LITERATURE AND NATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

writing the nation33. See, for instance, the translator’s ‘Introduction’, 14.34. The appropriation of the traditionally female power of (re)generation by maleheroes and deities is a common occurrence in the myths of many cultures, and onewhich some feminists see as representing an historical transition from matriarchal,or at least matrilineal, societies to patriarchal and patrilineal societies. Compare, forinstance, the Sumerian epic Inanna with the Babylonian epic Gilgamesh. Also seeHesiod’s Theogony.35. Long sees al-Hakim’s own relationship with his mother clearly depicted here, and init the source of the misogynistic current that runs through much of his work (2–3,132–43).36. Despite its many problems, Edward Said’s Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books,1979) remains the classic statement on the subject.37. On the derivative nature of third-world nationalisms, see Partha Chatterjee,Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse (Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press, 1986).38. This is why the novel’s apparent elaboration of the familiar romantic oppositionwhich pits the heart as emblem of Eastern spirituality against the mind as emblem ofWestern materialism is finally untenable. For a discussion of this opposition, seeStarkey, 118–29.39. On the necessary sacrifice of love in the pursuit of artistic creation as a recurringtheme in al-Hakim’s work, see Long, 138–40. I attempt to tease out the furthersignificance of this romantic motif in what follows.40. It is worth noting that despite Nasser’s admiration for al-Hakim, the latter was in hislater work increasingly critical of Nasser’s rule. See Long, 152–62, and Starkey, 180–1.41. Kilpatrick’s observation, that the novel’s depiction of the 1919 revolution reflectsboth the general tendency of the time to see independence itself as a ‘panacea forthe country’s problems’ and the attitude of the majority who were thus ‘intoxicatedby nationalism for its own sake’ (43–4), is quite pertinent here.— 161 —www.taq.ir