Meeting Rawi Hage - The Story

Stendhal wrote in Red and Black "Familiarity breeds contempt”. Not always Mr. Stendhal, not always. Meeting Rawi Hage definitely proved it wrong. I am not claiming that I now am familiar with this author, but I did get to know him better when he expressed his opinions on different matters during an interview organized by the "Maison Internationale des Écrivains de Beyrouth".  Here are some of the highlights of the event with focus on the main points which made me appreciate this author even more.

 

There's nothing better than a group photo with your friends and one of your favorite authors

1- He thinks that scientists are the best readers. It's true after all, dare to say the opposite? hehehehe

2- He gave me probably the best dedication ever and one of the most thought ones.
"To Isabelle, thank you for giving books a home and a friend."

3- He saw the state in which my book was and I explained that I treat my books as my friends, I eat with them, drink with them, sleep with them etc. and he actually complimented me on that. Gotta respect such people.

4- He considers literature as a good/great substitute to religion. According to him, Lebanon is hijacked by religious leaders who partner with politicians to keep the people divided. This coalition is dooming the country because Lebanese have nothing to hold on to, or fight for. But there is one thing worth fighting for according to Rawi: culture (arts, literature etc.). I realized how true Rawi's vision is after he told us an anecdote about Winston Churchill (who by the way was a passionate painter). In the story, it is said that a minister came up to Churchill asking him to cut off the budget for the ministry of arts and culture in order to limit war expenses and that Churchill refused the suggestion replying that if he does so then what are we fighting for?

4- He highlights the importance of open endings as a means to escape grand morality which is a religious structure. Also in this line, he admits proudly that his aim is to write everything in opposition to Paulo Coelho. This was probably the best part about the whole interview for you ought to know by now how much I hate Coelho's writings!

5- He knows his limits and doesn't pretend to be able to pull out something he cannot. For instance, when my friend pointed asked him whether he is capable of writing from the point of view of a female protagonist (all his previously published books protagonists were men), he humbly admitted that he doesn't have the confidence to do so. Thank you! I mean I have hated many books written by male authors because they really couldn't grasp what women were about and never convinced me once that the protagonist thoughts, words or acts could have been those of a woman.

Other than that, the interview allowed me to discover how Rawi Hage became an author. He wasn't a good student at school but he has always been a secret reader. And then he was encouraged to write but he was mainly trying to write short stories and then ended up with his first book. In addition, many had comments about the fact that he is Lebanese writing in English i.e. not his mother tongue and questioned him about how he sees himself from an identity point of view. To this he answered that English may have helped him find his writer's voice and that he considers himself as a Lebanese Canadian author writing in English who is a little bit of the two types of writers that exist:
- The Socrates ones, the ones that rely on the inside, their lived experiences mostly. "I cannot get away of myself" he joked.

- The ones that rely on the exterior using their research to build a story. He admits that he enjoys this part a lot and overall he simply loves the cathartic process of writing.

Finally, I noticed that Rawi constantly mentions Lebanon and the Lebanese in his talk and his books. Sometimes he does it from an observer point of view, others from a critic point of view like when he claims that education in Lebanon unfortunately focuses mostly on financial success. After all an intellectual is someone who mostly criticizes his own community explains Edward Said. One of the interesting observations was his envisioning of the Lebanese people as existentialist kind of people, Camus-ian in a way, and this is why he justifies the strong Camus presence in one of his books. Another example was the comparison he made between Lebanese and great Russians authors whose works he admires but cannot help to point out how they lack humor unlike Lebanese.




To sum it up, this was an unforgettable encounter, and I hope this post conveys the essence of the interview to you.


Enjoy
Cheers

Message to Story Tellers

Early in the morning, I was driving my car when this heavenly song was played on the radio. Nothing special so far right? You've heard it many times before. Except that you're a crazy book lover, it's autumn; "the season of soul" as Nietzsche calls it, and you have just met one of your most favorite authors of all times: The one and only "Rawi Hage". And suddenly the song has a personal meaning, and your day couldn't have started any better!

 

"Scientists are the best readers." Rawi Hage, personal communication

Rawi Hage wrote several books among which "Carnival", the book that has touched the deepest part in me. Picture this, me listening to the song and Rawi Hage popping to mind. In Arabic, "Rawi" is a name, and it also means story teller. His parents must have had a premonition or something! And this song is just everything I would have ever wanted to tell him and all the writers that make me love books so much. So here it goes:

I will soon post a new entry about my encounter with Rawi Hage. But for now, I just urge you to listen to Souad Massi's song "Raoui". The song comes with English translation for those who don't understand Arabic or Algerian dialect. Let me know if you've liked it and if it makes you think of any story teller in particular.

Cheers

When Mahmoud Darwish Works Get Banned

"Saudi book fair bans 'blasphemous' Mahmoud Darwish works after protest" stated "The Guardian", but I couldn't believe my eyes! What was exactly blasphemous in his works? Couldn't tell, and it wasn't mentioned in the article either. But I definitely know one thing for sure, and that is that the banning is as far as can be from the fair's theme of the year: “Books: An Arch-Bridge Connecting Civilizations”. What a way to ruin a fair's aim, and what a shame to go global for such an achievement! Meanwhile, a reader donated 6 million dollars to New York's public library. Ironic isn't it?

I believe the main reason why I and many book lovers all around the world are outraged by this news has nothing to do with Darwish per se. Even if I am more or less a fan of Darwish, what personally bothers me is that we don't realize that there is nothing more blasphemous than our lack of reading, and oppression of freedom of choice and expression. We, arabs, are among the civilizations that read the least in the world and we still don't get that "The fall of nations and empires begins with the fall of libraries" (Rawi Hage). We still don't get either that literary censorship has always been one of the worst and most dangerous forms of tyranny that societies had to face throughout history.


How is literary censorship dangerous and why should we oppose it one may ask. A detailed answer to this question can be found here. But if you're not in the mood of reading another long text, keep in mind that Socrates was sentenced to death for "his corruption of youth and his acknowledgement of unorthodox divinities" and that the Nazis and the Apartheid regimes among others censored books, I mean burned them in Nazi Germany including works of Einstein (or so I was told during my tour in Berlin). Still not dangerous enough for you to oppose it? Well, many authors have been also imprisoned, tortured or killed by these two regimes (and others), in addition to mass extermination of people proving German author Heinrich Heine to be right when he warned that "Burning books would end in burning humans". Stop the first, and you'll stop the second, it's as simple as that.
  

Of course, the internet nowadays makes it impossible to ban almost anything in the world. But just because we are comfortable knowing that nothing can be truly banned, does not mean that it's ok to sit and do nothing. There is one thing that should always be done and that is refusing to give up our most basic human right: "the freedom of choice". We can also let the people in charge know how we feel about it, and hold them accountable for their actions.


Yours truly,

 

"Beware beware of my hunger And of my anger"
Mahmoud Darwish

Carnival by Rawi Hage - Summary - The book to read people

Keywords: Book lovers, circus, taxi drivers, friendship, life

 

Summary: Fly was born in a circus. His mother was a trapeze artist and his father who came from the east, owned a camel and a flying carpet. When Fly’s father became a believer, he pinned his carpet to the ground and left him and his mother and never came back. To cope with her abandoning, Fly’s mother started having lovers whom Fly was aware of, and when it didn't help much, she put an end to her life. Fly was next raised by the bearded lady and he wandered with the circus through Europe before settling in the Carnival city where everyone is disguised: those who wear animal masks and those who don’t. Fly then becomes a taxi driver and the reader gets invited into his world which consists of his apartment, his cab and the restaurant where he often takes his meals. According to Fly, there are two types of taxi drivers depending on the way they pick up customers. He calls these two types: the Spiders and the Flies. Fly does not wait for customers at taxi stands like the Spiders; instead, true to his Fly nature, he prefers to wander looking for the wavers and the whistlers.

His apartment is more or less a library unique in its style. It is full of books that contain the world. Fly subjectively classifies his books in a very peculiar way that defies every methodology of documentation ever conceived. “I sit on books, sleep on them, breathe them. I arrange them by character, the colour of their skies, and the circumference of their authors’ heads” he lets us know. We also learn that Fly has a crush on his neighbor, the religious Zainab with whom he constantly argues about religion. When he's not picking up on Zainab or reading, Fly spend his time masturbating, a habit that has started when he first saw his mother and her collection of “bare assed lovers” making out.

In his cab, Fly meets all sorts of people: Drug dealers, thugs, lovers, sex addicts, prostitutes, priests, broken couples, abused women etc. Every day is a new adventure in the cab, or his boat as he prefers to call it.

In the restaurant, we get to meet Fly’s numerous comrades and learn about their personal as well as work related stories.

An important person in Fly’s life is Otto, his revolutionary friend with whom in the past, he shared an apartment and a now passed away girlfriend. Otto lives on the streets, and he is not very sane, mentally speaking. He gets Fly to help him in a mission targeted against a list of important people in the city that he has identified and judged as worthy of punishment. The awkward sentence he chose to impose on the people of his list is to force them to read selected passages while he, Otto, is disguised as a clown and pointing a gun to their heads. Apparently you should “Never underestimate a clown with a book”. Unexpectedly, Tamer, a kid practically raised by Fly and Otto ends up involved in the killing of some of the people from Otto’s list which makes Otto put an end to his life and drives Fly to fly away from the Carnival city.

 

You can also check my video on youtube so that you know how much I liked "Carnival" and what I thought about the writing, the theme and everything else.