ميسلون هادي والدكتور نجم عبدالله كاظم موقع الكاتبة العراقية ميسلون هادي و الدكتور نجم عبدالله كاظم
Abdulrahman Majeed Al-Rbay’i
Between Iraqi Environment and Hemingway’s World
By, Dr. Najim A. Kadhim
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Abdulrahman Majeed Al-Rybay’i is the most famous and popular writer of fiction of political themes in Iraq. He born in Al-Nasiriyya, the well known city in the south of the country, in 1939, studied art at The Institute of Fine Arts and received a diploma in 1958. He worked in the South as an art teacher for a while and then returned to Baghdad to continue his studies at the university there, being awarded a B.A. in Art in 1958. Then and afterword, during the years of his youth, Al-Rubay’i devoted much of his time to reading, writing, painting and working in the field of journalism.
From his reading in particular, it is obvious that Al-Rubayi’i’s literary education was derived from two main sources. The first was modern Arabic writing of the well-known writers of twentieth century such as Taha Hussien, Salama Musa, Al-Rafi’i, Al-‘Aqqad and of course Najib Mahfuz, by whom generations of Arab writers and intellectuals have been educated and literarily affected. The second source is Western literature especially the Russian and the American, chiefly Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gorki, Camus, Sholokhov, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Faulkner. The early result of this artistic and literary education and reading in the sixties was the publication of the writer’s early attempts at short stories, poetry and criticism. One of the most important of these publications is his first collection of short stories Al-Sayf wa-al-Safina, 1966 which has been always considered as a major and prominent collection in Iraqi fiction. Since then he has led a life full of travels, of varied life experiences, of artistic, literary, critical and press activities and has published nearly forty books.
Throughout this long career Al-Rubay’i has published fourteen collections of short stories, three novellas and five novels. He has also published many books of poetry, criticism and biography. It is true that “once a good writer has written five or six books, there is always a pattern present. The pattern can be observed in its simplest terms merely by watching for recurrent themes, or in a more detailed fashion. The important thing is obviously the writing itself, as a specific thing.” (Schwartz/ in John McCaffery: Ernest Hemingway, 1956, p 115). Looking for such phenomena in Al-Rubay’i’s career, we feel that he derives most of his subjects and ideas from his own personal life and the socio-political reality of modern Iraq. His fiction usually deals with social and political experiences and issues; and conflicts and the predicament of individuals within them. This has not caused his whole works to be alike in terms of art and thought there is, of course, the pattern that a good writer has, as mentioned by Schwartz.
( 2 )
There are, I believe, four factors behind the diversity and variety found in Al-Rubay’i’s fiction. The first is the fact that he is a good writer and has written numerous books, many of which have a good artistic and literary reputation. The second is the richness and fullness of his life, which is behind many of his works and achievements. The third is the unusual historical and social period of Iraq which itself is rich and full of events, conflicts and changes. The fourth is the writer’s deep desire, in his writing, for change, diversity and innovation. Knowing all of this and examining his literary career and the development of his style and art suggests four stages or groups of works. (See Kadhim, Al-Riwaya fi al-Iraq, p106-107).
In the first stage Al-Rubay’i published three collections of short stories. The first of these collections, Al-Sayf wa-al-Safina, became one of the most representatives of the so-called generation of the sixties. In the stories of this collection and of the others “the writer… adopted the educated and petty bourgeois.” The next two collections of short stories revealed that the writer was on his way to a new artistic approach. These two collections, the writer’s first novella Al-Washm (1972) and his second one Uyun fi al-Hulum (1974), which is included in the second collection, makes up the second stage of his production. While we find, in these books, the new approach of the writer towards realism, we also still find some of the characteristics of the previous group- the shade of existentialism and experimentalism, and the rise of the ego. In his third stage the writer published four novels, the most important of which was Al-Anhar (1974), and three collections of short stories. In all these works Al-Rubay’i settled on one subject, which was the nationalist struggle and which by what we like to call nationalistic realism. The last work of this stage, the novel Khutut al-Tul, Khutut al-Ardh (1983), paves the way towards the beginning of the fourth and the last stage of writer in the beginning of which he published three collections of short stories. This beginning of the stage shows a certain regression the writer’s art and production as compared with his early writings. However, later he would publish a collection of short stories and three novels by which we believe that he resumed his early artistically distinguished career which. Of these last works we read his last collection of short stories Imra’a min Huna, Rajul min Hinak (1998) and the very big novel Nahib al-Rafidayn (2011).
( 3 )
Apart from being one of the main figures in Iraqi and Arabic fiction, there are three main factors that make Abdulrahman Majid Al-Rubay’i an ideal writer for any comparative dealing with intercultural and literary influence. He is even more ideal for such a study when it deals with Hemingway and his style, fictional world, and the way of writing. The first of these three factors is that he himself admits being influenced by other writers, of whom Hemingway is the main one. The second is the similarities between the lives, interests, experiences and careers of the two writers. The third and the most important one is his literary texts as they show us, on many levels, the similarities with Hemingway’s work. Al-Rubay’i himself self-confidently acknowledges that he has read and then fascinated and influenced by world writers, especially Hemingway. Al-Rubay’i, in a speech given by him, says,
From early on I knew many Arab and world writers… I read the American novel, and was attached to the works of Erskine Caldwell, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck and William Faulkner. (Lecture given in Sorbonne University, 1982).
More than that, he adds, in an interview we made with him,
I admired Hemingway and William Faulkner very much, and read all their works… I re-read Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the sea, The Sun Also Rises, and all his novels and short stories. (Our Interview, 1981).
It would be interesting to note the curious similarities, mentioned above, between Al-Rubay’i and Hemingway in term of their lives, career, personalities. Talking about Al-Rubay’i’s life and activities, perhaps the only two things that were done by Hemingway that has not done by him are participation in warfare and hunting. Reviewing the fiction of the two writers and the similarities between them, I dare say if Al-Rubay’i had practiced those two activities he would certainly have done what Hemingway did and written about them. In fact his fiction seems to derive from his own personality, experiences and whole life. He says,
The first and closest person to me in all my writings is he who is shaped in me myself, not as a writer but as a human being with all my practices and experiences; in my pride and repression and recession; and in my triumphs and defeats. That is why I am keen to enrich this (self) of mine by reading, traveling, throwing myself in the experience and venture and entering the core of the world and not standing on its edges… the experiences would not come to the writers while they are spending their days by sterile talks. The experiences do not come to writers while they spend their days in sterile. Instead, they must go to those experiences and invade their fields… May we give examples for this such as Hemingway, Malraux, Laurence, Darrel and others? (Alrubay’i, Ru’a wa Zhilal, 244-245).
In the careers matter, “first of all, both Hemingway and Al-Rubay’i began their literary careers writing and publishing poetry and short stories. Hemingway published a successful collection of short stories, In Our Time in 1924 which marked the real beginning of his career, and Al-Rubay’i published his first collection Al-Sayf wa-al-Safina in (1966), which very soon became the most famous collection of its time. With his first novel The Sun Also Rises (1926), Hemingway achieved great success. Al-Washm (1972), the first short novel of Al-Rubay’i, achieved a very noticeable advance in the development of the Iraqi novel. After his first success and the publication of his second successful novel A Farewell to Arms (1929), the American novelist entered a period of reverse, with the exception of For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) and published his known failure Across the River and into the Trees in 1950. As for the Iraqi novelist, the period of his artistic decline began after his second successful short novel Uyun fi al-Hulum (1974), and this decline, with the exception of the moderately successful novel Al-Anhar (1974), reached its lowest point in Al-Wakr (1980). The art of Hemingway began to rise again with The Old Man and the Sea (1952).” (Kadhim, Al-Riwaya fi al-Iraq, p181-182). While Al-Rubay’i began such a rise by publishing a new long novel Khutut al-Tul Khutut al-‘Ardh (1983), he had not carried on this art restoration until two decades later.
Saying all this about Al-Rubay’i’s similarities with Hemingway would mean nothing in terms of being influence by the American novelist unless we find some of such similarities in his work. However, his passionate and enthusiastic fondness of Hemingway’s personality, experiences and writings would certainly have led him to be under such an influence. This, however will be, I hope, the subject of a next article.
