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Carregando... The Journey of Little Gandhide Elias Khoury
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"He was born in Mashta Hasan, ran away from his father, who took him to his grandfather's cave, worked in the Miftah bakery in Tripoli, moved to Beirut where he worked in Abu Ayoun's restaurant, and then worked as a shoe shiner. He got married and had two children, Husn and Suad. Husn was a barber, and Suad was sick. He loved life and loved the flavor of it. Alice told him, and the Reverend Amin befriended him, and Davis turned him into a restaurant owner, and the dog died, and Gandhi grieved over the dog more than he grieved for his own father." Such was the journey of Abd al-Karim (Husn al-Ahmadi al-Mughayiri), nicknamed Little Gandhi. As told by Alice to the one who tells the story here, it is, however, not so simple. In the hands of Elias Khoury, the tale of this humble shoe shiner living and working in Beirut during the recent Lebanese war is also the story of a city, perhaps a world, coming apart at the seams.
First published in Beirut, where it has gone through several printings, The Journey of Little Gandhi is representative of Khoury's distinctive style and narrative technique as well as his consistent exploration of Beirut as the locus of competing historical and political forces. As such, the book also reflects the author's significant, ongoing contribution to modern Arab literature. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — Carregando... GênerosClassificação decimal de Dewey (CDD)892.736Literature Literature of other languages Middle Eastern languages Arabic (Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan) Arabic fiction 1945–2000Classificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos E.U.A. (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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Khoury's style creates that fog of war sense. The pivot point of the story is Little Gandhi, or Abd Al-Karim, a shoe shine who is shot down in the street when the Israeli Army entered the city in September 1982. Much of his story -- and that of many others -- is relayed by Alice, an aging prostitute who is actually the main subject in which the narrator is interested. At least 30 different characters make an appearance, from an American University professor to an Episcopal priest to drug traffickers to Alice and Little Gandhi.
This melange means that regardless of whose particular story is being told at the moment and who may be relating it, we are presented a kaleidoscopic, multi-layered tale. One story flows into another story, akin to a person's thought process moving unconsciously from one topic to another to another. Likewise, these stories can be firsthand accounts or hearsay four times removed. Just as in war and its aftermath, the truth, such as it is, can be difficult to discern. Yet this also presents difficulty for many readers.
By necessity, Khoury's literary approach is confusing or labyrinthine, with no consistent linear narrative. To the contrary, The Journey of Little Gandhi is structured so as to render the narrative unstable and ambiguous. Yet that is the essence of the fog of war. Differing reports come from differing people. Motives and movements are confused. Uncertainty and confusion impact lives and decisions. That is exactly what is happening to the people of Beirut in Khoury's tale. It is a city split between and among factions. "Everything in it fell apart." So, rather than just wars and rumors of war, Khoury is telling us of lives and even rumors of life.
Originally published in Arabic in 1989, the book, translated by Paula Haydar, was published in the U.S. in 1994. Those familiar with Western categorizations of genres may call the book, now in newly released trade paper edition, so-called "magical realism." Khoury, however, rejects that classification. There is no need for magical realism in Lebanese literature, he told one interviewer, because life in Lebanon was itself unreal and fantastic. In such circumstances, he says, literature "must put together two elements: seeing and inventing; it must tell the truth and lie; it must combine the real and the fantastic at the same level and at the same moment."
The Journey of Little Gandhi certainly does that as it takes us on journey through recent Lebanese history. The question is whether readers will take the time on the journey to peel back the layers and try to grasp both reality and unreality.
(Originally posted at A Progressive on the Prairie.)