{"id":29820,"date":"2013-09-11T18:23:20","date_gmt":"2013-09-11T14:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=29820"},"modified":"2013-09-11T18:23:21","modified_gmt":"2013-09-11T14:23:21","slug":"divide-high-brow-low-brow-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/divide-high-brow-low-brow-myth\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the Divide Between ‘High’ and ‘Low-Brow’ A Myth?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Al<\/a><\/p>\n

After <\/i>I played telephone<\/i><\/a> (or as the French apparently call it, <\/i>t\u00e9l\u00e9phone arabe<\/i><\/a>)\u00a0with Richard Jacquemond\u2019s\u00a0<\/i>\u201cThe Yacoubian Building\u00a0and Its Sisters: Reflections on Readership and Written Culture in Modern Egypt,\u201d Jacquemond kindly sent me a copy of his chapter, from \u00a0<\/i>Popular Culture in the Middle East and North Africa<\/i><\/a>,\u00a0so I wouldn\u2019t comment on comments about comments about it. The essay was full of interesting observations:<\/i><\/p>\n

As \u00a0Jacquemond\u00a0was talking \u201cbestsellers,\u201d he discussed the much-discussed divide between \u201chighbrow\u201d and \u201clowbrow\u201d Arabic readerships. By prevailing wisdom, highbrow readers solely crack the pages of tomes by Yusuf Idris, Mohamed al-Bisatie, Taha Hussein, Sonallah Ibrahim, Ibrahim Aslan, and the like, whereas lowbrow fans in their legions exclusively feast on Ihsan \u2018Abd al-Quddus, Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq, Omar Taher, Ghada Abdel Aal, Ahmed Mourad, and Alaa al-Aswani. But, Jacquemond notes:<\/p>\n

\u2026a closer observation of the mass reading practices in Egypt reveals that this divide is much more blurred than what the dominant representation would have us believe. The same individuals, families, and social milieus have, much more often than believed, diverse reading practices.<\/p>\n

Indeed: Why shouldn\u2019t I like both Yusuf Idris and Ghada Abdal Aal; Sonallah Ibrahim and Ahmed Mourad? I do, and I\u2019m sure I\u2019m not alone.<\/p>\n

Jacquemond gathers his data from 4shared downloads, as well as from converations with Cairo bookshop- and bookfair-goers. On 4shared, he finds (1) Mustafa Mahmoud topping the Egyptian-writer download charts, followed by (2) Anis Mansour (who also has more than 100,000 followers on a Twitter tribute account<\/a>), (3) M. \u2018Abbas al-\u2019Aqqad, (4) would-be Nobel Prize for Literature winner Tawfiq al-Hakim, (5) the actual Egyptian winner, Naguib Mahfouz, (6) preacher Muhammad al-Ghazali, (7) \u201cdean of Arabic letters\u201d Taha Hussein, (8) journalist M. Hasnanayn Haykal, (9) preacher M. Mutawalli al-Sha\u2019rawi, (10) novelist Yusuf al-Siba\u2019i, and (11) pop novelist Ihsan \u2018Abd al-Quddus. A mixed list, for sure.<\/p>\n

Jacquemond doesn\u2019t entirely rely on 4shared, as al-Aswany \u2014 the popular author who headlines his essay \u2014 doesn\u2019t make a particularly strong showing on 4shared, coming in a good deal below Gamal al-Ghitani, Nawal al-Saadawi, and Sonallah Ibrahim. Also, as Jacquemond notes, these numbers are for books that have been downloaded worldwide, not just in Egypt.<\/p>\n

If you were to throw non-Egyptian authors onto the list, Algerian novelist Ahlam Mostaghanemi would come right between (3) al-\u2019Aqqad and (4) al-Hakim. But, aside from authors like Mostaghanemi, Nizar Qabbani, and Mahmoud Darwish \u2014 and, yes, Paulo Coehlo \u2014 Jacquemond further observes that the Arab book market \u201cis still immune to the major trends prevailing in Western markets, as can be attested by the weak showing [in 4shared downloads] of international bestsellers such as the novels of Dan Brown or\u00a0Harry Potter,\u00a0<\/i>and of highly popular genres such as Japanese\u00a0manga,\u00a0<\/i>heroic fantasy, or detective novels.\u201d<\/p>\n

I think this varies by market, and that you\u2019ll find more\u00a0manga <\/i>penetration in the Emirates, for instance, but it\u2019s nonetheless an interesting observation that, particularly in Egypt, readerships \u201coverwhelmingly\u201d favor \u201cspecific genres of writing such as \u2018Islamic\u2019 literature, satirical literature, but also the kind of light and socially committed fiction represented by Yusuf al-Siba\u2019i and Ihsan \u2018Abd al-Quddus [a generation ago]\u2026and by \u2018Ala al-Aswani, Khalid al-Khamisi\u201d and other authors today.<\/p>\n

Jacquemond doesn\u2019t mention some other best-sellers that I would\u2019ve thrown in, such as 1\/4 gram<\/i><\/a>\u00a0<\/i>(could fit under the rubric of \u201ccommitted fiction\u201d) or Bilal Fadl\u2019s A Chagrined Laugh<\/i>\u00a0(satirical literature). But he further draws lines from the 10th century to today, with many of the popular books having their roots in classical\u00a0maqama<\/i>, which, Jacquemond writes, \u201ccontains all the essential ingredients of both satirical literature and realistic fiction in their Egyptian manifestations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, Khaled\u00a0al-Khamissi has said several times that he consciously followed in the maqama<\/i>\u00a0tradition<\/a>, which, whether it was conscious or no, is easy to see in\u00a0his first fictional work,\u00a0Taxi. <\/i>The maqama<\/i>\u00a0is also vividly echoed in\u00a0I Want to Get Married!\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

I\u2019d also note that both these works had a mixed reception in English. With\u00a0Taxi<\/i>, reviewers weren\u2019t quite sure what to make of the structure and the drivers\u2019 similar-sounding voices; with\u00a0I Want to Get Married!,\u00a0<\/i>English-language readers and reviewers didn\u2019t seem at all sure whether they were reading fiction or fact, and why \u2014 if it was realism-based \u2014 things were so \u201cfar-fetched<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Jacquemond is less interested in literary pedigree or the books\u2019 reception in translation, and more interested in why these new books were successful in Arabic and the literary debates they\u2019ve sparked. He suggests that most of the \u201cpopular\u201d (middlebrow) authors draw on previous forms\u00a0and are not concerned with aesthetic innovation, \u201cwhich is precisely what made it possible for these writers to reach large audiences.\u201d Fair enough. Although, by 4shared standards, al-Hakim and Mahfouz are also quite popular, so there must be other factors as well.<\/p>\n

Jacquemond also attributes Youssef Ziedan\u2019s popularity to the controversy\u00a0Azazeel\u00a0<\/i>stirred up, although the sort of controversy matters. You could link Ziedan\u2019s writings to the popular interest in Islamic literature, in that\u00a0Azazeel,\u00a0<\/i>and even more so Ziedan\u2019s nonfiction\u00a0Arab Theology,\u00a0<\/i>have been seen as books that promote Islam over Christianity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jacquemond concludes with observations about how contemporary Egyptian writers are not being grouped into a \u201cgeneration,\u201d as other Egyptian authors have in the past. He suggests that the old opposition of Establishment writers vs. the Avant Garde, which previously produced these \u201cgenerations,\u201d is becoming irrelevant, and that now there are two large rocks squeezing creative writers: the Establishment and the Market, with the independent author, who is interested in the aesthetics of creation, yet further marginalized.<\/p>\n

As for what recipe makes an Egyptian best seller (or best pirated download, as the case may be), there is certainly something\u00a0to explore in the intersection of Mostaghanemi, Paulo Coehlo, satirical writing, religious writing, and socially committed fiction. It makes one curious to see what Egyptian poet Issam Abu Zaid had to say in his 2012 collection\u00a0How Do You Make a\u00a0Book\u00a0That Sells?<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M. LYNX-QUALEY: I confess – I read from both sides of the so-called ‘great divide’ in Egyptian literature. Should we even talk in these terms anymore? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":29822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,154,124,235,482,5],"tags":[17764,17763,16702,16815,18300,16573,1048,18291,17762,1542,17765,6237],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29820"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29820"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29826,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29820\/revisions\/29826"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}