Eman El-Meligi’s comparative study of the novels by Tawfiq Al-Hakim and V.S. Naipaul engages with the novelists’ use of symbolism as a commentary on the social, political, and cultural contexts of postcolonial Egypt and Trinidad. Symbolism, according to El-Meligi, “serves to elucidate, at once, the similar and the diverse strains in the different cultures,” and this particular aspect, for her, makes this the narrative technique best suited to the goals of comparative literature (11). Following Carl Jung, the author argues for symbolism as drawing on the “‘collective unconscious’ of people from different cultures” which resonates with her reading of comparative literature as a discipline challenging Euro-centric perceptions of literature (14). Through a close reading of a number of novels, El-Meligi suggests that while Hakim blends symbolist and realist techniques to create a positive critique of the postcolonial condition in Egypt, Naipaul’s use of symbolism reveals a bleak, apocalyptic vision of the postcolonial West Indies. Despite their differences, though, El-Meligi sees both novelists as employing symbolism to “transcend the autobiographical, the ethnic and the topical to the human” (26).
The introductory chapter presents a brief history of comparative literature, tracing its rise as a multicultural and postcolonial discipline. The first chapter examines Hakim’s use of archetypal symbols in his novels Return of the Spirit and The Sacred Bond to reflect his concept of “equilibriumism.” This section provides a detailed reading of classical, Sufi, Christian, and folk allusions in the texts, culminating in a discussion of Jungian archetypes, in particular the “anima” and the “animus.” The second chapter continues this focus on archetypal symbols, this time with particular reference to A Bend in the River and Mr. Stone and the Knights Companion by Naipaul. El-Meligi studies Naipaul’s use of Hindu, biblical, and classical allusions alongside his references to African mythology, Native American apocalyptic myths, and Celtic legends as creating a narrative world that is barren and ironic. Chapter 3 provides a detailed study of Hakim’s Diary of a Country Prosecutor as a socio-political allegory of Egypt, both during and after the period of colonial encounter. The following chapter looks at Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswas and The Mimic Men as both religious parables and socio-political allegories. El-Meligi suggests that Naipaul perverts the symbols sacred to Hinduism to denounce the socio-political milieus of Trinidad and England, and to question the “myths of nationalism, chieftainship… decolonization… colonialism, the metropolis, and the New World” (216). Chapters 5 and 6 engage with symbolism in the narrative structure of Hakim’s Bird of the East, The Sacred Bond, and Hakim’s Donkey, and Naipaul’s The Enigma of Arrival. In Hakim’s case, El-Meligi works her way through symbolism of narrative structure, technique, character, and title to provide further commentary on the former’s theory of “equilibriumism.” The final chapter on Naipaul provides a discussion of his “metafictional questioning of the validity of fiction and of the whole British literary tradition” through a close reading of The Enigma of Arrival. It concludes with a study of Naipaul’s use of magic realism to further demonstrate his apocalyptic vision of the world.
Overall, the text’s method of close reading, interwoven with theoretical references, performs the tasks El-Meligi herself outlines as being central to Comparative Literature. A discussion of symbolist techniques employed by authors as disparate as Hakim and Naipaul demonstrates how the postcolonial novelist is able to carve an identity for him/herself within a genre whose affiliations are predominantly European. At a time when comparative literature is becoming increasingly interested in the context surrounding the text, El-Meligi’s textual focus helps root the discipline in literary studies. A few notes, however, must be made regarding several lacunae in the text. Despite working extensively with Hakim’s novels, the work makes no mention of translation, either as a theory or in practice. Given the argument’s dependence on particular phrases and words, especially in the first chapter, the work would have greatly benefited from such a discussion. There is also the question of occasionally conflating Hindu and Indian in the sections on Naipaul—a slippage which distracts from the quality of the argument.
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[Review length: 675 words • Review posted on September 3, 2014]