"Cyclops" Ibrahim Abdul Majid .. The rebirth of the characters in a dead reality

The difference between the author and the gods lies here in the fact that the current reality in which we live is not altered by the dramatic characters invoked by the author, but still depends on the will of the real human beings whose gods are eliminated. If it's a dead or dead reality, it will remain so unless the arms of the gods and its hands on a better alternative worthy of humanity. Heroes who return from an impossible dream or a free illusion are ghosts that distort reality, expose it and destroy it, not change it, before it disappears. as quickly as possible.

In his new novel "The Cyclop" ("Muskilyani", Tunisia, 2019), writer Ibrahim Abdel Majid continues his stylistically, constructively and mechanically rebellious adventures on familiar narrative patterns as much as his revolution on existing conditions of stability in the current Egyptian society, the protagonist, the writer Sameh Abdel Khalek, is a fragile and ravaged entity, in which failures at all levels, especially politics, are intertwined as a result of failure of the revolution of January 25, 2011 to achieve its fundamental objectives (life, freedom, social justice). Thirty years later His judgment never deserved, but was ultimately rejected. "

Regardless of the circumstances of the publication of the novel "Cyclops", the author of the weight of Abdul Majid to launch a new work outside of Egypt is not without significance can not be published in his country, because publishers are often rushed to bring such bold critical ideas into the novel. In addition, the choice of Tunisian badger by the author has a parallel meaning, as evidenced by his self-bias (and his novel characters) for the Tunisian experience of liberalization and liberalism, which seems to be relatively Mature in the experience of the routed countries of the Arab Spring (Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria). Results very disappointing.

From the first page, before the first line of the "Cyclops" experience, to "The Last Word" on page 343, the novel takes an empirical line at all levels. The protagonist, Sameh Abdel Khalek, is at the same time the implicit author, the "creator" of her characters. And through the review of his biography and literature, as well as titles of his work and the names of known characters, it is obvious that Ibrahim Abdul Majid himself wanted a mask on his face, but a mask It is not intended to conceal and conceal, but a simple symbolic projection.

In his introductory speech, Abdel Majeed underlines this complete identification between the author and the author, his novel "The Miracle of Illusion", which manipulates eras and places and combines in the same crucible: the living, the historical, the documented, the cultural, the tangible, and the legendary dream, where he says in a humorous pre-introduction of the novel: "I did not write this novel, but written by a confident person that I will not claim and trust, but forgive me, I did not write his name on the cover! "

Abdul-Majid, through the author Sameh Abdel-Khaliq, translates the desires he has long felt in his journals, books and journalistic conversations and aspires to revive his heroes and characters to incarnate, in observing the scene of immediate life and facing what is happening on the ground. Without being influenced by the movement of time, that is to say they look (like them) on the balcony of the present, the window of the past, falling directly into our world with their bodies, their mentalities and their traditional knowledge.

Thanks to this technique, the author has found a collection of paper characters written in the seventies of the last century, led by his young hero Said Saber, who plays the role of narrator and witness at the same time, old and again, and the participant in the facts and dialogues and the growing drama with other female characters and the male remains returned to the author. The same imagination, like all those who think about it, are the heroes of his novels.

The idea of ​​the novel and its innovative mechanisms opened a vast space to create paradoxes, surprises and spaces of astonishment and endless wit, comparing the changing elements (the past and the present, the present and what it contains), according to a constant balance of characters. It has not been possible to survive the horrors of the whirlwinds of those days, which have not seen Egypt worse than it, and shared by many Arab countries in the dark, 'we all in the east of the East. "

In the aftermath of shocks and blows that the narrator receives because of his knowledge of the situation of the country and the people, he reaches the paroxysm of its possibility of reform and overcomes the political, economic, social, fascist, authoritarian, religious, obscurantists and others. The events reach the culmination of the symbolic diagnosis at the end of the novel. "(The predatory monster eater, according to Greek mythology), to attack young people on illegal immigration to Italy to escape oppression, poverty, impotence The game turned into a complete tragedy: "In moments that made the myth a reality, happy, but what sin do you know, all their concern to leave this country? What you saw in your life It can not be a justification for everyone to laugh. "

It is not only this raging cyclone on land and on the sea, that the narrator saw in the cinema while he eats people, but he is terrorized in the heart and in the heart. soul, and the curse "In Egypt, there are now people who blow cars between people and objects, and those who carry in their midst an explosive belt that explodes among the population. are terrorists. "

The characters of the novel recalled from the past through its glimpses, debates and daily dialogues have followed many disasters of the current reality and its defeats, refractions and characteristics of its decline until atrophy and death, such as: clbad , unemployment, obscenity, corruption, low public taste, decline of art and literature, superficiality of youth and humanism In clothing, food and customs, and the control of formality over the background in terms of religion, ethics and behavior, and the reduction of individual and public freedoms, and the separation of the movement of life by drowning in addiction and virtual reality, the media, etc.

The narrative reviewed the details of the Arab revolutions, especially of January, taking into account the reasons for their failure due to the lack of expertise and interference of the religious currents that corrupted the revolutionary purity , monitoring the domination of violent groups and the rise of extremism, terrorism and black birds. This heated conflict between political Islam and the military power that prevailed.

The novelist was characterized by elegance and intelligence by mixing truth and imagination, and the work of the author with details of his private life and his personal and intimate secrets, especially women, through the implicit insinuation of the author, Sameh Abdul Khaliq, his confessions and his virtues with the heroes of his novels. The characters gained an extra glow of their ghostly qualities and extraordinary abilities by dodging, hiding, melting, flying, etc., giving a fun, interesting, engaging and exciting reading and turning events into breathtaking adventures.

"The Cyclops", a bold and brilliant novel by Ibrahim Abdel Majid, the darkness of the dark graves evoking characters supposedly obsolete and beyond reality, but the surprise is that they are more conscious, sophisticated and spiritually deeper than the abominable ghosts that inhabit the human structures of this energyless time.