“For in that sleep of death what dreams may come. -William Shakespeare
In his latest novel, “Ka’anaha Nae’ma (As If She Were Sleeping), prominent Lebanese novelist, playwright and critic Elias Khoury takes his readers to a mystifying zone located between dreams and death.
The novel is like a dream in itself; a flow of breathtaking images springing from the subconscious of Millia, the main character of this profound, moving and majestic story, which ranks among the most accomplished Arabic novels of 2008.
Fans and readers of Khoury can easily trace the Palestinian cause in all his previous works, most prominently in his masterpieces “Gate of the Sun.
Khoury, a Lebanese citizen, is known for his beliefs in Arab nationalism and his active role in various Palestinian organizations and movements, such as the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
In “Sleeping, the Palestinian cause is heavily featured, but eventually takes a backseat for Khoury’s elusive philosophy and mediation on life and death.
The novel flows freely through the pages without chaptering, akin in structure to Millia’s dreams. It contains no precise, confined setting. One can presume though from the unfolding events, all taking place inside Millia’s dreams, that the novel is set between Beirut, where Millia was born and grew up, and Nazareth, where she moved after she got married to her husband Mansour.
The novel goes back and forth between early 40s and late 50s, ending in 1948, the year of the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe). It’s divided into three parts, or three evenings according to the text. The first establishes characters and a number of events, while the second and the third blends Millia’s dreams and nightmares with different personal and historical accounts.
From the first page of the novel, Khoury’s words and images creep deep inside the reader’s mind, taking him/her to a world of no boundaries or concrete form. As Khoury delves into Millia’s psyche, further confusion ensues. Are these images snapshots of a dream, or glimpses of an afterlife? Is Millia seeing dreams stimulated by actual events or visions from another world?
Millia’s stream of thoughts entangles with her memories of her mother, the nun Milana who raised her, and the numerous relatives she attempts to explore their origins and relationships.
Millia is a daydreamer. Through her dreams, she begins to see the future; she begins to get acquainted with the dead and their dreams. Millia’s grandmother tells her “the dreams of the dead shall only be seen by the dead, but Millia disregards her remarks, continues to dream, residing longer in her dream world, more than real life.
Millia’s world is abundant with mysteries, with things that might not mean anything, yet, at the same time, mean everything. It’s a strange compost of our fears, adolescent fantasies, sexual desires and death.
By the end of the novel, one gets the impression that all that has been experienced is just a dream – of a dead person.
Through Millia’s dreams, we learn about her adolescence and her awkward realization of the physiological changes that haunted them. Khoury draws a manifest picture of the fears of a young girl, taking her first steps in a new world where she is no longer a child.
Her detailed recollections of the hotels, food, odors and characters of her birthplace initially seem like customary descriptions, but later reflect a deep longing for a place, a time and a life she once led.
The subsequent implications of the Nakbah on social and personal lives of the characters act as a subtext to explore the isolation and detachment of Millia.
Millia travels afterwards to various worlds, soaring from the realms of politics and history, moving to a world of theology and religion, contemplating sexuality and basic instincts, and finally connects all loose threads to reveal the sole absolute truth Millia ultimately discovers . death.
Khoury magnificently weaves all these hazy, non-linear storylines without losing the reader at any point of the novel.
Above all, “Sleeping is a story about an Arab woman, living in a conservative world that pigeonholes her under certain categories. She’s invisible to her society and she seems to exist only to fill the expectations of others. Only through her dreams she finds an outlet to make sense of her life and the world disintegrating in front of her eyes.
This novel, by all means, is a peerless experience that will haunt the reader for weeks with its unforgettable images and the stern truths it unearths. Only “Rocks of Heaven, by Egyptian novelist Edward Kharrat, shares few similarities with Khoury’s novel in terms of the flow of events, the post-modern storytelling and the religious and political undertones.
“As If She Were Sleeping – which is so far available only in Arabic – was one of several books banned at this year’s Cairo International Book Fair, primarily because of its frank and graphic sexual contents.
“Ka’anaha Nae’ma is published in Arabic by Dar Al-Arab, Beirut, and is available in major bookstores.
