Oldal 42 [42]
OCR
LITERARY CODE-SWITCHING older male friend of the family, this elicits Molineus comment: "I did say you should take Midhat. It’s not really appropriate for a young lady, I’m sure everyone must think I’m horribly irresponsible,”®° implying that in early 20" century France men and women intermingling was not totally unrestricted either. Apart from this, when Midhat ponders marrying Jeannette, he assumes that both fathers would resist and that the mixed marriage would be frowned upon in both societies. All these examples suggest that, despite the differences, there are also many similarities between Montpellier/France and Nablus/Palestine.°! Furthermore, Midhat has the feeling that he somehow breaches Molineu’s hospitality by falling in love with his daughter: “The rules of guest and host were so ingrained, he knew the shame of trespass in his bones.” As the discussion illustrates, the rich points, in the form of the relexified and archaically translated expressions, highlight the importance of marriage in the plot and simultaneously establish and question the “ethnographic pact” between the author and the reader, allowing for nuanced gendered comment. In this way Hammad implicitly challenges orientalist and neo-orientalist views on gender relations in Palestinian society, which we have seen to be held by some of the French characters in Montpellier as well, and suggests that these are more complex and dynamic than often thought. By describing gender relations in France, Hammad reverses the gaze, suggesting that these relations are not always all that different. In what follows we will see that the novel also comments on colonial ethnography and orientalism more directly. This comment is punctuated by yet another rich point in the form of a relexification.® REVERSING THE ORIENTALIST GAZE: “THE LINING OF MY HEART IS SEWN WITH QUESTIONS” As we have seen, with its “ethnographic” descriptions, the novel indirectly enters into dialogue with biases against Muslim and Arab societies, 8° Tbid., 53. 8! These similarities are also suggested by descriptions of the similarities between the landscapes of Montpellier and Nablus: “You know, the hills here are the same as our hills. They seem to think I live in the desert.” Hammad: “The Parisian or Al-Barisi”, 58. See also Ibid., 8, 10, 35, 119. ® Ibid.,121. 88 Other “ethnographic” comments occur when the funeral of Haj Taher is described, the description of the Samaritan community etc. Due to a lack of space, they cannot be dealt with here. A special case are Midhat’s explanations to Jeannette of Arabic expressions and words, geographic locations etc. (see, e.g., Hammad: “The Parisian or Al-Barisi”, 13, 45, 70) because they transform Midhat from an outsider in France who needs a lot of explanation to an insider—expert who is explaining his language and culture to an outsider. In these conversations with Jeannette, Midhat is an active subject who choses what to share and what not, rather than the role of passive research object into which he is pushed by Frédéric Molineu. « 40 c
