Here he compares his two likenesses as the products of a different writing that undermines the theses of literary brokers, by bridging the distance between the image of yesterday’s writer (Gogol), and the contemporary writer (Patrick Suskind), who is hidden outside his texts, in a free wandering that summons the images of other novelists to strengthen his personal presence in the face of the emptiness of the cultural scene, In narratives that create parallel lives through illusions… Even Suskind’s “pigeon”, which disturbs the tranquility of the old bank guard in his room on the roof, surprised Jaber Al-Basri as a hypothetical pigeon. But he rests on this illusion for a long time, mixing his dreams with the realities of life, hoping to penetrate the trenches that block the paths before him. This person who lives in books is more than engaging in what daily life suggests to him. He discovers his fragility in batches. He creates what he lacks by borrowing fictional characters and identifying with them in order to compensate for his losses, with continuous fantasy delirium to the point of claiming the existence of a daughter for Mustafa Saeed, the hero of the novel “Season of Migration to the North.” By Tayeb Salih, according to the imagination of his friend, the painter Jacques the Sailor.
Jaber Al-Basri will regain his emotional balance by getting to know Zainab Al-Amri, who works as a music librarian, and he will venture to the extremes in crazy erotic imaginations, but he will doubt the existence of such a character in the original. He will get rid of her mentally by throwing her in prison following a sudden accusation related to holding an art exhibition without a license. Zainab Al-Amri is a fantasy that I orchestrated myself to ignite the cold evenings of my days with the sulfur of imagination and illusion.” The dream of this rambling tramp will grow from writing his memoirs to writing a novel, in a suicidal leap from the oral to the written, that will put him in the place of Milan Kundera in terms of fame, away from the “intellectual pastoral tribesmen”, dressed in the “coat” of Akaki Akakievitch and his ghost to hunt down the owners of bad books And the alleged culture and ignorance of some publishers.
Here, his narratives take another turn, more destructive to his surroundings, and he will call on dozens of traditional and modern references to reinforce his marginalized fictional architecture, without taking a step forward, and then deciding that he is fit to be a fictional character. He puts the idea to a delusional author, but they do not agree, so he decides to write his own life story. The figure of Mary, one of the cafés of intellectuals and the goddess of literature, creeps into his diary as a novelist, and then dismisses her. After many intrigues, plots and traps, Jaber Al-Basri decided to write the outline of his alleged novel, wishing he had a typewriter like Hemingway’s, not a laptop screen. He had in mind the complete recipe that the group of translators liked, especially since he did not lack intelligence in filling the novel with the spices of local folklore, and visiting the tombs of foreigners, the city museum, and the old markets.
A walk in the making of joy and imagination brimming with ideas, reflections and fun
He will regret that he does not live in cities like Cairo, Damascus and Baghdad, but in a Sudanese city, without ever mentioning its name: “If my ancestors were skilled storytellers, their genes must have been passed on to me through the centuries.” His attempts to pick up a dazzling opening sentence would fail, and he remained captive to chaos, according to the imagination of bango cigarettes, to later enjoy writing angry articles, calling for poets to be expelled from the fold of literature, with the intent of provoking nothing more than riot, all the way to plagiarism leaning on a vast map of references and personalities. In a bypass step, Zainab Al-Amiri will hand over the manuscript of his novel, and it will be satisfied with one word as the title: “The Impostor.” He will explain the issue of plagiarism in a special margin by saying: “I am a thief of literary texts. But this is not the crux of the matter. You think I’m plagiarizing other people’s literary texts. It is more than that, these texts to me as spoils of war. I plagiarize the lives of living people, not the lives of literary texts.” He goes on to explain this fondness for other people’s texts, saying: “Let me give you a piece of advice: Do not be afraid to steal classic literary texts. Go into the castle of the ancients, undaunted, and pretend whatever you want, you won’t draw anyone’s attention.”
The novel “The Impostor” is a picnic in the making of joy, and rearranging the library by dusting its shelves from the point of view of an unemployed person, but with an imagination swarming with ideas, reflections and fun. Perhaps this is what narrative writing needs today, under this dark sky.