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.