In a series of forty-five short essays that constitute his book translated into English under the title “Damn the Novel: When a Privileged Genre Prevails Over All Forms of Creative Writing,” Sudanese-born poet and essayist Amr Muneer Dahab denounces the privilege granted to the novel, the literary genre that is treated by publishers—and viewed by the public—as superior to all others and is virtually guaranteed marketability and profitability, to the detriment of others.

In this series of posts, the prolific author shares excerpts from the book.

This week: Chapter 8

Excessive Rhetoric of Fantasy

It is still hard to overcome the problematic matter of judging literature with reference to ethics, which is already a deep issue in our (Arab) societies. But the notion about “telling lies” as suggested in the dictum of “the more lies poetry tells, the more beauty it brings about” has always been palatable in Arabic societies regarding poetic lies as instances of rhetoric exaggeration whereby Arabic lyric poetry—throughout the centuries before the modern era—tended to access far horizons of unlimited imagination. The repertoire of Arabic poetry is full of many rhetorical images that were merely exaggerations woven with much skill and beauty so as to perform their poetic ends (praise, pride, lamentation, satire, romantic love, and so on).

When it comes to the novel, supporters of sending literature to ethical trials—fierce opponents of “poetry lies” regardless of their “aesthetic sweetness”—are in real trouble, except for those who persist in rejecting the “new trend” (the novel) as a whole for being the offspring of a big lie—as we saw in the previous essay—while verse contents itself with “light lies” capable of affording charm without distorting truth. However, the novel, unlike poetry, did not accept the ambiguous stand of the “intransigent” lovers of literature who are obsessed with morality judgment. Despite the dominance of news stories about banned novels for religious, ethical, social, or political reasons, we haven’t heard about any famous slogan condemning the novel (which is purely a fabric of fantasy/lies) in principle.

That was the novel’s deserved victory. It is, of course, not our objective here to ignite the fire of sedition that leads to questioning the eligibility of this modern literary art (especially to the Arabs) to be granted absolute welcome in principle, although one of the most important purposes of this approach is to deplore people’s submission to the novel such that it has almost exclusively taken over their literary tastes.

The controversy of “the ethically stubborn opponents” of the novel has been, in this respect, obsessed with the thematic messages being transmitted via the new trend’s central idea or those infiltrating through its outlets of style and artistic imagery. The controversy has not been focused on the charm grounded in lies/fantasy/exaggeration, as was the case with Arabic lyric poetry in ancient times.

The novel deserves praise to the extent that it excels in weaving a wonderful lie that readers accept for granted, believing in its inevitability. Worst of all, pleasure and interest are said to be acquired exclusively through the perspective of that exquisite lie.

If extravagance is generally blameworthy on every level, the novel being not an exception, extravagance in terms of imagination is not a defect in itself in the novel unless it tends to turn superlatively excessive. Moreover, novelistic unbounded imagination is honored and distinguished to the extent that a new piece of vocabulary is introduced: “fantasy,” which can include other literary and creative forms. Our lyric poetry is said to be a “nonfantastic art” whose lies are digested only reluctantly . . . or are perhaps being sentenced to prohibition.

Whether they like it or not (and they are most likely to like it or even adore it), novel devotees are addicted to the novel’s imagination/exaggerations/lies, provided the process and demands of such extravagance are technically controlled, without having any sort of moral discontent or without manifestly contradicting society’s postulates.

Once the clash with society’s postulates takes place, the novel “sells” exponentially, in an overt illustration of the dictum “the more lies poetry tells, the more beauty it brings about.” With light modification of words and content, the quote reads, “The more unbounded novels are, the more beauty they bring about.”

With a careful look at literature and art, and life as a whole, it seems that the sweetest of everything turns out to be the most untruthful and rebellious, commonly reinforced by this more famous saying: “The forbidden fruit always tastes the sweetest.” Although life is full of pleasure within the realm of what is permitted in accordance with customs and ethics, literature and art still insist on raising the ornery question of why they are subject to a trial they didn’t sign onto.