and leading to inevitable over-recruitment. Third was the burden of creating innumerable new ministries and authorities, among them supervisory bodies for government and business affairs. As a result of all the above, apathy, corruption and inefficiency reigned. In terms of national identity, the 1960s witnessed radical changes in Egypt. By the first few years of the decade, the unifying vision that had underpinned independence had all but shattered, to the effect that society had re-divided into groups representing different ideological, economic and communal interests. Hafez also notes the emergence of a more individualistic consciousness, adding that “wider access to education [...] also fostered socio-cultural awareness, so that each class, social group or political group became conscious of its identity and its difference from

11

Sabry Hafez, “The Egyptian Novel in the Sixties,” in Critical Perspectives on Modern Arabic Literature, ed. Issa J. Boullata (Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1980), 78. 12 Galal Amin, “The Egyptian Economy and the Revolution,” in Egypt Since the Revolution, ed. J. Vatikiotis (London: Allen & Unwin, 1968), 47.

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others.”13 This period also saw a shift away from what Hourani terms “territorial patriotism” towards “religious” nationalism,14 where religious communities are considered political communities. At this time, the main regional exponents of religious nationalism were the Zionists in Israel and those Muslims who espoused a pan-Islamic, rather than pan-Arab, ideology. The stirrings of political consciousness were not limited to the Jewish and Muslim communities, however, for in Egypt this extended to the indigenous Copts. Though most Copts had welcomed the revolutionary regime, some had begun to question Nasser’s authority, since it appeared neither to express the will of their minority nor serve its interests in the wider citizenry. Some Copts also felt disadvantaged by the nationalization process,15 and aggrieved by policies such as the enforcement of religion in the national school curriculum, along with the reform of al-Azhar University. Many viewed these policies as evidence of a growing bond between state and religion, while Egypt’s leftists perceived them as a betrayal of the regime’s “socialist” ideal. Regarding Nasser’s treatment of the Copts, Hopwood argues that he “tended to regard the Coptic community with indifference; he was an Arab nationalist appealing chiefly to Muslims in Egypt and elsewhere,”16 though some Copts claimed “he did not trust them and that there was discrimination and no true equality.”17 While both views remain difficult to substantiate, what is clear is that the

13

Sabry Hafez, “The Transformation of Reality and the Arabic Novel’s Aesthetic Response,” BSOAS, 57:1, 1994, 94–95. 14 Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798–1939 (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1983), 341–342. 15 The Minority Rights Group International writes that “the nationalization process [...] affected Copts more than Muslims, because it abolished many of the skilled jobs which Copts excelled in. In general, Copts lost 75 per cent of their work and property.” Saad Eddin Ibrahim et al., The Copts of Egypt, Minority Rights Group International Report 95/6 (Cairo: Ibn Khaldoun Center for Development Studies, 1996), 16. 16 Hopwood, op. cit., 164. 17 Ibid., 165.

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Copts enjoyed less representation in national life,18 and were becoming increasingly unnerved by the growing appeal of political Islam. The 1960s also witnessed the heightened interpenetration of culture and politics, with Egypt’s intellectuals, particularly of the older generation, being brought into the establishment as salaried civil servants. The state came to dominate almost all artistic and intellectual activities, calling on its intelligentsia to “devise a culture for a peculiar mass society it called Arab socialist.”19 The debates and controversies of intellectuals were closely monitored, and expression became subject to the severest of restrictions, having a tangible impact on cultural production. Notably, it hastened the death of socialist realism; Hafez observes that “by 1960 most of its writers were imprisoned [...] and when they were released, a few years later, everything was changing.”20 Second, it led many writers to resort to symbolism as a means of evading the censor, and third, it reduced writers in some instances to mere state-sponsored panegyrists. The 1967 defeat also had a marked effect on the artistic and intellectual output of this period. Since Egypt had long been considered a leading political and cultural center of the Arab world, its writers spoke of their bewilderment, self-doubt and wounded national pride. In shock or denial, some intellectuals “stopped writing altogether, while others sought solace and reaffirmation through an investigation of the classical heritage (turāth) of the Arabs and of the bases of cultural authenticity (aṣālah).”21 Others still, inspired by anti-government riots and demonstrations in February and November 1968, began to voice their anger at the political order, and to demand anti-corruption measures and a free parliament. The theme of participation emerged as especially emotive, reflecting the view that, though state and citizenry were inextricably bound, the individual felt it had no role in national life.

18

“There were thirteen Coptic members in the 1960 National Assembly of 400, and it was reckoned that only three positions in the top 150 government posts were held by Copts.” Ibrahim et al., op. cit., 164. 19 Vatikiotis, The History of Modern Egypt, 497. 20 Hafez, “The Modern Arabic Short Story,” 302. 21 Allen, op. cit., 79.

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Perhaps the most important artistic development of this period is the crystallizing of the modernist sensibility. As Kharrat explains: “With the crude shattering of the established national and social reality, it was only to be expected that modernist literary trends would supplant the older, almost anachronistic mode of realism.”22 Through magazines such as Gālīrī 68, which Kharrat describes as “the first genuine platform of the modern sensibility in Egypt,”23 writers questioned established forms, deconstructed the classical plot, shifted away from the exterior to the interior, and considered new approaches to language, logic and narrative time and space. In short, the modernist trend presented writers with new ways of perceiving art and reality, and offered unlimited possibilities for their expression. Among the main strands of modernism to emerge were symbolism and absurdism, which flourished owing to the censorsing and suppressing of alternative perspectives. Within the domain of the Egyptian short story, Hafez notes that by the arrival of the 1960s the genre had encountered yet another developmental “crisis.” Prominent former exponents of the form, including Idrīs and al-Sharqāwī, had turned their attentions to the novel and drama, while al-Shārūnī had opted to concentrate on criticism.24 Indeed, it was to be nine years before al-Shārūnī brought out his third collection, al-Ziḥām, (The Crowd). Containing nine short stories, a collection of “One-Minute Stories,”25 and one text which al-Shārūnī claims “may not be a story, but is certainly not an article,”26 only five of these short stories were written after

22

Kharrat, op. cit., 187. Ibid., 186. 24 Hafez, “Innovation in the Egyptian Short Story,” 108. 25 Eleven short sketches or “microfiction” vignettes, some only two or three paragraphs in length, grouped under the title “Qiṣaṣ fī Daqā’iq.” These were first published individually, between January 1956 and November 1957, in the weekly Ṣabāḥ al-Khayr and the monthlies al-Shahr and al-Risāla al-Jadīda. They were later reprinted in al-Ziḥām, 125–138. 26 “Yawm fi’l-Kharīf” (“A Day in Autumn”), first published in al-Adīb, Beirut, January 1949, reprinted in al-Ziḥām, 139–151. In al-Shārūnī’s introduction to al-Ziḥām, he states that this text “had stayed secluded among my papers for almost twenty years, waiting in vain to be included in a book.” He adds: “Finally, it has conceded—as though in shame—to be placed at the end of this collection, thereby 23

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Risāla ilā Imra’a, two in fact having been written before al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa.27 Published in Beirut, it was not the threat of political censorship which prompted al-Shārūnī to publish al-Ziḥām outside of Egypt; rather, he claims he simply could not find a publisher for the collection at home.28 It was with the eventual emergence of a new generation of writers, who embraced modernism with gusto and began to experiment with its forms, that this second “crisis” of the short story was resolved. As the socalled “sixties generation” grew in creative confidence, taking the short story in bold new directions, established writers such as Idrīs and al-Shārūnī redirected their energies towards the form. As Hafez observes, “perhaps the nature of the historical moment and the new character which the ’sixties crystallized, made the short story the most suitable form for these years.”29 From the analyses that follow, we may see how al-Shārūnī’s earlier experimentation with modernism had, by the 1960s, developed into a mature and highly evolved narrative style.

“AL-LAḤM WA’L-SIKKĪN,” 1961 Like the short story “Anīsa,” “al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn” (“Flesh and Knife”) is a text with an explicitly Christian identity, containing Christian characters and settings, allusions to Biblical stories and personalities, and symbols with specifically “Christian” significance. The narrative is constructed around a Coptic family and, like “Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl,” gives us insight into Coptic customs, rituals and ceremonies, particularly weddings and funerals. The

declaring that the short story form is more receptive to it than any other literary genre.” Al-Ziḥām, 139. 27 “Al- Awda min al-Manfā,” op. cit., and “Yawm fi’l-Kharīf,” op. cit. Al-Shārūnī claims that he did not include certain stories, such as “al-Ḥidhā’,” in earlier collections “because they were not of a good artistic standard” and needed to be rewritten. Personal interview, 12 September 1998. 28 Marina Stagh suggests that this was a phenomenon particular to modernist writers. As she states: “It was not the most oppressed writers in Egypt, the politically committed Left, that turned to Beirut to get published in the fifties and sixties, but rather the independents and modernists, bent more on aesthetics and psychology than practical utopias.” In The Limits of Freedom of Speech: Prose Literature and Prose Writers Under Nasser and Sadat (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1993), 95. 29 Hafez, op. cit., 109.

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fabula centers on a conflict between two brothers: Mīlād, a vet living in Cairo, and Shafīq, who manages the family’s land in al-Minyā. Though the brothers have always been close, sharing their adolescent exploits and even marrying their cousins in a joint wedding, their relationship is compromised following their father’s death, when Shafīq demands a larger share of their inheritance. Their dispute evolves until one day, in an altercation, Shafīq shoots Mīlād, the event so distressing their sickly mother that she collapses and dies. Only then can her sons see the harm that their feuding has wrought, upon which they make peace for the future sake of their family. Copts, Muslims and the Fragmented “I” Oppositional in so many ways, Mīlād and Shafīq appear to conform to the conventional self/other paradigm. This analysis argues, however, that they form the same narrative self and, as so often occurs with al-Shārūnī’s protagonists, they represent a “split” personality or subjectivity, being self and other of the same narrative “I.” For this reason, the narrative foregrounds their similarities, revealing how, in their early years, the differences between them were minimal: Mīlād and Shafīq were brothers and, until six years ago, had also been friends. They were close in age, Mīlād being two years older than Shafīq, and were close in appearance. The moment you saw one of them you knew he was the brother of the other, and on first getting to know them you would muddle them up, not knowing which was Mīlād and which Shafīq. [They had the] same brown face and slightly elongated nose, 30 medium-sized body and coarse, thick black hair.

Beginning as equals in the narrative, the men diverge only once they have embarked on their dispute: At that time their looks had begun to differ, perhaps due to their getting married and having grown older, perhaps due to the discord that had come to pass between them. Baldness had begun to creep along Mīlād’s brow and he had become thinner, like his late father. He had started wearing glasses and seemed more sober in appearance. As for Shafīq, he

30

“Al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn,” 69.

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SELF AND OTHER had grown a thin moustache and was inclined to plumpness, rather like his grandmother on his mother’s side, and so he seemed shorter than his brother. He also began to smoke more, until his teeth and the space between the first and middle fingers of his right hand darkened. Even their natures differed: Mīlād seemed cooler and less excitable, while Shafīq seemed more emotional and imaginative, quick to flare up and 31 quick to calm down.

Since “al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn is a polysemous text laden with metaphor, allusion and allegory, we might read the narrative self as two dimensions of one whole, that is, as the Coptic and Islamic communities in the national collectivity. The fact that, as young men, the brothers are perceived as similar and equal suggests the status the Copts enjoyed under the Wafd, when the party enjoyed considerable political power at the national level. For it was only after 1952, and with the creation of the single-party system, that the Copts became sidelined from the political process, leading to tensions with their Muslim compatriots. This may also explain emerging tensions between Mīlād and Shafīq, with each brother perceiving himself to be equally right and wronged. The text’s reluctance to privilege difference between the brothers implies a continued commitment to the ideal of national unity, and to equality and fraternity over sectarian identities. The potential dangers of sectarian partisanship are hinted at in the mother’s admonition to her two sons: “Ours was a model family, and we have become a bad example.”32 Thus, while “al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn” is an articulation and affirmation of Christian identity, it is also a cautionary tale which argues for a common solidarity. It is also mutedly optimistic, as may be seen from the story’s ending, when Shafīq understands the terrible consequences of his actions, followed by the harmonious closing scene of the brothers sitting down to dinner. Though the narrative’s events decelerate gently, they climax in their significance with the promise of resolution.

31 32

Ibid., 72. Ibid., 73.

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Sectarian Tensions in a “Christian” Narrative The four main devices by which al-Shārūnī imbues this text with a “Christian” character are: exclusivity of narrative location; allusion and analogy; symbols; and narrative ethos. First, narrative action is limited exclusively to Christian locations, as in the following: Like weary footsteps, the church bells rang their sad, sporadic toll, and the vestibule became filled with dozens of men and women. Silence reigned over the men, while the women wept, garbed in black, relatives, neighbors and life-long friends among them. Meanwhile the organ played its funereal dirge. The weather was hot. The condensation from the people’s breaths had intensified the heat of the air, until sweat streamed down many a face and nostrils were filled with the scent of the human throng. The windows, with their real and artificial stained glass, and the images of angels and saints on the church dome and walls, enhanced the sanctity 33 and solemnity of the place as the shadow of death passed through it.

Besides the church, the most prominent site of narrative action is the family’s home in al-Duqqī, where there hangs a picture “of Christ crucified, pronouncing the faith of those living there to all who enter the house.”34 Second, “al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn” contains countless allusions and analogies to stories and themes from the Old and New Testaments. Besides enhancing the Christian character of this text, these associations arising from Biblical sources also widen its frame of reference. To readers for whom these sources are familiar, such allusions lend tragic irony to the narrative, for it is through them that we anticipate how the conflict between the brothers will evolve. To turn first to the Old Testament, we may see that, on a general level, “al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn” alludes to many of the main themes of the Book of Genesis, such as the conflict between the farmer and the shepherd; the fact that man must labor for his food; and the distinction between human and property rights. More specifically, the dispute between Mīlād and Shafīq alludes quite self-consciously to stories with parallel themes of sibling rivalry and inheritance disputes, such as those of Cain and

33 34

Ibid., 67. Ibid., 79.

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Abel, Jacob and Esau, and Isaac and Ishmael. Examples of Biblical analogies may be seen in the table below, which illustrates some of the parallels between Cain and Abel and Mīlād and Shafīq:

(a)

(b)

(c) (d)

(e) (f)

35

Cain and Abel One brother a “keeper of sheep,” the other a “tiller of 35 the ground.” Theme of the passing over of the first-born son: Abel’s offering of a firstling of his flock to God is accepted, Cain’s offering of first fruits is not. This leads to tension between the brothers. Cain and Abel were destined 36 to marry their twin sisters. Cain asks God, “Am I my 37 brother’s keeper?” Cain pelts Abel’s body with 39 stones. Brother kills brother.

Mīlād and Shafīq One brother a vet, the other manager of the family’s land. Theme of the passing over of the first-born son: Shafīq usurps Mīlād’s right to a greater share of revenue from the land. This leads to tension between the brothers. Mīlād and Shafīq are married to two sisters. Brother (unidentified) asks mother, “Am I my brother’s 38 keeper?” Shafīq wounds Mīlād with a bullet. Brother shoots brother, but does not kill him.

The Holy Bible, King James Version, Genesis 4:2. This detail is not Biblical in origin, but appears in the Hebrew Midrash. It is said that “to ensure the propagation of the human race, a girl, destined to be his wife, was born together with the sons of Adam.” See Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, vol. 1, trans. Henrietta Szold (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Sociey of America, 1947), 108. 37 The Holy Bible, Genesis 4:10. 38 “Al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn,” 76. 39 Ginzberg, op. cit., 109. 36

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Similar parallels with the story of Jacob and Esau include the fact that one brother (Esau) was a “man of the field”40 while the other (Jacob) was a breeder of cattle. Once more we find the theme of the rights of the elder brother being usurped by the younger, as when Jacob persuaded Esau to sell his birthright for a potage of lentils, and when Jacob deceived his dying father Isaac by pretending to be Esau. Lastly, there are direct allusions to the story of Isaac and Ishmael, the most obvious being that Mīlād and Shafīq’s father, the patriarch, is named Abraham (Ibrāhīm). In one passage, we find an almost word-for-word rendition of the Biblical story of God’s testing of Abraham, which is delivered in the form of an evoked memory: He [Shafīq] lifted his gaze and caught sight of his father’s picture ... and he remembered the tens of times he had told the story of Abraham to him, and of how God had wanted to test his father, so he ordered him to sacrifice his only son. So Abraham obeyed His command and went up to the mountain, where he bound his son and laid him on the altar upon the wood. Then he stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay him, and the angel of the Lord called unto him, saying: ‘Lay not thine hand upon the lad.’ So Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and there was a ram behind him in the thicket, so he took it and offered it 41 up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

According to The Legends of the Jews, Isaac and Ishmael also quarreled over the rights of the first-born, Ishmael insisting that he should receive a double share of the inheritance on Abraham’s death.42 In “al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn,” Shafīq demands a greater share of the brothers’ inheritance because this income comes as a result of his labor. From the New Testament, “al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn” parallels events such as the death of Christ and alludes to aspects of Christ’s teachings and mission. Most prominent is the scene on the mother’s death bed, which refers directly to the Biblical narrative of Christ’s crucifixion. Consider the following extracts from the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. John:

40

The Holy Bible, Genesis 25:27, though it would be more accurate to describe him as a hunter, rather than a farmer. 41 “Al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn,” 82. 42 Ginzberg, op. cit., 263.

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SELF AND OTHER Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? [...] And straightaway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave it him to drink. [...] Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the vail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the 43 rocks rent... Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it into his mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, it is finished: and he bowed 44 his head and gave up the ghost.

Now compare these with the death scene from “al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn”: Sometimes she would open her mouth and it would seem as if she were panting with thirst, so they would moisten the tip of her tongue. [...] Then her condition worsened, and the day before yesterday her temperature rose ... It seemed she stayed suffering the death throes for three hours, from noon yesterday until three in the afternoon, when there was a slight earthquake lasting two seconds. The papers said the next day that the seat of the quake lay seven hundred and fifty miles to the north45 east of Cairo. At that moment, it seemed the deceased wanted to cry 46 out, but she bowed her head forthwith and gave up the ghost.

The Gospels also tell us that at Golgotha Jesus was offered a drink of wine mixed with a bitter substance,47 while al-Shārūnī’s text reads: “Thus Madam Umm Mīlād had to drink from the cup of vinegar and gall, as she saw her own flesh and blood rise up one against the other.”48 Among other parallels between the mother and Christ, we find that Umm Mīlād is

43

The Holy Bible, Matthew 17:45–52. Ibid., John 19:29–30. 45 Perhaps a reference to Golgotha. 46 “Al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn,” 68–69. 47 See The Holy Bible, Matthew 17:34; Mark 15:23. 48 “Al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn,” 76. 44

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humble and submissive, suffering passively at the wranglings of her offspring. She also forewarns her death, as did Christ, when she says: “You and your brother are torturing me, torturing me and pushing me to the grave.”49 Umm Mīlād also dies for the sake of her sons and their sins, much as Christian doctrine states that Jesus did, for the sake of mankind. Like Christ’s, Umm Mīlād’s death is necessary so that she might stand as an example to those she loves, who will follow her in deed and faith. A third device to be considered is symbols, with which the text is replete. Most significant are the many symbols of sacrifice: examples include the animals Mīlād inspects for the īd al-aḍḥā (feast of the sacrifice); the lamb, which the maid slaughters in honor of her dead mistress; the young bull, which Mīlād witnesses rebelling at the abattoir; and the ram, which Shafīq mentions in his rendition of the story of Abraham and Isaac. A less explicit symbol comes in the form of the mother, who, in her selflessness, dies for the love of her sons. While by no means exclusive to the Christian faith, the sacrifice is symbolically significant on two counts: first, it is a metonymical representation of the person of Jesus Christ; second, it stands for the spiritual notion that personal sacrifice is necessary to attain humility before God. Evidence of Christ can be found in all symbols of sacrifice, most prominently that of the young bull, whose final moments parallel those of the dying mother: It had opened its mouth, and its tongue hung out as it panted as though from terrible thirst, or as though it were at the end of a long and strenuous race. Then it let out a lowing that was nearer to a moan, and 50 which shook the entire place ... until it went limp and breathed its last.

One final association with the sacrificial animal is found in allusions to the theme of “killing the fatted calf,” which features in Jesus’s parable of the prodigal son. In this parable, a young man squanders his share of his inheritance and, starving and humiliated, returns to his father, admitting that he has sinned and asking that he be taken back as a hired servant. On his return his father is overjoyed, and announces: “Bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat and be merry.” The man’s elder brother is

49 50

Ibid., 76–77. Ibid., 81.

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furious, but at his protests the father replies: “It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.” 51 Besides reiterating the themes of sibling rivalry and of Christ, the son who “was dead and is alive again,” this parable makes points that are pertinent to this text: that the young should respect and not squander their inheritance; that material gain is not the key to happiness; and that covetousness and judgmentalism should be put aside, and the best of everything celebrated and welcomed. One last significant symbol is that of flesh, which represents half of this short story’s title. Besides its connections with sacrificial offerings, flesh signifies three things: man’s weakness and fallibility, stemming from the physical/sensual nature of the body as opposed to the soul or spirit; family, as in the expressions “to be one flesh” or “flesh and blood”;52 and social solidarity, as in the sacrificial Eucharistic meal, where flesh is a metonymical substitution for Christ. As a symbol of Fallen Man, Christian tradition also tells us that flesh is a symbol of moral corruption, which threatens the harmony and order of the world. It is worth considering why al-Shārūnī might have produced such an explicitly “Christian” narrative. On the metaphysical level, it would be reasonable to suggest that, as the son of a clergyman raised in a devout Christian environment, he may have contemplated the “universality” of Biblical discourse, and the extent to which it expresses fundamental “truths” or “ideals.” Interestingly, al-Shārūnī cites Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678), a translation of which he first read as an adolescent, as having a marked influence on his literary career. As he says: “The notion of the journey and of the effort entailed in attaining goals, have come constantly to me in all my stories and studies. In the modern age these are modest goals, relating to life’s necessities, such as love, work and home.”53 Similarly, as an artist, al-Shārūnī may have been drawn to the aesthetic

51

See The Holy Bible, Luke 15:11–32. The story takes its revised title, “al-⁄ufur wa’l-Laḥm,” from the Egyptian expression al-÷ufur mā yiṭla min al-laḥm, which means “the nail cannot come out of the flesh.” Al-Shārūnī claims to have found this second title more appropriate to the theme of family unity. Personal interview, 12 September 1998. 53 Interview with Yāsīn Rifā iyya, op. cit., 377. 52

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power and dramatic potential of the Bible. Ideological motivations are also plausible: as we have seen, it was at this time that Egypt’s Copts began to feel marginalized by post-revolutionary transformations, and that their national role and status had been diminished. A combination of these factors, amongst others, meant that this period witnessed the first significant wave of Coptic migration out of Egypt. Various indicators suggest that “al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn” might be ideologically oriented, the first being its reliance on the allegorical mode of expression. Allegory is well suited to didactic narrative, inferring that this story has a message to communicate; it also has great potential for critical political comment. Biblical stories—including some of those alluded to in “al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn”—have long been used as political allegories, early examples including when [...] the Talmudic sages used the Cain and Abel story as a subterfuge that would enable them to comment with impunity on the murderousness of the Romans, or when Cain as well as Esau became code names for the cruel Roman rule, or when the argument between the brothers about the division of property was taken to allude to the Romans’ attempts to 54 appropriate Jewish land [...].

In the same way, al-Shārūnī uses the story of Mīlād and Shafīq as an allegory by which to communicate the experience of Egypt’s Copts, particularly in view of their loss of rights and land. Thus the brothers’ dramatized conflict may be decoded as a re-telling of the conflict between Egypt’s Copts and Muslims.55 This interpretation is arrived at via the text’s allusions to Jacob and Esau, who, according to Biblical tradition, were described by God as two “nations.”56 If we consider the function of the

54

David H. Hirsch and Nehama Aschkenasy (eds.), Biblical Patterns in Modern Literature (Chico, California: Scholars Press, 1984), 1. 55 It should be stressed that, by their very nature, allegorical texts are open to a range of interpretations, and that the interpretation proposed here is one of a possible many. 56 “And the Lord said unto her [Rebekah], Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be the stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.” The Holy Bible, Genesis 25:23. The Legends of the Jews also reports that Rebekah sought

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brothers, we may see that Mīlād is a metaphor for the older, Coptic community (since he is the first-born), while Shafīq, the younger, is a metaphor for the Muslims.57 There is also semantic intent in the brothers’ names, for there are echoes of the first-born in the name “Mīlād,” which means “birth” and is associated with the nativity or birth of Christ.58 Similarly, the name Shafīq, though used by both Muslims and Christians, is also significant in that it is a synonym for “compassionate,” one of the names (al-Shafīq) ascribed to Allāh in Islamic tradition. The commonly recurring themes of the first-born and the birthright, particularly in respect of the matter of land, are another feature to support the argument for a Copt-Muslim thematic. According to Biblical tradition, the birthright (handed down from Abraham) promised not only an inheritance of worldly wealth but spiritual pre-eminence, thus its bearer enjoyed particular status. As we see in “al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn,” the distinction between the first-born son, who has the right of primogeniture, and the younger brother who usurps him, is clear in both the fabula and its allusions to Biblical stories. Given that the dispute between Mīlād and Shafīq centers on land and the loss of inheritance, it would be reasonable to assume this is the crux of the Copt-Muslim conflict. Further, it may be argued that the text posits the Copts’ losses as arising from postrevolutionary reforms, agrarian in particular. As Frye notes: It is possible that the theme of the rejected rightful heir is linked to a nostalgia for aristocracy, not so much for itself as for representing some kind of glamour or splendor that has vanished from material life. The theme of the passed-over firstborn seems to have something to do with

advice on her difficult pregnancy from Shem, who said: “Two nations are in thy womb, and how should thy body contain them, seeing that the whole world will not be large enough for them to exist in it together peaceably?”, 313. 57 Historically speaking this bears out the fact that Coptic Egypt preceded Islamic Egypt. 58 As in īd al-mīlād, meaning “Christmas.” The name Mīlād is used exclusively by Egypt’s Christians.

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the insufficiency of the human desire for continuity which underlies the 59 custom of passing the inheritance on to the eldest son.

There is one final point to this text, however, which the author seems at pains to stress: Biblical tradition also tells us that the first-born was compelled to honor his birthright, and that he had to “earn” his privileges through the fulfillment of specific, often onerous, responsibilities—hence Esau was condemned for having “despised his birthright”60 when he sold it so recklessly to Jacob. The narrative reminds us that there are conditions attached to the rights of the first-born, and that his privileges do not come automatically: When they were children their father in particular would demand that Mīlād be more mature, tolerant and controlled, given that he was the eldest. But the child merely felt that his brother, by being younger, enjoyed things denied him. He was his deadly rival when it came to food, toys and his parents’ attention, which he monopolized completely. Often he would sneak up on Shafīq, so as to bite or pinch him, or to snatch what he was holding and eat or smash it. His mother or father would hear his brother’s shrieks of alarm, and would hurry to find the reason behind the outcry. If it was his mother, she would scream at him until he felt she would never love him again, and he would go to her in tears, begging forgiveness. If it was his father, he would beat him until he promised—and he promised frequently—never to harm his little brother again. [...] The brothers grew up a little, and Mīlād understood the role his father had asked him to play. He tried his best to please his parents and to adapt to his small environment, learning how to live peaceably with 61 his sibling and how to play the role of big brother.

In essence, it is the narrative ethos of this text which renders it identifiably “Christian”; it appears to caution the Copts against self-

59

Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983), 182. 60 The Holy Bible, Genesis 25:34. 61 “Al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn,” 69–70.

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satisfaction and pride, showing how even the rebellious bull is overcome, and urging humility, sacrifice and dignified resistance, as exemplified by Umm Mīlād. While Aṭiyya describes the text as merely a “simple story of morals,”62 it is more of a parable or exemplum, taking on the pedagogical role of much of the Biblical literature to which it alludes. It is also, as has been argued here, a political allegory, reflecting the growing self-awareness and frustrations of Egypt’s Copts, while denouncing sectarian divisions and promoting a national identity. Furthermore, “al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn” marks the end of a stage in this author’s trajectory, for it is the last short story in which al-Shārūnī utilizes Christian characters and existents. Lastly, though peppered with modernist elements, it paves the way for a series of more avant-garde narratives.

“AL-ZIḤĀM,” 1963 In the modernist mode, the world is represented less in terms of a concrete external reality and more as an environmental “force” which shapes the lives and psychological states of characters. This next story, bearing the title of al-Shārūnī’s third collection, al-Ziḥām: (The Crowd), is identifiably modernist, and is an example of psychological discourse par excellence. Its dramatized narrator is Fatḥī Abd al-Rasūl, who, after a happy childhood in a small village community, migrates with his family to Cairo where his father hopes to find work. An under-confident, overweight adolescent, Fatḥī finds it hard to fit in (literally, as well as figuratively) amidst the overcrowded streets of the bustling metropolis. Friendless and alone, he is tortured by his deficient self-image and is bullied by his critical, overbearing father. Through his rambling and often delusional narration, we see Fatḥī descend into psychosis, as he struggles to contend with the pressures of city life, his feelings of sexual frustration, and the impact of his father’s death. By the end of the text, we discover that our narrator is now a middle-aged man who has been committed to a psychiatric institution. The National Collectivity Becomes Other In “al-Ziḥām” we witness the demise of the collective national self, united under a vision of solidarity and national identity. In its stead we find an

62

Aṭiyya, op. cit., 209.

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individual self, emotionally and psychologically isolated amidst a menacing, hostile crowd. The self’s condition is expressed in Fatḥī’s first scene, where he attempts to board an overcrowded bus on a busy street in Cairo. As he tries to push his enormous bulk onto the vehicle, he is ejected forcefully by the other passengers and is sent hurtling to the ground. Besides underscoring the self’s isolation and marginalization, this image is also a metaphor for its relationship to the other. Fatḥī, the narrative self, is a symbolic minority figure, peripheral in almost every conceivable sense. His poverty, limited education and poor professional prospects render him incapable of controlling or shaping his own destiny, or of contributing to society in any distinct or meaningful way. Further, he is anonymous and lost amidst a desperate urban mass, and finds that his modest goals and dreams are systematically denied him. He is also temporally and spatially alienated, existing in the present but taking refuge in the past, no longer “qualifying” as a villager but a stranger to the city, though he has lived there for some thirty years. In physical terms, Fatḥī is excluded on account of his obesity, his body metonymically representing all of his visible signs of difference. As Bryan Turner writes: “In contemporary society the self is [...] a representational self, whose value and meaning is ascribed to the individual by the shape and image of their external body, or more precisely, through their bodyimage.”63 Since Fatḥī’s body is inescapable, it is a constant reminder of his social inferiority, provoking feelings of self-loathing, abnormality and worthlessness. For example, on learning that he has failed to gain a place in a physical training institute, he describes himself in the most self-deprecating of terms, assimilating the disgust of others: I went home, dragging my obesity in shame, as though creeping or crawling. My breasts were like those of a woman, like the udders of a cow in Kūm Ghurāb, the flesh of my stomach in folds, my buttocks 64 flabby, a sticky, gelatinous sweat oozing slowly from every roll of fat.

63

Bryan S. Turner, The Body and Society: Explorations in Social Theory (London, California and New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1996), 23. 64 “Al-Ziḥām,” 10.

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Perhaps the strongest indicator of Fatḥī’s marginalization is that, in this short story, the collectivity has now transformed into the other, and is imagined as a strange and malevolent “crowd.” No longer a site of belonging, it appears as a dark and sinister mob, which scapegoats, punishes and oppresses the self. This crowd is the expression of a demonic human world, “a society held together by a kind of molecular tension of egos,” with “a loyalty to the group or leader which diminishes the individual or, at best, contrasts his pleasure with his duty or honor.”65 Tensions between self and other are reproduced in the psychological experience of space, and the means by which space and its boundaries are negotiated. Fatḥī’s spatial perceptions transform in the narrative: on first coming to the city he brandishes his obesity happily, remembering that in the countryside “the vast open spaces could accommodate fat and thin.”66 Yet he soon becomes aware of the subtleties of urban proxemics: the city and its inhabitants begrudge him his obesity, interpreting it as an offence against nature or a willful defiance of the spatial status quo. As we have already seen in “al-Nās Maqāmāt,” each individual is perceived to have his “place” in the collectivity, and to go beyond this is to threaten its order and equilibrium. Anxious to feel “at home” in the crowd, Fatḥī remarks: “Amid the bustle and crowding of the city I was forced to get rid of my obesity, so as to make room for the others and find a breathing space for myself.”67 He is aware that his obesity has multiple ramifications: it is the source of the other’s prejudice and hostility towards him, denying him friends, employment and social status. Even after having lost weight, Fatḥī remains a peripheral or “in-between” figure: he is neither fat nor thin, but merely “squashed-up.”68 Evidently, his embodied experience is a particularly metropolitan phenomenon. Below, we see the city of Cairo and its architecture under Fatḥī’s appalled gaze, on arriving there from the countryside:

65

Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, 147. “Al-Ziḥām,” 5. 67 Ibid., 5. 68 Ibid., 5. 66

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The big city dazzled me with its vastness and overcrowding; it was as though a thousand mawlids were taking place all at once. We had clearly arrived too late, for there was no room left for any more people. When I saw the buildings, with their towering edifices and many floors, I was amazed at how the houses perched one above the other, and feared constantly that their weight would send them crashing down onto those who lived in them. For the first time, I saw trams and buses packed with people, jamming the streets of the city. It seemed as though everyone— men and women, young and old—was dashing towards something, like a flock of sheep surging up the track to our village at sunset, each one blundering forward, forcing his way through, isolated and alone in the 69 midst of the crowd. A deep wave of depression engulfed me...

Here follows his description of his overcrowded home: It was a basement room with its upper half at street level, its narrow windows barred like a prison cell. Only remnants of sunlight reached it, as though our day were one long, damp twilight. In this place the rooms clung together. In the rooms when night fell, the bodies of men and women stuck together. They reproduced like rabbits; passions flared and disputes rang out, mutual desires set sex alight. Screaming was the only language recognized by the residents of this floor: screaming, in which words were not important, as though there were great distances between a man and his wife, a son and his 70 father, a woman and her neighbors.

In fiction, the bright lights of the big city frequently form a fantasy backdrop to the finding of new selves and alternatives identities. In the case of Fatḥī, however, the city crushes and diminishes the self, for this is a world that permits no public/private boundaries and where mass identification is forced upon all. Even Fatḥī’s job as a bus conductor, which finds him crushed among the passengers and stuck in constant traffic jams, permits him no personal space or freedom. Hence he retreats behind

69

Ibid., 7. Ironically, Fatḥī suffers from the solitude of metropolitan life, causing him to long for the community spirit of the village. As he complains: “Here you know no one, and no one knows you.” Ibid., 7. 70 Ibid., 7–8.

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psychological boundaries, with the paradoxical result that he feels isolated, yet crowded, all at once. This is also the source of his defective ego: bound as he is to the crowd, he longs to extricate himself, but knows that he cannot survive without it. He thus rebels against and rejects the crowd, while accepting its labeling of him as a “lunatic.” This is by no means mindless conformity, however; Fatḥī accepts his sequestration as a strategy for survival, while his withdrawal from his environment is a statement of political intent. The Predominance of the Psychological Idiom Fatḥī’s retreat into the self, and the narrative’s dependence on the psychological idiom, reflect Fatḥī’s struggle to engage with his external reality and to reconcile his being with pretending. His descent into insanity seems almost a defense, since this affords him the freedom and space in which to live an authentic existence. Though reminiscent of Maḥmūd, the intellectual anti-hero of “al-Qayẓ,” it should be recalled that Maḥmūd removes himself from society, whereas in “al-Ziḥām” we find a reciprocal process of social exclusion and self-conscious withdrawal. A salient factor shaping this psychologically oriented discourse is that the narrator egocentrically privileges the “I,” lending urgency to his narration and exposing the compulsions that underlie it. Commencing with the phrase “I am,” Fatḥī shows how his need for identity is repeatedly unmet, as he defines and then reconstructs himself three times. 71 Central to a psychoanalytic reading of the text are dreams, illusions and hallucinations, which merge seamlessly yet disconcertingly, blurring narrative reality with phantasy and suggesting wish fulfillment, repressed desire, and their displacement into guilt and fear. While Fatḥī’s dreams have multiple possibilities for interpretation, it is telling that, after having consummated his desire for his father’s young widow, he dreams of the

71

First comes his statement: “I am Fatḥī Abd al-Rasūl, bus conductor and poet, from the village of Kūm Ghurāb, al-Wāsiṭī district, Banī Suwayf province [...].” Ibid., 6. Second is the definition he gives following his father’s death and the onset of his affair with his step-mother Awāṭif: “I am Fatḥī Abd al-Rasūl, bus conductor, poet and lover.” Ibid., 17. Third is the definition he gives after being admitted to the asylum: “I am Fatḥī Abd al-Rasūl, bus conductor, poet, lover and lunatic.” Ibid., 21.

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etiological source of his fear of crowds. Here, he is once again at a Sufi dhikr,72 taking place this time on a crowded bus, while his father (his superego) lashes out with a (phallic) sword.73 Besides lending symbolic meaning to the narrative, Fatḥī’s dreams and hallucinations build dramatic tension, replicating that between ego and id and evoking the conflict between desire and its repression. In many instances, dream sequences enmesh the unconscious with reality to the extent that the reader cannot differentiate between them, a device summoning the themes of madness and breakdown. A highly expressionistic text, madness distorts all aspects of “al-Ziḥām,” be it in the form of clinical insanity, the “madness” of lust, envy or the heights of religious ecstasy, or the apocalyptic insanity of life in the modern metropolis. Madness is also expressed in al-Shārūnī’s manipulation of narrative sequence and time, to often bewildering effect. The narrative is ordered as follows: Fatḥī begins in the present, describing (what we understand to be) himself on a street in Cairo, attempting to board a bus to work. He then loops back into the past, to a time before his family came to the capital, then progresses chronologically, via a string of flashbacks interpolated with interior monologue and snippets of dialogue, re-establishing us at intervals in the present. While this ordering is not especially unorthodox, what disarms is the fact that, by the story’s end, we discover that the “present” is a temporal illusion, and that the narrator is not at a bus stop but in a psychiatric institution, where he is re-enacting a scene from three decades earlier. This final, and crucial, twist creates an effect of dramatic irony, since it exposes the stark discrepancy between appearance and reality. It also disorients the reader for, having learned at this stage that Fatḥī is “mad,” we are prompted to question the reliability of his entire narrative. Such questioning arises from the assumption that an unsound mind will throw the integrity of his testimony into doubt, though it may be argued, contrariwise, that Fatḥī’s insanity is itself an ironic comment on the madness of the crowd. Indeed, we may argue in defense of Fatḥī’s narration

72

A communal act of devotion, where words and formulæ in praise of God are repeated, often to music and dancing. 73 “Al-Ziḥām,” 17.

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that his “delusions” lend devastating insight to the text, while his story is cogent and coherent overall. Other aspects which destabilize the integrity of the text include the ambiguity surrounding the implicit narratee. Could the function of this narration be cathartic relief, with the narratee a mental health professional, perhaps? Or could he be addressing another psychiatric patient, or is he merely conversing with himself? What seems to complicate the latter interpretation is that it reinforces the notion of the delusional madman, though it could be that Fatḥī is compelled to narrate to himself since his is a tale to which no-one (bar the reader) will listen. “Al-Ziḥām” makes playful use of language, with a compressed, “crowded” fabric of long paragraphs and piled-up clauses, intensifying tension and tempo. This is combined with vivid and often grotesque imagery, conveying the visual and sensory impact of urban life. When describing the countryside, however, Fatḥī is lyrical and descriptive, suggesting nostalgia for his origins and contrasting sharply with the metropolis: I want to smell the scent of verdure, to breathe in the moonlight spread over fields blanketed with maize. These days I smell only sweat and bad breath. At night-time the moonlight is throttled by the crush of the houses. “They have driven the moon from the city,” as it says in [my] 74 song.

Much of the imagery in this text is ironic, lending it a tragi-comic, if not black, humor. Nada Tomiche observes that that text has a grandguignolesque character, marked by acts of infantile violence, such as when Fatḥī bites his stepmother’s nose, or considers throwing a bar of soap at his father’s head. 75 Fatḥī uses anthropoid imagery for objects such as buses and streets and, conversely, animal metaphors for humans, who are likened to cows, sheep, horses and, at worst, “dangling […] carcasses.”76 In so doing, he reveals how Cairo’s residents have become dehumanized by modern living conditions. Further evidence lies in the narrative’s slipping through 74

Ibid., 19. Histoire de la littérature romanesque de l’Égypte moderne, introd. Jacques Berque (Paris: G.-P. Maisonneuve et Larose, 1981), 95. 76 “Al-Ziḥām,” 22. 75

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events of affective significance, such as Fatḥī’s mother’s death and its aftermath (reduced to the laconic “my father mourned her, my sister mourned her, and I mourned her. A month after her death there was a bride in our room occupying my mother’s place in the bed”),77 while lingering obsessively on more banal incidents. An ideological dimension comes to the fore through the use of two motifs: the crowd and the patriarch. The crowd is a metaphor for repression (particularly sexual and emotional), much like the heatwave in “al-Qayẓ.”78 It also has sociopolitical connotations: first, “the crowd” is a multitude of people, arguably the Egyptian nation;79 second, it evokes life in the modern metropolis, conveying references to population growth, rural migration and overcrowding. Less explicitly, the crowd evokes a time when Nasser’s centralized hold on state and society (cf. Fatḥī’s father and his sword) was at its zenith, and where national identity was focused around and on the president himself. Within such an authoritarian structure, the crowd becomes a means of disciplining the individual, and is a place of loneliness, rather than of unity, and a closed, suffocating horizon, rather than one of freedom. Significantly, the crowd motif lays bare the coercive nature of the ideal of national unity, at a time when sub-groups were gravitating towards other forms of identity. The second motif is the patriarch. Fatḥī’s rigid, authoritarian father is his other in almost every sense: respected, charismatic, successful, virile, he is everything his hapless son is not. From childhood through to adulthood, Fatḥī attempts to ape, please, and then rival the paterfamilias, but fails to do so on almost all counts. After his father dies, Fatḥī comments frankly on the nature of their relationship, describing it as one of “admiration and awe, rather than of affection. I admired his courage and feared his severity.” 80 Again, the patriarch is a veiled political metaphor for the national

77

Ibid., 8–9. As in “al-Qayẓ,” al-Shārūnī uses pathetic fallacy to enhance mood. The suffocating sun is a metaphor for oppression and abasement; its glare provokes anger and sexual violence, and its heat produces sweat and putridity. 79 Gustave Le Bon writes: “An entire nation, though there may be no visible agglomeration, may become a crowd under the action of certain influences.” In The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (London: Ernest Benn, 1947), 25. 80 “Al-Ziḥām,” 10. 78

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paterfamilias, Nasser, while the parallels between domestic and political absolutism are clear. Fatḥī’s relationship to his father is that of citizen to leader, while the patriarchal household reproduces the national realm. Whether explicitly mentioned or merely evoked, the father figure in this short story is a signifier of repression, be it political, psychological or sexual. Under his watchful eye, individualized expression and sentiment are suppressed,81 with emphasis placed on compliance with authority. Further political ideas inform this text. First, it alludes to how, under Nasser, the individual has become a unit of production. Second, it speaks of new market forces emerging, state-sponsored or otherwise. With his father as an example, Fatḥī describes a new breed of entrepreneurs, including landlords who build apartments with ceilings so low that their inhabitants must bend over to enter them;82 transport companies who give bonuses to conductors who pack their buses as fully (and dangerously) as possible;83 and clubs “selling slimness” to the overweight such as himself.84 For there are many others like Fatḥī in this society; at the sports club he notes: “There I found scores of others, each doing arduous exercise in the hope of making himself a little trimmer, so as to get a place in a school or government department.”85 The slim represent a social category in themselves, their size signifying their status and will to conform. Thus Fatḥī must be slim to be accepted into the crowd, and to reap the benefits for those who strive—and succeed—to “fit in.” “Al-Ziḥām”’s urban vision also gives starkness to the themes of development and population growth in post-revolutionary Egypt. In particular, it makes biting comment on standards of living in contemporary developing countries. References to the next generation express real fear for the future, as in: “If we have to suffer crowding like this now, what will our

81

Thus we see how Fatḥī’s father scorns his son’s attempts to write poetry, and how Fatḥī cannot cry when his father dies. 82 “Al-Ziḥām,” 8. 83 Ibid., 12. 84 Ibid., 13. As Turner notes: “Diet is a means of regulating the self; it is a disciplinary practice which binds the individual to the collective,” op. cit., 8. 85 “Al-Ziḥām,” 13.

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children do?”86 and, “Overcrowding is war. Whenever I look at my children, I worry for their future.”87 The dichotomy between the countryside of childhood and the city of adulthood reinforces the theme of social degeneration, and alludes to the end of the nation’s innocence and idealism. It might also be argued that this text’s foregrounding of the marginalized and disenfranchised hints at the author’s own minority intellectual experience. For, while many Egyptian writers voiced feelings of impotence at this time, this became more pronounced from the early 1960s onwards. Al-Shārūnī’s portrayal of an insignificant, isolated “madman” evokes the condition of a frustrated minority, as does the fact that the wider society cannot (or will not) accept his otherness. With respect to Egypt’s Coptic minority, what is significant is the tragic Oedipal situation, for though Fatḥī rivals his father by sleeping with his (step)mother, he fails ever to match or eclipse his authority, or to realize the taboo of his inner desire to rule. That Fatḥī is dispossessed of his paternal inheritance is thus pertinent,88 since this may be interpreted in line with the Copts’ loss of rights and heritage, as discussed in “al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn.”

“NA÷ARIYYA FI’L-JILDA AL-FĀSIDA,” 1966 Alī Shalash argues that, of al-Shārūnī’s first three collections, al-Ziḥām may be described as “the most politically committed.”89 We may go further by suggesting that this commitment is most evident in this next text, “Naẓariyya fi’l-Jilda al-Fāsida” (“The Broken Washer Theory”).90 Of the four short stories al-Shārūnī wrote in the 1960s, “Naẓariyya” gives the most critical portrayal of the sociopolitical transformations of this decade, focusing uncharacteristically on conditions in rural, rather than urban, Egypt. Al-Shārūnī has grouped “Naẓariyya” with his short story “al-Ḥidhā’,” describing it as another of his so-called “stories of prophecy”: while “al-Ḥidhā’,” he claims, predicted the 1952 revolution, “Naẓariyya”

86

Ibid., 14. Ibid., 14. 88 His stepmother declares him mad, whereupon Fatḥī’s father’s business is inherited by her son. 89 Alī Shalash, “Ziḥām Yūsuf al-Shārūnī,” in Faraj, op. cit., 218. 90 Hereafter “Naẓariyya.” 87

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anticipated the 1967 defeat, “seeing weaknesses in our system which others did not see.”91 The events of “Naẓariyya” are few: the narrator, who is traveling on a train from Asyūṭ, strikes up a conversation with a second man, who enters his carriage at al-Minyā. This is presented in the form of a long, rarely interrupted monologue, delivered almost exclusively on the part of the second passenger. This monologue takes up almost the entire narrative, closing as the two men reach their destination of Cairo. What is striking is that, from such a chance encounter, these two men should appear to have so much in common: both are from villages in Upper Egypt; both appear to be petit-bourgeois intellectuals; both are of a similar age (in their fifties); and, as we learn at the end of the story, both share the same name, Ṣāliḥ. What becomes clear is that this is not a conversation between two men, but an extended interior monologue structured from a series of loosely interconnected cogitations, and a mental interchange of ideas between the ego and alter-ego of one man, the narrative self. A self-confessed and irrepressible chatterbox, Ṣāliḥ longs to discuss his views and opinions. Yet, though there are other passengers in his carriage, he appears reluctant to confide in or communicate openly with them. Thus, he passes the long journey recounting anecdotes to himself about his village and its inhabitants, theorizing their attitudes, morals and motivations, and philosophizing generally on human relationships and behaviors. Many of his tales touch on recent material change in rural Egypt, engendered by government policies designed to ameliorate the conditions of the peasantry, such as the installation of electricity cables and pumps for clean drinking water, and the establishing of new clinics and schools. He also tells us much, if not more, about people’s practices and attitudes towards this change. With undisguised dismay, Ṣāliḥ casts a critical eye over Nasser’s “social revolution,” detailing the accompanying incompetence, corruption, fraud and pointless bureaucracy. He exposes the inadequacies and shortfalls of the new social order, yet lays blame in equal measure on both government and citizens. In his view, Nasser’s much-vaunted socialist project has misfired, due to an ideological and philosophical dissonance between the

91

Bayḍūn, op. cit. 17.

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government and its people. This dissonance, he claims, is at the heart of his “Broken Washer Theory,” a practical definition of which he presents below: The “Broken Washer Theory” is [what happens] when apparatus costing thousands of pounds is installed to pump, settle, filter and sterilize water, and when thousands of meters of piping are laid to transport it to your home, while a small, broken tap washer disturbs your peace, and renders this filtered, sterilized water [potentially] 92 dangerous to you.

While the “broken washer” here refers to a specific, material object, the theory is also an allegory for what Ṣāliḥ considers the traditional (that is, unenlightened) “mentality” of Egypt’s rural population. Certainly, such communities could be skeptical of post-revolutionary policies and programs, owing to the enduring character of traditional social and political structures and the fact that, as Hopwood claims, “the [Egyptian] peasant does not adopt change for change’s sake. He has to be convinced of its benefit and usefulness.”93 Thus, the potential success of the new government’s programs for modernization demanded the transformation of rural attitudes to lifestyle, agricultural methods, and even governance and the law. Ṣāliḥ finds evidence of the rural “mentality” in numerous situations, as the following demonstrates: Take the electricity first, for example. Electric cables and lights were installed on the roads of our village and in some of the houses, after which people began to argue. Each wanted to have a street light in front of his house, for this was the most modern indication of status and prestige. Now this is all well and good, but for the time being—until electricity arrives from the [Aswan] dam—an electricity generator with only limited power has been installed. [...] And, the thing is, the number of lights in each house is restricted, but the people in my village

92

“Naẓariyya,” 43–44. It should be noted that the world jilda means “leather” or “skin,” while the word fāsida means “rotten.” This reflects the fact that, at this time, tap washers were commonly made from leather or rubber. As a result, they perished or eroded easily, meaning that water was easily wasted or contaminated. 93 Hopwood, op. cit., 172.

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SELF AND OTHER (particularly those who are well-off and have succeeded to have electricity installed in their homes), pay no attention to this fact and refuse to believe it. That, Sir, is the “broken washer”: as soon as there is a wedding party or funeral, then extra lights are turned on, which is not permitted. And what’s the result? The generator coil burns out and darkness descends on the village, and the damage is then not repaired for many weeks. Generally, the repairs need only a technician or spare part, [but] these are available only in the town, which is cut off from us by the Nile, for our village is on the east bank and the town is on the west. Thus our village has lighting for a week then is in darkness for several weeks. Imagine. Take also the matter of clean water. What do you make of this? Until today only a minority uses it, though it is available in pumps right alongside their homes. The majority still prefers to fill jars from the Nile, where the shore is sandy and it takes a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes at least to wade in—imagine! As for me, I have reached a compromise, not between the minority and the majority in my village, but between the minority and the majority in my home (meaning between myself and my wife—ha, ha!): the purified water is for washing and bathing, while the Nile water is for drinking. Yes—drinking! Because my wife insists that water from the pump is “tasteless,” and water from the 94 Nile is “unspoiled.” Imagine!

Hence, the broken washer is the metaphorical “weak link” which undermines Egypt’s development: though cheap, small and easy to replace, if neglected or overlooked it leads to waste and, potentially, great harm. For this reason, Ṣāliḥ contends: “It isn’t enough that we construct buildings and bring doctors and teachers; the washer must [also] be sound and fit for purpose.”95 The broken washer metaphor also demonstrates the futility of the regime’s vision; since the state has failed to match its financial and technological investment with the necessary intellectual and politicoideological investment, its project is shown to be meaningless and doomed to fail.

94 95

“Naẓariyya,” 44–45. Ibid., 44.

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An “In-Between” Self in Acquiescence to its Other There are two main dimensions to Ṣāliḥ, the narrative self: first, he represents Egypt’s “static” rural consciousness; second, he embodies the particularities of Egypt’s rural petite bourgeoisie. We know from his narration that he is “one of the few learned men who live in the village,”96 and that he tries (largely unsuccessfully) to maintain a degree of political activity and influence, by drafting petitions and complaints for his illiterate neighbors, or engaging in debate with the village umda (headman) and notables. Thus, he is the sole mediator between the representatives of the narrative’s various socio-economic strata. Ṣāliḥ’s character lends meaning to the text in many ways: first, he is a metaphor for Egypt’s shift from feudalism to state capitalism; second, he represents the tensions and ongoing dialogue between the structures and ideologies of the old regime and those of the new. This is expressed in the following description, which Ṣāliḥ gives of his imaginary companion (i.e. himself): There are people like you in our village, my passenger friend. It’s clear from your clothes and from your manner of speaking that you are neither villager nor townsman. You have left the country but without quite reaching the city. And here you are: dressed in a jilbāb with an overcoat on top, a watch on your wrist, a light moustache. Your head is bare, though covered with black hair mixed with grey, revealing you to have reached your fifties. Had I met you twenty years ago, you would undoubtedly have worn a fez, for its trace on your head is still visible. You have wonder in your eyes; you have the simplicity of the villager 97 and the boldness of the townsman.

Such an “in-between” self is also found in “al-Ziḥām; indeed, this emerges as a character prototype in most of al-Shārūnī’s short stories from this period. This self signifies a nation in transition, and expresses the contradictions between state and society. The sentence: “Had I met you twenty years ago, you would undoubtedly have worn a fez, for its trace on your head is still visible,” is significant in that the symbolic absence of the

96 97

Ibid., 54. Ibid., 44.

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fez alludes to the end of the ancien régime,98 while the fact that “its trace is still visible” demonstrates the residual influence of the old ruling class, particularly in the rural regions. Further, the fact that Ṣāliḥ has “left the country behind but without quite reaching the city,” is another indication of the government’s failure to modernize, and of the incomplete educating and acculturating of its people. We again find that the self is a minority, peripheral character: a frustrated man, Ṣāliḥ rails against what he perceives as others’ ignorance and lack of reason, and deems himself intellectually and ethically “superior.” In practical terms, however, he is powerless and impotent, attested to by the fact that he is intellectually and physically crippled (he has had one leg amputated), and is unemployed and childless. Reserved and asocial, he is removed from local processes of production, and rarely engages with the everyday realities of the peasants. His relationship with his wife is a case in point: he is cerebral, while she is practical; he is weak, while she is “strong willed,”99 her mind engaged with what he sees as life’s “trivialities” and with what she sees as its “necessities.”100 Indeed, Ṣāliḥ’s wife is a clear iteration of the other: an agent of no little power, she is defined by action rather than thought, and by practical, rather than mental, production. The other is also a symbol for the state and its institutions, governing by invisible modes of control mediated via its various agencies to the greater collectivity. The other stifles and deforms the self at every turn: though located at a distance, its tentacles reach into every sphere of life, while all decisions must be taken by or through it, regardless of how arbitrary or inconsequential.101 The self acquiesces to this other for the sake of “a quiet life” or, again, for its very survival, an example being when Ṣāliḥ argues with his wife:

98

Nasser having abolished the wearing of the fez after the revolution. Ibid., 56. 100 Ibid., 56. 101 The relationship between self and other is most powerfully expressed in that between the village and the markaz, or town center, on the other side of the Nile. This relationship between the village and the seat of local authority is defined by geographical and politico-ideological distance, reproducing the distance between the countryside and Cairo, locus of political power in Egypt. 99

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[...] she sees only her point of view, whereas he sees both his and hers. And what’s the result? She convinces him, but he doesn’t convince her; she’s always in the right and he’s always in the wrong. And in the end, she’s the “victim,” imagine. [...] She always begins the battle, and if he raises his voice in complaint (—in self-defense!), she will punish him with silence. Or, more simply put, she will refuse to speak to him. She is well aware of his appetite for speaking (or, as she puts it, his appetite for “jabbering”), and so she punishes him by denying him something as vital as food or drink. He even feels as someone who is deprived of food would feel: he can bear the silence for a day or two, but soon feels 102 a real hunger to talk to her.

Given that “Naẓariyya” was written at a time when political expression in Egypt was heavily circumscribed, Ṣāliḥ’s wife’s stratagem of forcing her husband into silence might be read as an allusion to the state’s censorship of its citizens. Strategies of Self-Censorship and Concealment “Naẓariyya” is multi-layered; it is a narrative with another embedded within it, such as we find in The Thousand and One Nights, for example. The text in fact affirms this intertextual allusion; at one point Ṣāliḥ remarks: “I no longer felt that you were delivering a lecture as much as narrating stories, perhaps in the manner of The Thousand and One Nights, one story behind another, as though you had a never-ending stream of them.”103 Ṣāliḥ is the narrator of the outer narration or “frame story,” within which his alter-ego narrates its own interior monologue. In this way, he simultaneously assumes the roles of narrator, narratee and narrative subject. The content of “Naẓariyya” affects an academic, and at times “scientific,” discourse, reproducing the state’s preoccupation with scientific and technological development. Ṣāliḥ, too, presents his own pseudoscientific theories, such as his “electro-sexual theory,” which he sets out as follows:

102 103

“Naẓariyya,” 55–56. Ibid., 49.

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SELF AND OTHER When a man looks at a woman, electromagnetic (that is magnetized, electric) rays come from his eyes, penetrating the woman’s clothes and drawing her towards him. This is one interpretation of sexual attraction, the level of electromagnetic conductivity being relative to the woman’s beauty and charm. The prettier or more charming she is, the stronger this conductivity will be. It is also in relative opposition to her age, so that the more advanced in years she is, the more her conductivity 104 declines.

Academic discourse also shapes this story’s structure, which is organized into three sections, “introduction,” “proof” (or “evidence”) and “result,” much in the manner of a scientific report or essay. In the introductory section the “broken washer theory” is defined; in the second various examples of its application or manifestation are presented; and in the third a conclusion is reached on the strength of what has preceded. This “academic” form signifies two key points: first, it is indicative of class register; second, it underlines the instructive, or educational, dimension to the narrative, though Ṣāliḥ’s “electro-sexual” theory suggests that his ideas are based on opinion, and not objectivity. On initial reading, “Naẓariyya” is deceptive, in that its plot appears to contain little action (that is, if we adhere to the conventional introduction  complication  resolution model of narrative). However, rather than tending towards physical action, the plot reproduces a process of cognitive action. Thus, the narrative functions as a mental, philosophical or ideological “journey” (its setting on a train should not go unnoticed). Its texture is agitated and tense, marked by Ṣāliḥ’s compulsive chatter and the many deferrals, rises and falls in his narration. These in themselves reflect narrative shift: episodes are narrated out of chronological sequence, as Ṣāliḥ begins a tale, diverts his narration, and then reverts. Though this narrative feature is both frustrating and long-winded, it is effective in that it emulates the natural patterns of conversational speech, and shows a formal adaptation of the theme of digression. This is reinforced by skaz-like characteristics, such as long and spontaneous sentences and paragraphs; the repeated use of discourse linkers and conversational tags such as “as for...,” “the thing is…,” and the repeated phrase “imagine”; idiomatic expressions;

104

Ibid., 47.

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repeated rhetorical questions such as “and what’s the result?”; and numerous examples of hyperbole. Ṣāliḥ’s narration also relates to the train’s movement, its rhythmic motion reproducing his own train of thought. Once the train enters Giza station, the narrative comes to an abrupt termination, the carriage that contains the frame being a vacuum beyond which Ṣāliḥ’s voice cannot survive. Notably, whenever the train stops—at a station for example, or where it appears at one juncture to break down—Ṣāliḥ ceases to narrate, as though wary of the ears and eyes of others, and as though only noisy movement permits free and frank expression. When speaking of his “fellow passenger”/alter-ego, Ṣāliḥ remarks: “I became aware of his presence only once the train had moved off,”105 suggesting that he located his voice, or felt able to articulate it, only after the train was in motion. Ṣāliḥ’s engagement with his narrating alter-ego is in fact with his critical superego. This split in the self indicates two things: the externally-/self-imposed suppression of this critical voice, and the prevailing climate of fear in which this takes place. Thus, Ṣāliḥ harnesses his alter-ego as a conduit and sounding board, articulating his “theories” and opinions, yet never exposing them as his own. As he is careful to assert: “At times I was lucky and could make out his voice, at others our voices mingled with the noise of the train, so that I could not tell whether it was his voice or mine I was hearing.”106 By way of this dialogue, Ṣāliḥ may cerebrate via the reflexive recounting of his own self-narrative, and assigns a further level of identity to himself, by discussing himself with his alter-ego, in the third person. Thus he avoids the risk and responsibility of using the “I,” and places a prudent distance between himself and his narrative subject. “Naẓariyya” embodies and critiques ideology; it is also politically committed in that it addresses the many problems existing in contemporary society, and since it fulfils what Sartre calls “action by disclosure.”107 It discloses so as to bring about change for the Egyptian nation, its goal being

105

Ibid., 43. Ibid., 43. 107 Jean-Paul Sartre, “What is Writing?” in “What is Literature?” and Other Essays, introd. Steven Ungar (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988), 37. 106

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“to reveal the world and particularly to reveal man to other men so that the latter may assume full responsibility before the object which has been thus laid bare.”108 Though self-censored in parts to the point of obliquity, and though only mildly confrontational in tone, “Naẓariyya” nonetheless exhorts the (Egyptian) reader to effect social change, for the good of self and collectivity. The ethos underpinning this is expressed in Ṣāliḥ’s theory of “the absolute good,” which he explains as follows: “The absolute good” is the happiness felt on undertaking something completely equal to the happiness enjoyed by its recipient. It is an act which affirms both self and others at once, so that your and others’ happiness become one and the same thing, to the point where you do not know whether you are realizing your or someone else’s desire, for it is but one desire that is being realized. Should this occur between two individuals it is the “absolute good,” whereas should it occur between the individual and the group (as with the artist or scientist who is pleased with his work, and with which others are pleased and find use), then this is the “beyond absolute.” And should it occur between one group and another, such as between one state and another, then this is 109 the “absolute absolute.”

This theory is Ṣāliḥ’s response to his realization that, in Egypt, “there is always one side which tries to benefit at the expense of the other, not knowing that, by destroying the other, it destroys itself.”110 Corruption is a prime example of this phenomenon, be it at the hands of peasants, landowners or functionaries of the state. In many cases, corruption is merely a mechanism for survival, which, for Egypt’s poor in particular, must be attained at any price. For others, corruption is cynical opportunism, as with Ṣāliḥ’s example of Dr. Shunayṭa, the government medic who: [...] transformed the government medical center into his own private clinic. An examination cost thirty piastres and a home visit a full pound. Free medicine went the same way. Every medical test had its price; operations were performed only once the price had been agreed; a

108

Jean-Paul Sartre, “Writing, Read and the Public,” in Walder, op. cit., 83. “Naẓariyya,” 47–48. 110 Ibid., 64. 109

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hospital bed cost fifty piastres a day. The lab assistant, the health worker, the clerk, the warehouse manager and the nurse took their share of the loot, too. Bandages had a price, intramuscular injections had a price, and intravenous injections another. You ask how our village can be satisfied with this? I say that it was the village that asked for it—that 111 it compelled the doctor to do what he did.

Thus Dr. Shunayṭa, and the locals with whom he colludes, show how this system favors the corrupt over the honest. Indeed, in such a system, truth and goodness are merely perceived as weakness.112 This exposes one stark, yet inescapable, truth: that the nationalist ethos advanced by Nasser’s regime had yet to be fully internalized by the citizenry. Besides urging Egyptians to embrace the ideal behind his “theory of the absolute good,” Ṣāliḥ stresses the importance of collective responsibility, as expressed in his “totality theory.” This theory argues that “the state is one indivisible whole. An act cannot be defective without this meaning that all remaining acts will also be defective.”113 It thus supports the view that all deeds are interconnected, and that we learn from the example we are set. In Ṣāliḥ’s view, the new regime is a mere reworking of the old: autocratic and self-serving, its doctrinarism impedes the progress it seeks to achieve. He provides the example of the new village school, where he is refused a position due to his age and disability, though he has a long and successful career as a teacher behind him. Predictably, those who work at the school (who have been recruited from the nearby town) waste half of their day commuting, and are unmotivated and idle: The thing is, its ten teachers all live in the town—imagine—while the head teacher is from one of the villages in the west. So the entire teaching staff crosses the Nile to our village in the morning, and then goes back in the afternoon. Manṣūr, the school porter, is the only one from the village. He opens the school doors in the morning, and some

111

Ibid., 50. Though Ṣāliḥ reveals that “he is described in the village as ‘a good man’,” he also adds, “Perhaps this ‘goodness,’ Sir, is a polite expression for ‘weakness’.” Ibid., 56. 113 Ibid., 62. 112

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SELF AND OTHER of the children come and play in the yard until ten or eleven o’clock, imagine. Only then do the teachers begin to arrive, some of them coming and others not, though the truth must be said that the head teacher is absent the least. And so the school runs by the grace of God. As for the inspectors, well, there’s no danger from them, for His Excellency the Inspector can only reach our village after first announcing his intention to visit, when the staff send a donkey or horse to collect him, rather than have him stuck in the sand on the shore for fifteen to twenty minutes. As for the women teachers, there is nothing to prevent those who actually attend from simply leaving the children to play or even fight, while they are busy chatting or knitting. In short, as 114 they say, our school is a “free-for-all”—the broken washer again, Sir.

There is thus clear political intent in Ṣāliḥ’s critique that “teaching is not merely dictating information; a child learns more from his teacher’s actions than from what he says.”115 To close, in spite of its many layers of self-censorship and concealment, “Naẓariyya” has a tangible authorial presence, and appears to express al-Shārūnī’s own worldview. A parallel process might be discerned in the author’s use of Ṣāliḥ as a persona, disguising his own voice and opinions. Central to this text is the theme of the “crisis of civilization,” which al-Shārūnī first advanced in “al-Ḥidhā’,” and which he develops throughout his career. Founded on the premise that civilizational, social and political degeneration are interconnected, it was al-Shārūnī’s concept of the crisis of civilization which underpinned his prediction of the 1967 defeat. In the short stories he wrote after “Naẓariyya,” this theme re-emerges with greater frequency, a point to which we will return in the final chapter.

“LAMAḤĀT MIN ḤAYĀT MAWJŪD ABD AL-MAWJŪD,” 1969 “Lamaḥāt min Ḥayāt Mawjūd Abd al-Mawjūd” (“Glimpses from the Life of Mawjūd Abd al-Mawjūd”) exists in three different versions, the first and last of which will be referred to here. The earliest, published in al-Majalla in

114 115

Ibid., 53. Ibid., 63.

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1969,116 appeared in the collection al-Ziḥām, though this was just one of a number of drafts in existence when the collection was prepared for publication. With the appearance two years later of what al-Shārūnī identifies as the “final” version of the text, the author observed: “Perhaps a comparison between the two versions can clarify the extent to which the story has benefited from—or has been harmed by—long contemplation and multiple versions.”117 In fact, in an act of authorial digression that evokes Ṣāliḥ of the last story, al-Shārūnī modified the introduction again that same year, and thus it is this third version which qualifies as the actual, final version.118 “Lamaḥāt” is focalized through the eyes of Mawjūd Abd al-Mawjūd, a philosophy teacher renting a rooftop room in Cairo from a middle-aged widow, Madīḥa. An inhibited and introverted young man, Mawjūd yearns for human companionship yet shrinks from most forms of contact. In spite of her tenant’s ambivalence, Madīḥa sets out—and succeeds—to seduce him. She then contrives that he should marry her daughter, Zaynab, upon which she installs him in her home as both son-in-law and lover. It is not long, however, before Zaynab discovers them, locked inside a room to which she holds a duplicate key. Hurling herself from the roof at their betrayal, she leaves only her red velvet slippers—a wedding gift from Mawjūd—behind. Following Zaynab’s suicide, Mawjūd retreats back into his rooftop room, while the grieving Madīḥa takes to pacing the streets carrying Zaynab’s slippers, declaring: “Sins we committed and Your eye sleeps not. O Lord of Mankind, you have taken a terrible vengeance.”119 Henceforth, the mother is known as “Shaykha” Madīḥa, since her transformation is seen to be divinely inspired. The slippers, meanwhile, remain a reminder of

116

“Lamaḥāt min Ḥayāt Mawjūd Abd al-Mawjūd,” hereafter “Lamaḥāt.” Cited in his introduction to “Lamaḥāt min Ḥayāt Mawjūd Abd al-Mawjūd wa Mulāḥaẓatān” (“Glimpses from the Life of Mawjūd Abd al-Mawjūd and Two Postcripts”), Gālīrī 68, 48. 118 Also entitled “Lamaḥāt min Ḥayāt Mawjūd Abd al-Mawjūd wa Mulāḥaẓatān,” it appeared in al-Khawf wa’l-Shajā a, op. cit., and was reprinted in al-Majmū āt, vol. 2, 29–54. Hereafter “Mulāḥaẓatān.” 119 “Lamaḥāt,” 33. 117

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Mawjūd’s dead wife, and he determines to retrieve them and lay his memory of her to rest. As he contends: These slippers were my secret and my enemy, my fear and my concern. I had bought them and made a gift of them, so they were from me and belonged to me. Why, then, should someone else take possession of 120 them, so as to threaten me with them and compromise me?

Zaynab’s slippers exact their ultimate revenge by implicating Mawjūd in a second fatality. Amidst a struggle to wrench the shoes from Madīḥa’s hands, Mawjūd inadvertently strikes her on the head and leaves her unconscious. He soon becomes aware of two disconcerting facts: first, that Madīḥa still holds onto a scrap of velvet, torn from the heel of one of the slippers, and second, that a malodorous smell is now issuing from her flat. The police inform Mawjūd that Madīḥa, too, has died, having breathed her last within a day of their altercation. Here follows his reaction to the breaking news of her death: I wonder if there has been a crime? And, if so, who are the accused and who are the witnesses? Do you suppose that I will be a witness, or one of those accused? And if I am accused, what will this accusation amount 121 to? Do you think it could lead to my being found guilty?

The police interrogate Mawjūd, though he conceals the true nature of his relationship with Madīḥa and does not mention their violent dispute. He is released but remains unnerved by his “freedom,” saying: “When the investigator let me go, I didn’t believe him: he was looking at me with complete suspicion. He’ll make me believe I am free so as to spy on and expose me via my conduct and movements.”122 Condemned to this paradoxical existence, Mawjūd barricades himself within the cell-like confines of his room, from which he pronounces: “In order to safeguard my freedom, I have sequestered it. I have placed myself under arrest, so as to spare someone else the effort of arresting me.”123 His pronouncement

120

Ibid., 35. Ibid., 28. 122 Ibid., 38. Once more, this evokes allusions to Crime and Punishment. 123 “Mulāḥaẓatān,” 52. 121

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thus becomes an admission of culpability, to be punished by a slow, and self-imposed, death sentence. Self as Fear, Fear as Other In keeping with his philosophical coloring, Mawjūd is the most nihilistic of the narrative selves examined thus far. A model of existential despair, he grapples anxiously with the contingency of his fate. Unwilling (or unable) to be author of his own life narrative, he succumbs helplessly to a predetermined script, as though to resist this would be meaningless and, above all, futile. To give an example, before his affair with Madīḥa has even begun, local gossips insinuate a relationship between them. Though Mawjūd attempts feebly at first to resist her, he soon yields with the rationalization that “there was no sense in being accused of something of which we were both innocent.” 124 Further, it is as though Mawjūd’s “crime”—which he cannot identify and thus does not know whether he is guilty of committing it or not—were a fait accompli even before it has taken place. The point of origin and raison d’être of this self is fear, as we note when Mawjūd claims his personal cogito to be: “I fear, therefore I am.”125 Further evidence may be found in the story’s first sentence, with its ironic Biblical associations: “In the beginning was fear. All things were with it, and without it nothing came into being.”126 Fear also gives form and substance to the collectivity, trapped in a world of tensions, dilemmas and (false?) accusations. Thus, fear’s function is perversely dualistic, for, just as it brings into existence it also negates and eradicates. Mawjūd offers an unsettling illustration of this phenomenon: having introjected fear as the dominant element of his identity, he then destroys all his personal documents and erases all evidence of his existence. Likewise, he lets his family and friends believe that he is dead, then negates his identity further by taking an assumed name and profession. Fear, then, may be defined as a Lacanian symbolic Other. Taking form in the text’s many agents of authority, this Other is evoked in such figures

124

“Lamaḥāt,” 27. Ibid., 25, 27. 126 Ibid., 25. 125

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as the national paterfamilias, Nasser (cf. “al-Ziḥām”), or in the national “superego,” the state. Under its policing and all-seeing eye, the self takes care to obscure any sign of its specificity, and must be content to exist interstitially, suspended between times, events, ideas and places. Such ambivalence is key to the self’s survival, though its steady erosion and nullification leave but a carapace behind. Though this self seems resigned to its existential plight, it is also conscious that its predicament offers it comfort and even security. This is exemplified in Mawjūd’s description of sexual intercourse with Madīḥa (an act he simultaneously desires but dreads) as “hiding my fear in the source of my fear.”127 Equally, though he articulates his fear of illness, of the death of his parents, of personal failure and even of success,128 he knows that his fearing (and self-sequestering) is an act of self-preservation. Eventually, however, his purgatorial half-life proves a punishment greater even than death itself. Enigma and Ambiguity, Contrast and Contradiction It may be argued that “Lamaḥāt” is the narrative successor to “al-Ziḥām.” Both share common characters, themes and motifs, enjoy particular structural and rhetorical features, and examine similar aspects of individual and collective identity. Indeed, it may be suggested that “al-Ziḥām” serves as a blueprint for “Lamaḥāt,” since it treats salient themes (existence, death, ego, power and fear) from the same philosophical and psychological perspective. The two anti-heroes, Fatḥī and Mawjūd, are interchangeable in many ways: both are male and of the same social class and rural origins; they experience the same stigmas and feelings of urban alienation; and both are selves in inner exile, finding no escape from their ontological anxieties. Mawjūd, however, is more cerebral than Fatḥī, and his narration boasts a more “intellectual” bent.

127

Ibid., 31. In this respect, Mawjūd reminds us of Sayyid Afandī Āmir in “Sariqa bi’l-Ṭābiq al-Sādis.” 128 Mawjūd tells of his fear that his students will perform well in their exams, since this will expose him to the attentions of jealous and vindictive colleagues, who will accuse him of giving his students the questions beforehand. See “Mulāḥaẓatān,” 46.

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“Lamaḥāt” is an enigmatic and often obscure text, replete with ambiguities and riddled with contradictions. Self-consciously ludic, it shows strong interconnections between form and content, language and structure. Dramatic tension is built by both narrative and discourse, via the slowly unfurling plot and devices such as stream of consciousness, interior monologue and association. These combine to produce a dislocated, convoluted text, where ideas are randomly juxtaposed and development is digressive or illogical. Narrative order is haphazard and in fact largely in reverse, lending suspense (and often confusion) to our processing of the plot, while enhancing our enjoyment of the story’s themes of crime and mystery.129 Strikingly, the text helps us to anticipate this strategy at its outset, when Mawjūd announces: “Let’s start the story from its end.”130 Besides its main plot, the narrative contains numerous sub-plots, a layering of tissues representing different levels of Mawjūd’s experience. This layering of plot and sub-plot supports one of the story’s main themes: of the necessary concealment and suppression of the self. An intense, firstperson narration, the reader is struck by Mawjūd’s repeating of the “I,” as though attempting to allay his existential uncertainties. Ironically, his anxious, and sometimes desperate, reiteration of the “I” betrays his lack of self-mastery and lends no authority to his narration. Rather, he is obliged to remain on the surface of events, reporting external impressions and facts with stark simplicity, and offering little incidental detail. Thus, the narrative discourse evokes sensations (of fear, menace, desire, torture and so on), rather than giving detailed, concrete depictions. Two standout exceptions relate to Madīḥa (of whom Mawjūd provides keenly observed accounts, including a lyrical depiction of their first sexual encounter), and his room. Here follows Mawjūd’s description of Madīḥa’s hands: How often had I kissed those supple, soft-skinned, tender hands. Now one had sprouted the claws of a lioness defending her cub, while on the back of the other I saw protruding veins, close before my eyes, as

129

As David Lodge notes, “Most examples of radical experiment with narrative chronology that come to mind seem to be concerned with crimes, misdemeanours and sins.” The Art of Fiction (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1992), 79. 130 “Lamaḥāt,” 25.

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SELF AND OTHER though I were peering through a microscope. The hand was so close to 131 my mouth, I was tempted to bite it—gnaw it, even.

Below is his description of the solitude of his room: It is my fortress and my snare. I know it now with all of my senses: the colors of its walls, its windows and its tiles; all that has stayed the same here, and all that has changed. Its cobwebby corners up by the ceiling, its dusty corners down by the floor. Its smell when it has remained locked a long while, and when I cook my food in it, and when I open the adjoining toilet. I even know the taste and touch of the lower walls: salty, crumbly, white. Day by day they become thinner, and I am terrified that one morning I will find that they have been eaten away completely—for then all of my plans will collapse from their foundations. I am also fully acquainted with its sounds: mysterious, wary. What scares me about them is that they come from unknown places. Trying to define them gives me peace of mind: perhaps this is a mouse nibbling at scraps of food in the dustbin, perhaps that is a cockroach gaily amusing itself in the toilet. And then there are other noises, distant or close, above or below, which grow louder in the stillness and darkness of the night: two cats whispering or fighting each 132 other, a dog barking, a foot creeping, things breaking.

Though both examples consist in largely banal descriptions, they hint at the tense foreboding of Mawjūd’s existence, and offer “glimpses from a life” that is by turns melancholy, paranoid and despairing. In the first quote, the fact that Mawjūd contemplates biting Madīḥa’s hand reveals an absurd, if fleeting, moment of introspection, at what is in fact the most critical juncture in the plot. It also offers a momentary glimpse into the self’s instinct to survive, as it turns inwards and, thereby, defends itself. Mawjūd’s use of language is often poetic, its rhythm and musicality woven into the narrative fabric. In particular, he employs strategies such as thematic repetition (he is lonely, the room is lonely) and lexical repetition, as in: “Leaving the key, the key to the door of the house with her, was our first line of defense. Leaving the key, the key to the door of the room in its

131 132

Ibid., 35. Ibid., 40–41.

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keyhole, was our second line of defense.”133 We also find repetition of verb endings (lending a Qur’anic quality to the style of certain passages), assonance and parallelism, as in: “The house looks onto a courtyard; in the courtyard is a mawlid;134 at the mawlid are seventy thousand persons; each person has seventy thousand hands; in each hand are seventy thousand slippers; in each slipper are seventy thousand candles.”135 Such devices are not merely concerned with linguistic texture, but drive the narrative’s layered, inwardly spiraling plot and structure. The author sharpens the mood of enigma and ambiguity by the use of defamiliarized images and thought-provoking form. Notably, the original version of this story begins with a “triadic opening,” establishing its overall tone and condensing its dominant themes and keywords: Triadic opening:

136

The beginning: in the beginning was fear, all things were with it, and without it nothing came into being. This was in the beginning. Being: I fear, therefore I am. Synthesis: My fear gives me security ... and protection. The event The two candles were snuffed out: the girl and her mother, my wife and 137 my mistress, and all that remain are the slippers.

133

Ibid., 32. In this context, a Sufi saint’s anniversary celebration. 135 “Lamaḥāt,” 32. This rhythmic, incantatory sentence is also suggestive of the whirling motions of Sufi worship. 136 This “opening” (iftitāḥiyya) may be interpreted as an “overture,” since it opens the work and prefigures its main themes. 137 “Lamaḥāt,” 25. This triadic opening appears only in the original version of the story. The third (final) version begins with the following quote: “The present is a time suspended between two times, for the past has determined the destiny of the future. It is caught between them, unable to escape from either.” See “Mulāḥaẓatān,” 29. 134

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This opening is a summary of the text’s three governing philosophies: the theological (with its allusions to the Gospel of St. John); the rational (with its allusions to the Cartesian cogito); and the dialectical (with its allusions to Hegelian contradictions). The ideas of Descartes, Hegel, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Sartre appear in dialogue, most notably in Mawjūd’s examination of the nature of his being and non-being, reinforced by the fact that his name means “existing” or “existent.” Commencing with the proposition that he exists because he fears, Mawjūd presents a series of dialectical negations, closing with the view that fear has eradicated his existence, and concluding: “I fear, therefore I am not.”138 Dialectics are also evident in the use of thesis and antithesis, where the juxtaposing of contrasting words (such as being/non-being), clauses and sentences offers lexically contradictory or oppositional ideas, such as: “Ambiguity on the lips of clarity; the secret is about to become a scandal”;139 “Just as fear had brought me down, so fear took me up”;140 and: From that day, whenever I felt secure I was frightened, and whenever I was frightened I felt secure. Whenever I felt secure I foresaw misfortune, and whenever I was frightened I protected myself and was 141 protected. What I desire I do not achieve, and what I achieve I do not desire, and between the desire that is not achieved and the achievement I do not 142 desire, falls my existence.

This also underpins the theme of dualism in the narrative, as in the following: There is little furniture in my room: a chair, the seat of which I sit on and on the back of which I hang my suit; a table, for writing and eating at; a sofa, which my guests sit on by day and which I sleep on by night; a glass, from which I sometimes drink and in which I sometimes put the sweet peas I like. Everything in my room is dual purpose, even the

138

“Lamaḥāt,” 42. Ibid., 34. 140 Ibid., 33. 141 Ibid., 37. 142 “Mulāḥaẓatān,” 46. 139

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newspaper which the paperboy throws under my door each morning, and in which I follow the news of my charge, and which I then use as a 143 tablecloth.

Even fear, as we have seen, has dualistic dimensions: on the one hand, it protects Mawjūd by inhibiting and preventing him from exposing his true self, while annihilating him and denying him his identity. Written during a decade characterized by state surveillance, and when many aspects of everyday life had become increasingly contingent in nature, “Lamaḥāt” exposes the dual, and duplicitous, function of fear. One may query whether this paralleled al-Shārūnī’s contemporary reality, since themes of fear and anxiety had become more prominent in liberal intellectual discourse at this time. Thus, given that the dialecticism and dualism in this text are also self-censorship devices, does its author too selfconsciously obfuscate? As one commentator observes, “the presence of political suppression in the consciousness of Arab writers turns it into a kind of internal censor that controls the writer from within and makes him reproduce this suppression and disseminate it around him.”144 Considered thus, Mawjūd’s claim that he is “the victim of a bitter struggle between a belief I do not act upon and an action I do not believe in, and a shame that is even more bitter since what I reveal is different to that which I conceal,”145 may be supposed to be as applicable to his creator as to himself. Hafez notes that al-Shārūnī “uses a technique that may be called duality of perspective, a technique associated with the treatment of the favorite theme of the modernists, the relativity of truth.”146 In “Lamaḥāt,” this theme may also be considered from the Hegelian view that the truth can only ever be located in the whole. In most instances, the “whole” is inaccessible to Mawjūd (as with Zaynab’s slippers), while in others it is Mawjūd who withholds the part from the whole. To cite an example, when describing his police interrogation, Mawjūd confesses: “I stood before the investigator and told him half the facts, hiding and denying the other

143

“Lamaḥāt,” 25–26. Abd al-Nabī Staif, “The Question of Freedom in Modern Arabic Literary Criticism,” JAL, 26 (1995): 166. 145 “Mulāḥaẓatān,” 45. 146 Hafez, “The Modern Arabic Short Story,” 329. 144

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half.”147 In any event, since Mawjūd cannot see the totality of his predicament, his understanding of what is “true” is wanting. Nor is there much likelihood of the truth becoming apparent; as Mawjūd explains, the truth is “known to no-one, not even to myself.”148 Besides references to the New Testament and the aforementioned philosophical themes, there is ample evidence of intertextuality in this narrative, with much pointing to the influence of Kafka and Camus. Kafkan pre-texts are discernible in themes such as the end of innocence and idealism, horror, pleasure and death. There is also a strong relationship to Kafka’s novel The Trial, since Mawjūd bears distinct similarities to Joseph K, who cannot establish the crime for which he has been arrested, and who is “freed” but whose file is never closed. As an anti-hero caught somewhere between guilt and innocence, Mawjūd also bears inflections of Camus’s Mersault in the novel L’Étranger. Further, the theses of Freud are again in evidence, as with the recurring Oedipal theme (Mawjūd in effect sleeps with his mother, since Madīḥa is his mother-in-law), and in the defense of the self via return to the mother’s womb,149 another manifestation of the Oedipal condition. Concealed within the tissues of this text are many motifs, that of fear being most germane to this discussion, for it is the defining characteristic of contemporary Egyptian life, evoking oppressive governance and the social and psychological traumas of modernization. Fear also symbolizes death within life itself—of the spirit and creativity, of freedom of expression and individuality. Thus Mawjūd finds no alternative but to declare: “There is no escaping the fact that my life is my affliction, and that my very existence is the essence of my tragedy.”150 Above all, “Lamaḥāt” is informed by antiauthoritarian principle, attested to by its stark and uncompromising representation of the subject as a number, case or file, and by Mawjūd’s oblique attempts to direct his own destiny, to the point of severing himself

147

“Mulāḥaẓatān,” 45. “Lamaḥāt,” 38. 149 Ibid., 39–40. 150 “Mulāḥaẓatān,” 49. 148

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from the wider collectivity. As he explains: “My motto is this: ‘Better by my own hand than by the hand, grip or fist of another’.”151 Conclusion In this fourth chapter, al-Shārūnī’s short stories have employed approaches from the realist, symbolic and absurdist modes. The first text discussed here, “al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn,” is the most realistic, and continues to cling to the ideals of nationalist rhetoric, particularly the notion that individual interests must be sacrificed for the sake of the national unifier. What is clear from the narrative discourse, however, is that the collective national identity is fragmenting, a fact which becomes more apparent by the second short story, “al-Ziḥām.” Disenchantment with the regime becomes more pronounced in “Naẓariyya,” exposing the futility of state doctrinarism and its blind insistence on principles without practical application. In “al-Ziḥām” and “Lamaḥāt” we can identify an “in-between” self, of rural origin, suspended somewhere between tradition and modernity. Severed from local social structures, it resists or rebels against an imposed collective identity, replacing external criteria for identification with an identity located in one’s inner, rather than outer, world. Accordingly, both “al-Ziḥām” and “Lamaḥāt” have deeply psychological plots, and depend less on external action than do earlier stories. What is also clear is that rural life is idealized during this period, and is perceived to possess “purer” values than those of urban existence. The innocence of childhood is also emphasized, pointing ironically to a still young nation that has become prematurely jaded and cynical. Suggesting the onset of an ideological crisis, unifying values are collapsing, and are being replaced by contradictions and profound ambiguities. At this stage in the development of al-Shārūnī’s narrative self, all ideals and aspirations are being crushed by a pre-eminent Other (in the Lacanian sense). The impulse to rebel and resist is clear, but is nonetheless cloaked in the dissimulating language of symbols and dreams. With the Other now perceived as oppressive and tyrannical, the self fears for both individual and collectivity. Further, it lives a double or, at its most acute, “schizophrenic” existence, co-opted and coerced into bewildering, contingent submission.

151

Ibid., 52.

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Whereas social relations were once founded on love, loyalty and respect, these are now distorted by pragmatism, betrayal and cynicism. Self-other perceptions may be summarized as follows:

SELF

OTHER

Fearful, oppressed Crushed, under siege Internal censor Anxiety in present, fear for future Contingent existence Fragmented identity Rejects myth of national ideal

Fearsome, oppressor Crushing, besieging External censor Pre-eminence over both present and future Absolute existence “Unified” identity Sustains myth of national ideal

5 SELF AND OTHER IN A FRAGMENTING SOCIETY This final chapter spans twenty-five years, from July 1970, publication date of al-Shārūnī’s short story “al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh” (“The Mother and the Beast”), 1 to 1995, year of “al-Daḥk ḥattā’l-Bukā’” (“From Laughter to Tears”),2 title story of the last collection to be examined here. It covers the longest period under review in this study, witnessing events such as the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, the 1978 Camp David Accords and the assassination in 1981 of Egypt’s president, Anwar Sadat. The organizing principle for this chapter is al-Shārūnī’s fictional output itself, which, in the 1970s at least, was far less prolific than in previous years. Despite winning the State Encouragement Prize for the Short Story in 1970, al-Shārūnī produced just three short narratives during that decade, the first of which was “al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh.”3 Twelve years later, this short story lent its title to his fourth collection.

1

First published in al-Majalla, Cairo, July 1970. Reprinted in al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh (Cairo: Dār Mājid li’l-Ṭibā a, 1982), 5–16. 2 First published in al- Arabī, Kuwait, August 1995. Reprinted in al-Daḥk ḥattā’l-Bukā’, 280–289. 3 A fourth story, “al-Mīlād” (“The Nativity”), appeared in al- Arabī, Kuwait, March 1979, 64–67. This is a re-rendering of the nativity story, told by the stable owner who gave shelter to Mary and Joseph. It has not been reprinted in al-Shārūnī’s later collections, presumably because it is not deemed “original” fiction. We find this also with his re-rendering of the Omani folktale “al-Qabr wa’l-Qaṣr” (“The Tomb and the Palace”), published in al- Arabī, Kuwait, September 1985, 112–115.

209

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Al-Shārūnī has never explained why his fictional output diminished as it did in the 1970s.4 His only suggestion is that he devoted most of this period to literary criticism, leading to the publication of four studies: al-Riwāya al-Miṣriyya al-Mu āṣira (The Contemporary Egyptian Novel);5 al-Qiṣṣa al-Qaṣīra Na÷ariyyan wa Taṭbīqiyyan (The Short Story in Theory and Practice);6 al-Qiṣṣa wa’l-Mujtama (The Story and Society);7 and Namādhij min al-Riwāya al-Miṣriyya (Forms of the Egyptian Novel),8 for which he was awarded the State Encouragement Prize for Criticism in 1978. He also edited and introduced two critical collections: Saba ūn Shama a fī Ḥayāt Yaḥyā Ḥaqqī (Seventy Candles in the Life of Yaḥyā Ḥaqqī),9 and al-Layla al-Thāniya ba d al-Alf (The One Thousand and Second Night),10 and published a translation of Ted Hughes’s rendition of Seneca’s Oedipus.11 In 1979 al-Shārūnī was awarded the SecondClass Medal of the Republic, and in 1983 he left Egypt for Oman, where he spent the next ten years working for the Ministry of Information and wrote a series of books on aspects of Omani literature. This last chapter analyzes the following four stories: “al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh”; “Shakwā al-Muwaẓẓaf al-Faṣīḥ” (“The Complaint of the Eloquent Functionary”);12 “I tirāfāt Ḍayyiq al-Khulq wa’l-Mathāna” (“Confessions of a Quick-Tempered, Weak-Bladdered Man”);13 and “al-Waqā’i al-Gharība li Infiṣāl Ra’s Mīm (“The Strange Events

4

Indeed, when the present author raised this point, he expressed genuine surprise and puzzlement. Personal interview, 12 September 1998. 5 (Cairo: Dār al-Hilāl, 1973). 6 (Cairo: Dār al-Hilāl, 1977). 7 (Cairo: Dār al-Ma ārif, 1977). 8 (Cairo: Dār al-Ma ārif, 1977). 9 (Cairo: al-Hay’a al- Āmma li’l-Kitāb, 1975), an anthology of essays on the works of Yaḥyā Ḥaqqī. 10 (Cairo: al-Hay’a al- Āmma li’l-Kitāb, 1976), a selection of twenty short stories by Egyptian women writers. 11 Sīnīkā, Ūdīb, i dād Ted Hughes (Kuwait: Wizārat al-I lām fi’l-Kuwayt, 1976). 12 First published in instalments in al-Ahrām, Cairo, 6 December 1976, 23 January 1977 and 8 April 1977. Reprinted in al-Majmū āt, vol. 2, 296–330. 13 First published in al- Arabī, Kuwait, February 1981. Reprinted in al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh, 47–65.

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Surrounding the Breaking-Off of M’s Head”).14 As before, these stories are considered within their historical and sociopolitical contexts, and from the perspective of how they express changing perceptions of self and other.

THE ERAS OF SADAT AND MUBARAK Nasser died in September 1970, following the last of a series of heart attacks, compounding the mood of national loss that had prevailed since 1967. Though most Egyptians were unequivocal in their grief, many aspects of Nasser’s vision were, nonetheless, seen to have failed. His successor was his vice-president Anwar Sadat, who launched his own “corrective revolution” in 1971 and introduced a new permanent constitution. This reiterated a number of Nasserite principles, yet also brought modifications: Islam was re-established as the state religion, while the political structure was re-oriented towards new national councils charged with the objective of furthering democracy. In short, this period witnessed a shift away from socialism and pan-Arabism towards more liberal political structures, plus the re-emergence of religion in the nation’s political discourse. According to Chitham, it was with this shift that “Egypt was left without a socio-economic vision with which to gain a national consensus, and an ideological vacuum was created.”15 As a result, formerly suppressed opposition groups regained a foothold in Egypt’s political life, notably Islamist organizations, the leaders of which Sadat had freed in a presidential amnesty in 1975. The shift towards liberalism also brought changes to Egypt’s economic structures. At the time of Nasser’s death, Egypt was still heavily dependent on agriculture and little importance had been given to private capitalistic enterprise. Upon the promulgation of Sadat’s new constitution, foreign (Arab and western) capital was authorized, and the infitāḥ (“Open Door”) policy was declared, seeking to dissolve economic centralization and place economic and social development at the front of government policy. Though many benefited from Sadat’s infitāḥ, which led to the blossoming of new social categories such as agents, middle-men and entrepreneurs, most

14

First published in al- Arabī, Kuwait, November 1993. Reprinted in al-Daḥk ḥattā’l-Bukā’, 5–24. 15 Chitham, op. cit., 107.

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Egyptians saw a decline in their living conditions, owing to high inflation, the cutting of subsidies and stockpiling.16 In January 1977, the so-called “revolution of the hungry”17 occurred, a series of violent riots described as “the biggest upheaval since the rising against the British in 1919.”18 Rioters attacked police stations and government buildings and lashed out at conspicuous wealth in all of its forms. In the area of foreign policy, one of Sadat’s most audacious moves was to diminish Egypt’s relationship with the Soviet Union. In 1972 he ordered some 20,000 Soviet military personnel to leave Egypt, paving the way for an eventual rapprochement with Israel’s ally, the United States. Though Egypt persisted in its War of Attrition (ḥarb al-istinzāf) with Israel, Sadat insinuated that it should prepare itself for a “war of liberation.” This erupted in October 1973 when Egypt crossed the Suez Canal and the socalled Bar Lev line, its first victory against Israel in the history of their conflict. This was followed by the re-opening of the Suez Canal in 1975, and the re-establishing of diplomatic relations with the United States. With the latter now re-instated as political interlocutor, Sadat broke Egypt’s Treaty of Friendship with the Soviet Union, and approved the establishing of three political groups within the ASU. The largest of these was his own group, the National Democratic Party (NDP), the two others being the Socialist Labor Party (including al-Ikhwān al-Muslimūn) and the reconstituted New Wafd Party. Sadat’s abandoning of Nasser’s cherished pan-Arab vision transformed Egypt’s articulation of its identity accordingly. As Vatikiotis claims, with the success of the October War Egyptians reverted to an earlier iteration of national identity which he calls “Egyptianism.”19 Thus, under Sadat “it became acceptable for Egyptians […] to claim an Egyptian identity first and foremost,” to the effect that, until now, “their Arabism constitutes for them a cultural dimension of their political identity, not a necessary attribute of or

16

Samir Hegazy, Littérature et société en Égypte de la guerre de 1967 à celle de 1973 (Algiers: Enterprise Nationale de Livre, 1986), 61. 17 Ibrahim et al., op. cit., 17. 18 Hopwood, op. cit., 109. 19 Vatikiotis, op. cit., 499.

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prop for their national political being.”20 This was also borne out on the regional level with the outbreak of civil war in Lebanon and the ensuing conflict between Iraq and Iran, which signaled the extent of ideological fragmentation within the wider Arab-Islamic world. In November 1977, Sadat visited Jerusalem at the invitation of Israeli Prime Minister Menahim Begin. Within a year, the Camp David Peace Accords had been signed, scheduling Israel’s withdrawal from all the Egyptian territories it had occupied ten years earlier. Though marking a historic stage in Egyptian-Israeli relations, Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem met with antipathy at home and abroad, and Egypt, “the old centre and leading Arab country of previous decades, was ostracized by most Arab countries and expelled from the Arab League.”21 Having already forfeited Soviet aid, Egypt then lost aid from its Arab neighbors, though Sadat persisted, and in 1980 Egypt and Israel formally established diplomatic relations. As Hopwood notes, “While still admired by the West, he [Sadat] was viewed with deepening indifference and hostility by his own people and he was hated by other Arabs.”22 By this juncture in Sadat’s presidency, charges of corruption, flagrant consumption and profiteering had come to be leveled at him and his acolytes. In October 1981, Sadat was assassinated by gun fire at a parade marking the anniversary of Egypt’s 1973 military success against Israel. Responsibility was claimed by Jamā at al-Jihād (The Jihād Group), over one hundred members of which had been arrested and charged with forming an illegal anti-government party.23 Sadat’s assassination was welcomed openly by some, and a jaded Egyptian public appeared ambivalent regarding his killing—in marked contrast to its response to Nasser’s death just ten years earlier. Sadat’s successor was his vice president Hosni Mubarak, a Soviettrained pilot who had not participated in the Free Officers’ Coup. He went on to retain Egypt’s premiership for some thirty years, until his ousting after eighteen days of protests in 2011. Shortly after taking office, Mubarak 20

Ibid., 500. Hafez, “The Transformation of Reality and the Arabic Novel’s Aesthetic Response,” 96. 22 Hopwood, op. cit., 183. 23 Ibid., 118. 21

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proclaimed his intention to counter the influence of the “infitāḥ mafia,”24 and spoke of “an infitāḥ of production rather than consumption, which would benefit all society and not the rich few.”25 He persisted with Sadat’s policy of peaceful relations with Israel and, in 1982, Israel withdrew from Sinai and ambassadors were exchanged between the two states. At this early stage in his presidency, Mubarak was seen to pursue a tentative, more pragmatic course of opening up party politics and allowing greater press and political freedoms. Likewise, his style of leadership was described as “low-key” and “businesslike,”26 though the practice of identifying the Egyptian leader with the state and its policy remained, and Mubarak’s rule increasingly bore the imprint of autocracy and state corruption. In Egypt’s intellectual and cultural life a new spirit of criticism and enquiry emerged after the 1967 war. As we have seen, intellectuals were unable instantly to analyze the war’s impact, due to a general mood of disorientation plus controls on expression put in place by the regime. Thus it was not until after Nasser’s death that full and frank analysis surfaced in the form of essays, poetry and works of long and short fiction. As Hegazy notes, there was “some violence in the differences of opinion”27 at this time, particularly between leftist and Islamist commentators. Debate among Egypt’s intellectuals and artists was vigorous: among these voices were those who called for a return to traditionalism and the classical Arab heritage, while others demanded a more aggressive pursuit of modernization. What both shared was the same ideological impetus, consisting in an activist or offensive, rather than defensive, stance. Some intellectuals elected to leave Egypt altogether, in response to the political situation or in search of better employment opportunities, producing a “brain drain” effect among Egypt’s skilled and highly educated. Perhaps one of the most significant trends to affect Egypt’s political and cultural life during this period was religious, particularly Islamic, revivalism. Contributing factors included popular resentment at the

24

Nazih N. Ayubi, “Government and the State in Egypt Today,” in Tripp and Owen, eds., op. cit., 17. 25 Hopwood, op. cit., 184. 26 Ayubi, op. cit., 13. 27 Hegazy, op. cit., 69.

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rapprochement with Israel; the economic impact of the infitāḥ;28 Sadat’s gradual lifting of restrictions on the Ikhwān; and his foregrounding of Islam in the nation’s political discourse: From the outset, Sadat called himself the ‘believer president.’ He began giving speeches on the day of the birth of the Prophet Muhammad instead of the traditional Revolution Day speech, hence emphasizing 29 religious identity, calling his era the age of “science and religion.”

In as early as 1972, spells of sectarian strife began to surface.30 Alert to the fissures emerging in Egyptian society, Sadat called for a conference on the subject of national unity, followed by the passing of a law announcing freedom of belief for all Egyptian citizens. Life imprisonment was also decreed for anyone found to be promoting sectarian strife. The October War heralded a spell of relative calm, but deep anger at the prospect of a peace pact with Israel led to a spate of violent rebellions by Islamic groups, culminating in an attack on Egypt’s Military Academy in 1974. When Sadat ordered the preparation of draft laws based on the Islamic sharī a, Copts initiated their own campaigns of disturbances. The next serious bout of sectarian discord was between 1978 and 1981, in the midst of which came Iran’s Islamic revolution, giving further impetus to Egyptian Islamist organizations. As violent clashes erupted between Copts and Muslims, the Egyptian government’s response was “to swing between the two groups with ill-considered acts of oppression and appeasement.”31 Hence, by 1981 (a year before the publication of al-Shārūnī’s collection al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh), sectarian hostilities in Egypt had reached their zenith. The government initiated a series of crack-downs: journalists, politicians, liberals and religious activists were detained, and Pope Shenouda was dismissed and placed under house arrest. In that same year, Sadat was

28

It is recognized that socio-economic frustrations go some way towards explaining the growth of Muslim and Christian religious fraternities at this time. 29 Ibrahim et al., op. cit., 17. 30 Controversies included an outcry over Muslim conversions to Christianity and the circulation of an “official” document which claimed that the Coptic Pope Shenouda was a threat to state security, hinting at a patriarchal conspiracy. 31 Chitham, op. cit., 106.

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assassinated. Mubarak was later to allude to Sadat’s death as a warning to Egyptians, and spoke of the need for social justice to cure “the plague of religious extremism.”32 Nonetheless, he proved unable to stem the growth of Egypt’s radical religious groups, and they remained a social and political force to be reckoned with.

“AL-UMM WA’L-WAḤSH,” 1970 “Al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh” (“The Mother and the Beast”) may be read as the simple tale of a mother’s triumph over an unidentified wild animal, which attacks her sleeping child as she washes clothes at the nearby river. Her heroic defense of her son, and her maiming of his ferocious assailant, mean that she acquires the status of “legend” in her village. Al-Shārūnī asserts that beneath this seemingly simple narrative lies a more complex ideological discourse. He also claims that “al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh” is another of his so-called “stories of prophecy”—forming a triumvirate with “al-Ḥidhā’” and “Naẓariyya fi’l-Jilda al-Fāsida”33—in which he passes comment on the aftermath of the 1967 war and foreshadows the success of the October War of 1973. Written in the wake of the abstruse psychological texts “al-Ziḥām” and “Lamaḥāt,” “al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh” marks a new departure for al-Shārūnī. First, it has a pronounced folk element, supported by allusions to popular literary forms such as the tale (qiṣṣa/ḥikāya), myth and legend (usṭūra). Second, according to the critic Na īm Aṭiyya, Umm Sayyid, the narrative’s heroine, ushers in a new type of character construct,34 or a new incarnation of the narrative self. Following the ego-centered paralysis of Fatḥī and Mawjūd, the protagonist of this short story is remarkable in that, rather than being annihilated by fear, she confronts it, defending herself and her child. In line with al-Shārūnī’s view that this is one of his “stories of prophecy,” the emergence of this newly combative and heroic self will be considered from the perspective of Egypt’s increasingly defensive and antagonistic relationship with its neighbor and adversary, Israel.

32

Hopwood, op. cit., 185. Personal interview, 12 September 1998. 34 See his discussion of “the symbolic character” in Yūsuf al-Shārūnī wa Ālamuh al-Qiṣaṣī (Cairo: al-Hay’a al- Āmma li-Quṣūr al-Thaqāfa, 1994), 95–98. 33

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A Newly Heroic Self The self here is the heroine Umm Sayyid, a virtuous peasant woman who metonymically represents Egypt. Her wholesome simplicity is clear from her defining activities: caring for her child, performing household duties such as washing clothes at the river, and going to the local market. We learn that she is only modestly educated, to the extent of knowing little about her nation’s own history and heritage, as is evident from the following: On her way to the market in Luxor each Saturday she would see the groups of tourists with their red faces, hats, sunglasses and cameras, and their women in their skimpy, brightly colored clothes. The tourists had come from far-away lands because Luxor of old had been known as Thebes, and the ancient kings of Egypt had lived there once. For fun, the tourist guides would call out to her, “Nefertiti! Nefertiti!” Once, one of them had invited her to stand in front of a tourist’s camera as they spoke gibberish and pointed at her, using words from which she could only make out “Nefertiti … Nefertiti.” On enquiring, she had learned that Nefertiti was the beautiful wife of one of those ancient kings … as 35 ancient as this very sycamore tree.

Nonetheless, Umm Sayyid is blessed with nerve and common sense, and takes strength from tradition and her religious belief. Unlike Fatḥī and Mawjūd, she inhabits a world where God is the central authority, and where faith remains a framework for personal and social conduct.36 When attacked by the beast, Umm Sayyid appears a defenseless victim. Yet she transforms in the narrative into a figure of formidable strength: she does not have recourse to negativity or flight, but to positive, physical, concrete action.37 Hence her moral and philosophical outlook puts her at odds with her predecessors, Fatḥī and Mawjūd. Arguably, this new iteration of the narrative self speaks of a transformation in national sentiment: written three years after 1967, “al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh” marks a

35

“Al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh,” 8. References to religious practice in the text go back to Egypt’s pharaonic period, to the cult of Aten, considered the first monotheistic faith. Queen Nefertiti was the wife of Akhenaten, who established this cult. 37 Aṭiyya, op. cit., 96. 36

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time when Egyptians had begun to critique the war and their country’s defeat. Rather than reinforce the mood of despair, however, al-Shārūnī’s simple, uplifting tale of one woman’s fight against a vicious assailant presents an ideal for the beleaguered collectivity. This is reinforced when we consider that the general critical consensus regarding this text is that Umm Sayyid is a symbol for the Egyptian motherland.38 Egypt’s historical and civic consciousness is expressed in “al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh,” where we find numerous allusions to its pharaonic heritage, imbuing the local reader with pride and celebrating Egypt’s civilizational greatness. In the same way, allusions to local popular or folk culture demonstrate al-Shārūnī’s desire to dialogue with indigenous narrative forms, recreating and re-affirming Egypt’s traditions and identity. His motivation becomes more apparent when we consider the narrative other, for this is the “beast,” poised to assault our guileless heroine. Through her, we perceive an insidious, wily force that strikes with neither warning nor remorse. If, as has been suggested, the self in this text is Egypt, then it follows that the other is the enemy state of Israel, victor in the June war and alien occupier of Arab lands. Satellites of this other include the tourists invading Luxor, signifying Israel’s western political and cultural allies. They too are “alien,” as can be seen from Umm Sayyid’s noting of their behavior, language, skin color and clothing. Like the wild beast, they are hungry to appropriate the indigenous, while the bold exhibitionism of their women directly challenges local mores. Politico-cultural dimensions aside, the chief distinction between self and other is moral and spiritual: as the text reveals, though the self is physically weaker, its faith and moral fiber ensure its victory, offering a neat reversal of the “David and Goliath” paradigm so commonly ascribed to Israel and Egypt in accounts of their conflict.

38

Nādir al-Sibā ī expands on this, claiming that the mother symbolizes the nation, that the village symbolizes the homeland, that the child symbolizes the sons of the country, and that the beast symbolizes the enemy. See “al-Ḥiwār al-Maftūḥ bayn al-Qāri’ wa’l-Nass … wa Qiṣaṣ Yūsuf al-Shārūnī,” in Faraj, op. cit., 267–271.

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Tales, Myths and Legends as Anti-Colonial Discourse “Al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh” is an example of anti-colonial cultural nationalist discourse, finding its narrative authenticity in the lower classes of Egypt and their folk traditions. It also makes contrapuntal use of the narrative practices of its subject group, predominantly oral narrative forms such as tales, legends, myths, epic romances and popular sayings. Of these, tales and stories are most central to the text, with numerous references to ḥikāyāt,39 riwāyāt or qiṣaṣ,40 and numerous occurrences of the verb rawā (to tell, narrate). These forms have a variety of social functions, from the giving of advice or the imparting of popular wisdom, to entertaining tales of an educational, fantastical or enlightening nature.41 Consider the following textual references to such forms of oral transmission (emphases added): It was like a huge dog. It was a wolf, perhaps, or a hyena. She had never seen either before, though she had heard many stories about them from the people in the village. Had she been alone she would have jumped into the water, for among the things she had heard was that these animals do not risk entering into battle with their prey in water. But she could not 42 leave her son Sayyid to be eaten by the beast.

39

Ḥikāya (pl. ḥikāyāt) can mean “tale, narrative, story, legend.” See Ch. Pellat, “Ḥikāya,” EI2, 367–372. Some critics narrow the term to mean a “popular tale or folktale,” underscoring a social (and intellectual) distinction between the “high culture” of adab literature and the “popular culture” of ḥikāyāt. 40 Both riwāya (pl. riwāyāt) and qiṣṣa (pl. qiṣaṣ) are used here as synonyms for ḥikāya, and should not be understood in the conventional context of the novel and (short) story forms. 41 The ḥikāya embraces a number of narrative forms which are relevant here, such as the khabar (most often signifying a historical or bibliographical narrative, but also referring to colloquial, often comic, stories); the nādira (being interesting reports, anecdotes and witticisms); the fā’ida (a remark of interest or useful advice; occasionally a story), and the khurāfa (a fabulous story, such as a fairy tale or superstition). See Pellat, op. cit., 367–372. 42 “Al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh,” 6.

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SELF AND OTHER It must be a hyena, she said to herself. For the people in the village say that the hyena has two spikes on its neck, one on each side, so that it cannot 43 turn its head right or left, and when it runs, it runs in a straight line. Fāṭima, Shaykh Abd al-Dayim’s daughter, had told her that her father was coming back on his donkey along the cemetery road one night, when a hyena confronted him. The donkey stood still as though pinned to the ground, pricked up its ears, then opened its hind legs and urinated. He and his donkey had been able to take cover all night in one of the tombs, until at dawn the beast gave up and left. When he emerged from his hiding place, he saw with his own eyes—in the clear 44 light of day—that the donkey had urinated blood. This truce permitted her to wrap two of her husband’s gowns around her left hand, over her palm and wrist and around her upper arm, both as protection for herself and as a form of weapon, the like of which he 45 she had heard about from stories told in the village. When the doctors allowed her to have visitors, dozens of villagers 46 rushed to listen dozens of times to her tale.

While “al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh” does not submit to the rigorous formalist model of the folktale proposed by Vladimir Propp,47 the text nonetheless contains elements of the tale in its various guises. Indeed, Umm Sayyid’s conflict with the beast might be classified as an interesting report or anecdote, an edifying tale,48 or a fabulous story in the manner of a

43

Ibid., 9. Ibid., 9–10. Note how even the village shaykh fails to display the bravery of Umm Sayyid, and flees his aggressor. 45 Ibid., 12. 46 Ibid., 15. 47 Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968). 48 The narrator notes how the example of Umm Sayyid’s bravery has been handed down to the next generation: “Whenever she visits one of the houses in the village, the grown-ups are keen for the little ones to see these [amputated] fingers for themselves, as proof of the story they had told them about her battle and her victory over the beast.” “Al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh,” 16. 44

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fairy tale or romance. The magical or fantastical aspects of her tale are evident: 49

Perhaps it was an ifrīt, like the one that appeared before Marmar in the butchers’ yard, as she was on her way one night from her aunt’s house in the east of the village to her own in the west. But that had not been like the beast before her [now]—it had been a donkey that had transformed into a goat-kid, with legs that grew so long it had almost reached as high as the meat hooks. As soon as she had recited the 50 51 fātiḥa, it had vanished.

As the narrator (the frame storyteller) informs us, as time passes the details of Umm Sayyid’s battle with, and triumph over, the beast assume the characteristics of another popular genre: the legend. The narrator explains the course of oral transmission behind this process: This story had been confirmed by more than one witness—the umda of our village and his security guard among them—though as much or as little detail was added as was in keeping with the storyteller’s nature. 52 Thus it came to be added to the legends and mawwāls of our village.

According to André Jolles, the legend, like the edifying tale, is a response to man’s desire for ideals of conduct, ideals which are “nevertheless imitable, approachable, perhaps even attainable by other humans.”53 Thus, the villagers construct their own “legend” of Umm Sayyid, since it is through her that they can concretize their own aspirations, local or national, and advance the values that underpin these. As a universal narrative form, it is unsurprising that we find intertextual elements of legend embedded in this text, indeed, Alā’ al-Dīb

49

A demon. The opening chapter of the Qur’ān. 51 “Al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh,” 6. 52 Ibid., 16. A mawwāl (pl. mawāwīl) is a popular poem in colloquial language, often set to music. 53 Robert Scholes, in his summary of Jolles’ Einfache Formen (“simple forms”) in Structuralism in Literature: An Introduction (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1974), 44–48. 50

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contends that “al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh” is a re-working of the archetypal legend of St. George and the Dragon.54 This is plausible, given that St. George (revered by Egypt’s Copts as Mār Jiryis/Jirjis and often associated with the figure of al-Khiḍr in Islamic tradition, is the archetypal avatar who defends the upright and protects them from injustice with divine support. In the earliest version of this legend, St. George slays a voracious dragon so that his fellow citizens can regain access to the city spring, read generally as an allegory for the triumph of the Christian hero (Christ, St. John among others) over evil (Satan). In “al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh,” we find structural and thematic parallels with the original legend which, when considered in the light of 1967 and the subsequent Israeli occupation of Sinai, reveal how the text may be read as both a tale and an allegory for this conflict and its resolution. Consider the parallels between the two narratives: Legend of St. George and Dragon

“Al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh”

Conflict beyond city walls Protagonist: St. George Antagonist: dragon Water motif: spring Pharmakos: King’s daughter Dragon speared through eyes St. George as savior Old, enfeebled king Incurable illness/wound of king Dragon guards treasure Dragon demands sacrificial victims Dragon slain; wasteland restored Confirmation of faith

Conflict beyond village borders Protagonist: Umm Sayyid Antagonist: beast Water motif: river Pharmakos: Sayyid Beast speared between eyes Umm Sayyid as savior Enfeebled leadership Symbolic castration of Nasser Israel guards treasure (Sinai) Israel demands Sayyid (son of Egypt) as victim Beast repelled; Sinai restored55 Confirmation of faith (in Egypt’s ability to liberate its land)

54

Alā’ al-Dīb, “ Āshiq al-Qiṣṣa al-Qaṣīra,” in Faraj, op. cit., 245. The driving of Israel from Sinai may also be read as an inverted take on the Biblical exodus myth, by which it is the Egyptians who are delivered from bondage. 55

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A further component of Umm Sayyid’s tale that has structural parallels with the legend is what Northrop Frye terms its “quest”56 element. The quest, Frye claims, consists in four stages: the preliminary minor adventure or agon (conflict); the crucial struggle, or pathos (death-struggle); the disappearance of the hero, often linked to the concept of sparagmos (mutilation or physical handicap); then the exaltation of the hero, or anagnorisis (discovery, recognition of the hero).57 Deploying this structural paradigm, we may interpret Umm Sayyid’s quest as follows: (i) agon: Umm Sayyid’s first skirmish with the beast, in which she throws a rock into its face and lifts her child into a tree to safety; (ii) pathos: Umm Sayyid’s definitive battle with the beast, following her child’s fall from the tree. Here, she thrusts her left hand down the beast’s throat and, with her right hand, spears him between the eyes with a branch;58 (iii) disappearance and sparagmos: Umm Sayyid’s story is at first doubted by some villagers. She is hospitalized for three months and three of her mutilated fingers are amputated;59 and (iv) anagnorisis: investigations continue into Umm Sayyid’s account of events, and corroborating evidence emerges. Her story is acknowledged to be true, and she is recognized and honored for her heroism. While the intertextual echoes of the St. George legend lend Umm Sayyid seemingly super-human attributes, it should be noted that she is superior only in degree to her fellow villagers and possesses neither miraculous nor magical powers, as with the heroes of myth.60 Indeed, al-Shārūnī underscores the pedestrian, “Everyman” nature of this heroine, with whom the Egyptian reader might readily identify. Nonetheless, archetypal mythic elements do remain, notably Umm Sayyid’s skirmish with

56

Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, 192. Ibid., 92. 58 The one-eyed beast may also be interpreted as a metaphor for one-eyed Moshe Dayan, Israeli Defense Minister. 59 Umm Sayyid’s ravaged hand is also symbolically meaningful: since the hand is a signifier of control, strength and possession, the loss of her fingers represents Egypt’s loss of the territory of Sinai. 60 This is adapted from Frye’s discussion of the mythical mode, to which the abovementioned attributes of the protagonist are pivotal. 57

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the beast, parallels with which may be found in texts going back to Ancient Egyptian, Canaanite and Babylonian literature, and which are recast in Christ’s slaying of the Biblical Leviathan. Considered within this context, Umm Sayyid’s victory over the beast becomes an act of national redemption, symbolizing the conquest of the Promised Land (Sinai) and the raising of Eden (a new Egypt) in the wilderness. In its structure, “al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh” also contains many of the cyclical patterns of myth, such as its references to the death and rebirth (daily passage) of the pharaonic sun god Aten.61 Other examples include the text’s many binaristic references to archetypal aspects of lived experience: Good → hero → Mother → Christ Birth Childhood Defense (of the self) Waking Light Innocence Order

Evil → villain → Beast → Satan Death Old age Aggression (of the other) Sleeping Darkness Experience Chaos

In terms of style, “al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh” seems more rooted in tradition than earlier stories such as “Lamaḥāt.” It is useful, however, to consider this, along with its popular or folk ethos, as a form of innovation in itself. For, rather than being based in an urban context (as is usual for al-Shārūnī), this text is located in the (then) rural, pre-modern village of Karnak, in Luxor, Upper Egypt. Thus it offers a rare presentation of the customs, rituals, values and belief systems shaping a traditional, rural

61

As the narrator states: “Behind her was the solar disc Aten—red, fading and sinking towards its setting place.” “Al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh,” 7. This repeated image of the setting sun evokes the passing of time, and of the old order changing and yielding to a new one. Against the backdrop of the venerable temples of Luxor, this affirms both the greatness of Egypt’s past and the promise of future greatness.

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Egyptian society, where “old ‘ways of life’ become folklore.”62 “Al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh” also eschews recurring themes of madness, crime, punishment and imprisonment, while the nihilism of earlier anti-heroes, such as the introspective and paranoid Mawjūd, is exchanged for the life-affirming agency of our heroine, Umm Sayyid. Lastly, in clear contrast to Fatḥī’s stepmother Awāṭif and Mawjūd’s mother-in-law Madīḥa, Umm Sayyid ushers in a more conventionally nurturing and selfless mother figure, who unhesitatingly places her child’s welfare before her own. The text also contains some structural experimentation, given that it is divided into two sections, described in photographic terms as a “close-up” and “long shot.” The former begins in media res, giving a detailed account of the confrontation between mother and beast, while the latter contextualizes this encounter in its social and historical setting. Besides manipulating the narrative pace, this device supports its oral dimension, since it enhances the effect of Umm Sayyid’s story being related before a local audience. A second effect is to emphasize the transition between two times: in the “close-up,” Umm Sayyid is presented as a young mother, while in the “long shot” she is an elderly widow and the subject of a legend passed down to others. This shift from young to old and vice versa, with the nonmechanized village and its old sycamore tree in one world, and hints of cultural and technological change in another, reminds us of the enduring potency of bygone values. Past and present are juxtaposed as follows: “Old days” → time of interior story Umm Sayyid: child/young mother Nefertiti, ancient queen Nile’s West Bank: world of dead Pre-modern village: ancient sycamore Pre-modern narrative: folktale

62

Present day → time of frame story Umm Sayyid as elderly widow Umm Sayyid, village legend Nile’s East Bank: world of living Modern village: new bridge Modern narrative: short story

Henri Lefebvre, Writings on Cities, trans. ed. introd. Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 72.

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As an allegory for the conflict between Egypt and Israel, “al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh” is a nationalist, committed discourse and is firmly ethical in its orientation. Rather than pin its hopes for victory on politicians and the military, however, it professes faith in the capacities of the average Egyptian citizen. Thus, for once, it creates a national hero from a character with relatively little power. Again, al-Shārūnī takes up the theme of the “purity” of village life (in contradistinction to the ills and immorality of the urban milieu), and presents a romantic view of the countryside, foregrounding its moral superiority over the dissolute metropolis. Solidarity with the citizenry is forged by the narrator (akin to the ḥakawātī or storyteller), who, though he plays no role in Umm Sayyid’s tale, is keen to identify her with the group (“our village”) and to claim her as a paragon of steadfastness and virtue. A final point concerns this text’s psychological dimension, which is far less conspicuous than in earlier stories. An example of its appearance is in the narrative flashbacks to Umm Sayyid’s childhood nightmares, exposing the etiological source of her darkest and deepest anxieties. By confronting the beast as she does, she is shown to triumph in overcoming her early fears, emerging battle-scarred but personally improved for her experience. By analogy, the narrator appeals to the reader (self) to confront the “beast” (other) that lurks within.

“SHAKWĀ AL-MUWA÷÷AF AL-FAṢĪḤ,” 1976–77 “Shakwā al-Muwaẓẓaf al-Faṣīḥ”63 (“The Complaint of the Eloquent Functionary”) first appeared as a three-part series in al-Ahrām and was published between December 1976 and April 1977. The text is constructed from five discrete sections: “Shakwā al-Muwaẓẓaf al-Faṣīḥ”; “Marthiya” (“Lament”); “Īḍāḥ” (“A Clarification”); “Du ā’” (“An Invocation”); and “Risāla Ājila min al- Ālam al-Ākhar” (“An Urgent Message from the Afterlife”). As with aspects of “al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh,” al-Shārūnī roots this text in Egypt’s heritage and culture; its title and much of its content alludes to the ancient Egyptian text “al-Fallāḥ al-Faṣīḥ” (“The Eloquent Peasant”), a poem in hieroglyphs dating back over four thousand years to the Tenth

63

Hereafter “Shakwā.”

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Dynasty, during the time of Egypt’s Middle Kingdom.64 Like its textual predecessor, “Shakwā” details one man’s fight against an aloof and arrogant leadership, and is a heartfelt appeal for social justice. More specifically, it is a vehement, allegorical comment on Sadat’s 1970s liberal experiment, and its relationship to the breakdown and social ruptures of the latter half of that decade. “Shakwā” contains two narrative voices, the first belonging to the frame narrator. This narrator (a writer, thus functioning in the manner of an ancient scribe), introduces himself via a preamble, in which he explains how he came to possess a bundle of letters written by a recently deceased relative.65 This relative, one Zayd bin Ubayd, is the second and predominant voice in the short story. A minor functionary,66 Zayd bin Ubayd is a refashioning of the eloquent peasant of the pharaonic intertext. Of modest origins but keen to “get ahead,”67 Zayd bin Ubayd has devoted his life to adab and the crafting of complaints (shakāwā), in which he rails about declining standards; deteriorating public services; inefficient bureaucracy; moral breakdown and the rise in crime and corruption; and the negligence and sloppiness infecting civic life at all levels.68 As the frame narrator explains:

64

For an English translation, see “The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant,” trans. R. O. Faulkner, in The Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, and Poetry, ed. William Kelly Simpson (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1973), 31–49. 65 Such preambles were a stylistic and textual feature of the Arabic short stories of the 1920s and 1930s, such as those by Maḥmūd Ṭāhir Lāshīn (1894–1954) and Maḥmūd Taymūr. 66 The Arabic noun muwa÷÷af can mean “employee,” “official,” “civil servant” or “functionary.” Since most activities in Egypt at this time were nationalized or government-run, we can assume that it is used to refer to a civil servant or functionary. 67 Accents of this theme are present in this character’s name: “Zayd” means “abundance” or “plenty,” and is derived from a root associated with notions of progress or advancement, while “bin Ubayd” has the literal meaning “son of the lackey,” ubayd being the diminutive form of abd (slave, servant). 68 Hence, this text is a descendent of “Naẓariyya,” which tackles similar themes.

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SELF AND OTHER I found myself before dozens of complaints which my relative had written on a range of highly diverse subjects. Some touched on very general issues, while others touched on matters particular to his family, relatives or friends. They were also addressed to various parties, from the head of a primary school or the manager of a post office, to presidents and prime ministers of Arab and foreign states—and even to 69 God Himself, may He be praised and exalted.

Beyond his preamble, we hear no more from the frame narrator, since his role is to set the narrative context. He also offers the reader a small selection of Zayd bin Ubayd’s complaints (eight in total), which he purports to have proofread and edited. As he explains, these are but samples from a collection of over ninety letters,70 tackling numerous themes and topics and addressed to various recipients. The frame narrator also describes how, as with the eloquent peasant before him, Zayd bin Ubayd has rendered these complaints in multiple styles and forms: some are formal and eloquent, while others are parodies of or allude to genres such as the elegy or the Islamic du ā’ (prayer of invocation). Others still are informal and unadorned, or are—as the narrator claims—“ordinary, or perhaps less than ordinary.”71 What is most curious is that, in spite of their great number, these letters were never sent. Why Zayd bin Ubayd should have chosen to draft and keep rather than send them is not explained, though the frame narrator proposes some possible explanations: I believe that fear prevented him from sending some [of these letters], in particular those addressed to high-ranking officials, while his reason for not sending others was that he felt it made no difference whether he sent them or not. He must have read thousands of similar complaints in the newspapers, which met with no response and seemed to him (as he states in one letter) a means of “venting,” rather than of actually getting things done. Perhaps he saw how these complaints could work against

69

“Shakwā,” 297. By contrast, the eloquent peasant wrote just nine complaints, demonstrating the range of Zayd bin Ubayd’s grievances. 71 “Shakwā,” 297. 70

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those who sent them, who later found their affairs obstructed (as happened to his daughter-in-law, a teacher at the Ministry of Education), or their suggestions blocked as punishment, when all they 72 had done was express anger about poorly conducted or tardy work.

This explanation is also borne out by Zayd bin Ubayd himself. In a passage taken from his eighth complaint, a free verse poem entitled “Ilā’l-Qarn al-Ḥādī wa’l- Ashrīn” (“To the Twenty-First Century”), he writes: I wrote a complaint. I was told: Write a thousand! You are merely one, while we are ninety-nine. You are an individual, while we are in our millions. You are a number in our records. Does it matter [to us] if you come or go? You are an ephemeral individual while we, the group, remain. 73 Before you we existed, and after you we will stay.

Self as Individual, Other as Collectivity In “Shakwā,” the battle lines are again drawn between an aspirational, discontented self and a morally derelict, dominant other. The self is Zayd bin Ubayd, a playful remodeling of both the eloquent peasant and al-Shārūnī’s by now archetypal, alienated petit-bourgeois protagonist. Predictably, this is a middle-class man and devotee of learning and letters, who is industrious, upright and whose occasional moralizing is tempered by modesty and self-deprecating humor. His outlook is best expressed in one of his own letters: “I do not like to complain, for I believe in the principle of personal endeavor,”74 a doctrine he repeats with unwitting irony throughout his missives. Zayd bin Ubayd petitions on behalf of himself and his class. With characteristic (if somewhat pusillanimous) ambition, he expresses dismay at how his goals have been thwarted and his potential denied him. The

72

Ibid., 297–298. Ibid., 329. 74 Ibid., 307. 73

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economic constraints under which he labors have been sharpened by rapid social transformation, seemingly owing more to corruption and nepotism than to hard, honest work and personal merit. Yet this frustrated complainant seems fearful of his own power, and, unlike the bold (and lone) exception of his predecessor Umm Sayyid, cannot confront or defeat his antagonists. Thus, after a very brief hiatus, we are restored to al-Shārūnī’s paradigm of cerebral, rather than physical, action, and to that predicament particular to the modern Arab intellectual: of seeing “too much” (that is, for one’s “own good”). The text is populated by innumerable, undifferentiated others, being the putative recipients of Zayd bin Ubayd’s complaints. This conglomeration of officials, ministers and administrative bodies serves synecdochically to represent Sadat’s regime or state hegemony. The self’s perceptions of this other are jaundiced and antipathetic: it is hubristic and materialistic; it prevails over a nation that has dissolved into downtrodden anarchy; its capital, Cairo, is chaotic, degraded and filthy. This other is also irredeemably tainted: in one complaint, Cairo is personified as a defiled wretch, while in another the Inland Revenue service is anthropomorphized as a vulgar coquette. For the eloquent functionary, moral and spiritual values have been lost in a climate of opportunism and exploitation; the belief in the common good has succumbed to the unchecked ego; and the indiscriminate rush towards open markets and modernization has led to deskilling, class tensions and the brutalizing of social relations. Via his many angry letters, the self seeks to expose the sordid truth about the other and its rotten façade. Further, he rails against his fellow citizens, whom he accuses of accepting and colluding in state corruption and its inequities. He speaks of a national life that is less cohesive than under Nasser, with the self subsumed within a grossly uneven market system, at the apex of which sit the president and his cronies. As he observes: The individual has been cheapened in the market of the collectivity, 75 consumed by the dragon of the collectivity.

75

Ibid., 328.

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A mere cog in the machine of the project of infitāḥ, the self now forms part of a “collectivity of individuals”:76 We are the collectivity, seated at our desks. We are the closed doors, We are the committees behind the closed doors. We are the visible invisible, the palpably abstract. We are a community of individuals, but the collectivity in us crushes the individual amongst us. We are the machine, 77 we are its keys and its buttons.

This self evokes Ṣāliḥ in “Naẓariyya,” observing the moral and structural crises besetting Egyptian society, yet lacking the courage to voice this openly. He also despairs that self and other cannot co-operate for their mutual well-being, proclaiming: O God, teach us [to know] that the welfare of the individual flourishes only through the welfare of the collectivity, and that the welfare of the 78 collectivity flourishes only through the welfare of the individual;

and: I am dreaming … Dreaming of an age when the individual and the collectivity are 79 reconciled.

This phenomenon of a “collectivity of individuals” is but the latest stage in a national historical continuum, which has passed from prerevolutionary feudalism through socialism and latterly to capitalism. As Zayd bin Ubayd declares: I am the crushed individual in the twentieth century.

76

Ibid., 329. Ibid., 329–330. 78 Ibid., 318. 79 Ibid., 330. 77

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SELF AND OTHER In the nineteenth century, the individual crushed the collectivity. In the twentieth century, the collectivity crushed the individual. 80 I am the crushed, the bruised, the pulverized, the ground down.

Form and Content in a Text of Social Protest “Shakwā” is a complex text, and is al-Shārūnī’s first attempt at a thematically unifying frame containing a series of stylistically discrete sections.81 It has little, if any, narrative development; while the author commonly foregrounds character exposition over narrative action, the text contains neither the requisite complication, climax or dénouement of the traditional plot, nor any degree of reversal or transformation. Further, its fragmented formal arrangement, reinforced by its allusions to various intertexts and genres, also prohibits, or at least limits, the dramatic potential of the narrative—just as limits are placed on the potential of the self. Thus a clear link emerges between form and content: the lack of narrative development and the tension between its sections express the stasis and paralysis of self and society. Furthermore, the unfulfilled action engendered by its ruptured form is reproduced in the complaints themselves, which list a catalog of stymied or aborted endeavors.82 That these complaints were written but never sent is a further example of action attempted but not fulfilled, since they are neither read nor responded to and thus no dialogue is ever established. This stands in contrast to the eloquent peasant of old, whose persuasive petitions were so enjoyed by the king that he instructed his high steward to send no reply, so that he might receive further edifying, erudite missives.

80

Ibid., 328. This should not be compared with his “Qiṣaṣ fı’l-Daqā’iq,” op. cit., “microcollections” of stories published under a common theme or title. It should also be mentioned that, while “Shakwā” was published in serial form, this had no bearing on its structure; al-Shārūnī confirms that the text was complete before publication. 82 What is striking from these complaints is how even the most mundane projects never come to fruition. One example is the public transport system: due to its catastrophic organization and unreliability, commuters never reach work, young lovers never meet their dates, and students never arrive for exams. Rather, they are all left standing on the platform as the system collapses about them. 81

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Though this text is largely realistic, it also contains some unexpected subject matter. While much of it relates to quotidian concerns, the final section, “Risāla Ājila min al- Ālam al-Ākhar,” sees the frame narrator visit a spiritualist. As he casually notes: “I was surprised to see Zayd bin Ubayd’s soul present at the session, dictating the following letter to the medium and asking me to publish it along with all the others.”83 For a moment, this interpolation of the marvelous (or absurd) into an otherwise realistic narrative casts doubt on the text’s authority, though it is also congruent with its ironic tone and underscores the extent of our complainant’s desperation. In terms of style, “Shakwā” is distinguished by its somewhat fitful attention to rhetorical devices, revealing further ironic allusions to the eloquent peasant. Indeed, while our “eloquent” functionary aspires at times to the poetic, it should be noted that he is rarely successful, our expectations of grandiloquence meeting with a largely banal technique. On occasion, he deploys features of classical Arabic prose, such as saj (rhymed prose), echoes of which appear in his name and in phrases such as “Man alladhī akhraj am ā’ik wa nathar ashlā’ik?” (“Who is he who rent your insides and scattered your limbs?”),84 and in expressions derived from Islamic discourse. In general, Zayd bin Ubayd deploys appositely undemanding rhetorical tropes and figures, favoring the repetition of keywords and syntactic patterns. The effect aims for emphasis but is largely decorative, as in the following examples of parallelism: “We discuss you but do not see you, and if we see you we cannot reach you, and even if we reach you, you escape us,”85 and “he who falls, falls, and he who breaks a bone, breaks a bone.”86 While lending a contrived elegance to the letters, rhetorical devices also support their discourse. One example is the use of anaphora, where Zayd bin Ubayd repeats the same phrase at the start of a series of paragraphs. In his letter to the Minister of Transport, he begins a paragraph

83

“Shakwā,” 320–321. Ibid., 300. 85 Ibid., 308. 86 Ibid., 303. 84

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sequence with the phrase “I will not tell you about,”87 before fulminating on dirty train carriages, pick-pocketing, broken windows, and so on. Its effect is again ironic: by declaring that he will not discuss the topic (and yet doing precisely that), he gives it hyperbolic emphasis. It should be noted, furthermore, that since these complaints are never sent, there is an unhappy truth behind their assertions. Similarly, in a letter to the Minister of Education, Zayd bin Ubayd states repeatedly that he wishes to “get straight to the heart of the matter,”88 before waffling, digressing and obscuring the force of his grievance. Other tropic features include repeated similes and metaphors, as in: “I will not tell you about the [train] doors, sisters of the windows: half-closed, like the eyes of the wicked,”89 and beseeching injunctions, such as: Your Excellency, be like the fullness that ends hunger, like the garments that end nakedness, like the clear sky after the storm which brings warmth to those who feel cold. Be like the fire which cooks things, like 90 the water which quenches thirst.

Metaphor is also employed to incite an ethical response in the implied addressee, as in: For how can a man cross the river if the boat is pulled out of the water? Is it good to cross the river by foot? A crack has appeared in the dam and water pours through it, giving me cause to complain. The wheat

87

Ibid., 304–305. In the notes to “The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant,” the translator claims anaphora as “a regular Egyptian literary device,” op. cit., 40. 88 Ibid., 313–315. 89 Ibid., 305. 90 Ibid., 317. This alludes directly to the eloquent peasant’s fifth complaint, which reads: “O High Steward my lord! […] Foster all good and destroy evil, even as satiety comes and ends hunger; (as) clothing comes and ends nakedness; even as the sky becomes serene after / a high wind and warms all who are cold; like a fire which cooks what is raw and like water which quenches thirst.” “The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant,” op. cit., 43–44.

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measure has become full, and when it is shaken surplus grains fall to the 91 ground. He who is unjust to another is one who strangles him.

Similarly, antithesis is prominent, as we find in repeated references to “the cold of winter and the heat and dust of summer,”92 “the idea and the implementation,”93 and “the interests of the individual and the interests of the collectivity.”94 Assuming the persona of a classical scribe, Zayd bin Ubayd deploys features of the Arabic epistle (risāla), as with his ironic use of formulæ in one complaint to the Minister of Transport. Traditionally, the classical epistle opens with the basmala (the invocation “In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful”), while his complaint opens thus: In the name of the thousands of struggling, tax-paying employees, and in the name of their sons and daughters who study in universities, secondary, preparatory and elementary schools. In the name of the workers and their factories, brought to a standstill each time this vital artery, the Ḥilwān Metro, is disrupted. In the name of the vegetable sellers, who fill the Metro platforms with their wet sacks and baskets of watercress, mint, mallow and spinach. In the name of the ordinary citizens, crammed in the carriages on each public holiday, searching for 95 a pocket of air in which to breathe…

In keeping with the risāla, Zayd bin Ubayd employs various terms of address, as in his announcement to the Minister of Transport: “I address you, Your Excellency, in the name of all those people”;96 and makes

91

“Shakwā,” 317. This parodies parts of the eloquent peasant’s fourth, seventh and eighth complaints. The fourth complaint reads: “Is the ferryboat brought to land? How then can one cross? […] Crossing / the river upon sandals, is (that) a good (way of) crossing?” “The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant,” 42; the seventh complaint reads: “It was a breach in the dam, and its water flowed; my mouth opened to speak,” ibid., 45; and the eighth complaint reads: “The cornmeasure overflows, and when it runs over, / its surplus is lost on the ground,” ibid., 46. 92 “Shakwā,” 304–305. 93 Ibid., 309. 94 Ibid., 309. 95 Ibid., 301–302. 96 Ibid., 302.

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repeated use of apostrophe and epithets, as in: “I offer up this plea to you, O You Who Can Deliver!”97 and the imperative appeal: “O Savior of the Drowning, save your ship from sinking!”98 Further, he makes ample use of rhetorical questions, such as: “Do we not pay taxes to get services in return?”99 and: “We are but cogs in a machine, but what use are good cogs when the machine is rusty?”100 “Shakwā” also alludes to classical genres such as the elegy (marthiya), which lends its name to the first complaint. Formally, “Marthiya” is not an elegy of the classical poetic construction, and is faithful to very few of its characteristics. Indeed, its sole defining element is that it laments a dead loved one, in this instance the city of Cairo. Rather than eulogize and preserve the deceased’s qualities, however, this is a subversive and angry bemoaning of what exists. As Zayd bin Ubayd declares: “How, O Cairo, did your pure towers and minarets come to overlook thousands upon thousands of rubbish dumps, and thousands upon thousands of swamps?”101 With raw grief, he mourns a city (al-Qāhira, “the vanquisher”) once known as umm al-dunyā (“Mother of the World”), bewailing: “O vanquished Cairo, it has not been your day…!”102 Other allusions to elegy relate to the poet’s voice, and the audience on whose behalf he speaks. Like the classical lament, “Marthiya” is monodic, yet Zayd bin Ubayd speaks also for the collectivity, as did his classical forebears. Like them, he deplores how death has brought a loss of status and security, and articulates the fears and sorrows of the group. Further, he expresses his hatred and contempt for the enemies of the deceased, appearing to implicate them in her demise. In this way, Zayd bin Ubayd exploits the elegiac form as propaganda, to incite the collectivity into political action.

97

Ibid., 310. Ibid., 317. This is an intertextual allusion to the eloquent peasant’s second complaint, which reads: “Bringer to the shore of all who are drowning, save one who is shipwrecked.” “The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant,” op. cit., 39. 99 “Shakwā,” 302. 100 Ibid., 308. 101 Ibid., 300. 102 Ibid., 301. 98

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In addition to the above, two features of “Marthiya” are its use of personification, as in: How [O Cairo] did they disfigure your loveliness, filling your cheeks with pimples and your face with wrinkles and scars, so that everyone— 103 worthy or otherwise—began to ridicule you?”

and metaphor (presumably in reference to the ongoing Middle East peace process, which prefigured the Camp David Accords): How did traitors emerge from your womb to strike an accursed treaty with flies? Those associates of death and suffering, for whom they have prepared a cosy bed from the garbage, and heaps of wholesome food 104 from the vile, contagious waste.

In short, Zayd bin Ubayd distorts and subverts the classical Arabic elegy. Most critically, he overturns its eulogizing function, and the absence of any panegyric content seems self-explanatory. Further, while the classical genre dwells on the “moral qualities”105 of the deceased, “Marthiya,” by contrast, marks the passing of a fallen heroine (Cairo), who has been stripped of her decency and left tawdry and defiled. There are no proud accounts of her valor or glory, the poet telling only of her weakness and subjugation. Most tragically, it is not her enemies who have brought about her ruin but her inhabitants, as we may infer from this invective: “How did your sons disavow you and do to you what your enemies did not?”106 Lastly, “Shakwā” alludes in part to the du ā’, which in the Islamic context is an invocation addressed to Allāh, in which the speaker makes a personal “prayer of request” on behalf of himself or another, or against another.107 Though understood as a personal prayer, the du ā’ can be offered up for the good of the group, as “a prayer or request for well-being, especially the public weal of the Muslim community, and the personal

103

Ibid., 300. Ibid., 301. 105 C. Pellat, “Marthiya,” EI2, 605. 106 “Shakwā,” 300. 107 L. Gardet, “Du ā’,” EI2, 617. 104

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spiritual well-being of oneself and others.”108 Accordingly, Zayd bin Ubayd’s fifth complaint bears the title “Du ā’,” and takes the form of a prayer of request, as follows: O God, restore our consciences so that we might restore our transportation system. O God, cleanse our minds and streets of the swamps and rubbish dumps. O God, purify our hearts so that our hands might be purified of bribes, our tongues purified of hypocrisy, and our actions purified of 109 negligence and indifference.

“Du ā’” is arch and sardonic in tone, though the ideas and values underpinning it are sincere. As the following examples show, this du ā’ addresses Egypt’s multiple ills: O God, give us the strength to laud the excellent and not hinder their progress or feel resentment towards them, but offer them every opportunity for such excellence, so that they may become even more excellent. Give us the wisdom, O God, to realize that the nation in which the mediocre decree to execute the excellent is a nation whose 110 fate is nothingness. O God, give us the faith [to believe] that adults should be an example to the young, and that planning and order, hard work and productivity, and reward for those who do right and retribution for those who do wrong (and not the other way around), and respect for opinion (even if it differs to our own), are the “magic wand” for today’s world, which will enable us to triumph over our enemies, grant us dignity and relieve us of the nightmare of inflation and the housing and transport crises, cure our education system of its ills and save our hospitals from the abyss and

108

dead.

109 110

Ibid., 617. Examples include the istisqā’ (prayer for rain) and prayers for the “Shakwā,” 318. Ibid., 318.

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relieve them of their afflictions, and cleanse our roads and water 111 supplies.

In short, “Du ā’” presents a social and political manifesto, or a schedule of desiderata by which Egypt’s ills might be remedied. As mentioned, “Shakwā” allows no possibility for development or transformation, in either the narrative or the eloquent functionary himself. One might deduce that this is because it is chiefly a text of ideas, produced at a time when popular unrest in Egypt was growing: strikes were being held on an almost daily basis and, just one month after its first installment, violent bread riots broke out country-wide. With this in mind, it is difficult to resist seeking out the authorial voice and concluding that, by creating this character, al-Shārūnī is creating a conduit for his ideas at a free and safe remove.112 Given their content, it is of course galling and tragic that these complaints were not sent. For, though they are eventually published by the frame narrator, they lose their immediacy and power by being received at second (or third) hand, and acquire an ambivalent, if not neutralizing, “fictional” quality. Thus, while the critical inner self protests, the superego continues to censor and urge caution. This is most apparent in textual allusions to state reprisals, in paranoid references to Israeli spies, and in the damning fact that the frame narrator is forced to cease publishing the letters—some years after they were written and even after the death of their fictional author.113

“I

TIRĀFĀT ḌAYYIQ AL-KHULQ WA’L-MATHĀNA,” 1981

A cursory reading of “I tirāfāt Ḍayyiq al-Khulq wa’l-Mathāna”114 (“Confessions of a Quick-Tempered, Weak-Bladdered Man”) suggests that

111

Ibid., 319. Al-Shārūnī has long been an active social commentator, writing letters and short essays on social issues for the Egyptian dailies. Topics of discussion have included the eradication of illiteracy, educational and administrative reform, the establishment of a “scientific society” and increased democratization. 113 Though the frame narrator changes all identities, Zayd bin Ubayd’s sons demand that he return the letters, since they discuss “personal matters, which they are embarrassed to see in print.” “Shakwā,” 320. 114 Hereafter “I tirāfāt.” 112

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it too has dispensed with the fleeting optimism of “al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh,” and reverted to the wry pessimism of its predecessors “al-Ziḥām” and “Lamaḥāt.” While “I tirāfāt” has many points of commonality with these two texts, it would be more accurate to state that it bears inflections of a much wider selection of al-Shārūnī’s short stories—“al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh,” “Naẓariyya” and “Shakwā” among them—resulting in a subtly dynamic, subversive narrative which finds its points of reference in the Egypt of the early 1980s. The first aspect connecting “I tirāfāt” to “Lamaḥāt” is its use of an isolated first-person narrator/anti-hero, narrating in this instance from a prison cell. Second is the recurring theme of criminality: the narrator has been imprisoned for assaulting and grievously wounding his neighbor, Police Sergeant Arafa, and is awaiting news of his victim’s, and thus his own, fate. Third is the theme of sexual transgression: the narrator has been conducting an illicit affair with Sergeant Arafa’s wife, Maḥāsin. Fourth is the interconnection between existential and environmental stress and insanity: when Maḥāsin locks our weak-bladdered narrator out of the toilet, he explodes in a fit of rage and stabs her husband in the neck with a bottle. At first, this assault seems a conventional crime of passion, conducted in a moment of hot-headedness or lost control. The narrator, who admits to having committed many petty offences in the past, insists: “As for this, it was my major crime: the first and, I believe, my last.”115 His confessions dispute the vagarious nature of the attack, linking the origins of his bladder incontinence to the neurotic discharge that triggered his outburst. Evoking concepts from psychoanalytic literature (among them Freud’s anal and phallic stages of psycho-sexual development, sibling rivalry, infantile neurosis and the castration complex), the narrator “confesses”: My mother told me that from the age of two I was no longer wetting myself, unlike other children my age. They were amazed at this, and would boast about it before family guests. When my little brother was born, however—or seven days after, to be precise, by which time I was already four—they discovered that I had wet myself in the night. My mother shouted at me, “Should I be looking after you or your little brother? You’re a big boy now, and big boys don’t wet themselves!”

115

Ibid., 50.

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The next night my mother discovered that her shouting had had no effect. She spanked me soundly and rubbed my nose in my clothes, which I made wetter still with my tears. The next night she threatened to burn off my willy, at which I screamed, cried, kissed her hands and 116 pleaded with her, promising and swearing [not to do it again]. When an educated relative came to visit once, they [my parents] complained to him about my dirtiness and recalcitrance. His opinion, they later told me, was that this was because I was jealous of my younger brother, since he was monopolizing my mother’s attention. I was trying to express that I still needed my mother’s love, affection and care 117 …

A clear cause for the narrator’s crime is never established, however, and he remains perplexed regarding his predicament to the end: Was her husband’s outburst against me simply the matter of a husband’s honor when his wife has been insulted in an argument? […] Or could it have been due to his suspicions about the manoeuvres going on behind his back, whisperings about which must have reached his ears? And do you suppose my recklessness towards him, which led me almost to the point of slaughtering him, was because—as he put it—he’d tried to “teach me a lesson I wouldn’t forget,” in revenge for the abuse his wife had been subjected to? Or was it simply to get rid of him and clear the way for us? [Regardless,] it would seem that my blow was more violent than I had intended it to be, for here is my prison cell and neither he 118 nor she is here with me.

Aside from reproducing key themes from “al-Ziḥām and “Lamaḥāt,” “I tirāfāt” evinces a common uncertainty in tone. The bold defiance of “al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh” has been replaced by a mood of renewed anxiety, inflected by social and psychic repression, neurosis and even psychosis. A further shared characteristic is a reasserted ambivalence or hostility towards authority/superego figures, be these policemen, judges, teachers or parents.

116

Ibid., 50. Ibid., 51. 118 Ibid., 48. 117

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Lastly, our narrator is again a man of provincial origin who, on arriving to Cairo, claims to be both “apprehensive about it and filled with desire for it.”119 Like Fatḥī and Mawjūd, he harbors literary aspirations, yet has neither the talent nor requisite connections to succeed. There is also continuity in terms of his narrative location: “I tirāfāt” is narrated from a prison cell, echoing Fatḥī’s asylum ward and Mawjūd’s rooftop “fortress and snare.”120 Perhaps most significant is that this text marks a return to the topos of the crowded city, as we may see from the depiction of the narrator’s environment: … I was glad to be living with my cousin as this would lessen my feelings of exile in such a vast and crowded city as Cairo, where one neighbor doesn’t even know the next. With us were a third and fourth tenant, who occupied the two adjoining rooms. The hall, kitchen and toilet were communal facilities. When the two adjoining rooms became vacant, they were taken by a family made up of a father, mother and five children: four children in one room and the parents and their baby in another. It mattered little that unmarried students such as my cousin and me lived in the same flat, 121 for over-crowding has its own laws.

A Self Resisting the Symbolic Order/Other It is in constructing subjectivity that “I tirāfāt” departs from “al-Ziḥām” and “Lamaḥāt.” If to establish the narrator as narrative self, a key observation is that, unlike Fatḥī and Mawjūd, he bears no name— appellation being one of the most immediate markers of individual (and collective) identity. Rather, the reader constructs this self from implicit textual clues and explicit biographical data, deducing that this is a male in his late twenties or early thirties,122 and that he is single and works for an insurance company. Further, the self presents with an ego formula first

119

Ibid., 47. “Lamaḥāt,” 40. 121 “I tirāfāt,” 48. 122 Calculated by his comment that it has been ten years since he came to Cairo to start university. 120

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used by Fatḥī: “I am the quick-tempered, weak-bladdered man, So-and-So, son of Such-and-Such, son of What’s-His-Name.”123 Thus, since he carries neither forename nor patronym, the identity of this self is ordered solely by his psychic and physical aspects. To deploy Lacanian terms, the others in this text appear as an entity analogous to the symbolic order/Other.124 This Other inhabits the realm of Lacan’s so-called Name-of-the-Father,125 regulating communication, ideology, the law and all social relations. Accordingly, the text contains sundry agents of authority who enforce social restrictions, edicts and norms. Such agents include the narrator’s mother, who subjects him to toilet training; his teacher, who forbids him to go to the toilet during class; Āyida, daughter of the local Police Commissioner, whom he loves unrequitedly; the newspaper editors who reject his poetry; Sergeant Arafa, whom he assaults; and the examining magistrate at the judicial enquiry. In combination, this many-faceted Other assumes the role of the self’s superego, repressing and structuring his instincts and desires. Unexpectedly, however, this is no craven loner; indeed, this self is an unlikely descendent of his heroic predecessor, Umm Sayyid. For (albeit requiring an interpretive leap), he strives to resist the symbolic order (Other) via a range of subtly subversive strategies. First is his avoidance of appellation, since in this way no identity can be conferred on him, and he becomes subject to no one else. Second is his resistance to the Other’s demand for conformity, and its insistence that he regulate his conduct and emotions. Third, the self asserts that he is a member of a minority, and mobilizes Egypt’s incontinence sufferers into a “Weak-Bladdered League,”126 which, from an identity politics perspective, makes two points. First, the self promotes his League’s distinctness as a subculture, rather than seeking assimilation into the majority; second, he presents his conceptualization of a diverse yet equal society in which his minority is

123

“I tirāfāt,” 50. Cf. “I am Fatḥī Abd al-Rasūl, bus conductor, poet, lover and lunatic,” “al-Ziḥām,” 21. 124 Lacan, Écrits, op. cit., 11 ff. 125 Jacques Lacan, Seminar of Jacques Lacan: The Psychoses, 1955–56, III (London: Routledge, 1993), 96 ff. 126 “I tirāfāt,” 53.

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acknowledged and tolerated. Hence, his confessions resemble Zayd bin Ubayd’s complaints in that they form a manifesto for his League, where he cites the goals of “spreading bladder consciousness,”127 “drawing up explanatory maps and illustrative graphs of the public conveniences in all of the world’s major cities,”128 and “establishing branches for our members in all Egyptian cities from Aswan to Alexandria.”129 Fourthly, the self rejects the message, inculcated in him from infancy, that to be “civilized” he must contain his expulsivity. Mocking the desire of bourgeois society for respectability, he considers the symbol of the middleclass lavatory: […] the lavatory is the last place that householders are concerned with making presentable. For many, it never occurs to them that their guests might leave the boundaries of the parlor, which they have taken great pains to present as the showcase of their home. Rarely does the lady of the house take this strange and sudden request from one of her guests into consideration. And how great is the shift from the parlor to the lavatory! Thus I am asked to “wait a while,” as my bladder is fit to burst and I am driven to distraction, for as long as it takes her to make the lavatory presentable (—as though the lavatory itself were another sitting room), and to clear the way to it. […] Returning, I am bound to spot things I had not noticed during my crisis. Therefore, she must also move aside any children’s toys or shoes so that I don’t trip over them, or possibly hide some piles of dirty laundry in the kitchen, or pull the chain to ensure that it flushes with a strong flow. She will dress the lavatory and all around it with ornaments, as if it were a chair in her sitting room, and will make it so fragrant that one might imagine it had been created for an altogether different 130 purpose.

127

Ibid., 63. Ibid., 63. 129 Ibid., 64. 130 Ibid., 58–59. Another example of “polite society” is when the narrator confesses: “I would appear calm before strangers, so that they would cite me as an example of what they called ‘good manners’.” Ibid., 55. 128

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Applying a Freudian paradigm to the middle-class home, the self describes the transition from the front to the back of the house (that is, from parlor to toilet) as a journey from its “consciousness to its subconscious,”131 and the taboo of the toilet as the “private parts” (i.e. genitals) of the house.132 As al-Dīb observes, “I tirāfāt” is not merely an account of the narrator’s mental and physical crises, but also of “the crisis of civilization and the crisis of the bourgeoisie, which seeks always to conceal the painful truth by way of dressing up and deception.”133 Further, a perverse irony becomes apparent in the text: while the Egyptian bourgeoisie, with its shame of bodily functions, renders its toilets as clean and ambrosial as its parlors, this same class in the form of ministers and civil servants is closing down Egypt’s public conveniences—with inevitably unsanitary and “uncivilized” results. This is interpreted by the self as yet another oppressive practice, since such closures deprive it of the few spaces where it might find succor and relief. A fifth, and final, resistance strategy relates to the self’s use of violence. The text is punctuated throughout by acts of aggression against the Other: as a child, the narrator strikes Ḥukrush, the policeman’s son, with a brick, while as an adult he assaults Sergeant Arafa with a bottle. Similarly, as a child the narrator would drown armies of ants in his urine,134 an urge that re-emerges in adulthood during a frustrated exchange with his urologist: — “I want to piss on the entire world!” — “You are very ambitious.” 135

— “I am very frustrated! They have closed all the toilets in my city!”

In psychoanalytic terms, these expressions of rage and rebellion may be interpreted in terms of the transference, the narrator displacing his unresolved conflicts onto substitute objects. Thus, by assaulting Ḥukrush

131

“I tirāfāt,” 59. Ibid., 59. The term in Arabic is “ awra”. 133 Al-Dīb, op. cit., 246. 134 This image is also found in the short story “al-Mu dam al-Thāmin,” op. cit. 135 “I tirāfāt,” 63. 132

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and Sergeant Arafa or urinating on the ants, he gives symbolic expression to his desire to resist the symbolic order. The Significance of a Confessional Discourse As the title implies, “I tirāfāt” is an example of a confessional discourse. Confessions are an especially candid form of autobiographical writing, which tend to “dwell on the author’s honesty in admitting and describing former sinfulness and wrong-doing.”136 Thus, confessions frequently explore the darkest recesses of the soul, and treat shameful and often opprobrious material. In terms of its composition, the text is speculative and reflective, articulated via fragments of stream of consciousness or association, borne by memories returning to the narrator’s early childhood. Lacking many of the disjointed, illogical characteristics of al-Shārūnī’s earlier stories, these confessions are lucid and controlled, with a clear sense of contiguity, cause and effect. Causality is developed through a succession of flashbacks that help the reader to connect narrative events, and to understand the etiological relationship between the narrator’s formation and his current “condition.” The confessions are interspersed with brief dialogues: between the narrator and the examining magistrate and between the narrator and his urologist (see above). Given our understanding that the narrator is alone in his prison cell, we may assume that these dialogues are recalled or reenacted, and are not immediate exchanges between the parties involved. It is unclear, however, as to whether the narrator is truly alone; at one point we observe an implied narratee when he says: “Oh … please excuse me, my bladder’s fit to burst. Two minutes.”137 While this may be some form of internal monologue, it may nonetheless signify the presence of a cell-mate or therapist. Central to these confessions is the attack on Sergeant Arafa, since his survival of it (or otherwise) will shape the destiny of our narrator. Yet, as the threat of his execution grows, the narrator implies (like Mawjūd before him) that this would be no more punishment than life itself. Indeed, as he declares at the outset: “At three minutes to five I was a man condemned to

136 137

Gray, op. cit., 69. “I tirāfāt,” 54.

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live. By two minutes past five I was a man almost condemned to die.”138 Though this presupposes a random and precarious existence, we may also deduce that the fate of this self is predetermined. In support of this deduction, the narrator remarks that in his youth his parents would frequently forecast that he would “end up in prison.”139 The self’s frustrations surface steadily throughout the narrative, as do the stifling, maddening interdictions of his world. Accordingly, the discourse attempts equilibrium via controlled, densely packed syntactic units. As his agitation grows, sentences and particularly paragraphs lengthen, as he attempts to articulate his deep indignation and sense of injustice. Tension mounts as he tries to pull back from explosion and check the terrible outbursts that have led to his dreadful predicament. As the narrative reaches its climax, the closing image is of his frantic, furious cries of protest, that shatter into ruptured, repetitive rhyming clauses—as his bladder finally bursts and he attains physical and psychic release. Symbols abound in the text, the most resonant being that of the prison cell, a delimited, inescapable structure framing a space of bodily and mental oppression. Imprisonment—an absolute absence of freedom—underpins all aspects of the self’s existence: social, somatic or ideological. A further symbol of note is the hated authority figure, shown in the many policemen in the text. Less immediate, but as potent, is the leitmotif of the bladder, also subject to the processes of regulation and which the narrator describes as an inner “prison.”140 Hence, the self inhabits a prison while a prison inhabits him. The toilet, conversely, is a metaphor for liberation, and is the one true marker of a civilization. As the narrator asserts: “My experiences have taught me that the toilet in any home is an indicator of how civilized its occupants are. In the same way, public conveniences are an indicator of the level of civilization among a people.”141 To expand, it is of note that the narrator distinguishes between the condition of toilets in the Arab world and the comparative superiority of those in the west. This is most apparent in his discussion of Arab public

138

Ibid., 47. Ibid., 47. 140 Ibid., 58. 141 Ibid., 59. 139

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conveniences; on the one hand he states: “Our Egyptian cities, and most of the Arab countries, are among the poorest as regards these civilizational landmarks.”142 In contrast, on the subject of their European counterparts, he claims: Nothing amazed me so much as its [Europe’s] toilets: their lighting, their cleanliness, their architectural beauty and their fragrant smell. When I entered them for the first time I didn’t want to leave, because I felt physically and psychologically at ease. I noticed that my sharpness of temper had decreased, in fact, it had almost disappeared. I was no longer quarrelling for the most trivial of reasons; I was no longer reaching the point of explosion. Whenever my bladder was full I could 143 empty it, simply and without difficulty.

Caution should be applied to this comparison, however, since the narrator is aware of the illusory signifying power of the lavatory. Thus it would be erroneous to posit “I tirāfāt” as a glib defense of European civilizational superiority, though it does appear to allude to a comparative lack of freedom in Egypt and other Arab countries, particularly with respect to those perceptibly “different.” Hence the narrator asserts and defends the rights of his weak-bladdered minority, while denouncing oppressive practices and demanding attitudinal change. Within this context of individual and minority freedoms, it is useful to consider the function of confessions. Seemingly, they are a reflexive attempt to make sense of the self, revealing an evolving process of individuation which, as in other texts, is a means of establishing an integrated personal identity. In line with the psychoanalytic concepts that underpin them, these confessions also facilitate catharsis via narration. Thus they have a liberating, rather than self-excoriating, function; they voice the inner yearnings and dilemmas of the self, while providing a platform for demanding its right to exist authentically. This deviates in some way from the conventional function of confessions, since it privileges a defense of the self over admitting to, or atoning for, a perceived wrong-doing.

142 143

Ibid., 63. Ibid., 61.

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To close, what ultimately sets the narrator of “I tirāfāt” apart from his predecessors Fatḥī and Mawjūd, is that he never rejects his incarceration and his is a meaningful existence with well-defined purpose. Therein also lies the irony (and tragedy) of his predicament, for behind this quest for self-determination and his desire for a more just society, lies the very reason for his imprisonment and likely execution. With this in mind, this text spotlights the predicament of all Egypt’s minorities, for by exposing how the symbolic order seeks to regulate and control, it shows also how it negates the non-compliant and non- (or anti-)conformist.

“AL-WAQĀ’I

AL-GHARĪBA LI-INFIṢĀL RA’S MĪM,” 1993

“Al-Waqā’i al-Gharība li-Infiṣāl Ra’s Mīm”144 (“The Strange Events Surrounding the Breaking-Off of Mīm’s Head”) contains yet another protagonist of indeterminate appellation. Since mīm in Arabic corresponds to the letter “m” in English, we find a character with a nomenclature similar to Kafka’s “K” (Joseph K) in The Trial. Likewise, as in Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis,145 the protagonist in this story undergoes a strange transformation: with neither reason nor warning, his torso grows larger and flabbier, while his neck grows longer and thinner. M also finds that he has lost his self-control: he erupts into violence and psychotic fits of rage, and suffers excessive cravings for sex and food. Though he visits a doctor his condition remains a mystery, so he is sent to a specialist in London where he is told no cure is available. Back in Egypt, his condition deteriorates: his head and body tug apart, until one night his head breaks off. As M’s wife calls for an ambulance, his body will not let his head be saved, and rises up on its legs and crushes the head with its backside. Unable to survive independently of the head, the body then perishes. Though unique in many respects, “al-Waqā’i al-Gharība” revisits themes explored in earlier stories, such as the mind-body dualism in “Jasad min Ṭīn” and the nature and definition of disease and disorder, central to “I tirāfāt.” Indeed, M’s condition is comparable to that of the “quicktempered, weak-bladdered man,” in that he is perceived to be “abnormal,” yet experts can neither identify nor remedy his state.

144 145

Hereafter “al-Waqā’i al-Gharība.” Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis (London: Parton Press, 1937).

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Fragmented Body, Fragmented Self At first, M’s sense of self appears intact. With the onset of his bodily metamorphosis, however, he finds his personal identity has fragmented and lost its center. The splitting of the subject is represented by the descriptor of M’s splitting body, the head attempting to pull in one direction and the torso in another. He therefore breaks into two split-off parts: the head, or site of his rationality, and the body, an uncontrollable mass of instincts and urges. Post-splitting, M allies himself with his head, while distancing himself from his body, now “other.” As the narrator explains, M identifies with his head, rather than with his body, since he feels estranged from his body’s outbursts and its disconnected, irrational behavior. A series of parallel processes unfolds in the self: body and consciousness divide, the psychic and physical split, while the subject becomes both observer and observed. Most frightening of all, M feels his two parts disengage willfully; indeed, he senses that they are in conflict with each other. As he attempts to resist his loss of integrity, he notes that “his mind’s control over his body had begun to deteriorate.”146 Having laid the foundations in “I tirāfāt,” it is in this text that al-Shārūnī breaks definitively with Cartesian dualism, with its assumptions of cognitive rationality and the body as subject to the sovereignty of the mind. Rather, he presents a body that rebels against the “rational,” to the extent that the former symbiosis between the two parts is irrevocably severed. There are two forms of other in this text, the specular and, again, the symbolic order/Other. It is apparent that, prior to his physical metamorphosis, M perceives himself to be psychically whole, with complete control over mind and body. Upon his transformation, however, and when gazing at himself in the mirror, he witnesses the mutual distancing of body from head, from which an alien, specular other emerges. Indeed, M becomes a concrete example of Lacan’s corps morcelé (“fragmented body”), where the alienating identity of the ego is represented in the dismembered body, and where the anxiety to be a secure “I” is threatened by a pull towards fragmentation.147 Thus he experiences one resulting part-ego—the head—as self, with the split-off body consigned to the realm of other. To

146 147

Ibid., 7. Malcolm Bowie, Lacan, ed. Frank Kermode (London: Fontana, 1991), 26.

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expand, we may also borrow from object relations theory to treat M’s antithetical consideration of head and body: the head with its logic and rationality is “good,” while the irascible, perverse, lewd body is “bad.”148 The symbolic order/Other also structures M’s subjectivity. As with many of al-Shārūnī’s protagonists, it is the symbolic order that identifies M as “abnormal”: his body is grotesque, diseased and deformed, while his behavior is anti-social and deviant. He is cautioned constantly that he is “changing,” the implication being that such change is undesirable. His wife asks: “Haven’t you noticed something strange about yourself in the mirror?”,149 while his boss declares: “You look strange today, M. Have you seen a doctor? If you haven’t already, then do so right away.”150 As M changes—and as others perceive this—he inspires fear, contempt and revulsion in those around him. Even his wife, who strives to be supportive throughout his ordeal, betrays ambivalence in her perception of his metamorphosis: She found herself shunning—and not shunning—him. Conflicting thoughts passed through her mind, for she had spent a long married life with him, during which they had faced both good times and bad. And now she found herself before a deformed freak, who still bore some residual features of her husband and lover—and yet didn’t. He had begun to make her shudder and fear for her safety, though he was part 151 of her.

Embodying Power Relations in Egypt As in “al-Ziḥām,” the body here is a bearer of social meaning and is “an important source of metaphors about the organization and disorganization of society.”152 Thus, M’s body is a system of narrative signs through which power relations in Egypt may be interpreted and appraised. M’s physique is

148

For more, see Thierry Bokanowski and Sergio Lewkowicz (eds.), On Freud’s “Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence” (London: Karnac, 2009) and Juliet Mitchell (ed.), The Selected Melanie Klein (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986). 149 “Al-Waqā’i al-Gharība,” 8. 150 Ibid., 9. 151 Ibid., 15. 152 Turner, op. cit., 26.

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itself a metanarrative, the critique of which permits a critique of Egyptian society. Such a critique is facilitated chiefly by al-Shārūnī’s liberal deployment of symbolism. The central symbol is M himself, who may be considered on three levels: first, as a cohesive, coherent site of conscious subjectivity, and second and third, as two fragmented sub-parts—the head (to which is appended the neck), and what remains of his body. M as a cohesive, conscious self may be read as a metaphor for the idealized paradigm of the nation-state, point of origin for all, and to which all must refer or return. By extension, this paradigm is constructed from a binarism—government and body politic—that corresponds to M’s head and body respectively. These last two figures are unambiguous: since a “head” refers to a chief or boss, it refers also to the head of state, functioning metonymically as a symbol of government, while the “body” politic refers to the citizenry.153 The head, as we have seen, expresses rationality as well as leadership. Yet, ironically, M loses control of both himself and his environment and, as the narrative demonstrates, “loses his head” both literally and figuratively. His doctors thus urge him to resist surrender to his body’s aberrance. Further, the head signifies vanity or conceit, as in the expression “things have gone to his head,” an association borne out in the following: […] this mutual mind-body estrangement intensified when it became apparent that the head’s primary concerns were washing several times a day, combing its hair carefully and having it cut when it grew long, shaving and scenting its chin each day, and trimming its moustache. Meanwhile, it neglected to bathe the body, leaving it exuding odor, stickiness and putridity from its pores, until it became afflicted by 154 itching, which compounded its irritation and furious outbursts.

As a critique of national power relations, this reveals a growing distance between government and body politic, plus the arrogant disregard of Egypt’s leaders for its people. What is also clear is that, as the mutual

153

Allusions to Hobbe’s Leviathan seem compelling here, and to its famed frontispiece of the sovereign as giant, his head atop a body formed of hundreds of persons. 154 “Al-Waqā’i al-Gharība,” 19–20.

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distancing between the two parties grows, the government’s control over the body politic is weakened. The motif of the neck, which is severed from the body along with the head, bears significant ideological associations. First, the repeated word raqaba (“neck”) can refer to a slave or, in Islamic law, a person. Thus this lexical item bears connotations of power, ownership and legal responsibility. Second, the lengthening of M’s neck, and by that the elevating of head over body, denotes supremacy or superiority, alluding again to the distance between ruler and ruled. Within the text is a parodic dictionary entry, providing definitions and examples of the usage of raqaba: The dictionary says: “neck” or “nape”; applies also to the whole human being. A name given to one of eminence and importance; kings are called by this name. It is said: “He has freed a neck,” meaning a slave or a nation, and: “God has freed his neck,” meaning He has rescued or saved him. Our popular proverbs say: “So-and-so has lengthened our neck,” meaning: “He has honored us.” The opposite is: “He has rendered our 155 neck [the length of] a sesame seed.”

Here, the lengthening of M’s neck is ironic, suggesting national dishonor, rather than honor. The neck is also linked metonymically to the act of execution. After M’s head splits away from his body, the text gives four examples of executions among rulers and ruled: Al-Ḥajjāj bin Yūsuf al-Thaqfī was Umayyad governor of Iraq. He entered al-Kūfa one day and, in a sermon in its mosque, announced his well-known quote: “I see heads that have ripened and are ready for the picking, and I am the one to pick them. And I see blood [running] 156 between the turbans and the beards.” In January 1793 the guillotine beheaded Louis XVI, in the square 157 known as Place Louis XV, now renamed Place de la République. The

155

Ibid., 5–6. Ibid., 5–6. 157 In fact, the former Place Louis XV is now Place de la Concorde. 156

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SELF AND OTHER court of the French Revolution worked tirelessly and zealously until the prisons overflowed. The chopping of heads from bodies by guillotine was the penalty imposed on all, from Queen Marie Antoinette to 158 supporters of the revolution themselves. The narrator said: King Shahrayar slew his treacherous wife by a blow to the back of her neck, doing likewise with the slave men and women who had taken part in the betrayal party. From then on, King Shahrayar began to take a wife every night, taking her virginity and beheading her that same night. He continued to do this for three years. The narrator said: Shahrayar of England, King Henry VIII, did the 159 same with a number of his eight faithful wives.

Given Sadat’s execution by an assassin in 1981, plus state-sanctioned executions under Sadat and later Mubarak, the above examples offer a sobering admonition. While it would seem that M’s head splits off accidentally, it too is “executed” by the body, which crushes it to death. There is ideological impetus to this, in that it expresses the will and desire of the body politic to expunge its leadership and begin a new project of state reconstruction. Ever cautionary, however, the narrator shows how this can be a form of suicide, for, by depriving itself of a head, the body itself can no longer survive. Further, by citing the example of the French Revolution, he reminds us of how such a “liberating” act can turn against those who supported it— perhaps a veiled reference to Egypt’s 1952 revolution and the years of torture and oppression that ensued. In “al-Waqā’i al-Gharība,” the discourse evokes the ideal of an imaginary state where government and body politic relate interdependently. This is reproduced in M’s relationship with his wife, “a relationship between equals”160 thrown into irreparable imbalance with the onset of his transformation. As the narrator explains:

158

“Al-Waqā’i al-Gharība,” 22–23. Ibid., 23. Though Henry VIII, of course, had six wives. 160 Ibid., 15. 159

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His existence in her life used to confirm her existence. Now his existence—or non-existence—disproved her existence. Disturbed, she would ask herself: “Am I awake or in a nightmare?” But in her heart she declared: “I will never leave him in his time of trouble. I will stand by 161 him, in spite of all this. I need him and he needs me.”

In another example, the narrative is disrupted by a fragment of Greek chorus, treating the theme of symbiosis between head and body: A women’s chorus sings the melody: The tragedy is that they were both well aware … A men’s chorus breaks in with the melody: And [yet] unaware … The women’s chorus recommences, singing: That neither one could survive without the other. The melody of the men’s chorus completes and explains: For the head interprets what it receives from the senses … The women’s chorus concludes: Four of which are based in the head, The men’s chorus recommences: And decides on a way to respond, The women’s chorus then sings quickly: And, at that instant, puts it into action. The men’s chorus: In the same way, it brings order to the body’s voluntary movements, The women’s chorus: And the involuntary, such as breathing and the contraction and expansion of the heart. The men’s chorus: Meanwhile, at each moment, the body supplies the head with blood, The women’s chorus: And the oxygen it carries with it. The men’s chorus: For this is what makes the blood flow [to the head]. The whole chorus together: For were it not for the body, there would be neither 162 head (ra’s) nor president (ra’īs)

With the interpolation of this chorus, the narrator’s vision of the ideal state evokes the model advanced in Plato’s Republic, in that its structure is imagined by reference to the human body. However, whereas Plato views the body as being composed of head, chest and abdomen, each of which

161 162

Ibid., 15. Ibid., 19.

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responds to a soul faculty, a virtue and an element of the state’s structure (for example: head → reason → wisdom → rulers), the narrator conceives the state as being constructed from the constituent parts of head (leader or government) and body (body politic), with the neck bonding ruler to ruled. As in “I tirāfāt,” this text raises the question of how M’s condition, its causes and nature, might be defined: is it a disease (a biological disturbance), or an illness (an undesirable deviation from accepted norms)? As with many of his narrative predecessors, M’s condition seems to stem from culture, rather than nature. Most significantly, within the collective context of the nation-state, M’s condition expresses a public as well as a personal form of “unhealth,” signifying sickness or malaise. Notably, his corps morcelé reflects both the vulnerable ontological status of the self and the fragmenting unity of the nation-state, while his functional defects connote disturbances in the “system.” This begs the question as to which malaise the nation is suffering from. As the narrator informs us, M’s body was “becoming wild,”163 referring again to the theme of civilizational decline, central to “Naẓariyya” and “Shakwā.” Likewise, the narrator contemplates whether this malaise is self-engendered, insinuating that M’s state could be psychosomatic. Certainly, M is morbidly and compulsively obsessed by his illness, to the point almost of narcissistic disorder. For, like Narcissus, M is in thrall to the potency of his own image, though this owes more to its grotesqueness than delusional self-admiration. Also like Narcissus, M hastens his own end, due to his masochistic desire to cling to, and thereby increase, his anxiety. As the narrator explains, “He walked towards the mirror, not to be reassured, but to become more frightened.”164 Further, when his doctor attempts to comfort him, M argues: “I think you are trying to reassure me,” to which the doctor responds: No. I think you are trying to frighten yourself. Why do you see only the empty half of the cup? Beware of carrying your own defeat within you. Many diseases win because the patient loses his fighting spirit, rather 165 than due to the virulence of the microbe or virus.

163

Ibid., 21. Ibid., 8. 165 Ibid., 10–11. 164

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Repeated themes emerge in support of Egypt’s civilizational decline. First is its technological and scientific underdevelopment, attested to by the need to send M abroad to be medically assessed, and the fact that the consultant who sees him (Dr. Ghānim, whose name means “successful”), is an Arab who “had become an English national, and whose ability meant that he could enter this narrow [field of] specialization and surpass even the English themselves.”166 As Dr. Ghānim explains to M: “Were I given onetenth of the budget they give me here for my research, I would go back home immediately, as long as I was unobstructed by procedure and unhindered by the enemies of success.”167 A second theme is the body’s distrust of the unfamiliar, as below: When M was about to prepare to travel abroad, a significant development occurred. His head observed that whenever he took a step towards travelling, such as getting his visa or plane ticket, his body would become even heavier, as though resisting or protesting at the very thought. It seemed the head, and not the legs, had to carry the body from one place to the next. This was the final straw in the deteriorating relationship between M’s head and body, particularly as they attempted to tug and pull apart from each other. It was as though the slightest force would all but sever them—which M’s head saw as yet further 168 reason to travel.

Lastly, we return to themes of Egypt’s inefficiency and lack of basic sanitation, thrown into relief by M’s impressions of the clinic he visits in London: He was overwhelmed by the cleanliness of the place, the precisely-kept appointments and the smiling manner in which visitors were welcomed. All this reassured him of the reliability of the tests, of the diagnosis if 169 one were possible, and of the treatment if there were to be any.

166

Ibid., 17. Ibid., 17. Cf. “Du ā’” in “Shakwā.” 168 “Al-Waqā’i al-Gharība,” 16–17. 169 Ibid., 17. 167

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As with “I tirāfāt,” however, “al-Waqā’i al-Gharība” does not advocate emulating the west as a panacea for Egypt’s ills. Indeed, Dr. Ghānim offers M discreet insight into British priorities: “Here, they are one of two types. On the personal level, they are extremely courteous, correct and civilized, especially if you are a guest. On the general level, however, they act in accordance with their own interests, overriding the morals and examples we have been taught, even 170 should this lead to the killing of others.”

In this last of the short stories examined within this study, there are now numerous indications of a shift towards the postmodern: mimesis is de-emphasized, genre is defamiliarized, and the artistic construct is fragmented and discontinuous, weaving discourses from fiction and nonfiction, “high” and popular culture. The dis-located, un-unified subject is also postmodern in character, as is the flatness of the narrative with its remote, detached accent. This is sustained by the use of blank, denotative prose, at all times conventional and unembellished, and shedding little light on M’s complex condition. Lastly, the text lacks any authorial presence (no head, it would seem, is also indicative of no author), while the narrative voice is, likewise, split-off from events. To offer contrast, the text’s simple language is offset by its relatively complex structure. The plot is a narrative summary, events being divided between two locations and organized as a short vignette of life in the home or workplace followed by a scene at the doctor’s, usually accompanied by a terse dialogue. Further, the narrative is constructed from a series of “short shots,” intermittently broken by fragments of discourse from multiple genres (all of which reference “heads”), among them a dictionary entry, an excerpt from a medical text, a poem, and a snatch of Greek chorus. Thus, the deployment of intertexts is extensive, alluding to reference books, chronicles and fictional works such as The Thousand and One Nights, lending “al-Waqā’i al-Gharība” some of the pastiche qualities of “Shakwā.” The text’s studied artificiality reinforces its tone of detachment, as does the constant disrupting of the fabula’s continuum by ruptures in the szujet.

170

Ibid., 18. Given the date of this story, this could be a reference to the ongoing 1991 Gulf War.

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The text bears minimal description, implying a conscious avoidance of narrative depth or detail. Significantly, we cannot sense the narrative location, either through concrete images or spatial symbolism, as we can in “al-Ziḥām” and “Lamaḥāt.” Perhaps most unusually for al-Shārūnī, there is little emotional or psychological depth, making for an unnerving, dehumanized reading experience. This is not to suggest, however, that it lacks a playful dimension, for it has a darkly satirical edge, juxtaposing the realistic with the surreal and splicing elements of the marvelous alongside the bizarre. Lastly, it is the primacy of the body that inflects this text with postmodern coloring. It is to be noted that both the first and last stories in this study take the body as subject and object, though it is clear that, by “al-Waqā’i al-Gharība,” there have been transformations in how the body and its functions are perceived. In “Jasad min Ṭīn” (and later “al-Ziḥām” and “I tirāfāt”), the body conforms to the Foucauldian model of an object of intervention, subject to training, re-modeling and myriad forms of constraint. In “al-Waqā’i al-Gharība,” it shifts towards attempting selfcontrol and self-regulation, though its attempts, as we have seen are, on the whole, without success. While the splitting of this body seems pessimistic, it should not be forgotten that, inasmuch as the phantasy of the corps morcelé involves the self’s contemplation of its own destruction, this necessarily implies its eventual re-construction. Conclusion On account of its extended time frame, this final chapter witnesses the most substantial transformation in the evolution of the narrative self. At its outset we find a combative self: defiant, responsive and displaying courage and moral fiber. As the chapter progresses the self remains principled but more subtly activist, applying cautious, pragmatic strategies of resistance. By the chapter’s end, however, the self has reverted to an existence first pondered some fifty years earlier, in “Jasad min Ṭīn.” For, despite its attempts to transcend its subject position (as in “I tirāfāt”), or to defend itself against a hostile, belligerent other (as in “al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh”), the self has reverted to the paradigm of a non-integrated subjectivity, bedeviled by ontological uncertainties. Further, the harmonious backdrop of Egypt’s early independence has dematerialized, evoking the milieu of al-Shārūnī’s first short stories, when social groups were starkly polarized and daily existence fraught and unstable. Nonetheless, each of these texts legitimizes a self that longs for liberation or betterment. Though conscious of its deficiencies, this is a self

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that attempts to defend its beliefs, rights and identity, and to fight for its survival and self-determination. Self and other are reduced once more to implacable foes, their interactions characterized by tension and antipathy. Self-other perceptions may be summarized as follows:

SELF

OTHER

Attempts resistance Asserts difference Socially excluded Morally/ethically superior Human, immediate Nostalgia for past, aspirations for future Dislocated, resists fragmentation

Crushes resistance Denies difference Socially excluding Morally/ethically inferior God-like, remote Emphasis on present, disregard for past/future Dislocating, engenders fragmentation

CONCLUSION This study has employed the concepts of identity, self and other as critical and analytical tools for reading short narrative fiction in Arabic. Through a chronological consideration of twenty of al-Shārūnī’s short stories, produced over a period spanning slightly less than fifty years, it has contemplated themes of lost and confused identities; of shared and sometimes mistaken identities; of excluded voices and marginal lives; of selves-in-progress and selves dismantled or fragmenting, evolving into new identity configurations. Above all, this study has attempted to demonstrate how perceptions of self and other have transformed in line with historical, sociopolitical, economic and cultural change. Further, it has sought to investigate how conceptualizations of identity, self and other have been deployed within the narrative discourse of these texts, which have in turn evolved in line with the changing milieus of their production.

SUMMING UP PERCEPTIONS OF SELF AND OTHER As with personal, narrating selves, these selves and their others have been created and re-created by the processes of history. As such, we witness the interactional “I” pass through a series of evolutionary stages, from a pre-Cartesian-cum-Cartesian construct (Līzā in “Jasad min Ṭīn,” where the self is divided along mind/soul-cum-mind/body lines), to a fully unified, Cartesian subject (Sāmī in “al-Nās Maqāmāt”), where the focus is on a conscious, thinking self, expressing self-doubts alongside a desire for selfimprovement. For a very brief period (see “Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl”), selfhood equates with sameness, continuity and regularity. Disaffection very quickly sets in, however, as externalities begin to disintegrate (“Lamaḥāt” and “I tirāfāt”), and the self evolves to the point of a quasi-postmodern construct (M in “al-Waqā’i al-Gharība”). In this final stage, emphasis is given to a non-integrated self, shaped (and frequently distorted) by socially regulated ideas and praxis, and where the project of the self has come to be dominated by the body. 261

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Introspection and reflexivity sustain al-Shārūnī’s deployment of character, and the individuating journey of the self is central, particularly in those short stories where psychological plots predominate. Hence, these are always more than mere caricatures, and their portrayals vary from one text to the next, as may be seen from a sample as diverse as that of Sayyid Afandī Āmir, Fatḥī Abd al-Rasūl, Mawjūd Abd al-Mawjūd and Umm Sayyid, where each self has his/her own particularized idiosyncrasies, rituals and memories. What is more, these are often hard to fathom, flawed and contradictory selves, and, inasmuch as the short story genre permits, are mutable, complex and multi-dimensional, particularly in those texts produced from the 1960s onwards. Should we attempt to isolate a predominant or defining narrative self in al-Shārūnī’s short stories, this would undoubtedly be the minority figure (representing such character types as the “little man,” the misfit, the Copt, the woman or the bourgeois intellectual) which, despite assuming various iterations, remains relatively constant. To borrow Lichtenstein’s term, this figure forms the basis of a “primary” narrative self, which transforms throughout the course of al-Shārūnī’s texts. In the same way, the predominant narrative other is, without doubt, the generalized symbolic order/Other, a largely implicit construct which structures the self’s subjectivity, and which is manifest in almost all settings (such as the home, the school, or the workplace), and in all of the social practices (rituals, norms, values, hierarchies) at play in these short stories. As the mini-conclusions to each chapter have aimed to demonstrate, perceptions of and relations between self and other are marked largely by contrast and frequently conflict. In Chapter One, we find a diffident, passive and highly contingent self, excluded from social life by a ruthless, pernicious other. Arguably, this self-other paradigm represents the realities of Egypt’s late colonial period, and a society ruled remotely by oppressive, unyielding powers, and of the social and cultural transformations that came about with and after the Second World War. Further, it represents the tensions between the imperatives of the past and those of the present, and between the conflicting demands of tradition and modernity. This sociopolitical context persists in Chapter Two, though here we find a galvanized, more purposeful narrative self, flourishing in a climate of dynamism and openness to new roles and possibilities. The narrative other, meanwhile, remains static, closed and rigid, clinging doggedly to the past and to its memories of former glory. This self-other paradigm evokes the particularities of the pre-revolutionary period, when Egyptians demanded

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the overturning of the social order through the nationalist and popular patriotic democratic movements. Chapter Three is divided into two self-other paradigms. In the first, we find an uncharacteristic merging and symbiosis between self and other, expressed in the intersubjective commonality of “Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl,” where both sides are equally sanguine, content and optimistic. This signifies the extent to which the symbolic construct of nationalism, with its unifying rhetoric of shared identity and belonging, had been internalized by Egypt’s post-revolutionary society. In the second paradigm, latent self-other tensions resurface with force, as the other slips into a reworking of its formerly dominant role and regresses to totalitarianism. This is indicative of changing perceptions of the new regime, and of the “equalizing, inclusivist” myth of nationalist discourse. This becomes sharpened once continued class advantage comes to the fore, and when political violence and oppressive state practices recommence. Chapter Four is characterized by a liminal, “schizophrenic” self, cut adrift, belonging nowhere and identifying with no-one. This is a fearing and disillusioned self, resisting homogenization and the intrusions of state control. In its particular sociopolitical context, this self-other paradigm speaks of a period in Egypt’s history when the revolution’s efficacy was in question, though doubts were suppressed due to internal and external censorship mechanisms. By now, claims of a “national unifier” are definitively dismissed, while the status quo and the nation’s future are under close scrutiny. By Chapter Five, the self-other paradigm appears to have turned fullcircle, with the two halves of the binarism reverting to polar opposites. This is not, however, the uncertain, ambiguous self of earlier stories, but an increasingly autonomous and complex self, with a multi-layered, fully developed self-consciousness. This is evident in its arguments, ironies and contradictions: it speaks against oppression, coercion and injustice; it politicizes the personal and private; it resists enforced conformity while asserting its right to difference; and it privileges individual choice and agency over collective action. This self-other paradigm of absolute division reproduces the severed bonds between Egypt’s government and body politic, evincing the fragmentation of the imagined national community. What is clear from this synopsis is that al-Shārūnī’s œuvre foregrounds the individual self, its (invariably modest) aspirations and goals, and its search for self-knowledge and self-determination. In nearly all of his short stories we encounter selves in a state of “lack”; generally, these are desiring, aspiring characters striving for self-betterment, but who remain ultimately

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thwarted and unsuccessful. In most texts (particularly those with firstperson narrators), we find selves embroiled in some form of identity crisis, whilst embarked on a restless pursuit of a coherent, cohesive identity. It may be safely concluded that, with the exception of “Ra’sān al-Ḥalāl,” no self succeeds to realize this aspiration. Further, in this isolated example, integrity is achieved only by fusing self with other, to the point where all boundaries and difference are dissolved.

EVOLVING WORLDVIEWS AND IDEOLOGIES It has been posited in this study that al-Shārūnī’s short stories are founded on various evolving worldviews, the most salient being those of the Egyptian petite bourgeoisie and the minority intellectual elite to which he belongs. These appear in the ideological and philosophical themes al-Shārūnī weaves into the plots and structures of his texts. The author communicates these directly, via the mouths of characters (as in “Naẓariyya” and “Shakwā”), and indirectly, via characters’ unfolding destinies (as in “Jasad min Ṭīn” or “al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn”). In some instances, narrative selves seem to function as personæ, masking or mediating the author’s worldview. As these narratives suggest, this worldview is constructed in line with the precepts of liberal nationalism, humanism and individualism. In two texts in particular (“al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn” and “Ra’sān fi’l-Ḥalāl”), we can identify a specifically Christian ethos, espousing humility and compassion, albeit recasting this ironically in the service of a secular nationalist ideology and identity. Indeed, the grand narrative of nationalism is the most prominent and problematized of ideas in al-Shārūnī’s entire output. For, though later texts such as “Naẓariyya” and “Shakwā” imply that the nationalist myth has all but evaporated, the author never wavers in his belief in the greater (collective) “good.” To this end, and in spite of his privileging the individual, he persists in asserting the need for moral or ethical bonds, since these connect the self-interest of individual to group. Only once this group crushes or oppresses the individual (see “al-Ziḥām,” “Lamaḥāt,” “Shakwā” and “I tirāfāt”), does he demand the recalibrating of this relationship. Al-Shārūnī’s worldview seems guarded and pessimistic. However, as may be seen from these analyses, a case may also be made for its being optimistic. For, while many of his protagonists are frustrated, thwarted dreamers ( Abbās al-Ḥilū, Maḥmūd in “al-Qayẓ,” Sāmī and Sāmīa in “al-Nās Maqāmāt,” Ma’mūn in “al-Ḥidhā’” and the “Quick-Tempered, Weak-Bladdered Man”), al-Shārūnī promotes the humanist philosophic

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principle that man is central, through his efforts, to shaping his own fate. Thus, despite their frequent stasis and isolation, his protagonists are always able to dream, since through fantasy they can find a way to self-fulfillment. Likewise, he extends this principle to his readers, prompting them to question his characters’ motivations and interrogate their own beliefs and values. Lastly, though there is often a strongly ethical underpinning to al-Shārūnī’s texts, it should be asserted that he steers clear of dogma or authorial judgment. At every stage of his long career, al-Shārūnī’s stories have called for social and ideological re-organization, drawing on the ideas of Descartes, Hegel, Rousseau, Freud, Marx, Nietzche, Heidegger, and others. Key assumptions include the following, the texts in which they feature given: 1) The principle of the inviolability of the individual: “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt”; “Sariqa bi’l-Ṭābiq al-Sādis”; “al-Ḥidhā’”; “al-Nās Maqāmāt”; “al-Ziḥām”; “Lamaḥāt”; “Shakwā”; “I tirāfāt”; “al-Waqā’i al-Gharība.” 2) That all individuals have inalienable rights, and societies should protect these rights: “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū”; “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt”; “Sariqa bi’lṬābiq al-Sādis”; “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa”; “Risāla ilā Imra’a”; “al-Ḥidhā’”; “al-Nās Maqāmāt”; “al-Ziḥām”; “Lamaḥāt”; “Shakwā”; “I tirāfāt.” 3) That blind obedience is not virtue: “Jasad min Ṭin”; “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū”; “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt”; “Sariqa bi’l-Ṭābiq al-Sādis”; “al-Qayẓ”; “Risāla ilā Imra’a”; “Anīsa”; “al-Nās Maqāmāt”; “Nashrat al-Akhbār”; “Naẓariyya”; “Shakwā”; “I tirāfāt”; “al-Waqā’i al-Gharība.” 4) That scientific discovery should be applied for human benefit: “Maṣra Abbās al-Ḥilū”; “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt”; “Nashrat al-Akhbār”; “Naẓariyya”; “Shakwā”; “I tirāfāt”; “al-Waqā’i al-Gharība.” 5) That there is power in individual thought and creativity, and no form of “creation” is ever complete: “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt”; “Sariqa bi’l-Ṭābiq al-Sādis”; “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa”; “Risāla ilā Imra’a”; “Nashrat al-Akhbār”; “Naẓariyya”; “Shakwā”; “al-Waqā’i al-Gharība.” 6) That self-esteem is preferential to pride: “Zayṭa Ṣāni al- Āhāt”; “al-Nās Maqāmāt”; “al-Laḥm wa’l-Sikkīn”; “Shakwā”; “al-Umm wa’lWaḥsh.” 7) That education enlightens and forms the basis for a better society: “al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa”; “Risāla ilā Imra’a”; “Naẓariyya”; “Shakwā”; “I tirāfāt.”

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AL-SHĀRŪNĪ AND THE MODERN ARABIC SHORT STORY This study promotes the notion that al-Shārūnī is a pioneer of modernist narrative fiction in Arabic, and has sought to illustrate his contribution to the modern Arabic short story. Further, it has endeavored to reveal how his use of modernist narrative modes predates that of other Arab writers by up to twenty years, perhaps the most distinguished example being “al-Ḥidhā’.” Albeit circumscribed in terms of its size, his is an evolved body of work, which has seen him pass from the romantic sensibility through to realism and modernism, and even (as seen in the final story) to test the boundaries of postmodernism. His stories have also charted dramatic historical change: from the epidemics and post-war tensions of late 1940s Egypt (“al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa” and “al-Ḥidhā’”), through the years of gender and class transformations, demographic shift and migration under Presidents Nasser and Sadat (“al-Ziḥām,” “Lamaḥāt” and “Shakwā”), ending with 1990s references to phenomena such as AIDS and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait/1991 Gulf War (in “al-Waqā’i al-Gharība”). To categorize, al-Shārūnī may be nominated as an essentially modernist writer, a view supported by a synopsis of the main characteristics of his narratives: an over-riding emphasis on interiority (with respect to both being and time); an attention to perspectivism (focalizing events through one individual and privileging dramatic narrators); a concern with impressionism (foregrounding the processes of knowing and perception); a belief in so-called universal, essential human values; and an interest in structural approaches to lived experience (such as mythic and psychoanalytic narrative paradigms). Another of al-Shārūnī’s contributions to the modern Arabic short story is that, against those who have argued to the contrary, he may be seen constantly to have engaged with Egypt’s sociopolitical milieu. Though his voice and technique can be subtle and, at times, oblique, he has never ceased to subject ideas and norms to scrutiny, particularly nationalist ideology, which stories such as “al-Nās Maqāmāt” and “Nashrat al-Akhbār” suggest had lost its potency by as early as the late 1950s. Further, he has never eschewed topics that critique the regime and its policies (see “Naẓariyya” and “Shakwā”), overturning the conventional perception of al-Shārūnī as a non-committed, introspective writer. Indeed, the short stories examined in this study demonstrate that, for much of his career, al-Shārūnī has been both innovative and farseeing. Further, it is salutary to observe how many of his earliest texts retain currency, transcending the temporality of literary trends and tastes. This is best illustrated in his introduction to his collected works (al-Majmu āt, 1993),

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where he explains how, twenty years after their publication, the reprinting of some of his earliest stories was halted on account of their content. In the opinion of the censor, these stories “were critical of the current regime, and could not have been written twenty years ago.”1 Al-Shārūnī offers a typically diffident response: I did not know whether to feel happy or sad. I felt happy that my story, which I had written twenty years ago, was still “alive” (the censor believing it to have been written yesterday), and I felt sad because nothing had changed in our society, so that what had applied some twenty years ago still held true today. But I did not overlook a third possibility, while saying somewhat conceitedly to myself: perhaps there is something universal in this story, which transcends society at any given stage (even if the story finds its origins therein), and it is this which 2 gives it its eternal youth.

What this citation and al-Shārūnī’s œuvre reveal is that, in spite of the particularities of his characters and their worlds, and the contexts in which his texts were produced, they continue to resonate due to their universal themes, chief among which are those of identity, self and other.

1 2

Yūsuf al-Shārūnī, al-Majmū āt, vol. 1, 3. Ibid., 2–3.

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INDEX al-Ādāb, 118 al-Adīb, 27, 33 al-Badawī, Maḥmūd, 33 al-Bannā, Ḥasan, 31 al-Bashīr, 26, 33 al-Bustānī, Buṭrus, 20 al-Bustānī, Salīm, 20 al-Fajr, 22 al-Fuṣūl, 33 al-Ḥakīm, Tawfīq, 2, 117 al-Iṣbahānī, 18 al-Jāḥiẓ, 18, 26 al-Jinān, 20 al-Kātib al-Miṣrī, 33, 34 al-Kharrāṭ, Idwār, 25 al-Majalla al-Jadīda, 33 al-Muwayliḥī, Muḥammad, 2 al-Nadīm, Abd Allāh, 20 al-Nuqrāshī, Maḥmūd, 31, 108 al-Sharqāwī, Abd al-Raḥmān, 117, 163 al-Shārūnī, Yūsuf al-Daḥk Ḥattā al-Bukā’, 28 al-Gharaq, 27 al-Umm wa’l-Waḥsh, 28 al-Ziḥām, 28, 104, 164, 177, 186, 198 al- Ushshāq al-Khamsa, 16, 28, 119, 120, 164 character archetypes, 29, 30, 33, 62, 76, 105, 113, 191, 231

contribution to short story, 16, 17, 25, 28, 34, 33, 34, 42, 84, 266 literary career, 16, 25, 27, 28, 75, 127, 198, 265 Risāla ilā Imra’a, 28, 119, 120, 164 al-Sibā ī, Yūsuf, 119 al-Takarlī, Fu’ād, 25 al-Tankīt wa’l-Tabkīt, 20 al-Taṭawwur, 26, 33 al-Zayyāt, Laṭīfa, 87 al- Ālim, Maḥmūd Amīn, 87, 118 al- Aqqād, Abbās Maḥmūd, 26 Abū Māḍī, Iliyā, 26 Alf Layla wa Layla. See The Thousand and One Nights Algeria, 158 Althusser, Louis, 32 Arabic literature absurdism, 27, 80, 85, 209 adab, 18, 229 existentialism, 34, 63, 75, 80, 85, 113 experimentalism, 26, 33, 75 expressionism, 29, 33, 119 iltizām, 104, 118, 120, 187, 195, 227 impressionism, 29 maqāma, 18, 19, 21 marthiya, 238, 239

283

284

SELF AND OTHER

modernism, 17, 22, 25, 26, 28, 33, 34, 41, 42, 53, 75, 84, 90, 104, 107, 110, 111, 114, 119, 163, 164, 177, 266 postmodernism, 261, 266 realism, 22, 29, 33, 34, 83, 90, 119, 163, 209, 234, 261, 266 rhetoric, 235, 237 risāla, 237 romanticism, 7, 22, 85, 90, 92, 94, 101, 114, 227 saj , 235 social realism, 32 socialist realism, 22, 117, 119, 120, 162 surrealism, 33 symbolism, 29, 33, 71, 162, 209, 254 Ashūr, Nu mān, 138 Awaḍ, Luwīs, 33 Beirut, 164 Bible, The, 35, 38, 39, 42, 92, 126, 135, 165, 168, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 206, 208, 224, 225 body, the, 8, 36, 37, 38, 39, 42, 60, 65, 106, 124, 173, 178, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 261, 262 Bunyan, John, 173 Cairo, 1, 25, 27, 44, 49, 51, 72, 76, 78, 87, 88, 107, 108, 110, 126, 129, 136, 149, 152, 165, 177, 178, 180, 182, 184, 187, 192, 232, 238, 239, 243 Camus, Albert, 26, 33, 34, 81, 85, 208 capitalism, 46, 71, 149, 150, 190, 211, 233 Chekhov, Anton, 18, 26

China, People’s Republic of, 151 city, the, 45, 46, 49, 57, 84, 85, 110, 111, 119, 126, 159, 177, 178, 179, 180, 182, 183, 184, 186, 227, 238, 244, 247 Cold War, 149, 151 colonialism, western, 19, 21, 46, 69, 70, 71 Communism, 149, 151 Copts custom and ritual, 127, 129, 130, 132, 165, 223 identity, 122, 127, 167, 168 in Egypt, 25, 31, 34, 35, 41, 121, 125, 126, 129, 135, 137, 156, 161, 166, 174, 175, 186, 216 Cultural Materialism, 32 Descartes, René, 6, 8, 15, 31, 124, 206, 252, 261, 265 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 18, 26, 105, 111 du ā’, 230, 239, 240 Egypt al-Ikhwān al-Muslimūn, 31, 34, 41, 72, 75, 116, 159, 212, 215 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, 34 1951 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, 72 1948 Arab-Israeli war, 114 1967 Arab-Israeli war, 159, 187, 198, 214, 217, 218, 219, 223 1973 Arab-Israeli war, 1, 211, 213, 216, 217 Camp David Accords, 1, 213, 238 class relations, 113, 122, 138, 139, 141, 142, 143, 144, 146, 147, 148, 263, 266 Communist party, 32 1952 coup, 22, 117, 114, 115, 117, 118, 124, 126, 127, 129, 148, 159, 166, 187, 257

INDEX Free Officers’ Movement, 72, 75, 117, 114, 214 gender relations, 31, 35, 37, 38, 43, 45, 70, 88, 89, 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 113, 137, 138, 266 infitāḥ, 211, 212, 214, 215, 232 intersectarian relations, 31, 35, 39, 40, 41, 129, 162, 165, 166, 167, 174, 175, 177, 215, 216 Jamā at al-Jihād, 214 King Fārūq, 34, 73, 117 Miṣr al-Fatāh, 31 modernization, 49, 60, 71, 139, 189, 191, 208, 215, 232 national identity, 92, 113, 116, 129, 160 nationalism, 31, 41, 69, 117, 115, 117, 121, 126, 133, 156, 159, 196, 209, 219, 227, 263, 264, 267 nationalist literature, 117, 127 pan-Arabism, 22, 69, 117, 159, 158, 159, 162, 211 patriotic democratic movement, 31, 32, 72, 113, 263 pharaonic heritage, 92, 218, 225, 228, 229 post-revolutionary period, 30, 116, 119, 133, 138, 139, 156, 159, 158, 160, 174, 175, 186, 188, 262, 263 pre-revolutionary period, 30, 35, 40, 44, 72, 86, 87, 113, 136, 148, 159, 191, 233, 262 socialism, 141, 211, 233 Suez Canal, 72, 116, 151, 159, 212 tradition and modernity, 17, 45, 49, 55, 79, 94, 98, 151, 157, 209, 218, 226, 227, 262

285 Wafd party, 32, 34, 41, 75, 129, 166, 212 Urābī rebellion, 20 Eliot, T. S., 33 Enlightenment, the, 5, 6, 124 fabula, 104, 165, 175, 261 Fascism, 31 feminism, 10, 31, 99, 102, 103 Flaubert, Gustave, 18 formalism, 14, 221 Foucault, Michel, 32, 262 French surrealism, 26 Freud, Sigmund anal stage, 242 castration complex, 242 ego, 8, 30, 67, 78, 101, 103, 124, 181, 187, 202, 217, 232, 244, 253 id, 124, 182 infantile neurosis, 242 mirror stage, 12 narcissism, 82 Oedipus complex, 85, 186, 208 phallic stage, 242 sibling rivalry, 242 subconscious, 246 superego, 124, 194, 201 theory of self, 7, 8, 10, 31 transference, 247 Frye, Northrop, 175, 179, 224, 274 Gālīrī 68, 163 Ghali, Waguih, 2 Ghānim, Fatḥī, 16, 87 Gogol, Nikolai, 18, 24, 26, 109 Goldmann, Lucien, 31 Great Britain, 34, 31, 44, 46, 50, 72, 73, 114, 119, 150, 151, 212, 260 Greimas, Algirdas, 15 Ḥaqqī, Yaḥyā, 1, 2, 16, 22, 33, 76, 120, 137

286

SELF AND OTHER

Hegel, Georg, 206, 207, 265 Heidegger, Martin, 8, 265 Hobbes, Thomas, 6 Holland, Norman, 9, 13, 14 Hume, David, 7 Ḥusayn, Ṭāhā, 26, 33, 62, 117, 118 identity acquired identifications, 10, 11 cultural, 21, 133 definition of, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 gender, 104, 130, 132, 133 individual and collective, 11, 22, 29, 113, 132, 138, 146, 202, 209 ipse- and idem, 11, 12 narrative, 5 national, 20, 21, 29, 41, 133, 156, 177, 178, 209, 213 personal, 7, 14, 106, 116, 124, 250, 252 religious, 21, 127, 130, 132, 133, 135, 151, 161, 167 Idrīs, Suhayl, 118 Idrīs, Yūsuf Arkhaṣ Layālī, 16, 117 Idrīs, Yūsuf short stories, 163, 165 intertextuality, 41, 53, 61, 126, 193, 208, 223, 225, 229, 234, 237, 261 Israel, 224, 227 Dayan, Moshe, 224 Menahim Begin, 213 state of, 22, 31, 117, 159, 161, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 219, 223, 241 Tripartite Aggression, 151 Jamā at al-Fann wa’l-Ḥurriya, 26 Jamā at al-Madrasa al-Ḥadītha, 22 James, Henry, 23 James, William, 7

Joyce, James, 33 Jung, Carl, 7 Kafka, Franz, 33, 84, 114, 208, 251, 277 Kerby, Anthony, 13, 14, 15 Kierkegaard, Søren, 26, 67, 206 Lacan, Jacques corps morcelé, 253, 258, 262 mirror stage, 82, 100 specular other, 12, 82, 252, 253 symbolic order, 103 symbolic Other, 12, 210, 245, 252, 253, 262 theory of other, 31 Lāshīn, Maḥmud Ṭāhir, 22, 32, 228 Leibniz, Gottfried, 6 Lichtenstein, Heinz, 9, 262 Locke, John, 7 Maḥfūẓ, Najīb, 33 friendship with al-Shārūnī, 53 Zuqāq al-Midaqq, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 58, 61, 62 Mahjar Group, 21, 26 Marx, Karl, 265 Marxism, 31, 34, 117, 118 Maupassant, Guy de, 18, 26 modernism, 61, 150 Mubarak, Hosni, 30, 214, 216, 257 Mūsā, Salāma, 33 Naguib, Mohammed, 114 Nahḍa, the, 19 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 30, 69, 114, 115, 116, 117, 151, 159, 158, 159, 161, 184, 185, 188, 191, 196, 201, 211, 212, 214, 215, 224, 232, 266 Nazism, 31 New Historicism, 32 Nietzche, Friedrich, 265 Nu ayma, Mīkhā’īl, 21, 26

INDEX O’Connor, Frank, 23, 24, 29 other definition of, 8, 12 Palestine, 22, 31, 72, 159 phenomenology, 7 Plato, 6, 258 Poe, Edgar Allan, 18, 23 popular literature, 217 cante-fable, 18 epic, 18 fā’ida, 220 ḥikāya, 18, 217, 220, 221 Kalīla wa Dimna, 26 khabar, 220 khurāfa, 220, 222 legend, 217, 220, 222, 223, 224, 225, 227 mawwāl, 222 myth, 217, 225 nādira, 220, 221 qiṣṣa, 217, 220 riwāya, 220 romance, 18, 220 usṭūra, 217 post-colonialism, 31 postmodernism, 10 Propp, Vladimir, 221 psychoanalysis, 7, 9, 10, 31, 35, 85, 242, 247, 250, 266 Qāsim, Abd al-Ḥakīm, 2 Qur’ān, The, 18, 40, 150, 151, 153, 154, 204, 222 Quṭb, Sayyid, 160 realism, 117, 150 Ricœur, Paul, 11, 12, 13, 14 Rorty, Amélie, 14, 15 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 265 Sadat, Anwar, 30, 1, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 228, 231, 257, 266 Ṣāliḥ, al-Ṭayyib, 2

287 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 8, 26, 33, 34, 118, 195, 206 Second World War, 17, 22, 25, 29, 30, 33, 34, 32, 44, 49, 262 self definition of, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 individual and collective, 10, 11, 124 narrating and narrative, 13, 14, 15, 261 narrative, 5 private and public, 10 short story evolution in Egypt, 17, 22, 32, 33, 75, 163, 164 form and nature, 5, 23, 25, 31, 35 origins in Arabic, 17, 19, 20, 22, 28 socialist romanticism, 117 Soueif, Ahdaf, 2 Soviet Union, 150, 151, 212 Space Race, 151 Spinoza, Baruch, 6 structuralism, 10, 14, 15, 31 Syria. See United Arab Republic szujet, 261 Tagore, Rabindranath, 26 Ṭāhir, Bahā’, 2 Tāmir, Zakariyya, 25 Taymūr, Maḥmūd, 21, 22, 27, 32, 90, 117, 228 Taymūr, Muḥammad, 21, 22, 27 The Thousand and One Nights, 193, 261 Turgenev, Ivan, 18, 24 United Arab Republic, 117, 159, 158 United States, 150, 151, 212 women, 167, 197, 256 Yemen, 117