Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Secret Life of Saeed The Pessoptimist by Emile Habiby The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist by Emile Habiby. Our systems have detected unusual traffic activity from your network. Please complete this reCAPTCHA to demonstrate that it's you making the requests and not a robot. If you are having trouble seeing or completing this challenge, this page may help. If you continue to experience issues, you can contact JSTOR support. Block Reference: #59e34c20-ce86-11eb-af0c-37ae4dd9d378 VID: #(null) IP: 116.202.236.252 Date and time: Wed, 16 Jun 2021 09:36:39 GMT. Avanti! The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist, by Emile Habiby English translation, 1974, 192 pp. Arabic literature does not feature many novels, and of those, perhaps only this one is meant as a comedy. Theories abound concerning the connections between the development of the novel and the rise of European Enlightenment humanism, capitalist production, and atomized social organization. These are many and fascinating, but have little explanatory power as to why Africa, India, and Latin America produce dozens of splendid novels, but the entire Arabic-speaking world very few. Bernard Lewis would argue that it is a symptom of Islam's failure to reconcile itself with modernity, though that explanation fails to address Turkish and Indian literature, or Arabic poetry. As to the comic point, the dark fatalist humor Habiby finds in the 1948 and 1967 disasters which befell his people (Habiby was a Palestinian communist journalist) strike this reviewer as almost, well, reminiscent of stereotypical Jewish humor. The titular "pessoptimist," for instance, is a combination of "pessimist" and "optimist" and refers to Saeed's persistent belief that no matter what disaster befalls him, an even greater one was averted. I think Mel Brooks did this gag at one point. The Secret Life of Saeed is billed as an ironic social commentary, plainly modeled on Voltaire's Candide to the extent that the parallel is made openly in one chapter. Saeed is a dimwitted Palestinian who wanders listlessly through short, surreally -titled chapters in what appears to be the timeless literary device of using a convenient idiot to demonstrate the tragedy of sweeping historical events. Indeed, this device is so timeless that during the chapters which actually feature some social satire, the echoes of virtually every satirist since Jonathan Swift become so loud that the misfortunes of Saeed do not seem specific to the unique sufferings of the Palestinian people, but instead appear essentially interchangeable with something Kurt Vonnegut or Joseph Heller might have produced on a particularly unambitious day. This is not the story of the depredations the Palestinians have suffered, but rather about the absurdity of living in a modern state. The novel is divided into three sections, each named for the woman Saeed loves at the time. Of these the second is certainly the strongest. It features the actual bits of social satire, most of which is solid. The Israeli police demand that Saeed prove his furniture is not stolen, and he assures them that it, like himself, is property of the state. Saeed's demonstrations of loyalty are considered too conspicuous and he is thrown in jail for disloyalty. People going home are deported for being infiltrators. And so on. The first and third sections revolve more around Saeed's desperate love for a woman named Yuaad, and then her daughter (also, confusingly, named Yuaad, which I guess is fitting, since Yuaad means "once again"). These sections are the least concrete, most bewildering, and contain very little of the promised social satire. Twenty years pass unremarked. For thirty pages we (and Saeed) think the third Yuaad is actually the first Yuaad. And so forth. By the end, Saeed finds himself repeatedly sitting on top of a tall pillar (in what I desperately hope is an allusion to Saint Simeon Stylites the Elder), having befriended a man from space, who is not described and who serves only the murkiest role in the narrative. It is difficult to tell how much is lost in translation. The book is difficult to follow: characters are often not named, confusingly referred to in different ways, and the events which give their names to chapters happen either peripherally or sometimes not at all. Times and places are bewilderingly and haphazardly conflated. Perhaps this is a deliberate and opaque choice by Habiby, or perhaps it is a failure of translation. There certainly are recurring themes of Palestinian identity, dispossession, and fatalism in the face of apparently endless and malicious history. The chapters are so brief, though, and the characters so ill-defined that Habiby never really develops an idea. It is clear that these themes exist, but I'm still not entirely certain what Habiby has to say about them. If anything, the Israelis in the book tend to be regular people serving a state which is absurd, and the Palestinians tend to be the ones who behave badly of their own free will. It's a peculiar little novel with a few clever conceits, but it will never be mentioned in the same breath as Catch-22. Download Now! We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with The Secret Life Of Saeed The Pessoptimist. To get started finding The Secret Life Of Saeed The Pessoptimist, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed. Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented. Finally I get this ebook, thanks for all these The Secret Life Of Saeed The Pessoptimist I can get now! cooool I am so happy xD. I did not think that this would work, my best friend showed me this website, and it does! I get my most wanted eBook. wtf this great ebook for free?! My friends are so mad that they do not know how I have all the high quality ebook which they do not! It's very easy to get quality ebooks ;) so many fake sites. this is the first one which worked! Many thanks. wtffff i do not understand this! Just select your click then download button, and complete an offer to start downloading the ebook. If there is a survey it only takes 5 minutes, try any survey which works for you. The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist (Al-Waka’i al gharieba fi ikhtifa Said Abul Nahs al-Mutasha’il) by Emile Habiby. ,tells the story of a Palestinian who becomes a citizen of Israel, combines fact and fantasy ,(إﻣﯿﻞ ﺣﺒﯿﺒﻲ) This contemporary classic by Emile Habibi tragedy and comedy. Saeed is the comic hero, the luckless fool, whose tale tells of aggression and resistance, terror and heroism, reason and loyalty that typify the hardships and struggles of Arabs in Israel. An informer for the Zionist state, his stupidity, candor, and cowardice make him more of a victim than a villain; but in a series of tragicomic episodes, he is gradually transformed from a disaster-haunted, gullible collaborator into a Palestinian — no hero still, but a simple man intent on survival and, perhaps, happiness. Widely read throughout the Arab world and translated into more than a dozen languages, including Hebrew, Habibi’s novels and stories explored the conflicts of a people caught between their Arab identity and their Israeli citizenship. Habibi was a Palestinian writer and politician who, while asserting his Arab identity and heritage, was also an advocate of Jewish-Arab coexistence and mutual recognition. About the Author. Habibi was born in Haifa on Aug. 29, 1922, which at that time was part of the British Mandate of Palestine. Born in to a Protestant Palestinian Arab family (his family had originally been Arab Orthodox but converted to Protestantism due to disputes within the Orthodox church) In his early life he worked on an oil refinery and later was a radio announcer. Under the Mandate he became one of the leaders of the Palestine communist party. When the 1948 Arab-Israeli War began in 1948 he stayed in Haifa while many others chose or were forced to leave the country. As a result he was granted Israeli citizenship. After the war he helped to create The Israeli communist party and established the Israeli communist paper Al-Ittihad. He stayed in Haifa his whole life. His gravestone reads (on Habibi’s own request): “Emile Habibi – Remained in Haifa.” Habibi was one of the leaders of the Palestine Communist Party during the Mandate era. He supported the 1947 UN Partition Plan. When Israel became a state he helped form the Israeli communist party ICP. He served in the Knesset between 1951 and 1959, and again from 1961 until 1972, first as a member of Maki, before breaking away from the party with Tawfik Toubi to found Rakah. He broke with the party in 1991. A 1997 documentary titled “Emile Habibi – Niszarty B’Haifa (Emile Habibi, I stayed in Haifa)” and directed by Dalia Karpel chronicles the last few weeks in his life. This journey into Habiby’s past tells the story of personal identity vs. homeland. This is a moving portrait of a public figure drawn from his own point of view at the end of his life. Writing. Habibi began writing short stories in the 1950s, and his first story, The Mandelbaum Gate” was published in 1954. In 1972 he resigned from the Knesset in order to write his first novel: The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist, which became a classic in modern Arab literature. The book depicts the life of an Israeli Arab, employing black humour and satire. It was based on the traditional anti-hero Said in Arab Literature and reflects on how it is for Arabic people to live in the state of Israel. In rich Arabic prose embellished with original expressions that he coined, Mr. Habibi also wrote of the differences that emerged when Israel’s Arabs were reunited with their Palestinian brothers after Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. He turned to writing fiction in the 1970’s and 80’s, publishing three novels, a play and two collections of short stories – and he continued to write political articles in Israeli Arab and Palestinian newspapers. His last novel, published in 1992, was Saraya, the Ogre’s Daughter . Literary prizes. In 1990 Habibi received the Al-Quds Prize from the PLO. Two years later (in 1992) he received the Israel Prize for Arabic literature. His willingness to accept both reflected his belief in coexistence. Though after accepting the Israel Prize a debate set off among the Arabic intellectual community. Habibi was accused of legitimating the Israel anti-Arabic policy. Habibi replied to the accusations: “A dialogue of prizes is better than a dialogue of stones and bullets,” he said. “It is indirect recognition of the Arabs in Israel as a nation. This is recognition of a national culture. It will help the Arab population in its struggle to strike roots in the land and win equal rights”. For a coverage on this moment in Habibi’s life from the New York Times, May 7, 1992: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html? res=9E0CEFDA1E3EF934A35756C0A964958260&scp=32&sq=Mahmoud%20Darwish&st=cse. Published works. 1969: Sudasiyat al-ayyam al-sittah (short stories “Sextet of the Six Days “), Dar al-‘Awday (Beirut, Lebanon) 1974: Al-Waka’i al gharieba fi ikhtifa Sa’ied Aboe an-Nash al-Moetasaja’il (“The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist”) 1976: Kafr Kassem (Qasim): fi al-dhikrá al-20 li-majzarat Kafr Qasim: al-majzarah, al-siyasah, Manshurat ‘Arabsak. 1980: Luka’ ibn Luka’: thalath jalasat amama sunduq al-‘ajab: hikaya masrahiyah, Dar al-Farabi (Beirut, Lebanon) 1991: Khurafeyyet Sarayet Bint el-Ghoul (translated as Saraya, the Ogre’s Daughter ) About the book. Written in Arabic and originally published in Haifa in 1974, Habiby’s self-ironic and wickedly sarcastic postmodernist pastiche quickly became a classic in the modern Arabic literature tradition and, after translation into English, named by critics a Palestinian masterpiece. For the Palestinian people themselves, from the Diaspora and those living inside Israel to the millions still under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, Habiby’s Pessoptimist signifies the beginnings of a distinctive Palestinian national literary form. In the first chapter Saeed, Habibi’s comic anti-hero, claims to have been visited by men from outer space making the story from the start highly unbelievable-the true parts (such as the exile of the Palestinians) being perhaps even more shocking and unbelievable than the fictional aspects. As Saeed himself suggests, one of the most unbelievable events is also the most tragic: one’s own death-which no one truly, deep down, can fully believe in. One can’t help but find the character of Saeed endearing-perhaps because he fails at everything he attempts. He tries to be a Palestinian freedom fighter but fails. Then he tries his hand at the task of being a paid puppet of the Israeli government but fails at that too, with equally humorous results. Habibi could have chosen to write a story about a Palestinian hero, either a pacifist or a warrior, who somehow rises against the oppression under which his people suffer, but, instead, he presents a character riddled with incompetence and foolishness, leaving him open to ridicule by all sides. In Habibi’s story, there are no heroes, only a long list of characters lost in a tragic and confusing whirlwind of political events and everyone-Arabs and Israelis-become suitable targets for parody and criticism. A review by D. Cloyce Smith: As its subtitle implies, “The Secret Life of Saeed” blends optimism and pessimism, tragedy and comedy, horror and farce, cynicism and gullibility. A Palestinian in occupied territory, Saeed has lived through both wars (1948 and 1967); although he is an informer on the payroll of the Israeli government, he’s too stupid to be of any real threat to his own people, but he is equally unable to protect his own family. As Salma Khadra Jayyusi notes in the introduction, Saeed is caught between “the extreme poles of Zionist colonialism and Palestinian resistance.” Saeed is able to relate his tale only when he is rescued by an extraterrestrial being (perhaps the Reaper himself) who removes him physically from the absurdities in which he is trapped. In each part of the subsequent autobiographical account, he relates a different loss–of his first love, of his wife and son, of the daughter of his first love–each under different circumstances that are identical in their irrationality. A coward himself, comically useless to his superiors, he is surrounded by rebels. But, once freed from earthly shackles, he can unsparingly ridicule his oppressors, and his tale mocks both Arab oligarchies and Israeli officials. Habiby’s novel owes much to Voltaire, as he makes clear in both the book’s title and in a chapter called “The Amazing Similarity between Candide and Saeed.” When his extraterrestrial savior points out the resemblance, Saeed responds, “Don’t blame me for that. Blame our way of life that hasn’t changed since Voltaire’s day,” and he draws parallels between Pangloss and Israeli dignitaries and between Candide’s experiences and recent Palestinian history. The difference, of course, is that Candide always concluded that “All is well in the world,” while Saeed the pessoptimist is not so sure. Habiby’s wit is most palatable when it is barbed, and his story is most powerful when it is tragic. The farce tends to silliness, however, occasionally threatening to undercut the satire. (To be frank, I have never been able to appreciate the slapstick follies in Voltaire’s novel, either.) There’s no doubt that much of the book’s wit and wordplay is lost in the translation between languages and cultures; without the translators’ pages of notes, I would have been lost. Nevertheless, the novel will surprise you with its most powerful scenes, especially when Saeed meets his battered namesake in prison and the ambiguous, tragic, climactic episode depicting the fate of his son and wife, an event that manages to be both melancholy and glorious. Such passages remind the reader that Saeed (as well as his fellow Palestinians) can hardly hope to be in control of the world in which he lives; although unchained, he remains “a prisoner unable to escape.” Discussion themes: Why is the choice made to have the whole book read from the position of Saeed having ‘escaped’ by aliens? How did you respond to this ‘surprise’? Given the weight of the themes — Rebellion, defeat, death, rebirth, terror, heroism, aggression, resistance, individual treason and communal loyalty – was such intervention necessary? What role does the author’s own life play in your understanding of the book? What does “pessoptimist” mean to you in the context of the story? In the context of the Isreal/Palestine? What does Yuaad (“to be returned”) symbolize? What does Baqiyya (“she who has remained”) symbolize? How are these two loves used as foils for Saeed and his life? Why does the author name the children of Yuaad (Yuaad and Saeed, the heroic) after existing characters? How does Walaa (Baqiyya’s son) change his father? His mother? How do the explicit parallels between Saeed’s luckless/foolish/innocent character and Voltaire’s Candide serve the purpose of the story? The Modern Novel. The world-wide literary novel from early 20th Century onwards. Habiby: The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist. (The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist) ﻓﺎء ﺳﻌﯿﺪ أﺑﻲ اﻟﻨﺤﺲ « Home » Palestine » Emile Habiby (The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist) ﻓﺎء ﺳﻌﯿﺪ أﺑﻲ اﻟﻨﺤﺲ :Emile Habiby On the whole, Arab writers do not do satire so this book, which is funny and satirical, is a treat. Our hero is Saeed. Saeed, in Arabic, means something like happy or fortunate . (Many of the names in this book have meanings, which may or may not be relevant.) At the start of the book, he tells us that he has been rescued by creatures from Outer Space and he is now writing a letter about his life to an unnamed narrator, who seems to be a journalist, telling us how and why he got into a situation whereby he needed rescuing. 1948 was a key year for the Palestinians. It was the year of the Nakba, the year when large numbers of Palestinians were either driven out of Palestine or forced to flee, under threats from the Israeli forces, and when Israel gained recognition by the United Nations. While it was a bad year for the other Palestinians, it was the year in which Saeed’s life was saved by a donkey. His family was shot at by the Israelis and his father killed. He would have been killed but for a donkey who walked into the line on fire and died instead of Saeed. As he died, his father told Saeed that he should go to Mr. Safarsheck, who would help him. Saeed and his family escaped to Lebanon but Saeed eventually decides to flee to Israel and he is able to do this, as his sister’s (married) boyfriend volunteers to help do so, not least as he probably wants to get rid of him. He managed to ride into Israel on an ass and called for Mr. Safarsheck. Not surprisingly, Mr. Safarsheck was not there. However, he manages to get to Acre, where he goes to school and where he meets Yuaad, his first love. It does not work out. He will retain his love for Yuaad and she will cross his path on more than one occasion during this book. However, the bulk of this story involves his job working for the Union of Palestine Workers, which seems to be some sort of branch of the Israeli government used to control the Palestinians. Saeed is a sort of cross between Schweik and Voltaire’s Candide. Indeed, he himself makes the comparison with Candide and gives us several Candide-like stories, such as the story of the village of Barta’a. The village was, before the 1967 War, divided, so that half of it was in Jordan and half in Israel. When the Jordanians came looking for rustled cattle, they beat up some of the inhabitants. Some of them, therefore, thought that it would be wise to cooperate. However, when the Israelis came later, those who had not been badly beaten up were clearly collaborators and were then beaten by the Israelis. There are lots of Catch-22 stories like this in this book. There is also something of the picaresque in his story as he wanders from place to place. One place he wanders to is the catacombs where he meets a reverend who helps him and who turns out to be his Outer Space friend. He does get married, though not to Yuaad (though she says that she is his wife) but his actual marriage to Baqiyya ends in a manner that in any other book might be considered tragic but in this book is perhaps more ambiguous. Above all, Saeed is the bumbling fool who always seem to be getting into trouble, not because of wilful bad behaviour but because of naivety and an innocence about the realities of life. Yet, somehow, he seems to more or less pull out of it and survive. We cannot help liking and feeling sorry for him, while, at the same time, marvelling at his bad luck and occasional stupidity. Habiby tells the story very well, with lots of humour and with much of the satire directed at the Israelis (clearly they are not so bad, Saeed is told, as they did not kill as many Arabs as the Crusaders and, as an Israeli minister stated, the Israeli occupation has been the most compassionate since Paradise was liberated from its occupation by Adam and Eve ). He is not averse to having a few digs at the Palestinians and other Arabs as well but the humour is generally delivered in a flippant manner rather than as hard-nosed satire. A lot has happened since this book was published and it is a pity that he is not around to give us his take on the current situation. Publishing history. First published 1974 by Dar Al-Hilal First published in English by Zed Books in 1985 Translated by Trevor Le Gassick.