Naguib Mahfouz-نجيب محفوظ-"The Norwegian Rat"

"The Norwegian Rat" by Naguib Mahfouz (1962, 5 pages)

A Short Story by Nobel Prize Winner

from Egypt

Naguib Mahfouz (1911 to 2006-Cairo, Egypt) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988.    He is so far the only Egyptian to have won this award.   He produced a number of novels, essays, and short stories.    He was primarily a historical novelist using as his theme the full history of Egypt.   While maintaining a strict adherence to the tenants of his Muslim faith,  his work was considered a criticism of the corruption in the government and society of contemporary Egypt.    (You can read more about his life, work, and influence HERE)

"The Norwegian Rat"   reads like a story that could have been written by George Orwell.      The only real characters in the story (it is not a character development story) are a husband and wife living in a big city.    We are not told where they live and the story could be set in any big city world.   In his The Lonely Voice-A Study in the Short Story, Frank O'Connor says that when he taught creative writing he would tell his students that a good short story could be set anywhere.   

As the story opens the citizens of the city are being advised that the government fears there will be an invasion of Norwegian rats.   The citizens are advised of the precautions they must take.    Soon there are food shortages in the city and even though no Norwegian rats have been seen the citizens are told that the rats are the  cause.   Soon the citizens are told they must be even stricter in their fight against the rats and they must pay more taxes to fight the never seen rats.   All of the problems of the government are laid on the rats.    Soon a government inspector shows up at the couple's house to inspect it for possible rat infestation.   The inspector tells them it is nothing against them personally, all houses are being inspected.  

The couple were having lunch when the inspector showed up (spoiler alert) and they knew they should offer the inspector lunch.    The inspector sits down and begins to eat and eat.    The couple see him as looking just like a rat as he begins to consume all the food in their house.   

"Norwegian Rat" is almost more a political parable than a short story.    After a page or two you can pretty much see the end coming.   It was fun and well organized and made its point.    It was published in an at times harshly oppressive venue in which no dissent was allowed so Manfouz had to use parables and stories to make his point.  

You can read "Norwegian Rat" HERE

Mel u

Octavio Paz-Two Short Stories-"My Life With the Wave" and "The Blue Bouquet""

"My Life With the Wave (6 pages, 1968) and "The Blue Bouquet" (3 pages, 1965) both by Octavio Paz (translated by Eliot Weinberger)

Octavio Paz (1914 to 1998-Mexico City) is one of Mexico's most highly regarded writers.    He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990.    For many years he was a career diplomat for Mexico.   His highest and last appointment was as Mexico's ambassador to India.   He was a very prolific writer.   He wrote many novels, poems and short stories.   I think his most read work outside of Mexico is his non-fiction work The Labyrinth of Solitude, which attempts to explain the basic nature of Mexican culture.  Paz was very into the reading life.

In 2009 I read Roberto Bolano's great novel, Savage Detectives.  The novel is partially set in Mexico city and many of the characters are poets of varying degrees of success.    They all seem to have one thing in common, a dislike boarding on hatred for Octavio Paz.    In the mind of  the poets,  Paz stood  for the literary establishment.   His acceptance of awards from the Mexican government and his work at places like Harvard University marked him, in their minds, as a supporter of the very repressive Mexican government and the USA.   Bolano  himself expressed his personal contempt and near hatred for Paz and gave his status as a Mexican national icon as showing his support for fascism.   This is in spite of Paz's very well known record as a strong supporter of human rights causes world wide.   Bolano also expressed a very similar attitude toward Gabriel Marquez.    One has to wonder if some of this was not jealousy or a revolt against very dominating literary influences.   I have noticed writers often tend to have a low regard for the generation of writers who are dominant in their youth.

Both "My Life With the Waves" and "The Blue Bouquet" are about the violence of the big city, the capricious ways in which life happens and can be lost, and are tales of the near absurd.    Both  look at a very dangerous world.  

"The Blue Bouquet" (it can be  read HERE) is a very frightening story.    It is about an insane act of violence that almost took place.    A woman had asked her lover to collect for a her a basket of blue eyes.    What is so powerful in this story to me is what is left out.   We never learn why the woman wants this and we are given no insight into why the man   feels obligated to attempt to honor her request.   You can  read it in just a few minutes.

"My Life With the Wave" is a very interesting story.  (It can be read HERE).    It is about a man who ends up in jail for  a year because someone sees him put salt in his water while on a train and jumps from this to the conclusion he is trying to poison others on the train.   The water is never tested.   He is never given any kind of real trial.    He is simply accused of being a potential poisoner and placed in prison.   He gets out in a year and is advised not to do it again.   It is also a story of a complicated and passionate love affair.

  I liked both stories.   Of the two I preferred "The Blue Bouquet".     In truth, it would not be out of place as an episode in 2666.    

Mel u