Najib Mahfouz claims that many of his colleagues who married based on romantic love failed. However, he believes that marriage provides stability for the writer and the artist. He always asserts that he is Kamal Abdel Jawad in the Trilogy or very close to him. Kamal Abdel Jawad's character is very similar to his, even in his first love story. Although the writer was not fortunate in this love, Kamal managed to reach his lover and talk to her, while for Najib, it remained a dream.
When our writer fell in love at a young age and pledged with his lover to marry, her mother suggested the idea when she saw the love growing between them in their youth. However, his father intervened and said, with some wisdom, that it was a great honor, but they had not yet reached the age of thirteen. When her mother thought about it, she told her that he was her age, and therefore not suitable. She added that since they were the same age, it was not appropriate.
But can a writer live without love and a sense of beauty?
The second time, his lover was older by years, and the experience was devoid of relationships, given the age and class differences. Consequently, this relationship did not know any form of communication. This Platonic love, which was without positions, events, or memorable history, ended except for the feeling of love.
Mahfouz, as he recalls his childhood features, says, "I saw her in the carriage for seconds only, and I lost my will. Love cast me into a new phase of creation. As soon as my eyes fell on the girl's face, I embraced a secret of life's explosive secrets, opening the doors of heaven, pouring upon me a bounty of love's blessings." He awakens to the whisper of one of his friends, "She is twenty years old, and you are fifteen!" But he knew how a person could be absent while present, awake while asleep, perishing in loneliness amidst the crowd, befriending pain, and penetrating the roots of plants and waves of light. After that, he saw her only twice in sad occasions: the funeral of Saad Zaghloul (1927) and the hour she descended the palace steps in her wedding dress to board a car to the groom's house. He asserts that the effects of this experience will appear in the "Trilogy" between Kamal Abdel Jawad and Aida Shaddad.
The element of love permeates many of Najib Mahfouz's works, even naming one of his novels "The Age of Love" (1980), one of the few novels in which a woman becomes the central character. Let's not forget the short story collection "Love Under the Pyramids Plateau" (1979) and the novel "Love Under the Rain" (1973), which he says portrays the stark contradiction between a desperate alley and a city. Dr. Louis Awad, the cultural advisor at Al-Ahram, objected to the publication of "The Mirrors" in Al-Ahram and also objected to "Love Under the Rain," as did Ahmed Baha Eddin, the editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram. He told me that the novel deals with the army and conscripts who no one cares about, and therefore it interferes in matters that could harm us all. Then he whispered in my ear, "You know the spread of Al-Ahram and the danger of publishing in Al-Ahram, so please refrain." He contacted the Minister of Youth, whom he knew, and as we find "love" intertwined in the works of Naguib Mahfouz, we also see it intertwined in his personality when we approach him. He has said about "Dreams of the Convalescence Period" that they come from the dreams he actually sees in his sleep, despite their scarcity. He explains that a person can sleep for three minutes and have a very large dream. And that the element of love must be present in the dream, unlike the nightmare.
Naguib Mahfouz does not like to travel at all, and the two times he traveled outside Egypt (to Yugoslavia and Yemen) were due to obligations. As for the third and last time, it was to London for treatment. He says about this: I do not like to travel, and love has no explanation.
He says a phrase with more insinuation and ambiguity than directness and clarity: "Love increases in intensity on the verge of death."
He confirms in his dialogue with "Al-Ithnain" magazine (January 19, 1959) that love is the reason for existence; life's meaning would be incomplete without it. He feels in its absence that his existence has no meaning, and that is the secret of the sweetness of love. He believes that the basis of complete love is compatibility, and that is the secret of survival. Love is the inspiration for all of life, not just literature, as love refines and sensitizes feelings. The writer receives everything that passes through his feelings, then sends a translation of this reception to the people. Love is not the only inspiration for the writer, unless love is in its broadest sense: "love of God, love of the homeland, love of truth."
One of the readers asks him (Al-Ithnain magazine, April 10, 1960), when was your first love? What was your feeling? How did it end?
He answers: It was when I was twenty years old when I was a student at the Faculty of Arts at Cairo University. She was five years older than me; she was twenty-five years old. Love, by its nature, creates pleasant and noble feelings in the soul. It is an exercise in high virtues. That is why the Sufis said that first love is an exercise in the love of God. This love, my first love, had to come to an end. Since the path ahead of me was still long and arduous, and the future of my job was uncertain, my love ended in an amicable separation.
Journalist and writer Mahja Osman (Rose al-Youssef magazine, issue 1761 - March 19, 1962) tries to extract confessions from Naguib Mahfouz about "love and its years," what love did to our writer, how many times he loved, how many times he was infatuated, where he would meet his beloveds, and the story of tram number 15 where he would meet his girl before confessing his love to her. Mahja Osman knew that there were more than one love story in the life of our great writer, and the first love was, as usual, at the age of fourteen, the age of dreams, romance, and desperate love.
After attempts to evade answering, Naguib Mahfouz said: I was fourteen years old and in high school. As for her appearance or name, I have forgotten. All I remember is that she would stand in the street to watch us play ball, and she would clap for me enthusiastically. But it was a romantic view far from reality. When I entered my youth, my perspective changed and became more realistic. I began to see women as real beings and partners in life, with their qualities focused on both the soul and the body, as well as the mind.
He believes that the love of a woman is not the only love that occupies the heart of an artist. Love for humanity and love for society also make the artist in a constant state of emotion. When they are emotional, they produce works for people: stories, poetry, and paintings.
However, this generalization does not satisfy Mahja Osman's ambition, so Naguib Mahfouz is forced to extract from within him a third experience of love, and says about it: It was the most beautiful and profound love in my life, and I lived it for five full years. I was seventeen, in my first year at the university. She was a high school student, and she would ride tram number 15 with me, which would take me to the university and her to her school.
He continues with the memories, saying: Back then, young men were more proactive than the youth of today. They did everything on their own, while girls were very passive and shy, unlike today's girls who might start flirting with young men. Flirtations in those days would begin with preparatory glances, then whispers of words like "I want to meet you." I whispered to her on tram number 15 for about a whole month, and finally, she believed that I loved her, and the meeting took place. He wished to marry her, but circumstances and obstacles prevented them from getting married.
When Mahja Osman asks him: What is your concept of love? He replies: My concept of love is the attempt to escape duality, that is, the duality of man and woman, into a single entity.
When Aisha Abul-Nour asks him (Last Hour magazine, August 6, 1980): What do you think of love? He answers: It is the flower of hope in life. He believes that winter is the season of love and inspiration, and that Alexandria is his bride.
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