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A Call to Readers of the World: Stefan G. Meyer's "The Experimental Arabic Novel" Christopher McCabe
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When the tumult of
politics becomes too furious, public debate can lose its focus on the
genuine art of the novel. In The Experimental Arabic Novel,
Stefan G. Meyer argues the importance of the modern and contemporary
Arab novel to world literature. Meyer points out how many
Arab fiction writers and poets were influenced by writers from Europe,
the United States, and Latin America, and he appears to be addressing
writers and intellectuals who may be more familiar with his references
to Kafka's The Metamorphosis and Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury than the Arab novelists in question.
Those references make for a
superlative way to engage readers who should become more familiar with
Ghassan Kanafani's All That's Left to You, Elias Khoury's The Journey of Little Gandhi, and Rashid al-Da'if's The Techniques of Misery--all
while asserting that these writers deserve greater international
attention. One of Meyer's most cogent discussions draws some
irrefutable parallels and distinctions between America's Faulkner and
Egypt's Mahfouz. Calling Mahfouz's Miramar a
pioneering work, Meyer notes its artful use of new storytelling methods
to capture the mind's inner workings and the drama it sees unfolding in
the physical world.
Meyer's best service is his
presentation of how various influences--political, social, and
artistic-coexist in the work of notable contemporary writers in the
Levant. These writers face the difficulty of speaking for
themselves and as a group, a predicament that tests the greatness of
fictional and poetic techniques. History becomes the central
focus when Meyer examines how the Lebanese Civil War has impacted the
voice and stance of its writers. Most notably, the war
encouraged some writers to radicalize their fictional style and
increase their focus on the interior life of the
self. Importantly, this was also a time when writers, most
notably women such as Ghada Samman, focused on the convergence of
sexuality and war. Meyer makes a good case that "no writer
documented the beginning of the war more strikingly than the
Syrian-born Samman." Some of her best writing is displayed
in Beirut '75, where she makes her characters come to life in the manner of Poe and Kafka.
Meyer should be credited with
giving us a book that brings further attention to contributions like
Samman's, and to writers who should become a necessary part of today's
literature, whether the reader visits the Middle East or libraries in
Middle America.
Al Jadid Magazine, Volume 6, No.33 (Fall 2000), 16
Copyright © Al Jadid Magazine |
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Date Submitted:
2001-07-17 00:00:00
Review by Al Jadid Magazine |
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