Through my previous article about (the novel The Sand Box) by the Libyan writer Aisha Ibrahim, which was published in the February newspaper (1), and despite the error that occurred in the transfer of the material, I was personally surprised by it. The engineer, Abdel Salam Masoud, director of the Paris office and the regional director (Libya - Tunisia – Algeria - Iraq) for Al-Madar Media Network website kindly re-published the article again in its correct form. (2) I pointed out in the aforementioned article the parody of Mexican series, scenes from the movie Omar Al-Mukhtar, and parody of Libyan novels that I mentioned and others that I did not mention.
For me, imitation is not a flaw in the text as much as it is a literary phenomenon that must be studied, identified, tracked, referred to, and its presence and extent of influence in the Libyan fictional text in particular determined. Some of my teachers believe that the most appropriate critical method for studying any fictional text is (the semiotic approach), which begins its analysis of the literary text as it contains a visible structure and a deep structure, this is what I tried to confirm through my critical article that I presented on the novel (The Golden Dog) by the Libyan writer Mansour Bushnaf. (3) By highlighting the different semantic dimensions of the concept of simulation, it is seen as a semiotic communication phenomenon; because it is linked to tradition, representation and other semiotic concepts. (4) This indicates that it is a “semiotic” literary phenomenon, which I, as a master’s student specializing in literature and criticism, is interested in studying and revealing its presence in the Libyan novel in particular!
Imitating ideas and recycling them in form and style:
I received a message on my private email from one of the students at the Libyan Academy Misrata. She asked me a very important question. It is in fact a question that will be on the mind of the reader of this article. The question is: Is it possible for the same time period to be used repeatedly by more than one writer and in different novels? And the answer is yes! More than one writer can use the same time period and even place to create the events of his novel, but in a different way, style and form in terms of the characters and the nature of the narration of events, using a completely different vision and technique, and without the events of that novel being an attempt to recycle a basic idea of a previous text. Same idea; it might stop the reader, while reading a fictional text, feels that he has read part of a certain threshold in another fictional text by the same writer or by another writer, and this is in fact possible, and this is called recycling the same idea. In this, Barthes says: “Writing the text is subsequent to reading it insofar as it is multiple.” (5) But this is usually between texts from different languages or cultures or in another text by the same writer, and if it happens that a writer recycled the idea of another writer from the same culture and environment, he refers to that somewhere in the novel, such as the introduction, for example, or in one of the seminars or meetings that take place to present his novel, and thus the embarrassment is removed from Himself and his text.
In this context, the Libyan writer Saleh Al-Senussi published on his personal Facebook page on February 9 of this year a post in which he said: (Some readers who read the novel The Sandbox contacted me: because they see in this novel an imitation and recycling of the idea of my novel Escape from the Island of Ustica. I told them if the novelist had indicated this in the introduction to her novel that this effect is acceptable, regardless of the extent of the rotation, because the Uruguayan novelist Carlo Lescano had previously written in the introduction to his novel (Memories of the Last War) that he had read the Italian novelist Dino Bozzani’s novel (The Tatar Desert) when he was in prison and that he owed him that. But if what you say is true and the novelist did not indicate it then we are faced with recycling the idea and denying it at the same time... (6) In truth, the observer of all the meetings of the writer (Aisha Ibrahim) was not asked about her recycling the idea of the novel Escape from the Island of Ustica, so that we can say that she denied that recycling! At the same time, she did not put an introduction at the beginning of her novel in which she mentioned that she was influenced in any way by the novel “Escape from Ustica Island,” which was published about three years before her novel, The Sandbox.
For myself, I did not read this publication published by Mr. Saleh Al-Senussi until after publishing my first article on the novel The Sandbox, and I read it by pure coincidence. In the fourteenth threshold of her novel “The Sandbox Under the Name of the Ship St. George - The Road to Ustica,” the writer Aisha Ibrahim actually dealt with many events about the denial that took place of the character of her novel (Halima), with whom the Italian soldier Sandro fell in love. And from the title of the threshold, you get the feeling that what you are reading is not new to you, especially if you are on of the people who read the novel "Escape from Ustica Island."!
A contrasting presentation between the two texts:
Firstly, the novel “Escape from Ustica Island”:
Six years ago, after the darkness of a January day in the fourth year of the “fascist” era, corresponding to the year one thousand nine hundred and twenty-four, a small boat moved from among the ships anchored in the port of Benghazi to dock on one of the isolated docks at the western end of the port, where a queue of... Handcuffed men under police guard"The Carabinieri" and behind them were soldiers, their rifle blades flashing under the light illumination that the boat sheds on the dock so that these men with handcuffs can see their way into the bowels of this boat... p. 2
In the novel The Sandbox, this corresponds to:
1- When they took them out of the prison under the cover of darkness, when they took them towards the sea, where the departure boats were waiting for them... p. 144.
2- The ship anchored at a rocky archipelago when it could no longer advance in the shallow waters, so small boats rushed towards it like hyena pups... p. 149
3- We stood in the last part of the queue at the edge of the second cliff... p. 149
Second: From the novel Escape from Ustica Island:
They pushed them into a dark basement, with only a small lamp in the hand of one of the guards illuminating their way until they reached the end of the basement. The lamp bearer stepped back and the light disappeared, and they heard the creaking of more than one iron door behind them, echoing in the pitch black darkness. p. 3
It is paralleled in the novel The Sandbox:
They took them towards a staircase that went down, to a darker place, through a rusty door, leading to an unknown bottom... p. 145.
Third: From the novel Escape from Ustica Island:
The translator came forward to stand next to him and told them that Major Danadoni wants to talk to you, so listen. p. 4
Major Danadoni explained to them the regulations in force in the prison and the procedures and penalties that apply to those who disturb the order... p. 4
In the novel The Sandbox this corresponds to:
And every time the Jewish interpreter, who repeats the words with empty letters, fails to explain the instructions to the prisoners... p. 149.
Fourth: From the novel Escape from Ustica Island:
The first day was long and included a sad surprise when the prison administration, while they were still handcuffed, shaved their heads, beards, and mustaches. This was a great shock to some of them, especially the sheikhs, who considered this an infringement on their dignity and manhood. Sheikh Masoud Al-Jarih said with emotion: I was hoping that they would execute me at the foot of this mountain because... They restrict me and they shave my beard.
In the novel The Sandbox this corresponds to:
It was a miserable and heavy day, and every time the Jewish interpreter, who repeated the words in blank letters, failed to explain the instructions to the prisoners, they stood stupidly not knowing what to do when the freckled officer shouted in their faces, pointing in the direction of the sea.
- Perhaps they want us to return to Babur...
The whips that rained down on the bodies revealed the content of the orders. The men bowed down in defeat, took off their clothes, and piled them aside. The officer shouted, repeating the orders with great anger. Then the interpreters shouted. They bowed down again and took off everything.
In the following moments, when the translators approached the women and asked them to do the same thing, they uttered a wave of hysterical screams in panic and ran terrified towards the sea... pp. 149-150.
Fifth: From the novel “Escape to Ustica Island”:
Salem Al-Barani’s escape, p. 76, was covered by the writer in many details. Because Salem Al-Barani, who fled from the island of Ustica, is the main character on whom the writer Saleh Al-Senussi based the events of his novel (7)
In the novel The Sandbox this corresponds to:
Suleiman’s escape, p. 182, which the author presented briefly and as a passing event, but it had an impact on one of the characters who was among the exiles in Ustica Prison.
Well, what I presented in the contrasting presentation between the two novels, is it a simulation or a recycling of the idea?
If we want to answer this question correctly, we must deconstruct and analyze two examples from the above, and let the fourth model be to present what was stated in the escape from Ustica Island: (The first day was long and included a sad surprise when the prison administration, while they were still handcuffed, shaved their heads, beards, and mustaches. This is a huge shock to some of them especially the sheikhs who considered this an infringement on their dignity and manhood. Sheikh Masoud Al-Jarih said with emotion: “I was hoping that they would execute me on the foot of this mountain rather than tie me up and shave my beard.”) What the writer dealt with in this part is an embodiment of the ways and methods of the colonial occupier in humiliating and humiliating the defenseless Libyan people. The writer began. He presented his words as saying that it was a day long, well, in the corresponding text in the novel The Sand Box, the writer began by saying: It was a miserable and heavy day, and Aisha Ibrahim went on to describe to us in the same way that Saleh Al-Senussi followed, trying to embody the ways of the colonizer and his methods of insulting and humiliating the Libyan citizen by making all the exiled men, women and children naked. In front of each other. Some said: “It was a miserable and heavy day, and every time the Jewish interpreter, who repeated the words in blank letters, failed to explain the instructions to the prisoners, they stood stupidly not knowing what they should do when the freckled officer shouted in their faces, pointing in the direction of the sea.
- Perhaps they want us to return to Babur...
The whips that rained down on the bodies revealed the content of the orders. The men bowed down in defeat, took off their clothes, and piled them aside. The officer shouted, repeating the orders with great anger. Then the interpreters shouted. They bowed down again and took off everything.
In the following moments, when the translators approached the women and asked them to do the same thing, they panicked, uttered a wave of hysterical screams, and ran terrified towards the sea...
Conclusion:
Since reading constitutes interpretations of literature and its ideas, it is not possible to talk about it without involving a fundamental actor, which is the reader, and this is what Roland Barthes confirmed when he said: (The text is the result of multiple writings, coming from several cultures, so they enter into a dialogue, imitate some of them, and enter into a debate with them. But there is a site where they come together. He has this multiplicity. This site is not the author, as has been said so far, but the Reader (8) Therefore, the reader of these two novels Escape from the Island of Ustica and The Sandbox was able to combine in his mind the multiplicity that Roland Barthes intended. Recycling the idea of a text is not a defect, and this is also confirmed by the professor, writer Saleh Senoussi, in what he published on his personal page, and recycling the idea. It can be viewed as a semiotic phenomenon as imitation, but as I mentioned earlier, it was obligatory to mention it on the part of the writer, Professor Aisha Ibrahim, because she recycled the idea of a novel from the same literature, “Libyan Literature.”! So the result became clear to us: the same tools in the description, no major difference, just some modification and rotation in the presentation of the idea and a change in some names.
Footnotes
1- The sandbox article between history and social activity - February newspaper, issue 1218, issued on June 19, 2023.
2- https://www.almadar.be/archives/173408 Republishing the article The Sand Box between History and Social Efficiency.
3- https://www.almadar.be/archives/175156 Article The voice of the charming narrator in the novel (The Golden Dog)
4- Simulation as a semiotic communication phenomenon - Edited by: Sherihan Hawamdeh.
5- Literature and recycling ideas, expressions, images and characters - Aktoir.
6- https://www.facebook.com/saleh.senoussi.9?mibextid=ZbWKwL the personal page of the writer Saleh Al-Senoussi.
7- The novel “Escape from Ustica Island” - by the Libyan writer Saleh Al-Senussi - published by the Egyptian General Book Authority in 2018 - the novel The Sand Box - by the Libyan writer Aisha Ibrahim - Mediterranean Publications - Milan Italy - first edition 2022.
8- Literature and the recycling of ideas, expressions, images and characters - an article published on October 12 - Ohood Al-Mukhaini.
