Plain talk

By Mursi Saad El-Din

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I've always prided myself on being the most avid reader among my friends, in English and Arabic and, sometimes, in French. Well, now, and not without pleasure, I've found someone who can beat me at it -- Maher Shafik Farid, professor of English literature at Cairo University.

Farid is not only an avid reader but a writer of distinction and style with 20 books in Arabic to his name, on topics ranging from modern English poetry to the contemporary Arabic novel. He has also translated some dozen English works, from poems by T S Eliot to plays by Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett. Only a few days ago, I received a new bunch of books by Farid: The Magic Window: Studies in the Literature of Europe, America, Africa and Latin America ; Kingdoms of Gold ; and Harvest of the Pen: 47 Years of Literary Criticism. Colossal volumes (900-1,300 pages): going through them I tried to imagine how much reading must have gone into the erudition they contain, which is how I came to the conclusion that I was beaten, after all. There was more to it than that.

I cannot for the life of me venture to explain the substance, the range and the insight they contain. Suffice to say that they serve as an excellent resource for those intellectuals who have no knowledge of a foreign language. Farid's role is that of the beneficent channel, or should I say a bridge linking Arab culture with the treasures of world literature. And his writing refutes the hypothesis, so often repeated but never tested, that perfection in a foreign language undermines mastery of the mother tongue. Farid's Arabic is astounding -- a noble link in a chain of English-educated scholars who have truly enriched modern Arabic literature. They include, among others, Louis Awad, Rashad Rushdy, Ali El-Rai, Samir Sarhan and Mohammad Enani. It is an Egyptian tradition all its own, linking two languages and many more than two cultures. And it is to be very deeply appreciated.

Another aspect of Farid's efforts is that it demonstrates that it is not enough for a man of culture to lock himself up in an ivory tower within his own culture, enjoying what he has managed to collect by himself. He must give as much as he has gained. What knowledge and pleasure he might have acquired from his reading, he must channel onto others. Give and take is what culture is all about. And when we talk or write about the pleasure of reading, we must listen to what real readers have to say on the topic. No such pleasure should be overemphasised, but going through Farid's books, we feel the immense pleasure he must have felt reading but, even more clearly, we feel his pleasure in sharing it by writing about it, offering his readers and students the harvest not only of the pen but of pages and pages of valuable literature, which he offers to those eager but unable to read the work in its original language. In so doing imparts both knowledge and enjoyment.

Maher Shafik Farid is an example of what one might call the duality of culture. He reminds me of Gandhi's famous saying, "Build your house on solid foundations, and open all the windows." Replace the house with culture and you have your answer to all those who cry wolf about what they have termed a cultural invasion. Farid's incredible knowledge of world literature belies any such claims, given the extent to which he has preserved his cultural identity. Not only is this evident in his outlook and approach but equally -- and just as convincingly -- in the studies he undertakes of modern and contemporary Arabic work.