Arabian Nights and Days

I never read One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, but like most people I had heard the premise of the stories and a few popular tales. I was excited for the thrilling, fun-filled adventures of Sinbad the sailor and Aladdin; however my Disney-based illusions were incorrect. I was unsuspecting and unknowledgeable of the cultural setting of the book and how different they are from my westernized views of the world. I am a privileged, Caucasian United States citizen, who is educated and raised in a Christian culture. My life and my experiences are completely different from the lives and experiences of the characters in Arabian Nights and Days. This is a book of differences, a book completely foreign with my own life. Not only does Islam penetrate to the core of this society, but also the views of women, justice, class, and education are completely opposite of my own understanding and upbringing.

But then again is that not the entire purpose of contemporary world literature? In our very first class, we discussed what the concerns of literature are, and how the themes of humanity and our struggles resurface from the past into the present. I have never visited, much less truly knew and was a member of another society. I have never even been in an Islamic community. But through literature, through Mahfouz’s written words, I am afforded a glimpse. There is no specific time period for these stories, nor are they set in a specific country or city. Rather Mahfouz has chosen to build a world of common characteristics, commonplace experiences in a Muslim community. So that, all instead of only a few, might be able to identify with the story and so I, as a reader from a different culture and society,  might be able to empathize in the smallest of ways with these individuals. I highly doubt that I will be entrapped by a genie, or have my head chopped off like Aladdin, Gamasa, or Sanaan to mention an only a few. However, I am able to connect and gain insight not only about Arabic cultures but also my own world through this story. In retelling these tales, Mahfouz twists Shahzrad’s message to portraying it in a new and modern light inviting all to push through into the original tales into deeper questions of mercy, justice, and life.

Please Look After Mom

I was slightly dreading reading Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin, having no desire to plow through yet another book for a class amidst  my one hundred and one other obligations. I knew nothing about Korean culture nor did I desire to know anything. Although I assumed it was a pleasant book, Please Look After Mom did not seem worth my time and energy. I, however, was wrong. Please Look After Mom is a beautifully crafted story, intertwining characters, time, and lives.  

The layered, differentiating form of Kyung-Sook’s tale is the first thing that captivated my interest. Please Look After Mom is divided into four sections, each told from an individual character’s perspective. The elder daughter’s and the husband’s sections are told in the second person, while the eldest son’s is told in third person and the final section is told in first person by the mother.  This is the first novel I have ever read which drastically intertwines varying point of views from several characters to add to an overall image. Each section wove the present: where Mom is lost somewhere in the Seoul subway station, the recent past: where Mom is older and having chronic headaches, and the past: where Park So-Nyo is raising and sustaining her family, creating a layered effect. Each of the family members as they flashback with regret or fondness add another piece to the puzzle of who “Mom” is as they questioned whether they ever really knew Mom. In the words of her eldest daughter “Mom was Mom” (27) a firm tree, unchanging. Only when their mother is lost does she truly become found in the minds and lives of her family.  I now reflect on my mother; do I know who she is? Her hopes, dreams, pains, and battles? So now, let us truly find the ones we love before they are lost. 

What are the concerns of literature?

After hearing the assignment, my palms’ already clammy moisture increased as my brain frantically searched for any ideas at all. The assignment: What are the concerns of literature, as I understood the question in 500 words, more or less. The brilliant students to my left and right were off like a shot, clacking away as inspiration struck. But I was left sitting with 500 words to speak of the concerns of literature, concerns that authors have been expressing for thousands of years, and I was left wordless.

So being the simplistic writer that I am, I decided to return to the basics. Literature: written words used to form series of raising anticipation and then fulfilling anticipation was the first definition that came to mind. But literature is not just any written words of mediocre standard tossed across a page, rather literature has higher expectations. Choice of word, quality, and excellence of form create the backbone of literature. But the concern, the meat, the thought behind the words is what remains relevant and applicable, connecting the past to the future.

And yet, what are these concerns? How could ideas from before the 16^th century still hold the power and potency so as to be reformulated, revisited, and renewed in piece after piece of literature? Why are we so captivated by these concerns making them worth such time, effort, and excellence? As I questioned this importance, a conclusion began to form that, perhaps, these concerns expressed in literature are also the life and concerns of humanity. Love and suffering, sorrow and joy, new birth and death, these cycles of life connect all humanity across time as homo-sapiens and creations of God, who have or will experience life. Time doesn’t matter as relevance continues. Literature mimics us, as we search for meaning and quest for purpose, deal with injustices and make choices. Literature is an expression of people, with our concerns in step with literature’s concerns; though the latter’s concerns happen to be expressed in written form with elegant clarity.

Yet, then I questioned how complete is literature’s imitation of our struggles?  How far do the concerns of literature lie? Can any words ever truly describe the emotions of a sister as she watches her brother’s body pulled from the shore? Or the joy of a new mother as she hears the first cries of her baby? Or the anguish of a pastor at the funeral of his son, not knowing whether it was suicide or an accident? So perhaps the concerns of literature are when mere men and women try to put to words humanity’s questions, joys, and struggles. We write of what we know to share our experience through prose, verse, fiction or non-fiction; emotions are passed. Guilt, as an example, can be found throughout literature concerns in Oedipus as he gouges out his eyes or found in Macbeth’s wife washes her hands again and again desperate to wash away inner the bloodstain. Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Hemmingway, Twain, Milton and the countless artists of words as they crafted their works, chose to attempt expressing and so sharing in a human experience. And although, few solutions are given or questions answered, the reader has experienced, shared, and empathized with another’s life, whether fictitious or real.      

So what are the concerns of literature in 500 words more or less? The concern of literature is humanity.