Wen-Chin Ouyang the Epical Turn of Romance
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WEN-CHIN OUYANG (SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES- loNDON) THE EPICAL TURN OF ROMANCE: LOVE IN THE NARRATIVE OF 'UMARAL-NU'MAN hahriyar rose to his feet, his heart surging with overpowering S emotions. He plunged into the garden above the royal walkways as a faint specter amid the forms of giant trees under countless stars. Voices of the past pressed in on his ears, erasing the melodies of the garden; the cheers of victory, the roars of anger, the groans of virgins, the raging of believers, the singing of hypocrites, and the calling of God's name from atop the minarets. The falseness of specious glory was made clear co him, like a mask of tattered paper that does not conceal the snakes of cruelty, tyranny, pillage, and blood that lie be hind it. He cursed his father and his mother, the givers of pernicious legal judgments and the poets, the cavaliers of deception, the robbers of the treasury, the whores from noble families, and the gold chat was plundered and squandered on glasses of wine, elaborate turbans, fancy walls and furniture, empty hearts and suicidal soul, and the de risive laughter of the universe. 1 This passage marks the beginning of the end of Nagib M~fii;'s reformulation of che One Thousand and One Nights. In M~fii;'s "sequel" to the "original" Nights, Laya/i alf lay/a, Sahrayar, who internalii.es the stories Sahm.ad has been telling him over a period of three years, has now taken an interest in the running of his kingdom, and above all, in justice. Emulating Hariin al-Rasid in Sahr azad's tales, Sahrayar often disguises himself as a merchant, accompanied only by his vizier and chamberlain, and tours his kingdom at night to inspect the affairs of his subjects and to bring relief to them from the miseries unjustly meted out against them. Yet his attempts at redeeming his own acts of tyranny and blood shed in the three years preceding his union with Sahrazad could bring him no respite. Wisdom, for which a fire has been ignited in his heart, remains elusive, and a brighter future illusory. Indeed, how would it be possible to envision a future basking in the light of justice when the present, the starting point of this future, is forever haunted by the "darkness" of its past. Lessons of the past, though illuminating in more ways than one, provide no alternative courses of action. I - Quoted from Denys Johnson-Davies' cranslacion, Arabian Nights and Days (New York, Doubleday, 1995), p. 216. All quotation in English will be from chis translation. 486 WEN-CHIN OUYANG Upon his return from one of his nocturnal journeys, his lase in Ma~fii;'s novel, Sahrayar calls Sahrazad co him and informs her of his decision co leave the palace, to give up his kingdom and kingship, in order co give way co just, pure rule (afta& lahti [i.e. 'the City'] btib al-naqa') and co find his personal re demption (baftif in Arabic; deliverance [Ma~fii;, p. 259]). In his enlightened state of mind, he has become aware chat his past sins have disqualified him co be the ruler of his kingdom. More importantly, he realizes chat Sahrazad's heart does not belong co him: "the truth is chat your body is inclining but your heart contemptuous." (Johnson-Davies, p. 279). Like wisdom, love has slipped through his fingers. Subsequently, Sahrayar leaves, and on his journey he comes upon an ethereal city in which he is able co find happiness - he marries its queen and discovers love for the first time in his life (p. 289-290). He spends a hundred years with his new wife, loving, meditating and worshipping (p. 289). His so journ in chis heaven-like world, however, does not lase forever. Like Adam, his curiosity leads him to the forbidden door. As soon as he opens it, he falls back down co earth. Problematique ofLove in Arabic Literature Ma~fii;'s novel, he says in an interview with FUful, a leading Arabic literacy journal published in Egypt, is a contemplation on the "political reality" of the Arab world as well as a "metaphysical medication" (FUfUl 13: 2 [Summer 1994], p. 380), primarily on the paradoxical relations between wisdom, or knowledge, and salvation. The themes he deals with in his re-written version of the Nights are all, according co him, inspired by chis world-famous collection of popular Arabic stories. In Mahfiiz's novel, many of the well-known stories, such as, Sindbad, Nur al-Din a0nd Anis al-Galis, 'Ala' al-Din Abu al-Samac, Ma'ruf al Iskafi, Que al-Quliib (and Ganim lbn Ayyub), are re-written. The new versions of these stories, without losing their original fantastic (gara' ibi 'agti' ibi) qual ity, are part of Ma~fii;'s mediation on the discourses of power. Visibly absent are love stories, or stories of "wrenching" or "enduring" love, such as chose of Tag al-Muluk and Dunya, 'Aziz and 'Aziza, Niir al-Din and Sams al-Nahar, and Nur al-Din and Anis al-Galis, not co mention the well-know love stories traditionally attributed co the tribe of 'UQra and which are abundant in the Nights. The absence of these love stories in Layti/i is symptomatic of the elu siveness of love in all Ma~fii;'s novels as well as in ocher works by contempo rary Arab story-tellers, excluding of course chose belonging to the marginalised popular "romance" genre. In the various attempted "sequels" of the Nights, the now universally expected happy ending, is drastically altered, almost falling prey co the contemporary cliche that there is no such thing as happily ever after. In the wake of the completion of Nights stories, Ma~fii;'s Sahrazad, upon receiving Sahrayar's pardon and indeed having saved che nation, openly admits co her father Dandan that she lives in misery (ta' isa) in the absence of love be tween herself and Sahrayar. His love for her is declared to be impossible at the beginning of the novel. In response co her father's entreaty, «He loves you .