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Towards an Egyptian Bildungsroman: The National Intellectual after the 1919 Revolution in Naguib Mahfouz's Sugar Street
Abstract
Reading Naguib Mahfouz's Sugar Street (1957) as a Bildungsroman, I argue that Mahfouz creates an Egyptian Bildungsroman that relies on constant revision of European forms and a merging of local and global paradigms to fit the Egyptian socio-historical context. Mahfouz rejects both the traditional Bildungsroman as well as classical indigenous forms as signifiers of mimicry and petrification respectively. While the resolution of the Bildungsroman entails the negation of the Other, whose maturation is requisite upon accepting models that marginalize him/her, classical models render the Other a geographic and temporal anachronism. In place of the traditional Bildungsroman and classical Arabic literary models, Mahfouz advocates for an eclectic paradigm that changes with the historical moment.
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Notes
The Cairo Trilogy comprises Palace Walk (1956); Palace of Desire (1957); and Sugar Street (1957).
Sasson Somekh, The Changing Rhythm: A Study of Naguib Maḥfuz's Novels (Leiden: Brill, 1973), 39; Naguib Mahfuz, Atahaddathu ilaykum (Beirut: Dar al-ʿAwdah, 1977), 33, 48.
Rasheed El-Enany, Naguib Mahfouẓ: His Life and Times (Cairo, Egypt: American University in Cairo Press, 2007), 4.
Rasheed El-Enany, Naguib Mahfouz: The Pursuit of Meaning (London; New York: Routledge, 1993), 91.
See Lisa Lowe, Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996), 42-101; Geta LeSeur, Ten is the Age of Darkness: The Black Bildungsroman (Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1995; Elizabeth Abel, Marianna Hirsch and Elizabeth Langland, eds, The Voyage In: Fictions of Female Development (Hanover; New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 1983).
Karl Marx, Frederick Engels and Eric J. Hobsbawm, The Communist Manifesto: A Modern Edition (London: Verso, 1998); Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000).
Chakrabarty, Provincializing, 97-113.
Ibid., 27-71.
Gamal al-Ghitani, al-Majalis al-Mahfuziyyah (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 2006), 174-175.
Naguib Mahfouz, Sugar Street, trans. William M. Hutchins and Anzhil Butrus Samʾan (New York: Anchor Books, 1993), 10. Page references in text.
Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), 86.
Bhabha, Location, 97.
Shawqi Dayf, al-Hubb al-ʿudhri ʿinda al-ʿarab (Cairo: al-Dar al-Misriyyah al-Lubnaniyyah, 1999), 19-27. For the story of Majnun Layla see Muhammad Saʿid Daghli, Ahadith ghazilah fi al-ghazalayn al-ʿudhri wa-al-ʿumari wa-imtidadatuhuma fi al-ghazal al-Arabi (Damascus: Maktabat Usamah, 1985), 361-397.
For the history of ʿAntar and the transmission of the romance across the ages, see Peter Heath, The Thirsty Sword: Sirat ʿAntar and the Arabic Popular Epic (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1996) and Fawzi M. Amin ʿAntarah ibn Shaddad al-ʿAbsi (Alexandria, Egypt: Dar al-Maʿrifah al-Jamiʿiyyah, 1992).
On social classes in 1930s and 1940s Egypt see Israel Gershoni and James P. Jankowski, “Introduction,” in Israel Gershoni and James P. Jankowski, eds, Redefining the Egyptian Nation, 1930–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 7-11.
Bhabha, Location, 87, emphasis in original.
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Richard Philcox (New York: Grove Press, 2004), 171-172.
See ʿIzzat Hasan, Shiʿr al-wuquf ʿala al-atlal min al-jahiliyyah ila nihayat al-qarn al-thalith: dirasah tahliliyyah (Damascus: al-Taraqqi, 1968) and Hilary Kilpatrick, “Literary Creativity and the Cultural Heritage: The Atlal in Modern Arabic Fiction,” in Issa J Boullata, Kamal Abdel-Malek, and Wael B. Hallaq, eds, Tradition, Modernity, and Postmodernity in Arabic Literature: Essays in Honor of Professor Issa J. Boullata (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 28-44.
For a history of the origins of the Arabic novel see M. M. Badawi, Modern Arabic Literature and the West (London: Ithaca Press, 1985), 128-135, and Roger M. A. Allen, The Arabic Novel: An Historical and Critical Introduction (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1982).
Mahfouz, al-Sukkariyyah, 4th edition (Cairo: Maktabat Misr, 1962), 288, 289.
Fanon, Wretched, 170-72.
For characteristics of the poetry of al-hubb al ʿudhri see Yusuf Yusuf, al-Ghazal al-ʿudhri: dirasah fi al-hubb al-maqmu' (Damascus: Manshurat Ittihad al-Kuttab al-ʿArab, 1978), 34–69; Salah ʿId, al-Ghazal al-ʿudhri: ḥaqiqat al-zahirah wa-khasaʾis al-fann (Cairo: Maktabat al-ʾAdab, 1993).
Referring to Kamal in Sugar Street as an “anti-climax,” Somekh explains that, although static, Kamal is not a flat character in the last volume. Somekh argues that Mahfouz intentionally focuses on Kamal in order to “underline the tragedy of a man who comes to an impasse through inaction,” thus anticipating several Mahfouz protagonists “who reach a point of absolute passiveness,” Somekh, Changing, 120.
Latifa al-Zayyat describes Sawsan as the first woman in Mahfouz's work who goes beyond the private to the public and who dedicates her life to nation and working class, proving that women could participate in the social context. See Latifah al-Zayyat, Min suwar al-marʾah fi al-qisas wa-al-riwayat al-ʿArabiyyah (Cairo: Dar al-Thaqafah al-Jadidah, 1989), 129-164 for al-Zayyat's analysis of the role of woman in Mahfouz's literature between 1939 and 1973.
Abdul R. JanMohamed, Manichean Aesthetics: The Politics of Literature in Colonial Africa (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1983), 1-15.
Fanon, Wretched, 158-59.
Ibid., 173.
Naguib Mahfouz and Fathi ʿAshri, Hawla al-taharrur wa-al-taqaddum (Cairo: al-Dar al-Misriyyah al-Lubnaniyyah, 1996), 85-86; Ghitani, 82, 85.
Enany, Pursuit, 23.
For a brief history of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt see Kamal Helbawy, “The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt: Historical Evolution and Future Prospects,” in Khaled Hroub, ed., Political Islam: Context versus Ideology (London: London Middle East Institute at SOAS, 2010), 61–85.
See Tareq Y. Ismael and Rifaʿat el-Saʿid, The Communist Movement in Egypt, 1920–1988, (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990) for the history of communism and socialism in Egypt.
Somekh, Changing, 122–123.
Naguib Mahfouz and Mahmoud Fawzi, Iʿtirafat Naguib Mahfuz (Cairo: Dar al-Shabab al-ʿArabi, 1990) 63–64.
On the Copts in the Wafd see Janice J. Terry, The Wafd, 1919–1952: Cornerstone of Egyptian Political Power (London: Third World Centre for Research and Publication, 1982). To this day, prominent Copts, such as former Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour, continue to be part of the Wafd Party.
For a comprehensive history of events from 1937 to 1944 see Raf i, Fi aʿqab, Vol. 2, 174-221 and Vol. 3, 44–138.
Ahmad Muhammad ʿAtiyyah, ʿAdwaʾ jadidah ʿala al-thaqafah al-ʿArabiyyah: ahadith ʿArabiyyah (Cairo: Raʿ lil-Tabʿ wa-al-Nashr, 1980), 57-59. For the revolution in Palace Walk and the various attitudes of the Abd al-Jawad bourgeois family towards the events, see Ahmad Muhammad ʿAtiyah, Maʿa Naguib Mahfouz (Beirut: Dar al-Jil; 1977), 51-70.
Ismael, Communist, 26.
Mahfouz and ʿAshri, Iʿtirafat, 63-64.
Naguib Mahfouz and Ibrahim ʿAbd Al-ʿAziz, Asatidhati (Cairo: Mirit lil-Nashr wa-al-Maʿlumat, 2002), 229-230.
Mahmoud A. ʿAlim criticized Mahfouz in 1957 for the absence of a female activist as a counterpart to Fahmy. See Mahmoud ʾAmin ʿAlim, Taʾammulat fi ʿalam Naguib Mahfouz (Cairo: al-Hayʾah al-Misriyyah al-ʿAmmah lil-Taʾlif wa-al-Nashr, 1970), 113.
Ahmad Muhammad ʿAtiyyah, Maʿa Naguib Mahfouz (Beirut: Dar Al-Jil, 1977), 41.
Incidentally, this critique is one that the Arab literary Left leveled at Mahfouz. Ghali Shukri, al-Muntami: dirasah fi ʿAdab Naguib Mahfouz, 3rd edition (Beirut: Dar al ʾAfaq al Jadidah, 1982), 73.
Allen, Arabic Novel, 56 and Ghitani, 151-152.
Abou ʿAwf names Mahfouz the writer who most understood and best analyzed the bourgeoisie in its interaction with, its negotiations and oscillation between loyalty to the high bourgeoisie, the laborers and the peasants as well as what he calls the class's utilitarian cleverness, ʿAbd Al-Rahman Abou ʿAwf, Fusul fil naqd wal Adab (Cairo: al Hayʾah al Misriyyah al ʿAmah lil Kitab, 1996), 69.
ʿAbd Al-ʿAzim Anis and Mahmoud Amin, Fi al-thaqafah al-Misriyyah, 2nd edition (Rabat: Dar al-Aman, 1988), 31-34. See also 'Atiyah, Ma'a Naguib Mahfouz, 37.
ʿAtiyah remarks that the radical hero in Mahfouz's fiction belongs to the middle bourgeoisie, not the proletariat, and notes the absence of laborers and peasants. Ibid.
Anis, Fi Al-thaqafah, 111-116.
Ibid., 123-124. Anis' critique seems to accurately describe Mahfouz's vision who professed “‘bias’ for the small bourgeoisie, which he viewed as the candidate for the salvation of humanity,'” Enany, Life, 31-32, emphasis in original.
Shukri, Al-Muntami, 21-22. On al muntami between faith and socialism in Mahfouz's work see Shukri, al-Muntami, 206-94.
Ibid., 206-294.
ʿAtiyah, Maʿa Naguib Mahfouz, 37. Abou ʿAwf adds that the experiences of Mahfouz's communist characters, which mix Fabian socialism with Marxist thought, are unrelated to the experiences of leftist activists. See Abou ʿAwf, al-Ruʾa, 111-122 on the leftist intellectual in Mahfouz.
Anis, Fi al-thaqafah, 118-119.
Naguib Mahfouz, Atahaddathu ilaykum (Beirut: Dar al-ʿAwdah, 1977), 45.
Shukri, al-Muntami, 228-230.
Mahfouz, Hawla al-taharrur, 187-188.
Ibid., 99-100.
Enany, Life, 5.