Fictions of Revolution: Empire and Nation in Lawrence Durrell, Naguib

Fictions of Revolution: Empire and Nation in Lawrence Durrell, Naguib Mahfouz, John Wilcox, and Bahaa Taher Rania M Mahmoud A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2014 Committee: Katherine Cummings, Chair Sandra Silberstein, Chair Elliott Colla Chandan Reddy Program Authorized to Offer Degree English ©Copyright 2014 Rania M Mahmoud University of Washington Abstract Fictions of Revolution: Empire and Nation in Lawrence Durrell, Naguib Mahfouz, John Wilcox, and Bahaa Taher Rania M Mahmoud Chairs of the Supervisory Committee: Associate Professor, Katherine Cummings Professor, Sandra Silberstein Department of English This dissertation engages postcolonial theory and historiography in order to illuminate our understanding of the ways in which literary works re-create and interrogate history and, to evoke Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “world” worlds. This study provides a comparative analysis of narrations of the 1881-1882 Urabi Revolution and the 1919 Revolution in British and Egyptian fiction from 1957 to 2007. In engaging the Bildungsroman, these works construct competing histories of Egypt’s revolutions. Confirming colonial accounts of these revolutions, the British novels view Egyptian subjectivity as frozen and unchanging. In contrast, the Egyptian fictions present these events as ongoing and always open to re-definition. Ultimately, these narratives reflect different perceptions of Egyptian identity and, in more general terms, varying views of history. Chapter One reads Lawrence Durrell’s Mountolive, the third volume of his famous The Alexandria Quartet, as a reaffirmation of the orientalist Enlightenment values of the Bildungsroman, which upholds Western values as the standard to which society must conform. In its portrayal of the legacy of the 1919 Revolution, the novel marks the British protagonist’s disillusionment with grotesque Egypt and his acknowledgement of the English social order as his moment of maturity. Identifying Egyptians as forever different, it establishes the European standard as the only route towards modernity. Chapter Two reads Sugar Street, the last volume of Naguib Mahfouz’s landmark The Cairo Trilogy, as a subversion of the Bildungsroman. In depicting the decades following the 1919 Revolution, a period where Egyptian attempts at political autonomy are constantly thwarted by Egyptian government corruption and British interference in domestic affairs, Mahfouz interrogates the genre’s imperialist project as well as Egyptian calls to cling to native traditions. I argue that Sugar Street introduces an alternative, culturally specific Bildungsroman that advocates for eternal revolution as the condition of Egyptian subjectivity. The third chapter reads John Wilcox’s The Guns of El Kebir, arguing that by fusing the imperial romance with the Bildungsroman in addressing the Urabi Revolution, the novel harkens back to British rule over Egypt as a glorious time signifying British heroism and altruism. Despite brief questioning of Empire, the novel affirms imperialist discourse when its protagonists – an unorthodox ex-army officer and a feminist anti-imperialist – both recognize the necessity of the British occupation. Reviving the Bildungsroman as the narrative of modernity, Guns denies Egyptian nationalism and revolution by redefining it as a class conflict or by qualifying it, and ties the protagonists’ maturity to identification with the occupation. Chapter Four reads Bahaa Taher’s Sunset Oasis. In addressing the Urabi Revolution, the novel subverts, the imperial romance, the Bildungsroman and the national romance. Unforgiving in its exposure of Egypt’s own role in its own subjugation and as a colonial power in the Egyptian western region of Siwa, Sunset Oasis rejects all forms of national belonging – Pharaonism and Ottomanism – as limiting and exclusionary, advocating for an Egyptian subjectivity that transcends ideologies to include all Egyptians. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Revolution and Candy ………………………………………………………. 1 Chapter One: Egypt the Grotesque: Egyptian Political Life after the 1919 Revolution in Lawrence Durrell’s Mountolive …………………………………………………………… 17 Chapter Two: Two Roads Diverged: The National Intellectual between Mimicry and Petrification after the 1919 Revolution in Naguib Mahfouz’s Sugar Street ……………… 65 Chapter Three: This Egyptian Nationalism: The Urabi Revolution in John Wilcox’s The Guns of El Kebir ………………………………………………………………………….. 116 Chapter Four: Destroying the Archive: Towards One-Thousand-and-One Identities in Bahaa Taher's Sunset Oasis ………………………………………………………………. 167 Epilogue: How does the Subaltern Speak? ………………………………………………. 208 Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………………... 212 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Kate Cummings for her unflagging support. Her patience and guidance through every stage of the process helped me grow as a scholar and a writer. I am also grateful to: Sandy Silberstein for her valuable input and encouragement; Elliott Colla and Chandan Reddy for their mentorship; Selim Kuru for his cheerfulness and generosity with his time; and Kathy Mork for pushing me through the whole process. For financial assistance, my deep gratitude goes to the English and NELC departments, the Eilert Anderson and Luckie Budd Waller Dissertation Fellowship; the Chester Fritz Grant for International Study & Exchanges and the Simpson Center Doctoral Student Recruitment Award. I am thankful to Bahaa Taher and John Wilcox for meeting me to discuss their novels. A special thanks to Betty, John Wilcox’s wife, for hosting me for lunch. I would like to thank Hussein Elkhafaifi for his mentorship and for training me as an Arabic language teacher. Susan Benson’s friendship and words of encouragement always helped me visualize the happy resolution of this project. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Hidy Basta whose emotional support kept me going. Above all, my deepest gratitude goes to my parents for their unconditional love. ii DEDICATION To my parents iii 1 Introduction: Revolution and Candy As I prepared for my final exam in History in my last year of secondary school in Egypt, my teacher assigned me a sample question that asked for a narration of the 1881-1882 Urabi Revolution from the point of view of the British Consul. Expecting him, as a Briton, to be mainly invested in the interests of Empire, I launched into a condemnation of the revolutionaries as unjustified agitators, portraying their wish for Egyptian autonomy as a childish rebellion against superior British rule. To my surprise, my Egyptian teacher did not approve of such a response since, he explained, the British respected patriotism and despite the conflict of interest, the British Consul would have admired Urabi’s noble heroism. Years later, as I wrap up my dissertation on fictional representations of Egyptian revolutions in British and Egyptian fiction, I am reminded of this conversation. At the heart of this exchange are different understandings of the discourse of history. While my answer, inadvertently, pointed to the illusion of objectivity and the elusiveness of history, and contended that evaluations of events are bound to be tainted by national or other interests, my instructor’s response alerted me to the danger of generalization. Yet, his view housed a paradox. On the one hand, in cautioning me against making assumptions based on the national and political allegiances of certain groups, it exhibited an awareness that although a member of the British Empire, the Consul might in reality sympathize – either sincerely or in a patronizing spirit – with the demands of the Egyptian people. On the other hand, my teacher himself made a generalization and an assumption about the British, describing all of them as a people who appreciated courage and patriotism, even when directed against them. Once more, we come face to face with the illusion of objectivity. 2 Interestingly, and sadly, initial assessments of the 2011 Revolution re-activated colonial discourse. While international media portended impending doom featured in the institution of another Iran, equating the end of Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule with the rise of a reign of “Islamic terror,” the Egyptian state and state media deployed the same narrative in order to warn Egyptians of the dangers of civil unrest. The state portrayed demonstrating Egyptians as ignorant, indolent mobs. In a replication of the colonial parent-child narrative, state figures, supported by most state media, referred to demonstrating Egyptians as a “bunch of kids.” In an infamous television interview, the former Prime Minister commented that he would send the demonstrators some candy. In another instance, the former Vice President declared on CNN that Egyptians were not yet ready for democracy. Thus, the state re-configured young Egyptian men and women who were voicing serious demands into irresponsible children once more assigning Egypt to the waiting-room of history. Described as lacking the training required to transition into autonomy and modernity, Egyptians were pronounced as not yet prepared for self-rule. Attributing acts of sabotage and rampant violence to demonstrators, state media promulgated various fictions casting the revolutionaries as rabble-rousers sponsored by foreign money, depicting heroes and martyrs of the revolution and of previous state violence as collaborators, spies, morally depraved men and women or as rich, spoilt drug addicts. Soon after, perspectives on the

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