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Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Journal of
Middle East Studies.
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The Arabic Bildungsroman: A Generic AppraisalAuthor(s): Nedal M. al-Mousa
Source: International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 25, No. 2 (May, 1993), pp. 223-240Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/164664Accessed: 07-07-2015 16:19 UTC
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Int.
J. Middle East Stud.
25
(1993),
223-240. Printed
in
the United States
of
America
Nedal M. Al-Mousa
THE
ARABIC BILDUNGSROMAN: A GENERIC
APPRAISAL
Does
the Arabic novel
exist? With this
provocative question,
Hilary Kilpatrick
begins an article entitled The Arabic Novel-A Single Tradition?, n which she
makes
clear that
her
question
has been
inspired
both
by
the established
regional
approach1
most critical studies
use in
dealing
with the Arabic
novel,
and
by
the
absence
of a continuous tradition of the novel
as a
genre
in
the
Arab world.
But,
while
underscoring
variety
in
form,
style,
and
subject,
Kilpatrick,
keen to
provide
an answer
to her
question,
concludes in
unequivocal
terms that the Arabic novel
as a
single
tradition
does
certainly
exist: It is written in one
language,
and
[has]
a shared
cultural
heritage
and recent
historical
experience
common to the
whole
area
[which]
provide[s]
novelists in different countries with similar material. In
this
respect
the Arabic novel
is
distinct
in its
subject
matter
from the
African
or
Germannovel, for instance. 2Although the conclusion is valid, it is based on his-
torical and cultural
generalizations
rather
than on a
thorough study
of
novels
from
the Arab world. Nor does
the
platitudinous
remark with which the
quotation
con-
cludes
help
Kilpatrick
make her case
in a
particularly
convincing
manner.
The
dis-
tinct
nature
of
the
Arabic
novel,
as this
study
will
demonstrate,
is best
exemplified
in what
might
be called the Arabic
Bildungsroman.
Its
definitive,
culturally
deter-
mined themes and
structure,
distinctive basic
tension,
and established
literary
con-
ventions
to
my
mind
suggest
the
presence
in the
Arab world of at least this kind of
novel.
In a
Bildungsroman,
action
hinges
on the
fortunes
of
an ambitious
young
hero
as he struggles to live up to his poetic goals against the negative forces of prosaic
reality.
Typically,
he
grows
up
in
a humble
family
in the
provinces,
but,
endowed
with an adventurous
spirit,
leaves home to seek
his
fortune and realize his ambi-
tions.
In the course of
his
adventures,
the
hero
falls
in
love with an aristocratic
lady
whose
inaccessibility
awakens
him
to the harshness and
complexities
of
life,
which is
part
of his
education.
His
adventures
bring
him
into contact with
various
guides
and mentors
who
volunteer
to initiate him into
life's realities and
a
series
of disenchantments
designed
to contribute to his internal
growth. Only
by
shaking
off all the traces
of his
romantic
orientation does he
come
to
accept reality
and his
apprenticeship
to life comes to its end.
Nedal
M. Al-Mousa teaches
in
the
English
Department
of Amman National
University,
P.O.
Box 337
Al-Jbaiha, Amman,
Jordan.
?
1993
Cambridge University
Press 0020-7438/93
$5.00
+
.00
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224 Nedal
M.
Al-Mousa
Comparable
themes can be found
in six
typical
Arabic novels:
Tawfiq
al-
Hakim's
CUsfuir
min
al-Sharq
(Bird
of the
East)
(1938),
Dhu al-Nun
Ayyub's
al-
Duktur Ibrahim
(Doctor Ibrahim) (1939),
Yahya Haqqi's
Qindil Umm Hashim
(Umm
Hashim's
Lamp)
(1944),
Suhayl
Idris's
al-Hayy
al-Ldtini
(The
Latin
Quar-
ter) (1958),
al-Tayib
Salih's
Mawsim
al-Hijra
ild
al-Shamal
(Season
of
Migration
to the
North) (1966),
and
Ghalib Hamzah
Abu-al-Faraj'sSanawdt
al-Daya'
(The
Lost
Years)
(1980).3
In
all
of
them the hero's
journey
is to the West rather
than to
the
capital city.
There he
undergoes
experiences,
inevitably
including
love
affairs,
which are
part
of his initiation into
life.
Exposure
to an alien culture allows him to view
things
from a
cross-cultural
per-
spective
and suffer culture
shock and
the
agonies
of
estrangement.
In
the
end,
how-
ever,
the
journey
allows
him to
understand
the
world and
to
gain insight
into his
native,
as well as the
foreign,
culture.Edward
Said
points
to the formative mechanism
in
the educational benefits of the
trip
to
the
West in
the Arabic
Bildungsroman:
The more one is able to
leave one's cultural
home,
the more
easily
is one able to
judge
it,
and the whole world as
well,
with the
spiritual
detachment
nd
generosity
necessary
or
truevision. The more
easily,
too,
does one
assess
oneself
and
alien cultureswith
the same
combination f
intimacy
anddistance.4
Bird
of
the East
provides
us with the earliest fictional dramatization
of Edward
Said's
principle
of
intimacy
and distance as an effective educational
instrument.Mu-
hsin,
its
hero,
goes
to Paris. His
initial
enlightenment
n the novel
comes at the
opera,
where he sees the
spiritual debility
of Western civilization when he realizes that the
opera
goers
are
preoccupied,
not
by
the
music,
but
by
what
everyone
is
wearing.5
In
another scene Muhsin and his French mentor
go
to a funeral:
Andre,
the
mentor,
re-
marks,
One
goes
into a church as one
goes
into a cafe.
.
. . What is the difference?
One
is a
public place;
the other is
a
public place.
One
has an
organ;
the
other,
an
or-
chestra. 6
Muhsin
regards
this
as evidence
of
a
loss of
spiritual
values;
his
disap-
proval
of this loss is
inspiredby
his fervent devotion to
al-Sayyida
Zaynab,
a faith
that
will
enable
him to retain his
spiritual ntegrity against
the
temptations
of the lib-
eral ideas
of the
West.
Muhsin then takes a
fancy
to
Suzy,
a
Parisian ticket
seller,
whom
he
idealizes
as
an
inaccessible
young
lady, though
she is
in
fact
selfish,
callous,
and
cold,
unable
to
comprehend
Muhsin's wholehearted
attraction or to
reciprocate
his
feelings.
Suzy
has
only
her
body
to offer. She
soon
jilts
Muhsin and
goes
back to
her
French
boyfriend
when
they
patch up
a
quarrel.
In his
disillusionment,
Muhsin
re-
alizes
that
Suzy
is
no
Saniya,
the
sublime,
inaccessible beloved of
his
uncle Sal-
eem,
a former
police
officer.
In his
long
letter to
Suzy
after the
rupture,
Muhsin
reaches
the
conclusion that Indian
girls
are more
faithful
than
French ones and
more
full of
warmth,
feelings,
and
spirit,
and his disillusionment
colors
his
atti-
tude
towards Western culture
in
general.
His
painful
love affair with
Suzy
does,
however,
in
typical Bildungsromanstyle,
contribute
to his maturation.
Love in
Bird
of
the
East is more than a stock-in-trade
fictional
theme;
it
is
used
to dramatize cross-cultural conflicts
to
sharpen
the tension between
East and
West,
which is the
pivotal
theme of an Arabic
Bildungsroman.
Love
as a medium
for
bringing opposed
cultural
values into dramatic
focus is
one
of the salient
fea-
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The
Arabic
Bildungsroman:
A
Generic
Appraisal
225
tures that
give
the
Bildungsroman
its Arabic
flavor,
just
as
it does in the
European
Bildungsroman,
where
characteristically
the
young
hero from
the lower classes
falls in love with the aristocratic
lady
and the
pangs
of
unrequited
love are used to
heighten
the
readers' awareness
of
the definitive theme
of
class
struggle.
The
course
of events
in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's
Apprenticeship,
Charles Dickens's
Great
Expectations,
and Balzac's Lost
Illusions,
for
example,
bears out this con-
tention.
In each of these novels class barriers n the realm of
love,
where the
rela-
tionship
between
the
self
and
the outside world is
particularly
close,
are utilized
to
add
force to the
central theme of class
struggle,
much
in
the same
way
that love
between
the
young
Eastern hero and
a
Western
girl
is used
to
sharpen
the tension
between
East and
West in the Arabic
Bildungsroman.
Commentators
hold that al-Hakim's
major
concern in Bird
of
the East
is
to
un-
derscore
the
superiority
of the
spiritual
East to the materialistic West.7 That inter-
pretation
is based on the
Russian
emigre
Ivan's extreme anti-Western ideas and
his remarkable
infatuation
with the
spirituality
of the East. To
my
mind,
this is
hardly
a tenable
argument.
For,
taking
our cue from Ivan's romantic
illusions
about
the
East,
his
sentimentality,
and
his lack of
intimate
knowledge
of the
East
(Ivan,
al-Hakim
is keen to tell
us,
has
never been
there),
we
get
the
feeling
that
we
are
not meant to take
his views at face value.8
However,
much in
the
meaning
of a
novel lies
in
what
is
given
rather than what
is
interpreted.
Moreover,
even
Muh-
sin,
who is so often
identified with
al-Hakim,
does not
unreservedly
subscribe to
Ivan's
contention that
Muhsin is able to look into
things
more
rationally
than
the
Russian
emigre.
Muhsin's
awareness
of the
pros
and cons of both cultures
which
relates to his
gradual
cultivation of a true
vision,
as it
is
defined
by
Edward
Said,
enables
him even to draw Ivan's attention to the relative merits of Western civili-
zation: It seems
to
me,
Monsieur
Ivan,
that
you may
be
a
little too
harsh
in
your
judgment
of
the
West. No matter how bad the situation
is,
Europe
has still reached
heights
in
science
that have never before
been
achieved
....
9 In
another
place
in
the
novel,
Muhsin
refers
to
Beethoven's music'0 to add force to his
argument
as he
tries to awaken
Ivan to the
positive aspects
of Western culture. Muhsin's remark-
able
capacity
to see
through
Western culture seems to be a
fictional version
of
al-
Hakim's views on what the outcome of the cultural encounter between East and
West will be as it is recorded
in
Zahrat al-'Umr
(The
Flower of
Life).
In one
of
his letters
to Muhsin's
mentor, Andre,
al-Hakim
remarks,
It is
only
the shock
generated by
the encounter between East and West that will
contribute to
opening
closed
eyes
in both East and West.
Paul
Starkey,
in
his
recently
published
book,
From the
Ivory
Tower: A
Critical
Study of
Tawfiq
al-Hakim,
overlooks the fact that al-Hakim's
major
concern in
the
novel
is
to
depict
his hero's internal
development
rather
than to establish the
spiri-
tual
superiority
of the East to the West when he conceives of
Muhsin's
reluctance
to endorse
extremely
favorable
views of the
East as
being
a fault in
construction :
It has been possibleto read the novel as an exaltationof the East at the expenseof the
West.
Admittedly,
his idea has been
expounded
ntirelyby
Ivan;
but there
has,
nonethe-
less,
been a certain
presumption
hat
his
outlook s shared
by
the
young Egyptian....
the
change
of direction n the last few
pages
comes as
something
of a
shock,
and there
can be
no doubt
hat t mustbe counteda fault in
construction.12
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226
Nedal M. Al-Mousa
But the
change
of direction towards the end of the novel in
fact
fits in
with
al-
Hakim's
preoccupation
with
depicting
his hero's internal
growth.
It culminates in
his final
acquisition
of
a true
vision,
which results from his
undergoing
a series of
educational
experiences.
A
spiritual
crisis is
another
typical
theme
in
the Arabic
Bildungsroman.
Muhsin is
attracted
o the
liberal ideas of Voltaire and Nietzsche in
chapter
10,
and as a result
his devotion to
al-Sayyida
Zaynab
is
undermined. But Muhsin's
spiritual
crisis
proves
to be
only
a
passing phase
in
his educational
journey.
Later
in
the
novel,
after
he
discovers
Suzy's
faithlessness,
he
regains
his
former devotion to
al-Sayyida
Zaynab.
In
the
wake of
this emotional
crisis,
Muhsin finds
himself
for
the first
time
able to recollect
his
heavenly
protector
and to seek her
help
and
guidance.
It
is cer-
tainly
his
recovered devotion to
al-Sayyida Zaynab
that makes
it
possible
for him
to
consider
setting
sail for
the East at the end of the
story,
when Muhsin
promises
his
Russian
friend
that he will
go
back
to the
East
equipped
with
a true vision.
S.
A.
Morrison,
n
his
book Middle
East
Survey,
in
defining
the
variety
of
attitudes
towards Western culture in the Middle
East,
writes:
Reaction to Western
culture
may
be classified under the
headings
of
adoption, rejection
and
reconciliation,
though
no
sharp
line of
distinction
can be drawn
between the three
groups. '3
As we
have seen
in
our
discussion
of Bird
of
the
East,
adopting
and
then
rejecting
Western
culture
figure
as
integral
parts
of
Muhsin's
education,
and towards the
end al-Hakim's
hero
develops
some sense of cultural
relativity
that
suggests
the
possibility
of
effect-
ing reconciliation between East and West. This interaction of all three attitudes in
Bird
of
the East
justifies
Morrison's
qualification
that
it
is difficult to draw a distinc-
tion between the various reactions to
Western
culture in the
Middle East.
Doctor
Ibrahim
presents
us
with a
completely
different case.
In
it,
adopting
Western culture
in a
distinct fashion is the central theme
of
the
novel;
Dr.
Ibrahim,
the hero
of Dhu
al-Nun
Ayyub's Bildungsroman
is
infatuated
with
Western culture.
His
reaction
to it
typifies
another attitude
resulting,
according
to Ibrahim Abu-
Lughod,
from
an
individual's
exposure
to a culture
superior
to
his
native one. Abu-
Lughod
writes
in
Arab
Discovery of Europe:
A
Study
in
Cultural
Encounters,
Mere
acknowledgement
of
the
superiorqualities
of
another
culture, however,
may
lead to varied reactions. Observers may react by abandoning their entire cultural
heritage
in
an
attempt
to
emulate
what
they
deem to be
superior
culture. 14
In Dhu al-Nun
Ayyub's
novel
the
young
hero makes no secret
of
his
repugnance
or
his native
culture and his
urgent
need
to
adopt
Western
ways
lock, stock,
and
barrel:
I believe that
they
[the
Britons]
have the
right
to do whatever
they
like. Haven't
they
ruled
a
large
part
of the
world? Haven't
they subjected
stubborn
and
intractable
peoples
to
their
rule? Haven't
they
so humiliated
us,
the
Arabs,
that we hate
them
and
hold
them
in
con-
tempt?
Merely
this
signifies
that
we are at the lowest
stages
of
barbarism,
and that
they
are
at
the
highest stages
of
progress.
And since it is
my
ambition to travel the road
of
progress,
I feel that
I
should
adopt
their manners and
pay respect
for
their habits and
traditions,
no
matterhow alien they may seem to me.15
So intense is the
Westerly
pull 16
n
Dr. Ibrahim's
life
that
he
sets
his heart on
becoming
a
gentleman
in
the traditional
English
sense of the
term,
that
is,
to in-
tegrate
himself
fully
into
English society:
he is even
ready
to embrace
Christianity
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The Arabic
Bildungsroman:
A
Generic
Appraisal
227
to
achieve
this
goal.
The
more
Dr.
Ibrahim assimilates
himself
to Western
culture,
the
more he alienates
himself from his native one. In the
phrase
of Abdallah
Laroui,
Dr.
Ibrahim's
powerful
attraction to Western culture
signifies
an aliena-
tion,
a
way
of
becoming
other. 17Little
wonder,
then,
that
Dr. Ibrahim derives
great
satisfaction
from
being
referred to
by
his
fellow
English
students as a
gen-
tleman. His
fellow Arab students
began
to shun him
because of
his
keenness to
cultivate Western
tastes and
manners.
Dr. Ibrahim's enslavement
to
his Western sentiments is
emphasized by
his as-
sessment
of the
church
and
mosque: Upon entering
the
church
for
the first time
in
my
life,
I
was
struck
by
its
beauty,
impressive
organization,
and clean
terraces.
Also
I
was fascinated
by
the
chanting
of
hymns
with an
organ
accompaniment;
I
stood
by Tomy
moved and
amazed, recalling
the
image
of the
dark, filthy
dome of
al-Wali
mosque
at
home. '8
His attitude towards the
mosque
and
his
readiness
to
be converted
from Islam to
Christianity
is
traced
to his
early
education at
secular
schools
in
Iraq
where his
faith,
as he
himself
admits,
had been
powerfully
under-
mined.
The
point
is
important
as it
accounts for the
spiritual
distinction between
Muhsin,
whose
deeply
rooted
devotion to
al-Sayyida
Zaynab helps
him retain his
faith
in
his
struggle
against
the
temptations
of
Western liberal
thought
in
Paris,
and
Dr. Ibrahim's
lack of solid
faith,
which contributes to
his
spiritual
disorienta-
tion in
England.
In
this Dr.
Ibrahim
also
stands in
sharp
contrast
with
Ismacil,
the
hero
of
Yahya Haqqi's
Bildungsroman
Umm
Hashim's
Lamp,
who,
during
his
stay
in England, has a spiritualcrisis, but manages by virtue of his faith to maintain his
religion against
all
odds.
Dr.
Ibrahim
also
distinguishes
himself from his
Egyptian
fictional
relatives,
and for
that
matter,
rom all the other
Arab
heroes
in the novels under
consideration
by
his cal-
culations
in the
sphere
of
love.
Dr.
Ibrahim
makes no
bones about
his
plan
to use
Jinny,
an aristocratic
English girl,
as a
stepping
stone towards
furthering
his ambitions:
My
love for her
[Jinny]
has
been motivated
by,
on the one
hand,
my
awareness of her
father's
high
position
and
great
influence
which
might
be
beneficial towards the advancementof
my
ca-
reer.
And,
on the other
hand,
by
the
respect
I
pay
for her
nationality
and
her brilliantmind which
would
make of
my marriage
to
her a
great
victory beyond
the reach
of
any
Iraqi
or
Arab.'9
This
line of
thought
is
worthy
of an
ambitious
young
man,
and in this Dr.
Ibrahim
appears
to be a close relation
of
the
young
ambitious heroes in
the
European
Bil-
dungsroman,
who
rely
on
winning
the heart
of an
aristocratic
lady
to
climb the
so-
cial
ladder.
Wilhelm
Meister,
for
instance,
sets
his
heart
on
marrying
the
aristocratic
lady
Natalia,
with an
eye
to the social
prospects
of
such
an
alliance;
Lu-
cien Chardon
(in
Balzac's Lost
Illusions)
disowns
his
humble
family
to
marry
the
aristocratic Mme
de
Bargeton,
hoping
in so
doing
to
improve
his
social
position.
By
marryingJinny,
as
the
quotation
also
suggests,
Dr. Ibrahim
hopes
to
bridge
the
gap
between himself and
the
Western world. This
impression
is
emphasized by
the reference to RudyardKipling's Ballad of East and West at the head of the
chapter
from which the
quotation
is taken.
Despite
his
apprehensions
that he will
not succeed
in
carrying
out
his
plan,
Dr.
Ibrahim,
deploying
all of his
inner
re-
sources,
manages
to
bridge
the
gap
and
marryJinny.
In
fact,
Jinny
has
designs
on
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8/17/2019 Al-Mousa on the Arabic Bildungsroman
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228 Nedal
M.
Al-Mousa
Dr.
Ibrahim;
she wants to
indulge
her
passion
for the
exotic
East,
exactly
as the
British
girls
succumb
to
Mustafa
Sacid
in
Season
of Migration
to
the North.
Up
to
a point, Sacid sharesDr. Ibrahim's
attempts
to build
bridges
between East andWest
through marriage.
The
theme recurs
in
Ghalib
Hamzah
Abu-al-Faraj's
The
Lost
Years where the
hero,
Dr.
Hamdan,
marries an
American
girl
named Helen. This al-
lows
Sonya,
Dr. Hamdan's
Chilean
mentor,
to comment on the
marriage by
refer-
ring
to
Kipling's
contention that the twain shall
never meet.
But,
whereas
in
Season
of Migration
to the North and
The Lost Years the death of the wife
comes
to
symbolize
the
impossible
task
of
bridging
the
gap
between
East and
West,
in
Doctor
Ibrahim
the
undertaking
succeeds,
as
if
to
deny
Kipling's
famous
dictum.
Further
analogies
can be
drawn between Doctor Ibrahim and
The Lost Years. In
each case the
young
hero's
marriage
to
a
foreign girl
marks his
complete
assimila-
tion into Western culture.
Hence,
it is not accidental that the reversal in Dr. Ham-
dan's
life,
namely,
his
regained
sense of
belonging
to Arabic Islamic
culture,
is
triggered by
the death of his
wife,
whereas Dr.
Ibrahim's
marriage
prospers
as he
becomes
completely
divorced from his native
culture,
even after his return
to
Iraq
with his
newly
won
doctorate.
Encouraged by
his
wife,
Dr. Ibrahim
finally
decides
to turn his back on his
country
once and for all and
head
for
America.
Dr. Ibrahim's brief
stay
in
Iraq
is marked
by
a different
struggle.
Given his un-
scrupulous
machinations
against
his
enemies,
the
intrigues
and
counterintrigues
in
which he
is involved in the third
part
of the
novel,
one
has
the
feeling
that the the-
matic conduct of the novel is
here borrowed
from
picaresque
conventions.
Dr.
Ibrahim becomes the
typical
picaresque
hero who tries to live
by
his
wits,
but with
the fundamental
difference that
in
the
picaresque
novel we
encounter a nondevel-
oping
central
character
who
is launched on his
adventures as
an
already
established
picaro.
Doctor
Ibrahim,
on the other
hand,
dramatizes the hero's
gradualdevelop-
ment until he
emerges fully
equipped
to fend
for
himself in a
picaresque
fashion.
That the action
in
Doctor Ibrahim
hinges
on the
upbringing
of
the hero
is
repre-
sented
by
the titles of the
first
two
parts,
Childhood and
Youth.
The alienation
experienced by
Dr. Ibrahim after his return
to
Iraq
parallels
Is-
ma'il's
estrangement
from his
fellow
countrymen
and his own
family upon
his
homecoming
in
Haqqi's
Umm Hashim's
Lamp.
To
symbolize
Isma'il's sense of
de-
tachment,
Haqqi
uses the
image
of the
bird,
The first
sign
of life
from
his
home-
land he met was a creature whose
homeland
is
the entire
universe,
a
lonely
white
bird
that
hovered
round the
ship,
spotlessly
clean,
free and
lofty. 20
The
identifica-
tion
between
Isma'il
and the
bird
becomes more obvious later on
in
the
novella:
He then fell
asleep
for
a
little
while and his
thoughts
became
confused. He felt
like a
bird
that had
fallen
into a
trap
and
had
been
put
into a
cage
from
which it
was
trying
to
escape. 21
But if
under the
pressure
of the
powerful
Westerly
pull
in his
life
Dr.
Ibrahim fails to
reintegrate
himself into his
society
and
eventually
leaves for
America,
Isma'il does not
go
beyond toying
with the
idea of
going
back
to England at a time when his soul has been completely engulfed by alienation.
This
gradually
recedes and towards the end of the
novella,
he
again accepts
his
na-
tive
environment.
This distinction relates to the
difference
in
the
dominant
emotion
in
each
of
the
two works.
Adoption
of
Western culture
is
the theme
in
Doctor
Ibrahim;
effecting
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The Arabic
Bildungsroman:
A
Generic
Appraisal
229
reconciliation between
East
and
West is the
theme
of
Umm Hashim's
Lamp.
This
reconciliation
results from
Isma'il's
outgrowing
his
self-division and his
acquiring
a true vision, the ultimate
goal
of his
Bildung.
That the action in
Umm Hashim's
Lamp
is
geared
towards
broadening
Ismacil's
horizons and
extending
the
scope
of his vision
is
suggested by
the first lesson
he
is
made
to learn at the hands of
his Scottish
mentor
Mary. Upon
first
meeting
Is-
macil,
she
tells
him,
Life is
not
a
fixed
plan
but an
everchanging
series of
pros
and
cons. 22
Receptive
as he
is, Ismacil
imbibes this
general
truth,
adopting
some
sort of
a
dialectical
approach
which
proves
to
be of
great
value in his
struggle
to
overcome
his inner conflict
between
East and
West.
Perhaps
owing
to
his
develop-
ment
of a
dialectical
approach,
Ismacil
finds
himself
able,
in
harmony
with
the
cultural tension
in
the
novella,
to
cultivate
a
sense of cultural
relativity
as
an inte-
gral part
of his education.
As is the case
in
Bird
of
the
East,
cultural
relativity
links with
intimacy
and
dis-
tance
to become the main
dynamic
force
contributing
to
Isma'il's
better
under-
standing
of
the
two
opposed
cultures as well as
his eventual clear vision of
things.
To illustrate the
point,
two
passages
can
be
compared:
He lost
himself
naturally
n
the crowd ike a
raindrop
n
the waters
of
the
ocean.
He was
so
accustomed
o
the
recurring ights
and
soundsof the
square
hat
they
met with
no
response
within
him.
They
aroused
neither
uriosity
nor
boredom n him. He
was neither
pleased
nor
angry,
or
he
was
not
sufficiently
etached romthem
to be
aware
of them.Yet who
would
say thatall thesesoundsandsightswhich he heardandsaw,withoutrealizing heirmean-
ing,
could have this
strangepower
of
movingstealthily
nto
the
depths
of his
heart,
and bit
by
bit
becoming
an
integralpart
of
him?For the
moment,
s was
only
normal,
he looked
at
everything.
His
only purpose
was to
look.23
After his return to
Egypt
we read:
When
Ismacil
ame
to
the
square
he found t as
usualcrowded
with
people,
all
lookingpoor
and
wretched
nd
their eet
heavy
with
the
chainsof
oppression.
hey
could
not
possibly
be
human
beings
iving
n an
age
in
whicheven the
inanimatewas endowedwith
ife.
They
were
like vacantand
shattered
emains,
ieces
of stone rom
ruined
illars
n
a
waste and:
hey
had
noaimother hanstandingn thewayof a passerby.And whatwerethoseanimalnoisesthey
madeand
hat
miserableoodwhich
hey
devoured?
smacil
xamined
heir
aces,
buthe
could
only
see the
marks of a
profound torpor,
as if
they
were all
the victims of
opium.24
The
different attitudes towards the
square
and
the crowds
expressed
in
these
two
passages
provide
us with a
measure
of the
change
wrought
in
Ismacil
as a
result
of
his
trip
to
Europe.
Before his
departure
for
England,
as the
first
passage
makes
clear,
Isma'il
was so absorbed with his
surroundings
that he
could
not see
things
clearly;
His
only
purpose
was to
look. But
when he
returned,
according
to
the
second
passage,
he is able to
look into
things
more
deeply.
The
word
examine in
the second passage underlines Isma'il's newly acquired capacity to see through
things
and
people,
to arrive
at a wiser
assessment of the
world
around
him.
Isma'il's
remarkable
and
growing
attentiveness and his
sociological
discov-
ery,
so to
speak,
could
be
interpreted
in
terms
of culture
shock,
as it is
defined
by Berger
and Kellner:
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8/17/2019 Al-Mousa on the Arabic Bildungsroman
9/19
230
Nedal
M.
Al-Mousa
I'm
likely
to suffer
from
acute
culture
shock.
It
is
important
to
point
out,
though,
that
such
culture shock has some useful side effects. It forces me to be
fully
attentive
to
everything
that is going on, precisely because it is all so shockingly unfamiliar. By contrast, much in
my
own
society
ongoingly escapes
my
attention
because
it takes
place
within a
structureof
familiarity.
It
may
be true
that
familiarity
breeds
contempt;
more
relevantly
for the
inter-
preting
social
scientist,
familiarity
breeds
inattention.25
On
the basis of
the
two
quotations
from
Umm Hashim's
Lamp,
it
would
seem
that
Isma'il's
exposure
to an
alien
culture,
together
with
his
seven
years
of
absence
abroad,
has
estranged
him
from his
environment,
allowing
him
to reexamine
it
as
if
he were an outsider. But
no matter
how
painful
his
insider/outsider26tatus
(Isma'il
can neither
go
native,
nor
go
alien ),
it
helps
him
to
comprehend
things.
Coupled
with his
attentiveness and
his
culture
shock
is
Ismacil's
growing
sense
of
cultural
relativity.
Here
again
Berger
and
Kellner's
general
observations on
the
interrelationship
between
culture
shock and
the
concept
of
cultural
relativity
have
bearing
on
Isma'il's
transformation
and
moral
development:
All forms
of
culture
shock,
Berger
and
Kellner
maintain,
are
also
ipso
facto
relativizing.
Indeed,
at
the core of
the
shock is the
insight
that
perception
and
norms
previously
taken
for
granted
are now revealed
to be
highly
relative in terms
of
space
and time. 27
Isma'il's remarkable
sense
of
cultural
relativity,
his
recognition
of the
relative
merits of
East
and
West,
comes
to the fore
in the
final
parts
of the
novella.28As a
result of his cultivation of
this sense
of
cultural
relativity
Ismacil
shakes
off
all the
traces
of
chaos, confusion,
and
spiritual
dislocation
with
which his
soul
was
plagued
in
the
early stages
of
his education. He now comes
to realize
that
there
can be no
science
without
faith. 29
This
is,
of
course,
a far
cry
from Ismacil's
early
skepticism,
which led to
his loss
of faith
when he
first
arrived in
England.
Isma'il's
internal
harmony
contributes
to
his cultural
adjustment
that culminates
in his
marriage
to Fatima. The narrator
says,
It
was
as if
his love
of
women
was
a
manifestation
of
his love
and devotion
to
the
whole
of
mankind, 30
ut
in
fact a
closer look
would reveal
that it
is
through
love
of women
that
Ismacil
has learned
to extend
his
emotions outward.
I am
referring
here
to
Isma'il's
relationship
with
Mary,
as
a
result
of
which he succeeds
in
getting
rid of
his
penchant
for
with-
drawal, his sense of detachment, and his introspection. The narratorsays:
The
strange
phenomenon
which I could
not
account for
was
that Isma'il recovered from
his
love for
Maryonly
to find himself once more
in
love. Was
it because
his heart could not
re-
main
empty
for
long?
Or
was
it that
Mary
had
awakened
his once
slumbering
heart? Isma'il
used
to have
only
the
vaguest feelings
for
Egypt.
He felt
like a
grain
of sand that
merged
with other
countless
grains
and
was lost
in
them:
although separate,
it
could
not be
distin-
guished
from
them.
Now,
however,
he
began
to
feel
himself
like a
link in a
long
chain that
tied and
pulled
him
towards his
country.31
IsmaCil could
not
have more
powerfully
established
his
sense of
oneness
with
his
environment than
by marrying
Fatima.
Insofar
as it is
meant to underline Is-
maCil's
integration
into his
society,
marriage
in Umm Hashim's
Lamp
has the same
symbolic implications
as
the
central
character's
revived
emotional
attachment
to
Nahida in The Latin
Quarter,
Mustafa Sa'id's
marriage
to
Hosna
in
Season
of
Mi-
gration
to the
North,
and
finally,
Dr.
Hamdan's
marriage
to
Sucad
in
The
Lost
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8/17/2019 Al-Mousa on the Arabic Bildungsroman
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The Arabic
Bildungsroman:
A
Generic
Appraisal
231
Years.
All of these
examples
of
love
and
marriage
could be
compared
with
Pip's
restored
attachment
to
Biddy
(the
symbol
of
reality
in
Great
Expectations),
which
marks
his
eventual
reconciliation with his
origins.
Ismacil's
acquisition
of
true vision
after
being subjected
to
a
series of initia-
tions-especially
during
his
stay
in
England-justifies
the
narrator's
comment,
Not for
nothing
had
he lived in
Europe
and offered
his
prayers
to science and sci-
entific
logic. 32
Similar
remarks are made
by
Subhi,
one of the
hero's intimate
friends
in
The Latin
Quarter.
The
hero's detachment from
his
surroundingsweighs
heavily
on
his
heart,
and he seems to be unable
to
cope
with the
agonies
of
culture
shock
in
Paris,
but Subhi
tells him: You are now
in
Paris,
and
this in
itself is
something
worthwhile.
You
made
your
way
here out of
your
free
choice,
and,
therefore, you
will have to bear
the
consequences
of this decision.
However,
don't
let
reflection
ruin
your experiences
here . . . lead a
bohemian
life and when
even-
tually you
return to
your country, you
will come to realize the reasons for
the
un-
dertaking. 33
These remarks
come in the first
chapter
of
the novel and set the tone
by pointing
out
the educational
advantages
of
detaching
oneself
from
one's native
culture
and
transplanting
oneself
into
an
alien one.
In
Paris,
liberated
from the traditions of his
native
culture,
the central character
sets
out to
live
his
life at the
highest
pitch,
an
undertaking
central to his
education,
his
quest
for self. One
is
tempted
to
suggest
that The Latin
Quarter
is not the Bil-
dungsroman only
of
the
central
character,
but of almost all
the
Arab characters
studyingin Paris. Thatis implied by the hero'sbeing given no name as well as by the
remarksmade
by
Fuad,
the central character'smentor.
Annoyed by
the
vulgar
behav-
ior of the
Arab students
in
Paris,
the
hero
decides
to avoid
them,
but Fuad tells him:
No,
my
dear,
I think
you
are mistaken.
They
are
not
repulsive,
and
you
will
not shun
them
if
you
realize hat
hey
aredistressed
oung
men
searching
or their
dentity.
We are all
dis-
oriented
Arab
young
men
engaged
n
[a]
quest
or self. It is inevitable hatwe commit ome
follies before
we find
ourselves.34
The nameless
hero holds the
spotlight by
virtue of his remarkable
sensitivity,
receptivity,
and
urgent
need
for
self-definition. He is found
in
the center of the re-
lations
formed
by
all the
characters
in the
novel whose main function
is
to
give
the hero
an excuse to talk about the difficulties
besetting
his
quest
for
self,
as well
as
to
provide
him with counsel as he strives towards self-definition.
An
instructive
analogy
can be drawn between the hero in
The Latin
Quarter
and
Wilhelm Meister
in
Goethe's
novel. In the course of
his
educational
adventures,
Meister comes across a number
of
characters
who
contribute to
his
internal devel-
opment,
either
by
telling
him their
life stories
in
the
hope
that he
might
benefit
from their
experience,
or
by correcting
his
views
on life
and art to
put
him on the
right
track.
Wilhelm's
apprenticeship
to life is
constantly supervised by
the
people
of the tower who
run him
through
a
sort of
pedagogical program,
whereas in The
Latin Quarter, although, technically speaking, Fuad figures as a mentor whose
sole function
is to
guide
the
hero,
initiation is not so
systematic.
The same holds
true
for Bird
of
the
East,
Umm
Hashim's
Lamp,
and The Lost
Years,
in
which,
as
in Great
Expectations
or
Lost
Illusions,
we encounter a mentor
ready
to initiate
the
young
hero
into life's
realities.
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232
Nedal
M.
Al-Mousa
The central
character'senthusiasm for self-definition
in
The Latin
Quarter
is un-
derlined
by
the title of the first
film
that he sees
in
Paris,
Life Begins
Tomorrow,
which
might
be
applied
to his own
attempt
o forma new self. Whatattractshim most in the
film is the role
played by
the
well-known naturalistJean
Rostand,
a staunch
believer,
we are
told,
in
the
individual's
capacity
to mold
his
own life
according
to
his natural
bent
and
desires.35This is
exactly
what the
central charactersets out to do.
Jean
Rostand's
biological
views coincide with the
existential
precepts
of
Sartre,
another
participant
in
the
film
whose
philosophical
ideas had a
tremendous
impact
on the formation of the author
Suhail
Idris's social
vision,36
which informs
his
central character's
quest
for self in
the
novel. There is even a
strong suggestion
that Suhail Idris voices
his
attraction
to
Sartre's
philosophical
views
through
his
central
character
who,
on several
occasions,
reveals his
familiarity
with Sartre's
writings
and his admirationfor his views. In his
book,
Existentialism and Human-
ism, Sartre,
in a remark
pertinent
to the hero's
attempts
at
self-definition,
main-
tains,
Man is
nothing
else but what he
purposes;
he exists
only
in so far as he
realises
himself,
he
is
therefore
nothing
else but the
sum
of his
actions,
nothing
else
but
what
his life is. 37
The central character's
eagerness
to realize
himself
receives further
emphasis
in
the
recurrence
of
the
phrase
life
begins
tomorrow
in
connection with his first
amorous adventure
in
Paris,
which is
comparable
to
Muhsin's
relationship
with
Suzy
and Isma'il's
possession
of
Mary;
in
each case
physical
love is an
integral
part
of the
young
hero's
initiation, but,
given
the
conservative Eastern
upbringing
of Idris's
young
hero,
his
physical
love
relationships
with
Marguerite
and Lilian
arouse
in him
feelings
of
disgust
and disillusionment with Western
culture
that re-
call Muhsin's
reaction
to
Suzy's
unfaithfulness. And
just
as cross-cultural consid-
erations come into
play
in
bringing
about
Muhsin's
disillusionment,
so
Idris's
young
hero succumbs to
comparing
his
physical
relationship
with
the Parisian
girls
to his sublime love for Nahida.
His more
self-fulfilling
love
relationship
with
Janine,
an
elevated
version of
Marguerite
and
Lilian,
awakens
him
to new cross-cultural
facts.
He
comes
to
real-
ize
the
compatibility
of
body
and
soul;
he is now even inclined to believe that it is
only by our recognition of the sanctity of the body that we can achieve spiritual
love:
Indeed,
he hated
some
of those bodies either
on
account
of their defective-
ness,
or
because
of a defect in his
own nature. But hasn't
he loved
Janine's soul
by
loving
her
body
and loved
her
body by loving
her soul.
She
has
recognized
the
sublimity
of
the
soul out
of her
awareness
of the
sanctity
of
the
body. 38
These
cross-cultural assessments
result in
his
acquisition
of a new vision of
things
and the
young
hero turns to
reconsidering
the nature of his
relationship
with
Nahida.
She
is in
love
with
him,
but out of
her
fear
of the
tyrannical
force
of
conservative social
conventions,
she
suppresses
her
emotions,
and this has
led
to
their erosion and to the effacement
of her
personality.
The
hero
of The Latin
Quarter is in a good position to see throughNahida's moral plight because his ex-
periences
in Paris have revealed
to him the
tyranny
of tradition
and cultural sanc-
tions that
prevent
the individual
from
becoming
himself
in
the
East.
However,
the
hero's
exasperation
is
tempered by
his cultivated
patriotic
sense. He
succeeds in
bringing
himself to
readjust
to his
environment,
but
is
determinedto
en-
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8/17/2019 Al-Mousa on the Arabic Bildungsroman
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The
Arabic
Bildungsroman:
A
Generic
Appraisal
233
rich his
life
by adopting
some elements of the other culture.Evidence of this is the
hero's
attempt
to
persuade
Nahida,
his
prospective
wife,
to read Sartre's
writings.
In terms of the novel's existentialist superstructure,the hero's cultivation of a
patriotic
sense and
his commitment to national
ideals interact with his efforts at
self-definition.
Man,
Sartre
writes,
makes
himself
by
the choice
of his
morality,
and
he cannot but
choose a
morality,
such
is the
pressure
of
circumstances
upon
him. We define
man
only
in
relation
to his commitments. 39
Morality
and
commit-
ment
also
underlie
the hero's decision
to
marry
Janine,
despite
his
mother's
strong
opposition
to an alliance
with a
foreign girl,
but Janine
rejects
his
proposal, keep-
ing
his wholehearted
enthusiasm
for
serving
his
country
intact. Does
not
Fuad,
a
staunch
advocate
of
the
national
cause,
teach
the
hero
that
marriage
to a
foreign
girl
is
incompatible
with
patriotic
orientation? Nor does the hero's
marriage
to Ja-
nine fit in with his final decision
wholeheartedly
to
reintegrate
himself into his so-
ciety
to
begin
a new life
guided by
a
new
vision.
In The Latin
Quarter
the action revolves around cultural
interaction between
East and
West,
just
as
it does in
Umm
Hashim's
Lamp,
and
to a lesser
extent,
in
The Bird
of
the East.
But this
can
hardly
be
said
of
Season
of
Migration
to
the
North.
In this work the confrontation between
East
and West
(or
between
North
and
South,
in
this
case)
takes the form of
encounter
and
challenge, 40yielding
to
retaliatory
violence 41and
aggression
very
different
from the cultural clashes in
the other
Arabic
Bildungsroman.
However,
it is not for
nothing
that
Salih,
in an
interview,
draws
a distinction between his novel and the other three works
in
which
the
confrontation
between
East and West
acquires,
to use Salih's
words,
a
romantic,
gentlemanly 42
dimension
reflecting
the
historical infatuation
with
the West in the Arab world.
To a certain
extent,
Mustafa
Sa'id shares with his
fictional Arab
characterstheir
infatuation
with
Western
culture,
but his
reactions towards it are
more
compli-
cated
than
theirs. Salih
depicts
the clash between
his hero and
Western culture on
a
larger
scale than the other
Arabic
Bildungsroman
writers do. In the
main,
in
the
other Arabic
Bildungsromane
it is based on
purely
cultural
differences,
whereas in
Season
of
Migration
to the North it is
also
given political,
cultural, racial,
and
psychological
dimensions. Sa'id's diverse set of
attitudes towards
Western
culture
in Season
of Migration
to the North seems
to flesh out Mansour
Khalid's
conten-
tion in
speaking
of
Arab and American
cultures:
Generallyspeaking,
attitudes to-
ward the
outside world are not
necessarily
rational since
they depend
on
traditions
derived
from cumulative
historical
legacies.
These
attitudes
may
take the
shape
of
hostility, jealousy,
emulation,
suspicion, affinity
or
cultural and
ideological
exclu-
siveness. 43The
dramatization of some
of these attitudes
or variations on
them
in
Season
of
Migration
to the North
come into
play
in
the dramatic
confrontation be-
tween
Mustafa Sa'id and
Western
culture,
which
gives
Salih an
opportunity
to
dramatize the
confrontationmore
comprehensively
and
with a
greater
measure of
intensity
than in
the other Arabic
Bildungsromane.
Hostility
towards the West
figures
as the
foremost
passion
in
Sacid's
life,
and
the
key
to his
hostility
can be
found in his
self-imposed political
role of
settling
the
score,
so
to
speak,
with the
colonizers of his
country.
Sacid's
single-handed
campaign
to
conquer
the West
acquires
an
irrational
quixotic
dimension.44His
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8/17/2019 Al-Mousa on the Arabic Bildungsroman
13/19
234 Nedal
M.
Al-Mousa
bedroom in London turns into a battlefield where
he
can
conquer
the hearts
of his
English
female
victims.
The
intensity
of
the war is such that it claims the
lives of
four women (one is killed by Sacid; three commit suicide on his account).
The
military metaphors
with
which
Season
of Migration
to the North
abounds
recall the
frequently recurring images
of
war
in the
French
Bildungsroman.
In
Balzac's
Lost
Illusions,
for
instance,
the
young
bourgeois
hero, Lucien,
wages
war
against society
in
postrevolutionary
France,
and on
several occasions in the
novel
he
describes
in
military
terms his
struggle
for self-realization
under unfavorable
social circumstances.
But it is Julien
Sorel,
the hero of Stendhal's novel
The
Red
and the
Black,
who strikes us as the most
impressive
fighter.
Julien sets
out to
achieve
in the social
field what
Napoleon
has achieved on the battlefield.
For
Julien,
as for
Lucien,
the
battlefield shifts to the salons of the
aristocrats where the
invasion of the hearts of aristocratic ladies
may yield
rewarding
social victories.
On
the moral
level,
the defeat of
aristocratic ladies
in
the
French
Bildungsroman
fits
in with the
attempts
of
the
bourgeois
hero
at
undermining
the social
structure
of a
rigidly
stratified
society
that makes it difficult for him to
improve
his
position
by
climbing
the
social ladder.
In all these
respects comparison
and contrast can
be drawn
between
Sacid
and his
Frenchfictional kinsmen.
Like Lucien and
Julien,
Sa'id chooses women as his chief
targets
of attack
inspired by
the hidden motive of
dealing
a disastrous blow to the
moral fabric of
English society.
Thus,
to
my
mind,
it is
by
no means
accidental that
Sa'id
chooses
respectable
women-because
they symbolize
moral
integrity-to
carry
out his destructive
campaign
against English
society:
The women I enticed
to
my
bed included
girls
from the Salvation
Army,
Quaker
societies
and Fabian
gatherings. 45
And in the case
of Ann
Hammond,
in
particular,
Sa'id derives
great
satisfaction
from
turning
this
lady
of
respectable family
into a harlot.
Just
as the
young
hero's
aggressive
attitude
towards aristocratic
ladies
fits in
with the definitive theme
of class
struggle
in
the French
Bildungsroman,
so in
Season
of
Migration
to
the North the
hostility
towards women harmonizes with
the
typical
theme of the confrontation
between East and West
in
the
Arabic Bil-
dungsroman-the equivalent
of the
characteristic
theme of class
struggle
in
the
European
Bildungsroman.
As
many
commentators46
have
pointed
out,
racism
joins
forces with
politics
to
keep
normal emotional
relationships
between Sa'id and
English
women from
developing.
In
addition,
Sa'id's
problematic
relationship
with
English
women
could
in
part
be ascribed
to what
Salih
describes
as the
illusion-based
relationship
between the
Arab Islamic world and
European
civilization.47This contention
is
conspicuously
articulated
in
the
mechanics
of
the
love
relationship
between Sa'id
and
the
English girls: they
are
all at one in
conceiving
of
him as a lustful
figure
em-
bodying
the exotic
mysterious
world
of the East.
For
Ann
Hammond,
Sa'id
steps
directly
from the fanciful
world of the Arabian
Nights;
she could even act out
a
role
with him
inspired by
that fictional
world,
You are
Mustafa,
my
master and
my
lord,
she
said,
and
I
am
Sausan,
your
slave
girl. 48
His
bedroom,
which has
the
atmosphere
of the Arabian
Nights,
also has a
dazzling
effect on Sheila Green-
wood,
who,
in her
turn,
is attracted
to the exotic element
in his
personality.
The
English girls'
illusory image
of
Sa'id-or,
in the
terminology
of Edward
Said,
their
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The Arabic
Bildungsroman:
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Appraisal
235
textual attitude 49
owards
him-seems
to
have
affected
his
image
of
himself,
and
he
identifies himself with
Shahryar,
It
was as
though
I
were a slave
Shahryaryou
buy
in the market for a dinar
encountering
a Sheherazade
begging
amidst the rub-
ble
of a
city destroyed by
plague. 50
Caught
up
in this
situation
Sacid
goes
on to act
out
the
role of
a lustful
figure
turning
the
seduction
of women
into
a
mythical
act
having
its
special
rituals.
It
is
perhaps
on account
of his
entanglement
in this web
that
Sacid,
at
one
stage
in the course of
his amorous
adventures,
complains:
But
there
was
nothing
I
could do.
Having
been
a
hunter,
I had
become the
quarry. 5'
The Othello
theme in
the
novel could also lend itself to
interpretation
n
terms
of Salih's
concept
of
the illusion-based
image
of the East in the
West. Sa'id's
keenness
to distance himself from
Othello,
I
am
no
Othello. Othello was a
lie, 52
represents
an
attempt
on his
part
to
shatter the
image imposed upon
him
by
the
others.
He
suffers
from a
sort of
identity
crisis that contributes to his role
playing,
represented
by
his
assumption
of
different
names-Hassan,
Charles,
Mustafa,
Amin,
and Richard.
The
Arabic
and
English
names assumed
by
Sa'id also
point
to
his
being
torn be-
tween
the two
cultures,
a
typical
theme in
the
Arabic
Bildungsroman.
His self-
division
is
stressed
by
his nickname
of the
black
Englishman, 53
s
well as
by
the
Oriental
decorations of
his room
in
London,
which also
represent
his
attempt
to
protect
his cultural
ego
in
a hostile environment.
In
the
phrase
of
Albert
Hourani,
Sacid's
defensive
clinging 54
to native culture is a means
of
preserving
his
ego
against attemptsby
others
to
label
him,
to efface his
personality.
It is because
of this threat
to
his
ego
that Sa'id chooses to settle
down
in
a
vil-
lage
on the
banks of the Nile where cultural
traditions are intact. As
Frank M.
Bir-
balsingh
has
pointed
out,
the
point
is
underlined
by
the
crypticphrases 55
sed
by
Salih
in his
description
of the
villages,
The
houses were
houses,
the
trees,
and
the
sky
was clear and
far
away. 56
Sa'id's intense sense of
belonging
to the
village
has
excited the
envy
of
the
narratorwho himself is
plagued
with
ambivalence to-
ward East and West.
To
reintegrate
himself
fully
with his
environment,
Sacid marries
Hosna,
Mah-
moud's
daughter.
His
marriage
contrasts
with his
marriage
to
Jean Morris: the
former
having
been
undertakenas a
means towardsestablishing his powerful sense
of
belonging, according
to
the
conventions
of
the Arabic
Bildungsroman,
and the
latter
inspired by
Sa'id's hidden motive
to
bridge
the
gap
between East and
West,
another common
theme.
But Sa'id does
not find
it
as
easy
a task to
eliminate the
culturaldifferences between East
and West as Dr.
Hamdan does under similar cir-
cumstances. The
futility
of Sa'id's
undertaking
s
symbolized by
his
failure to have
children
by
Jean Morris in the
three
years
the
marriage
lasted.
The
sterility
of this
marriage
contrasts with his
productive
marriage
to
Hosna,
the
symbol
of
cultural
traditions
within
the
scope
of which
Sacid,
and,
for that
matter,
the
majority
of his
Arab
fictional relatives come to realize
that full self-realization
is
possible.
Yet, as is suggested by the Western atmosphereof his private rectangularroom
(which
has the
same
symbolic
function as his room in
London),
Sa'id
is
not
wholly
cured
of
his internal
division.
And it
is this incurable
duality
that
underlies
his
complaint,
I was the invader who
had come from the
south,
and this was the
icy
battlefield from
which
I
would not make
a safe return. 57
ubsequent
events
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236
Nedal
M. Al-Mousa
prove
this to be a
prophetic
remark:
Sa'id's
mysterious drowning
in
the Nile is the
outcome
of
his failure
to
come
to
terms
with his
chronic ambivalence.
Sa'id's
tragic
end seems to be
incompatible
with the
designation
of the novel as
a
Bildungsroman,
which
usually
ends
with a
new
starting
point
in the life
of the
hero. But
in
the
light
of
the established line
of
interpretation
hat
Sacid
is
only part
of,
in the words of
Roger
Allen,
the
subconscious
of the
narrator,58
t is
possible
that Season
of Migration
to the North
presents
us with the
Bildung
of the narrator
who himself is conscious that his
life
begins
where
Sacid's
life
ends,
I
begin
from
where Mustafa
Sacid
had left off. 59Here
the
narratorcomes a
long way
from
his
mental state
in
the
early
parts
of
the
novel where he
expresses
his
apprehensions
that
he
could have met
Sacid's
destiny:
Was
it
likely
that what had
happened
to
Mustafa
Sacid
could have
happened
to me? He had said that he was a
lie,
so
was I
also a
lie? I am
from here-is
not
this
reality enough? 60
The narrator's
apprehen-
sions derive from
his
identification with Sacid
in
terms of their
common self-
division. But
if
self-division has
proved
to
be a
fatal
malady
in
Sacid's
case,
the
narrator s cured of it
by
the death of
Sacid,
his alter
ego.
The river
scene towards
the end
may
illustrate the
point:
I
heard
the reverberationof the river and the
puttering
of the water
pump.
Turning
to left
and
right,
I
found
I
was
half-way
between north
and
south.
I
was unable to
continue,
unable to re-
turn.
I
turned
over on to
my
back and
stayed
there
motionless,
with
difficulty moving my
arms
and
legs
as much as
was
needed to
keep
me afloat....
Then
my
mindclearedand
my
relation-
ship to the river was determined.Though floatingon the water,I was not partof it. I thought
that if
I
died at that
moment,
I would
have died as I was
bornm-without
any
volition of mine.
All
my
life I
had not
chosen,
had
not decided. Now I am
making
a decision.
I
choose
life.61
It will
not have been
lost on the reader that
this scene of
struggle
and survival is
meant to
remind us
of
Sa'id's death
by drowning.
And one need
hardly
labor the
point
that the narratorowes his survival to
striking
a balance between
North and
South
(which
has
kept
him
afloat),
helped
in
doing
so
by
the lesson embodied in
Sa'id's
tragic
end,
the outcome of
his
acute
ambivalence.
Yet,
as the dedication
to
Sa'id's life
story
reveals,
the
message
embodied
in
it
is in
fact addressed to all
those who suffer from dichotomous orientation,especially by being caught up be-
tween
two cultures:
Opening
a
notebook,
I
read
on the first
page: 'My
Life
Story-by
Mustafa
Sa'id.'
On the next
page
was
the dedication: 'To those who see
with
one
eye, speak
with one
tongue
and see
things
as either
black
or
white,
either
Eastern
or Western. '62
Sa'id's dedication
is
particularly applicable
to
Dr.
Hamdan,
in Ghalib Hamzah
Abu-al-Faraj's
The
Lost
Years,
who is
acutely
infected with the
malady
of
seeing
with
one
eye,
as he is
torn
between two cultures, East
and West. We are first intro-
duced to
Dr.
Hamdan
in
a
nostalgic
mood at his beautiful
villa in Los
Angeles:
he
is
recalling
his
happy
childhood
in his
native
village
of
Qibaa
in
Saudi Arabia.
Nostalgia, a constant theme in the novel, gives measure to Dr. Hamdan'sstrong at-
tachment
to his native culture and
therefore-to
anticipate
the end of
the
novel-
his
eventual
decision to turn
his
back
on the West
and return home.
In
the
mean-
time,
he
is
subjected
to a series
of
educational
experiences.
Once
his education
is
over,
he
emerges
as
a
totally
different
person.
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8/17/2019 Al-Mousa on the Arabic Bildungsroman
16/19
The Arabic
Bildungsroman:
A
Generic
Appraisal
237
Detached
from
his native culture and
exposed
to
an alien
one,
Dr.
Hamdan,
as is
often the
case in the
Arabic
Bildungsroman,
indulges
in
reassessing
it
according
to
the norms of the alien culture, which is in turn examined from a cross-cultural
perspective.
Likewise,
in a
typical
manner,
Dr. Hamdan
falls
under
the
spell
of
Western
civilization;
he
is,
though,
repelled by
the materialistic
values in
the
West,
which Dr. Hamdan
believes have turned Westerners into slaves. Within the
framework
of his reflections
on the relative merits of East and
West,
Dr.
Hamdan
arrives at
the conclusion that
the individual
in
the East
enjoys greater
freedom
than the Westerner
simply
because
he has
fewer
materialistic needs.63
Constant
cross-cultural assessment
in The Lost
Years is established as the cardi-
nal fact
of
daily
experience
in the life of Dr. Hamdan. One
is
given
the
feeling
that,
as
Dr.
Hamdan's attraction
to Western
culture
intensifies,
so does
his
defen-
sive
clinging
to native traditions. Commenting on what the confrontationbetween
East
and West
might produce
in the