Naguib Mahfouz (Arabic author profile: ) was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. He published over 50 novels, over 350 short stories, dozens of movie scripts, and five plays over a 70-year career. Many of his works have been made into Egyptian and foreign films.
And I find it kinda funny I find it kinda sad The dreams in which I'm dying Are the best I've ever had I find it hard to tell you I find it hard to take When people run in circles It's a very, very mad world
A fable or parable that will probably appeal to those who like Paulo Coelho.
Fattouma, a young unmarried man, upset with the death of his father and re-marriage of his mother, sets out by camel caravan to explore new lands. Each land has a different religion and living conditions, ranging from great wealth to abject poverty, but the people in each country think they are the happiest of people.
The author wrote this in 1983 and got away with criticizing the politics but not the religion of his country. Several times Fattouma says things like 鈥淥ur religion is wonderful鈥ut our life is pagan.鈥� The political systems bring misery because they have strayed from religious principles.
In one country there is no medical care; no one believes they can or should do anything about illness. When someone dies, it鈥檚 the will of God. They are monogamous for a few years but have a communal sex orgy once a year. No one stays married because 鈥渓ife knows no permanence.鈥� Fattouma falls in love and has children with a young woman but after a few years is driven out of the country for his strange behavior in wanting to remain married.
The next country looks a lot like many present-day nations. It鈥檚 a heavy-handed police state. Heads of dissidents stuck on poles surround the palace of the god-king. There are two classes of people 鈥� the elite, hand-picked and educated for a life of control and luxury, and the great unwashed who can have their low-life pleasures of depravity in taverns as long as they don鈥檛 rock the boat.
The next country looks like a modern participatory democracy. The state has nothing to do with religion and all religions are tolerated. There are Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists and atheists. Fattouma even describes a political demonstration demanding state recognition of homosexual relations. Fattouma marries again, has children, and is happy here but wants to see the remaining lands.
The last land he visits calls itself 鈥渢he land of total justice.鈥� It鈥檚 1984-ish. There is complete equality of wealth. Everyone, including women, are employed. They all must eat the right foods and participate in sports for exercise. They wear prescribed clothing and walk in rows from workplace to home where they have to stay confined at night. Work is highly specialized and engineers aren鈥檛 supposed to talk about medicine and farmers aren鈥檛 supposed to have opinions about factory work.
They are happy robots. Its basis is in nature, so maybe I should say ants rather than robots: 鈥淟ook at nature, its basis is law and order, not freedom.鈥� 鈥淭heir life here is conformity with truth and withdrawal from humankind.鈥� 鈥� 鈥淎 paradise without people.鈥�
Fattouma鈥檚 personal life serves to move the plot along. He鈥檚 imprisoned for years; his children are killed in a war; he鈥檚 constantly searching for his first love (鈥楢rousa鈥�) and eventually sets out for the 鈥減erfect land鈥� over the last hill鈥here are no great insights here but it鈥檚 interesting and fairly short 鈥� less than 150 pages.
Mahfouz, an Egyptian who wrote 30 novels, has been called the 鈥渕ost renowned of Arabic novelists.鈥� Best-known for his Cairo Trilogy, he won the Nobel prize in 1988 and lived from 1911 to 2006.
Photo from agefotostock.com Photo of the author from egypttoday.com
A fable, a travel journey that allows the author, in a work unlike his strictly realist trilogy, to explore and challenge the beliefs of the central character. Like or it is not so much realistic as hyper-realistic as each of the realms that Ibn Fattouma journeys through is an ideal type rather than a typical place or a representation of an actual country. In the first chapter we see that Ibn Fattouma is taught something of Sufism so perhaps, particularly since one cannot or does not return from the ultimate destination, this is a parable about seeking union with God or more generally about achieving enlightenment.
We begin with Ibn Fattouma's childhood in a Muslim country ruled over by a Sultan and we see him depart with a caravan to journey through the lands to the south with the goal of reaching the land of Gebel. In my vivid imagination the starting point is Egypt since I know that Mahfouz was Egyptian, and therefore the hero travels south through Africa. But in truth, I suspect that like Lemuel Gulliver he journeys through aspects of the human experience.
Each country is a distinct form of human social organisation, each impossibly boardering on another. A warlord ruling over a slave owning society sits hard by a democratic pluralistic multi-faith one. Soldiers armed with swords alongside a country in which they have machine guns. Capitalism and managed economies. Moon worship to king worship to pray as you please.
Each country poses its own challenge to Ibn Fattouma's assumed knowledge and prior experience. Each is a stage in which human interaction is shaped in distinct ways. Only the land of Gebel that to Ibn Fattouma holds out the promise of something transcendent, but that is also the land from which none do return.