The Use of Arabic and Moghrebi in The Spiders House

Amina Jrad

The Spiders House is a 1955 novel written by American expatriate writer Paul Bowles. Set in French-occupied Morocco, it depicts the multicultural scene in Fez mainly through the relationships among three expatriates and a young Moroccan: John Stenham, Alain Moss, Lee Veyron and Amar. In this sense, the novel is inscribed in multicultural literature not only because it thematizes multiculturalism and the encounter with the other; but also because it inscribes readers from other cultures inside [its] own textual dynamics, (Dasenbrock). Indeed, being about the Arabo-Islamic Moroccan culture and written in English, the novel is destined [] to have readers from many other cultures, both insiders and outsiders of the culture it transmits (Dasenbrock). Actually, one could guess the multicultural aspect of The Spiders House just by a first glance at its pages as it strikes you by its multilingualism. Indeed, Bowles incorporates Arabic and the Arabic dialect, Moghrebi, into his writing. Far from being arbitrary, the use of Arabic and Moghrebi is a strategic choice which subtly reflects the novels main themes. This particularity of multicultural literature is discussed in an article by Reed Way Dasenbrock entitled Intelligibility and Meaningfulness in Multicultural Literature in English. Guided by the insights of this article, I will argue for the specificity of Bowles use of Arabic and Moghrebi as a writing strategy. In a first part, I will give a brief account of the main ideas articulated in Dasenbrocks article. I will use those ideas in the second part of this paper in order to study the different strategies elaborated by Bowles in his use of Arabic and Moghrebi, and their possible effects and functions. Before embarking on our subject, a crucial precision shall be made. When we study the effects produced by the use of Arabic and Moghrebi in a piece of literature in English, we are rather concerned by those effects produced upon a particular audience: the outsiders. And by outsider I mean those outside the Arabo-Islamic culture and to a lesser degree also Arabs outside the Moroccan culture. Indeed, this is not only a matter of a western reader struggling to understand [a] work rooted in other cultural traditions. When it comes to Moghrebi, an

Arab non-Moroccan reader would be faced with a similar situation. A Tunisian reader, for example, would be caught up in the same multicultural dynamic as an American reader (Dasenbrock). Obviously, a Moroccan bilingual reader would not experience The Spiders House the same way a Westerner would, faced with a language he does not understand. And it is with those outsiders that our study is concerned. Indeed, while writing, Bowles has in mind his Western readers. As John Maier puts it, he is a writer who turn[s] what he see[s] into literary forms that can be understood in the community of Western readers (Dasenbrock). But in order to be understood, does the multicultural work have to be completely intelligible? Actually, the answer to this question can be found in the article mentioned above. Dasenbrock article favors a poststructuralist approach to multicultural literature in English when it comes to the issue of incorporating in the work the language of the culture in which it is rooted. Reader response theories postulate that those spots of unintelligibility actually motivate the reader into constructing the works meaning. Similarly, Dasenbrock juxtaposes unintelligibility and meaningfulness stating that intelligibility cannot be made the sole criterion in our understanding and evaluation of multicultural texts and that intelligible and meaningful are not completely overlapping, synonym terms (Dasenbrock). Indeed, words from another language make the work unintelligible to those who do not know that language but Dasenbrock argues that unintelligible and un-meaningful are not synonyms and that the use of opaque foreign words can be part of artistic strategy(Dasenbrock). Writers vacillate between maximizing the intelligibility of parts of their texts and making other parts less immediately intelligible aware that their readers would work for their meaning. As a matter of fact, it is only in doing that work that the reader reaches an understanding of the multicultural text. Dasenbrock relates the significance of multicultural literature for outsiders to the works moments of unintelligibility.

Bowles incorporates Arabic and Moghrebi both into the narrators speech and the characters speeches, mainly into those of Amar and Stenham whose perspectives orient most of the narrative. But whether he opts for intelligibility or unintelligibility, Bowles has in mind a specific kind of reader, those readers susceptible of experiencing the multiculturalism of his book, having them plunge into the specificities of a different culture and confronting them with their own otherness. The Spiders House, indeed, thematizes the problems of the outsider in another society, and the communicational gap between cultures. Bowles strategy of writing reverberate the thematic scope of the book. Vacillating between intelligibility and unintelligibility, Bowles has different approaches to the use of Arabic and Moghrebi engendering thus different effects. First of all, behind the writers choice of bilingualism is a realistic motive: he simply tried to represent the actual language use of his Moroccan characters (Dasenbrock). Bowles was motivated by an authenticity concern. Reading the book, we notice that he wanted to incorporate as much Moghrebi and Arabic as possible into the speech of Moroccans and expatriates. Indeed, Bowles did not only transmit the Moroccan culture but he also did that in its own language giving his audience a taste of its language being a major part of the culture. Bowels is one of those writers who did opt for unintelligibility as an artistic strategy but he did not abuse the technique as he chose at some moments to make the work rather readily intelligible for readers as if thus helping them to become a little less monolingual. At those moments of ready intelligibility, he would first give the English translation followed by their Arabic or Moghrebi equivalents. At other moments though, Bowles would give the nonEnglish word first and then he would translate it, thus making his readers experience the unfamiliar first. We notice that he uses the same words over and over again as if to make them more familiar each time. He would give their English equivalent the first times he introduces the word and then just stops as the word becomes part of the semantic knowledge of the

reader. For instance, the use of the religious word Hamdoullah, which translates as thank God, corresponds to that pattern. The writer mentions the translation once and then keeps on using the word the rest of the novel. This strategy translates the writers awareness as to the limits to how hard he can make [non-Marrocan] readers work (Dasenbrock) Bowles uses yet another pattern of intelligibility, one that pushes the reader to do some work in order to reach the meaning. Here, the reader does not have the foreign words translated for him but rather explained or suggested through the context. In the second case, the reader has to guess the meaning of the word based on its textual context. Bowles uses the same word many times with no translation, surrounding it with an explanatory context. This effect of progressive intelligibility reproduces the experience of an expatriate when he starts picking up the language and when the unfamiliar becomes progressively familiar. The reader begins to understand what it is to experience a different mode of expression. To cite some examples the word qaouaji which is Moghebi for waiter is never translated, the reader has to deduce its meaning based on its semantic context. The word Barka which has no equivalent in English, being a cultural specificity of Arabs, is obviously not translated but rather explained to readers on several occasions. Bowles also sometimes combined both translation and explanation. It is the case for the word chorfa which has an equivalent in English but whose significance goes beyond the mere literal translation. Ready intelligibility is not necessarily a synonym for meaningfulness, though. In fact, as Dasenbrock puts it, the readers ready assumption of understanding can itself be misleading [] readers of multicultural literature can miss the point precisely where they think they get it. In this case, the writer must disturb that assumption in order to be read correctly. At a certain moment of the novel, Bowles made an effort at making the text intelligible, only to produce an effect of unintelligibility. In chapter eleven, He gives the literal translation of a funny Moroccan idiomatic expression Its cold and a half. A non

Arab reader fails to grasp the meaning despite the apparent intelligibility of the text. Here, the meaning actually resides in the effect produced. Indeed, humor as a cultural specificity is difficult to translate. Taking into consideration the writers mastery of Moghrebi and his experience in translating it, his inadequate translation is deliberate. Feeling the oddness of the expression, the reader is supposed to understand that not everything could be put to him in his own language and that A full or even adequate understanding of another culture is never to be gained by translating it entirely into one's own terms. It is different and that difference must be respected (Dasenbrock). Here, Bowles thematizes the problems of translation, gives justification for his strategy of writing, and introduces the idea of cultural difference. This is also echoed in a scene where The dynamics of the audiences response reflect the dynamics of the situation in the novel (Dasenbrock). The scene takes place in a Moroccan house where Stenham who speaks fluent Arabic and is familiar with Moroccan culture is listening to his Moroccan friends telling comic anecdotes of which he understood the words, but [] never got the point (Bowles 221-2) Thus, understanding the words or having them translated does not necessarily produce meaningfulness. Indeed, the scene mirrors Bowles philosophy of writing the other. Difficulty of translation also shows in Bowles strategic refusal to translate certain words. Bowles choice is, here, one of unintelligibility matching Dasenbrocks view that moments of unintelligibility are not only inevitable in a multicultural work but also stand at the core of its meaning. At certain moments of the text, Bowles uses barriers to ready intelligibility. Some Arabic or Moghrebi words are left un-translated where he felt it wouldnt hinder the overall understanding, like greetings for example. Moreover, Bowles left out those expressions which have lost their initial actual meaning and have become part of the linguistic habits of the people. So translating them would rather block meaning. And finally, as already mentioned, some words or expressions just do not have an equivalent in English. Those

involve those words denoting aspects very specific to the Arabic culture and sometimes only to the Moroccan one. Those are mainly words denoting traditional food and clothes like the word dejellaba for example which designates a piece of traditional clothing specific to Arab cultures. Bowles produces the effect of the unfamiliar having his readers experience the other as it should be, a mysterious impenetrable being. In an interview with Jeffrey Bailey, Bowles stated It seems likely that its this very quality of impenetrability in the Moroccans that makes the country fascinating to outsiders (Bowles 53). Bowles perception of the other is reflected in his writing strategies. To him understanding the other is understanding that he is not to be completely understood. Bowles is a clean slate on which is written both the alien cultures and the reactions of Westerners to encounters with them. [He] is an observer [] he simply presents the stories, the logic, the untranslated reasoning of the other. He neither mediates nor explains. Nobody can explain, finally, so he gives us the bizarre, the cruel, the absurd as unvarnished construct (Alba and Knap 95). Unintelligibility as a bowlesian strategic choice proved efficient in transmitting the works main meaning. The spiders house not only thematizes multiculturalism but also offered its readers an experience of it as it put them face to face with their unfamiliar other and his different mode of expression. Indeed, struggling to understand that difference trying to make the unintelligible mean, the western reader starts to perceive his own otherness. By the end of the spiders house, we have experienced Morroco and more particularly Fez; we know something of its culture and its language, we know that it resists translation to another language and we know most importantly that it is never to be completely known. the ultimate effect behind the use of Arabic and Moghrebi having them translated at times and not translated at others is that [a non Moroccan] reader can understand [Moroccan] cultural horizons more expertly than before (dasenbrock).

In representing Morrocan culture, Bowles structures his work with Arab and Western readers in mind, hoping to bridge the gap between the two cultures. In order to do that, the writer elaborated a writing strategy that involved the incorporation of Arabic and Moghrebi into his writing. This bilingualism not only reflected the multicultural aspect of the book but offered the western reader an experience of it. Thanks to Bowles artistic strategy, The reader experiences for himself the mains themes of the novel which revolve around meeting the other, cultural difference and problems of communication between different cultures. In the spiders house, writing the other becomes a theme in itself. Bowles hints at the problems of translation suggesting the impossibility of translating a whole culture into another language and that even when translated, it is never to be grasped in its totality.

Work-cited List Primary Sources: Bowles, Paul. The Spiders House. Santa Rosa: Black Sparrow Press, 1987. Secondary Sources: Bowles, Paul. The Rolling Stone Interview. Conversations with Paul Bowles. Ed. Gena D. Caponi. Univ. Press of Mississippi, 1993.

Amoia, Alba, and Bettina L. Knapp, eds. Multicultural Writers Since 1945: An A-to-Z Guide.

Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004.

Electronic Sources: Dasenbrock, Reed Way. Intelligibility and Meaningfulness in Multicultural Literature in English. PMLA. 1987. http://www.jstor.org/stable/462488