Reading Response: "Arabian Nights and Days"

I have to admit I was not prepared for what was coming when I opened the pages of Nyguib Mahfouz's "Arabian Nights and Days." Something based off the book "A Thousand and One Arabian Nights," sure. I think I read something out of that book once, several years ago...we kept a blue bound copy inscribed with gold on the bookshelf in my bedroom. It was pretty.

With the image of that fairy tale reminiscent novel amidst other bits and pieces of "Arabian" literature, all dancing around accompanied by the "Aladdin" soundtrack in my head, I opened Mahfouz's novel with somewhat hopeful anticipation. And that anticipation was met with virgin murders, demonic genies, and child rape.

That description might lead one to believe that "Arabian Nights and Days" is all bad. That is certainly not the case. While not my favorite novel, I believe Mahfouz has done very clever and commendable things with connecting his piece of literature with both the modern and traditional worlds, as well as connecting the stories of the past to his own stories of the present.

That being said, I couldn't help but walk away from the novel a little bit confused. The topics Mahfouz finds most important and relevant are clear, but what is not clear, and I think purposely so, is how he really feels about them. The reader must wade through the first several stories, meeting new characters left and right, never quite sure whom to trust and whom to be wary of, and most of all, never really knowing which side is right. Mahfouz repeatedly poses tough questions, but never really seems to give us any answers. Maybe he doesn't know the answers himself.

One of the elements that struck me the most when reading was the characters' relationships with deities, higher powers, and the supernatural. A great deal of the characters we see are incredibly pious, and thus very highly regarded by their families and communities. And yet, such devout behavior seems often to end in ruin, even death.

Characters are approached by genies and must thereafter do their bidding it seems, because the genies hold a kind of power over humans I can't quite wrap my head around. And yet God is superior to these, as genies can qualify as either believing or non-believing, and are certainly not omnipotent. Now, the question of moral behavior arises all tangled up in these quandaries about the supernatural. By adhering to the demands of the genies- the morality of which, I still find to be a highly ambiguous subject- are humans doing right, or doing wrong, or simply doing the only thing that they can do? And if they are doing the only thing that they can, can they really be penalized for that, from a moral standpoint. And if a genie is supposedly a "believing genie" and wants a human to kill another human who is, purportedly, an "evil human", then does it not seem just and fair, and even willed by God that the human follow said instructions to the letter? And if that human is then killed for his actions, as they are seen as illegal and most abominable in the eyes of other humans, is not the human then a martyr, because he was supposedly doing the will of God?

Where is the justice in this book and what are the answers? We discussed this question enough in class with enough different responses that I don't really feel bad about saying I honestly don't know. If I could put it simply, I'd say one has to do whatever one feels is right; that presumably being the same thing as whatever one feels is the will of God. But it's never quite that easy, as Mahfouz points out.

I'd liked to have sat down with Mahfouz, over coffee maybe, because I've heard it's pretty good over in Egypt, and asked him to give me the answers. I would have seemed like a fool, almost certainly, but that's what his book is all about, isn't, teachers telling stories to students and learning lessons and imparting wisdom. I think that's what Mahfouz was trying to do in his books and I applaud him for that. The man was clearly something incredible, very prolific as well as controversial during his lifetime, and even having at one point survived an assassination attempt. He had some ideas about right and wrong. He had some convictions he was willing to fight for. Unfortunately, I still don't think I've soaked in everything his novel is trying to tell me, and Mahfouz himself has passed away, leaving me with nothing but his pages in which to search for my answers.

Reading Response: "Please Look After Mom"

"Please Look After Mom" made me uncomfortable for reasons which, I admit, I wasn't entirely thrilled about confronting. Even now as I write this, I haven't fully explored why the book hit home in such an itch-inducing, squirm-producing sort of way. That's what I'd say the writing process is for.

To put it simply, I'd say I see some similarities between myself and the daughter from whose point of view the story starts off with. Chi-Hon is a writer who finds herself growing more and more distant from her mother as she grows older and becomes consumed with her life and her work. To say she is still holding on to some bitterness from her childhood- a childhood in which her eldest brother was the favorite, in accordance with Korean tradition- would be putting it mildly. Without ever coming right and out and saying it, Chi-Hon seems resentful towards her mother, jealous of her attentions, desperate for her approval, aching for tender words and a mother's touch that never seem forthcoming. At the same time, she has graduated from these childish desires and become an important woman in a big world. Her mother's world is one so very far removed from Chi-Hon's, and so in some sense, it seems that Chi-Hon has abandoned her mother, forgotten about her; that her mother has become obsolete and outdated.

It's frightening because as we get older, it's easy to "forget" about our parents. Each time we come home for school breaks or short visits, our childhood home seems more foreign to us, we feel an intruder in our old bed, our fathers' hugs grow more desperate, our mothers' pleas for phone calls more urgent. We are slipping away from each other and to us, the burgeoning adult, it feels natural, feels necessary really. But it scares our parents and they try even harder to hold on to whatever ties to us they have left.

Or maybe this is just the case with me? My father and I have always had an easy bond; we share a lot of the same personality traits, we like the same music, we seem to understand each other. My mother is, of course, dear to me in a way no child can explain. In moments of fear or sickness, she's always the one I long for the most. But, as I've grown up- I've seen something that saddens me. I've grappled with it, this disconnect I sometimes feel between my mother and myself. The confusion I see in her eyes at a lot of the things that I do and say; more than that, the hurt and sometimes disgust that seem to overwhelm her at some of the decisions I make. She talks to me oftentimes like she doesn't know who I am. She asks me questions, while staring fondly at childhood photos of me pasted on Christmas ornaments, "How could that sweet little girl grow up to want to mar her body with tattoos and piercings?" Sometimes I want to scream, You made me Mom, this is me Mom, why don't you get that? And because she doesn't seem to understand the person I am or the fundamental things that I feel are so inherent to who I am, I subconsciously dismiss her in my mind. I declare her lesser, incapable, just unnecessary. She just doesn't get it, she'll never get it. I can't tell her things, I can't show her who I am. She's just my mom.

This may not be parallel exactly to Chi-Hon's situation with her own mother, but it evoked enough similarities as I was reading it, that I felt it was worth noting. Slowly, really without her being aware, Chi-Hon lost touch with her mother.

And then, suddenly, she was gone.

I hate to focus on this one segment of what was an intricately woven and complex book, but I guess this first portion is just what struck me the most, because I am a daughter, and I have a mother, and I know how it is.

I wonder about the point-of-view: both the father as well as the daughter's portions were told in the rare 2nd person. I want to say that this highlights their similar disconnect from the mother. I mean, everyone in the story was disconnected in some way, but the father and the daughter in ways that I found strikingly alike.

They both forgot her. She was there but she was not recognized. Her importance in their lives was undermined. They could not see how much she loved them and was devoted to them until they felt the sting of her absence. More than that, it was not until she was gone that they could clearly see how much they themselves loved her. It was not until then that they could see how strong she had been, and how much she had been wilting, disintegrating right before their eyes, because of their own neglect.

I don't want anyone to come away from this thinking that I neglect my mother or that I don't think about how much I love her or that I ignore her or find her obsolete. I'm merely trying to draw a connection in saying that I can see how easily and unintentionally that situation could happen to someone. I could see the misunderstandings between my mother and myself developing into something greater, a gap too wide to bridge by the time it is discovered, a pit too deep to fill.

I never want to forget my mother, I never want anyone to forget my mother, to forget what she does and what she gives and how very important she is. I never want to have to ask anyone else to look after Mom; I want to be the one doing the looking after.

The [Very Ordinary] Concerns of Literature

In this day and age the thing that is most likely to send a book to the top of a bestseller list is sex, intrigue, and evil. What once might have drawn most readers in no longer seems enough. The classic adventures of old are a bland bowl of oatmeal in the current breakfast buffet of salacious writing. Modern literature is concerned with what will sell, what will shock readers the most. We want the cheap thrills of lust and betrayal, each tale more disturbing and debauchery-ridden than the last.

But stepping out of what has become the standard for bestselling literature in these contemporary days, it is still possible to see a pattern in what is written about, the subjects that writers constantly find themselves drifting back towards, unable to help themselves.

It seems to me that what strikes readership in a way that is truly profound, what creates lasting footprints in the mind, what can permanently alter the course of a human life, is literature that connects. Literature that, simply, draws on what is common unto all mankind, the problem of the human condition. We all yearn for relation, to feel that we are not entirely alone.

In short, literature, good literature, literature that settles in the stomach, that latches onto the soul and becomes a part of the reader, is literature that touches upon our human condition. The pure frailty of it, as well as the unreliability of it all, a state that seems often to be so fraught with confusion, a pervading sense of loneliness, a search for purpose, and a desire for connection. The common yarn that has wound its way in and out of human existence from the beginning of time is a need for relation to others. Alone, we crumple, we shrivel into a faded version of ourselves. Though we maintain the most basic forms of human contact, humans still often find themselves isolated in a prison of their own flesh, lost in their brain, in a state of depression that seems impossible to escape.

Literature serves as a rescue rope flung down into the blackest pits of despair. It tells stories: stories often of extraordinary human experiences. We crave tales of heroes, of those who rose above limitations and their condition. This gives readers hope, gives us escape, gives us a sense of future and possibility which is necessary in order to continue the journey of life.

But even more profound is when literature focuses on the ordinary. The best literature is concerned with simply daily human experience; the highs and lows of living; the pain and joy that punctuate our lives. We need to know that someone else feels the same way that we do. That someone else has experienced devastating loss, that they know the joy of companionship, that they have felt the heady whirlwind of romance, that they have been crushed by hurt. When we feel most alone, the literature that is concerned with these simple, ordinary things, is what binds us together and saves us.

The human condition can often feel like a sickness. The best literature reaches inside that sickness and draws out the emotion, the struggle, the triumph and all of the in between, explores it, sometimes painfully, opens wounds, retraces scars, and by doing so massages the soul.