The Secret life of Saeed The Pessoptimist
How do you differentiate between a pessimist and an optimist? I don't differentiate between optimism and pessimism and am quite at a loss as to which of the two characterizes me. When I awake each morning I thank the Lord he did not take my soul during the night. If harm befalls me during the day, I thank Him that it was no worse. So which am I, a pessimist or a an optimist?
This is how Saeed, the comic hero of the Arab Israeli journalist Emile Habiby's novel The Secret Life of Saeed, The Pessoptimist (1974) defines his dilemma. This is a novel about the struggle of Palestine, conceptualized by Habiby which makes the reader question what is comic and what is tragic as Saeed questions his outlook on life.
The book starts Saeed's encounter with men from the outer space where he finds his 'exile', after he explains his family history, the origin of the Pessoptimists:For this word combines two qualities, pessimist and optimism, that have been blended perfectly in the characters of the members of our family since our first divorced mother, the Cypriot. It is said that the first to so name was Tamerlane, following the second massacre of Baghdad. This was when it was reported to him that my first ancestor, Abjar son of Abjar, mounted on his horse outside the ciy walls, had stared back at the tongues of the flame and shouted, "After me, the deluge!"
The language of the novel is simple, but Habiby's succinct style does not cloud the sufferings of the Palestinians with comedy, rather he brings a fresh new look and finds a balance between the "denounced aggression" and "glorified resistance" (p. xv, Introduction by Salma K. Jayyusi).
We also find Saeed as the informer for the Zionist state. But his stupidity and incompetence makes him an object of ridicule by both sides and thus creates his confusing identity as the Pessoptimist: I lived in the outside world -- outside the tunnels, that is -- for twenty years, unable to breath no matter how I tried, like a man who is drowning. But I did not die. I wanted to get free but could not; I was a prisoner unable to escape. But I did remain unchained.
How often I yelled at those about me, "Please, everyone! I groan at the burden of the great secret I bear on my shoulders! Please help me!" But all that came from beneath my moustache was a meowing sound, like that of cat.
A nice translation by Salma K. Jayyusi and Trevor LeGassick. This is a short novel, with 2-3 page long chapters and covers several themes that could have been developed further. Yet, in such short scope, Habiby creates a believable picture of our world with the use farce and tragedy.