1 – الفنّ القصصي في مصر فنّ ولید ، لم يستوفِ حقّه من ا لجلاء تجاه أفكار كتّابنا العصريين لاستغراقهم في وضع أو تعريب الروايات المرسحية ممّا قد كاد يكون عندنا الفنّ المرسحي قبل الفنّ القصصي
1 | The art of story-writing1
in Egypt is a newly-born art that has not yet obtained in the minds of our contemporary writers the prestige/ presence/prominent place it deserves, because they are so occupied with producing or Arabizing2
theatrical3
plays4
that, for us [sc. Egyptian writers], dramatic art almost comes before story-writing,
بعكس فرنسا فإنّ "بلزاك وفلوبر وجونكور وزولا ودوديه" كانوا ويضعون الروايات القصصية المأخوذة عن صور الحياة ، المبنية على الملاحظات الدقيقة ، والتحليلات الصادقة ، والنظريات العلمية ، وبينما كان مرسحهم لا يظهر إلا الروايات الخيالية الضئيلة الجوفاء
in contrast to [the situation] in France where Balzac, Flaubert, Zola and Daudet have created narrative prose after pictures taken from life,5
built/based on minute observation, faithful analysis and scientific theory,6
whereas only hollow, weak, and [totally] fantastic plots7
had been staged in their [sc. the Frenchmen’s] theatres.
فتمكنوا بفضل مؤلفاتهم الناضجة القوية من أن يطهّروا المرسح ويحرّروه من ربقة المصطلحات الصبيانية السخيفة .
fa-tamakkanū bi-faḍli muʔallafāti-him al-nāḍiǧaẗ al-qawiyyaẗ min ʔan yuṭahhirū ’l-marsaḥ wa-yuḥarrirū-hu min rabaqaẗ al-muṣṭalaḥāt al-ṣibyāniyyaẗ al-saḫīfaẗ.
As a result, and thanks to their powerful and mature works, they [sc. the French] have been able to purify their stages and to liberate them from [the grip of] the lariat of silly childish expressions.
The reason for our [sc. Egypt’s] writers’ preoccupation with theatre and their neglect of narrative prose lies in the fact that theatre better guarantees them material profit and prestige in the literary scene8
and that the paper crisis brought about by the war9
put an end to almost all printing activity and prevented the writers from composing [prose] stories.
But there are also other factors, as, e.g., the Egyptian writer’s inclination [p. ii] and psychological disposition, both of which make him abstain from risking to put too much hope into the advancement/ the progress of this genre in our country as quickly as he would desire [i.e., he does not grow this hope];
Moreover, restrictive eastern traditions [gender segregation!] prohibit nearly [any] meeting/encounter among the sexes and [in this way] contribute to intensifying his [sc. the Egyptian writer’s] severe psychological dilemmas.
On the one hand, he cannot know these conflicts and the moral implications triggered by them in the human psyche, and as a consequence it is only natural that he is unable to depict it in his heroes.
On the other hand, he is not yet trained in [the technique of] observation and psychologicalanalysis, which are two skills that only grow with long experience.
So, when he tries to write a novel he usually does not have the skill to endow his characters with an individual personality, and they appear to be soulless phantoms for us.
When he, for instance, wants to describe a young man who whispers “the eternal song of youth” into his beloved’s ear, you see him making use of fantasy, guessing and mannerism; he lets the lover address his beloved with expressions that are devoid of individuality,11
إذ يجعل المحبّ يخاطب حبيبته بعبارات لا خصوصية فيها كتصويره لها جمال الطبيعة وتغريد العصافير ، ونشيد اليمام وخرير المياه وغير ذلك من السخافات الصبيانية والإحساسات المريضة الضئيلة
as, for example, when he describes to her the beauty of nature and the twittering of the birds, the song of the doves and the murmuring of the water, and similar silly pubertal stuff and weak, morbid sentiments;
Therefore, it is the writer’s task to first study the temperament of a character of his because it will greatly influence the way he will describe a human being’s emotions and character [or: morals]. The temperament may for instance be the reason for a person’s happiness or sadness.
AR: mahammaẗ, dars / dirāsatmazāǧ, taʔṯīr, takyīf, ʕawāṭif, ʔinsānʔaḫlāqmazāǧ, sabab/ʔasbāb EN: temperament, emotions, character
فصاحب المزاج السوداوي المتشائم الذي يرتاب في كلّ شيء - حتّى في صدق عواطف المرأة التي يحبّها وتحبّه - تساوره دائماً الأفكار المؤلمة المتضاربة ،
A melancholic pessimist who doubts in everything, even the sincerity of the feelings of the woman he loves and who loves him, will always be haunted by painful conflicting thoughts.
AR:…
فإذا قابل حبيبته لا يحدّثها عن الأشجار والطيور والأزهار ، بل عن ظنونه وآلامه ،
to the degree that he may charge her [p. iii] with moral depravity and shamelessness or accuse her of not loving him anymore and looking at another one;
AR:…
وهي تحاول بلطف أوّلاً أنْ تبرئ نفسها ممّا اتّهمها به ثمّ أنّها تغضب أخيراً لعناده وإصراره على اعتقاده أنّها مذنبة مجرمة وهي المحبّة المخلصة ،
she will then first try gently to exonerate herself from what he accuses her of, then she will eventually become angry because of his unrelenting insistence that she is a guilty criminal (while she actually loves him truly and faithfully).
AR:…
وقد يحملها أحياناً غضبها الشريف العادل على قول عبارات جارحة مهينة تؤدّي إلى افتراقهما الأبدي !
Her noble and just anger may then sometimes bring her to the point where she drops some injuring, insulting expressions, which in turn may lead to the two separating forever!
AR:…
فأين هذا التشاجر المعتلج الناري من تلك المغازلة الشعرية الهادئة الوديعة ؟
Furthermore, it is also the writer’s task to study in his characters the genetic influences they have inherited from their fathers and through their race (?),
The way a fifteen-year old youth loves is of course12
different from the love of twenty-five- or thirty-five-year olds, and that person’s love is also different from that of an old man.
Whenever a writer studies his characters’ temperament and natural disposition it will be very easy for him to describe them without being forced to make use of cold and boring mannerism, and
this will also allow him to get inspired by their characters13
for [the description of] a genuinely human event in his narrative, [an event] that may result naturally from their temperament and personality, without having recourse to [too much] fantasy to imagine what it may look like.
