Rats without burrows

Rats without burrows

Author	Ahmad Ibrahim alfaqih
Illustrator
Country	Egypt
Language	Arabic
Published	2000
Pages

Rats without burrows (Arabic: فئران بلا جحور) is the latest novel of the well-known Libyan writer Ahmed Ibrahim al-Faqih, in which he tends a new direction in the Sahara novel, so to speak, and the Saharawi world or the desert place in the works of Al-Faqih is not new to him. The ash fields, however, were more human-focused than desert/place, and here in his new novel, Rats without burrows, the place takes on a larger space and a wider dimension, and we will not exaggerate if we say that the place on its own enshrines special heroism, the collective heroism of the place and its substitute. The desert in the novel is not just a flat area of land, men, sun, night, animal and plant, it is a microcosm of the unity of the universe, and the author has confined this universe to a small patch of Earth. Wadi Janduba has a limited time of five days, and a few humans – two convoys, the first being forty people coming from (Mazda), and the second is eight people coming from (Per Hakim) – meet over the land of Jandouba, in search of livelihood or, rather, escape the almost deadly hunger. It is worth mentioning that the author has set an internal title for the novel under the original title: "Page of the book Hunger," hence the main conflict in the novel explodes: it is the struggle for survival or the preservation of life’s instinct, so to speak.

Because the struggle for survival is the foundation of life, the jurist exploits this time, raising it with the multiplicity and diversity of forms of conflict. There is a conflict between human beings and rabbits, a conflict between human beings and nature, a conflict between human beings and traditions, and a conflict between human beings and human beings. It is this diversity of forms of conflict that gave the novel its vitality.

Organization of the novel

The novel is organized in thirty-five chapters distributed without equality between humans and animals living in the place. Human chapters are long and larger, while animal chapters are short and fewer. And this discrepancy in number between the chapters is an art stunt from the author; the number variation is equal to the human-animal disparity. And he seized on his choices, chasing his own sprouts, lizards, insects and others. Not only are they the Gebrells (the second caravan) hunting and eating sprouts.

Features of anecdotal art

The unbridled imagination is one of the most prominent features of anecdotal art in the author, as pointed out by Dr. Ali Shepherd. This trait appears wherever it appears, where the jurist blends realism and fiction. The animal's world with its sprouts, ants, lizards and snakes seems close to us. He lives between us and speaks our language, meets and plans to take a stand against the unjust human being. Al-Faqih has benefited from his anecdotal experience by making animal chapters too short. It was a wise satire and mockery of man's ignorance and injustice, these are chapters that call to memory the animal's tales at the Safa brothers in a message, and by them, the muffler's son is in a night and a blood. Before this and that animal tale in the Holy Quran, which is an indirect call, it is a call for the meaning and essence of the tale. When the convoy lands in Jandouba with its beauty and donkey, an old rat strikes the palm of the shoulder, turning to the children and grandchildren around, saying:

- Take your caution. It comes from Sinkel, our peaceful people. This corruption, death and ruin are common in our land. "(Narrative p. 9)

It is not limited to animal-starred chapters but extends to other chapters of the novel. There is employment of Libyan Bedouin heritage, and there is employment of folk heritage, such as the biography of Hilal building, tales and popular beliefs in general.

The author's artistic prowess is demonstrated when the folk tale employs artistic recruitment, the construction of which overlaps with the construction of the novel. The construction of the tale comes parallel to the construction of the novel sometimes and comes as a prophecy or a dream realized through the subsequent construction of the novel. In chapter X, for example, the need tells Khadija to her grandson (on) the story of the mother of Sisi the bird with the mouse who stole her food from milk, and how she punished him by grabbing his tail. Granny tells the innocent story of the innocent child just before the end, and the conclusion of the story is that a mouse to get its cut tail has to fetch something from somebody, and this person refers it to someone else, and so on. The grandson sleeps when the breadmaker asks the mouse to bring the barley from the field to give him a loaf. "The boy took to sleep and no longer needed to complete the tale and the mouse who came asking for a bomb from the barley field, I realize begging won't solve the problem, so he decided to take the whole field. He seizes his fingernails and tusks on all the barley snables in it and is no longer forced to solicit help from stone, trees, humans, birds and other Bedouin beings. He became the master of the situation "(novel p. 54)

The writer expands on the significance of the folk tale and does not stand at the mere distraction of the child or make him compose the world of the rats around him. The tale here is a symbolic construction and a clever sign of the spring’s control of the situation in the valley of Jandouba.

Despite the cruelty of hunger, the noble emotion of love remains lurking in the souls of the characters. Once the bellies are full, this emotion is strongly manifested; do not forget the ornamental (Proof) his old love (for Fatma) and rushing to her rescue when a snake bites her, although she is married to another man. The beauty of the women of Al Gebrell also activates this emotion, so Masood comes out Roman on the tribe tradition and marries a flower of Al Gebrell. Al-Faqi tends to show his affection towards the winner of Al-Gabriel's leader, the old Maraum spread the spirit of peace and friendship among all members of the tribe, while the need for the elder's wife Khadija looks like everyone's mother really. But there must be a victim of this noble emotion. Although the relationship between Amer and Zainab is cleansed, it ends in an unintended scandal where wolves attack her and tear her clothes. But at the end of the novel, we feel happy for everyone. As if hunger were the sacred water that humans and other beings were cleansing. When the torrent comes flowing towards the valley, humans are adjacent to the animal, we hear for the first time the laughter of Sheikh Hamed, a laugh whose enemy is passed on to all members of the tribe, when he hears the word "Springboard barley" from the proof mouthpiece, amazes:

"- Do you really call it germ barley?

He turned looking for his wife, Khadija, to tell her laughing:

- Have you heard, need? It says spray barley.

And he kept putting this sentence back in laughter, so I would see laughter among everyone, until the captain turned into a guffaw. "(Novel p. 247)

With the rush of torrent and its strength in the valley, the sprawl hovers between the legs of men, as if sheltering in it, as if its destiny were linked to their fate, hence the meaning of the title "Rats without burrows".

references

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