10 - 16 May 2001
Issue No.533
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 10 - 16 May 2001 Issue No.533 |
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Shedding light
Sir- The review by Youssef Rakha of The Arabic Novel in the Books Supplement ("Egyptocentrism?" ) Al-Ahram Weekly 12-18 April, 2001) was a welcome surprise in as much as he highlights a good number of the important features of our "Critical Introduction." I am, however, more than a little disappointed, even dismayed, that Mr Rakha's overriding judgement appears principally based on two points which are in fact marginal to the major concerns and foci of our broad survey. His criticisms seem to reflect that his reading was hasty in some respects.As to his first criticism regarding "the beginning of the (European) novel in the early decades of the 19th century," this was a printing error which, even after our final proof reading, escaped the attention of the type-setters. Mr Rakha would have realised this as a slip-up, had he checked in our original Arabic text in the same volume. The Arabic original states: "The novel began in the early decades of the 18th century." This period, we maintain, was when the mature novel, as recognised today, began. This is the position held by numerous Western critics, by virtue of the powerful realism which appeared in early 18th century novels and which has steadily continued to develop until today. I of course hold in high esteem the earlier novelistic works, picaresque, allegorical, and epistolary. Obviously the time of emergence of the Western novel still does remain an issue open to differing views.
What is incomprehensible, however, is that Mr Rakha has mistakenly concluded that I placed the real birth of the Arabic novel in 1865 with the publication of Fransis Marrash's Ghabat Al-Haqq. I mention this novel only as being "probably the first Arabic novel ever published." (page 17, The Arabic Novel.)
I made, in fact, no assessment nor any recognition of literary merit whatsoever of Marrash's earliest novel. Also, we did not recognise any of the numerous novels, many of which are decidedly better than Marrash's work, as fulfilling the criteria of what we consider a mature novel. Moreover, I pointedly rejected that either Muwailhi's "Hadith 'Isa ibn Hisham" (1898-1902) or Mahmud Haqqi's Adhra Dinshaway (1906) ever qualified (as some critics hold) in fulfilling the requirements of a maturely conceived novel. (page 17, op. cit.) I then declare categorically: "Most critics, however, are of the opinion and rightly so, that the date of the first novel, Egyptian or Arabic, in the precise definition of this genre, is 1913 when Muhammad Husayn Haykal's "Zaynab" came off the press." This very same conclusion regarding the unique status of Zaynab, is quoted by Mr Rakha who in a most curious lapse of logic writes, "Even Sakkout concedes this fact." Obviously Mr Rakha totally misinterpreted my positioning of Haykal's Zaynab as being the crucial work. He has thus incorrectly implied, I don't know how, that I place the real beginning of the Arabic novel in 1865 with Marrash. Such is a complete distortion of my stand.
A third point seriously requiring lucid discussion is the term "Egyptocentrism?" with which Mr Rakha titled his review. The connotations of "Egypto-" plus "-centrism" infer that this survey gives 1) an exaggerated degree of concentration on Egyptian novel-writing. 2) a limited, perhaps blinkered, or incompletely researched account; and 3) the intention of unduly promoting and trumpeting the Egyptian novel above others in the Arab world. A careful and informed reading of the "Introduction" will show the use of "Egyptocentrism" as being generally inappropriate in this context. Precisely the printing of Haykal's Zaynab in 1913 and the succession of a large number of competent Egyptian novels in the 1930s and 40s (following Zaynab's reprint in 1929), predate by a long shot the flourishing of the mature novel in most other Arab lands. We intentionally pass briefly over a multitude of Egyptian novels of over seven decades simply in order to devote much needed attention to the novels of other Arab regions which appear considerably later.
With the exception of only a few novels, (see the "Introduction"), in all other Arab countries, we had to wait until the late 1960's and the 1970's for the appearance of fully competent Arabic novels.
Quite the opposite of promoting Egyptocentrism, I have allotted much ampler space to analytical discussions of around 30 novels from other Arab countries where the writing of well conceived novels, as covered by the bibliography, began less than 35 years ago. This contrasts with the 17 critical discussions from among the numerous mature novels printed in Egypt, beginning with the second edition of Zaynab in 1929, i.e. over 65 years. Among the Egyptian novelists of this period are Taha Hussein, Al-Mazini, Al-Hakim, Mahfouz, Al-Sharqawi, Fathi Ghanim, Youssef Idris, Edward El-Kharat, Gamal El-Ghitani and many others. Naguib Mahfouz alone wrote over 30 novels. Out of the total number of 4,648 novels written in the entire Arab world and listed in our Bibliography, over 2,220 novels are Egyptian!
I sincerely hope that I have been able to throw some light on the points in question to help clear up some of the reasons which prompted Mr Rakha to judge the work as "imperfect" and remaining so "by default." I also wish to thank him for the importance which he attached to the Bibliography.
Hamdi Sakkut
Director of Scientific Research Unit
Department of Arabic Studies
AUC
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