Category: being the human
on the biting wisdom of poets [two], mahmoud darwish
Mine is a very short review in today’s Independent [in which you can also read Robert Fisk direct from al Tahrir Square, Cairo!] but then it’s a very short book and I couldn’t pretend that length diminished this version (in Mohammed Shaheen’s translation) of Darwish’s Absent Presence!
I’ve quoted Mahmoud Darwish’s own use of the word “baffling”, below. What is truly baffling is that in English there are almost as many translators as editions of his books. A lesser voice would have been neutered by this, but Darwish is a national writer on a par with any nation and simply deserves better.
Absent Presence,
By Mahmoud Darwish
Lessons in life from the great divide
Reviewed by Guy Mannes-Abbott
Monday, 31 January 2011
Mahmoud Darwish was a giant of world literature.
This elegant edition of the last completed work before the Palestinian poet’s death in 2008 makes clear why. Absent Presence is a huge little book which defies conventional categorisation. It offers costly wisdoms Continue reading “on the biting wisdom of poets [two], mahmoud darwish”
on the biting wisdom of poets [one], mourid barghouti
What is happening, hopefully, in Egypt is truly momentous and it has been a long time coming, as MB says below; “When it happens, it will not have happened suddenly.” He is referring to a wider phenomenon across the Arab world, which is, I think, really the end [the real ending] of the post-Imperial age, the beginning of the beginning [the real beginning] of a new Arab autonomy and matching political culture. That is the prize. If Egypt completes its transformation, then it will be inevitable though not immediate and not in a single step. As such, it’s something that I’m only observing with respect and pleasure from just one ex-colonial capital!
A brief introductory quote from Tamim Barghouti’s related piece;
“Tunisia sent out the message that client regimes fall – that if we can drive the empires out, we will surely be able to drive out their vassals Continue reading “on the biting wisdom of poets [one], mourid barghouti”
on egypt, the price of a cab to the airport today
‘One of the chants in Cairo has been: “Gamal, tell your father that Egyptians hate you.”‘
“Christian or Muslim it’s not important, similar poverty similar concerns! Hosni Mubarak, Hosni Mubarak, the plane is waiting, the plane is waiting. Saudi Arabia is not far!” … A picture of an empty tear gas canister circulated, the zoom focusing in on ‘Made in USA’.’
Of course the state of Israel is confident that its quisling siege-partner will hold on to his throne with yet another display of force; about the only thing that Israel does or recognises. Reason enough, then!
M.I.A. once sang “What can I get for $10?” A cab to the airport perhaps? Go, go, go, go, go…
on gertrude [one], if i told him would he like it
Would he like it if I told him Gertrude Stein 1923
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
For me this is where Gertrude’s wording, word-images, word-drawing of things, objects [Tender Buttons] and then people [Portraits and Prayers] really began to work. Really explodes. I love all of it of course, but this sounds like/conjures its object to me. It’s object is Picasso and this is the notebook manuscript of that gorgeous portrait of him that made its author so excited.
The Bienecke Rare Book and Manuscript collection of Gertrude and Alice’s is stunning. Sometimes I want to go and live there, burn my passport, unscrew the door handles, sit, read, be –eventually write. Meanwhile, Continue reading “on gertrude [one], if i told him would he like it”
حول حكايات غزة
On Narrating Gaza
By Guy Mannes-Abbott
[With huge thanks to a, b and m -at least]
غاي مان-أبوت
عندما يتعلق الأمر بالحصارات، فإنه لا بد من الدقة من أجل الج دال حول الأ سبقية. يبدو
المحاصرون في المكان بأكمله، وفي الوقت بأكمله كذلك. المحاصرون هم ذاتهم على الدوام؛ حيوان
قابع في الوقت، وبمروره يأسر المكان، ويتحول المكان إلى وقت بحد ذاته. الهواء خانق، والنهاية
جماعية على كل حال، لكنها لم تقع قيد التفصيل بعد، أنت وحدك في ذلك العمق السحيق. ينتمي
الحصار العسكري إلى عصور سابقة، إلا أنه لا يزال أكثر فجاجة لكي يبقى هناك، أي في غزة.
، غزة، حيث يقبع مليون ونصف شخص -معظمهم من اللاجئين- تحت الحصار منذ حزيران ۲۰۰۷
بسبب جرأتهم على تمني العيش في وقتهم وفي مكانهم. فيما بدأ محاصروهم في ۲۷ كانون الأول
من العام ۲۰۰۸ ، الاحتفال بمطلع العام الجديد مبكراً، منتشين بذروة الاحتفال بهدية من قذائف
الفسفور الأبيض، على مدارس الأطفال التي لجأ إليها الناجون. على مرأى أعين عالم لم يرَ لذلك
.الأمر مثيلاً من قبل Continue reading “حول حكايات غزة”
on radwa ashour’s spectres/atyaaf, in today’s independent
Spectres (Atyaaf),
By Radwa Ashour
Trans Barbara Romaine
Pleased to see my very short review, shortened further to fit, of Spectres in today’s Independent: “Personal, Political and Painful” [UPDATE see below for full original review & an update from MW’s obituary for Radwa].
It ends;
“Spectres combines invention, unofficial history and human abyss in an elliptical novel in which Ashour articulates an ethics rooted in Arabian and ancient Egyptian cultures. The result transforms a bleak constellation into a quietly stirring beacon. Spectres provides an irresistible companion to Barghouti’s memoir I Saw Ramallah, and a contrast to Elias Khoury’s more traditional Gate of the Sun. Spectres is a boldly original novel by an important writer whose exemplary work we need more of in English.”
I had a little more to say, but would only add now that the companionship with those two titles was predicated crucially on the words, “in translation”, thus referring to the disgracefully small pool of Arabic writing yet in English. As it stands it might be read as a weird and old-fashioned kind of valorisation, no? The word “demanding” has also gone from elsewhere, and again, I only mention it because though it’s indubitably great to see the novel celebrated in The Independent, it is the best of things; a demanding read in more ways than one.
My similarly tiny review of the Mahmoud Darwish’s rivetingly demanding Absent Presence (in the Mohammad Shaheen translation) will appear in due course… (UPDATE 2018: clean link here.)
Continue reading “on radwa ashour’s spectres/atyaaf, in today’s independent”
on ‘translated by’, the details…
Translated By
[CLICK image for details]
Curated by Charles Arsène Henry and Shumon Basar
Featuring Douglas Coupland, Rana Dasgupta, Julien Gracq, Hu Fang, Jonathan Lethem, Tom McCarthy, Guy Mannes Abbott, Sophia Al Maria, Hisham Matar, Adania Shibli and Neal Stephenson
*NB [UPDATE] The accompanying book will be published February 10th, details here and below; Continue reading “on ‘translated by’, the details…”
on narrating gaza, a view from europe in babelmed [gaza four]
It’s 2 years since Israel’s last assault on Gaza, in which it dropped white phosphorus in to school playgrounds. Narrating Gaza attempts to break a terrible silence on the subject by enabling Gazans to tell and show their stories -in remembrance and resistance.
I’m extremely pleased and gratified that my little essay has also been published by Babelmed here. In fact, it’s now up in English on the narrating gaza site itself here. Check Babelmed’s homepage here.
on silence or not, cage blake alÿs and on…
Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing…” made sense, mainly because it was such a great track back in the mid-90s, right? Cage Against the Machine, the attempt to block/buy the No. 1 slot for a recording of John Cage’s 4’33” -a rigorously orchestrated slice of atmospheric sound, often described as silence- was always a bit too clever and so a bit too dumb to work, no?
Kenneth Silverman’s recent biography of Cage, Begin Again, is a pretty straight celebratory record of an entirely remarkable life [and not published in the UK!]. Cage spans [subverts?] or strides [meanders?] the 20th Century in very particular ways, making work from beginning to end nearly and constantly mining the same seam of inventive attempts.
Always beginning again, afresh, anew -so the thesis runs. KS makes an epigram of Gertrude Stein’s gorgeous line from The Making of Americans; “Beginning was all of living with him, in a beginning he was always as big in his feeling as all the world around him.” The way in which this actualises is exemplary even while it creates doubt in me too -as the book goes on dutifully detailing yet another I Ching derived whatever!
4’33” was achieved using a deck of tarot cards, which even Cage said “seems idiotic” but he composed each movement by joining up randomised periods of silence with precise measures which totalled four minutes and thirty three seconds. The point, one made more precise by his subsequent visit of Ryoanji and fuller acquaintance with Zen, was that the ‘silence’ is a pregnant one, like the stone garden’s potent ‘blankness’.
Two thoughts; one links directly to the gorgeous version of Feist’s song, There’s a Limit to Your Love, that James Blake put out a month ago. As you know, the track is a departure from his flurry of promising EPs released this year alone, including CMYK and Klavierwerke, for foregrounding his voice against a piano track redolent of Nina Simone and an electronic bassquake. Apart from just enjoying it and its arguably rather more local newness I was struck by the ‘silence’ it contains. Or near silence, Continue reading “on silence or not, cage blake alÿs and on…”
NOTES FROM A FRUITSTORE 
