Why haven’t they arrived yet?
I’m interested in listening to their story. Learning about their journey. Are they busy working on a new manuscript? Is the “writer” a novelist or a biographer? A playwright or a poet? It wouldn’t be good news if it’s the latter. I cannot endure a poet’s overinflated ego. Occasionally, I will listen to a brief recitation or read a short poem if I encounter one and may be able to appreciate the rhythm and imagery in classical, free or prose poems, but I could never bring myself to buy an anthology. Poets’ sorrow, poverty, love, ecstasy, and pain; everything they say and do is devoted to crafting their halos. Their lines fall on me like the tears of saints. And I can’t stand haloed eminences. They exhaust me.
I hear a sound coming from afar. Is it the scratching of a pen or the tapping of fingers on a keyboard? Is the writer an Arab or a foreigner? Contemporary or ancient? Since this game knows no boundaries of place, time, life or death, it’s possible that the “expected one” could be the author of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, or maybe Homer the Greek. … I can only wait.
When they arrive, I shall share my musings on the meaning and purpose of writing. I’ll ask for their thoughts on texts that have become pillars of our human knowledge. Were their creators aware of the future impact as they penned those first words? Did it even matter to them? What about the manuscripts, tablets and papyri that were lost, burned or sank into the depths of seas and oceans? What about the pages that became food for moths and worms? How many old texts still lie buried in a tomb, a cave or a rusted tin, waiting for the hand of a passionate excavator to brush off the dirt and grant them life anew?
Sheer serendipity led to the discovery of manuscripts by a great musician like Vivaldi. Over a century after his death, the yellowed sheet music was found in neglected crates at a boarding school. The man whose music once resounded in the palaces of nobles, aristocrats, and royal courts died impoverished and ignored. The funeral of the composer of “The Four Seasons” was attended by few and lacked music, save for a small peal of bells.
What consolation is there in realizing dreams after the dreamer’s demise?
Are creators who enjoyed wealth and fame while alive better off?
Didn’t Márquez, who is recognized as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century spend his last several years suffering from dementia? His published novels and short stories pulsed with vivid tales and descriptions of places, colours, flavours and scents. Yet, his memories slipped away, one by one. His mind became like soil exhausted by countless harvests, unresponsive to planting or sowing. What good was the Nobel Prize he won when he couldn’t complete his sentences or recognize his family?
If the room’s occupant is a laureate of one of the prestigious awards: Nobel, Booker, Pulitzer or the like, I’m curious to find out how they have influenced their work and life.
Winning a distinguished prize can strip writers of their illusions and reduce them to mere world-renowned, wealthy authors. Those close to Naguib Mahfouz say he hardly enjoyed being a Nobelist.
In my view, no pleasure surpasses the sinful act of writing. It transforms the wretched among us into gods, creating beings from words and breathing life into them. We move our characters, shape their fates, make them happy or crush them at will, deciding what they do, feel and think, whom they love and hate.
… Could the writer be the occupant of this room? Is that the smell of his cigarette smoke?
Mahfouz, in particular, baffles me. How could that wild imagination, leaping like an untamed horse through Cairo’s eras and enchanting—at times mythical—worlds, emerge from a man of such mundane appearance? I doubt literary history has known anyone who faced the media while wearing pyjamas and a robe as he did when he won the Nobel.
How did his rebellious, audacious fictional characters escape prison of the strict routine which surrounded him? His personal life was hallmarked by traditionalism. His food, drink, and clothing all seemed to belong to a bygone era. He couldn’t stay up late and hated traveling, and yet, he dedicated himself to writing every single day. Something mysterious happened to that machine of a man whenever he was alone with his pen, paper and cigarette. A flow of creation unconstrained by mood swings or lapses of inspiration. As if he’d struck a Faustian bargain, sacrificing life’s pleasures for the euphoria he experienced while weaving his tales.
Mahfouz’s surprise Nobel win shattered the bars of his self-imposed confinement. He found himself in the spotlight, no longer able to write as he did before. His final works resemble hallucinations or fever dreams, somehow alien. The master of contemporary Arabic storytelling seemed to yearn for at least a flicker where the was once a roaring furnace.
… I’m tired of waiting.
Where has the writer gone?
Will they show up, or are they like Beckett’s Godot, who never arrives?
The above is a self-translated extract from Ali Shakir’s recently published book in Arabic by Dar Elthaqafa Elgedeeda in Cairo: غرف سماوية: رواية؟ (Heavenly Rooms: A Novel?)
ALI SHAKIR
Iraqi-born, New Zealand-based architect and author, his articles, essays and reviews—in Arabic and English—appeared in many newspapers and literary journals in the Arab world, the UK, the United States and New Zealand