On Music, Memory, and Damascus
On Music, Memory, and Damascus
Alaa Rashidi in Conversation with Fifi Bat-hef
The Book of Damascus, ed. Zaher Omareen, is a new anthology in the Comma Press “Reading the City” series. Here, contributor Alaa Rashidi talks with Fifi Bat-hef about his short story, “Marvellous Music Memory,” translated by Majd Abu Shawish.
You can also read Haseeb Al-Zainy’s “The Blacklist” here on ArabLit, yesterday’s conversation with The Book of Damascus editor Zaher Omareen, and get the whole collection from the Comma Press website.
Each of the four sections in your story, “Marvellous Music Memory,” is built around an attempt to reconcile opposing musical worlds: western and eastern classics, romance and social justice, spirituality and sensuality, obedience and protest. How do these particular pairings allow you to explore the Syrian experience?
Alaa Rashidi: The story is told through the memory of Samee’ Raneen, who possesses an almost otherworldly ability to summon musical memories, particularly of 1990s Damascus. However, he also tells us his memory was damaged during the war, which allows him to exaggerate, claiming that he invented musical works that combine the contradictions inherent to the music mentioned in your question. He claims to have composed a piece that blends the Arab maqam with Western music scales, an almost impossible task that lends the story a touch of comedy.
Whenever he tells us about his experience with music in Damascus in the 90s, he claims to have crafted some impossible musical work: for example, a song that blends political commitment and romance. As to how this expresses the Syrian experience, the four issues—Eastern and Western classics, romance and social justice songs, spirituality and sensuality, and finally, an anthem that combines obedience and revolution—are questions that have interested composers throughout history, and likewise they were themes and issues present in Syria — a country influenced by both East and the West, by Sufism and sexual freedom, and so on. All these musical genres were present in the Syrian music of the nineties. Should songs spread stability or call for rebellion? Do we play the European symphony or the Eastern ensemble? All of that was present at the time.
Do you see Samee’ Raneen primarily as a man struggling with real cognitive loss, or as an unreliable narrator whose exaggerations are enabled by that loss? How important was it for you that the reader feel both the sadness and the comedy in that unreliability?
AR: On a literary level, I wanted to capture everything you mentioned. From cognitive loss and exaggeration, to invoking feelings of sadness and comedy in the reader. But I also wanted to reflect on the music of Damascus in the nineties, and on musical arts as a whole.
In your story, the repeated refrain “I had two completely contradictory tastes in music, and all my efforts were focused on reconciling them” becomes almost like a musical motif. How intentional was this rhythmic repetition and what were you hoping it would do for the reader by the final section?
AR: I wrote the story with the structure of a musical piece, and it contains many repeating motifs, which some readers and translators advised me to tone down. The story reached the English translation with a few repeating motifs to suggest to the reader that they are listening to a string quartet. But the truth is, the repeating motifs are not only to suggest the musicality of the story; rather, it poses the deepest question for any Syrian composer or music researcher: Do I follow European scales or Arab maqams? Am I with Sufi music and thought, or do I follow European carnality and materialism? Do I compose against tyranny, or for passion and tenderness? The motif here focuses on the deepest questions of Syrian thought and music.
The name of the protagonist, Samee’ Raneen, translates to something like “Listener of Sonority.” In a story where he continually claims to invent and reconcile impossible musical worlds, what drew you to a name that emphasises listening rather than composing?
AR: That is an excellent question. First, the logic behind the name is that it should be somewhat allusive and indirect. Second, the name reflects the care his father took to nurture his musical talent. And third, just as a writer must possess the gift of extensive reading to become a writer, any musician must listen attentively to become a composer.
The story if full of specific Damascus locations’ sights and sounds. You mentioned Al Azem Palace, the Damascus Opera House, nightclubs and bars, Umayyad Mosque courtyards, and resistance gatherings on the rural outskirts. How does music define the identity and geography of Damascus differently than a visual landmark would?
AR: Music is one of the arts most connected to place, as it is a physical vibration in a space. In this, I fully agree with what you suggest in the question. All cities possess musical places and cultural places. When choosing the locations in the story, I tried to reflect the diverse cultural, social, and political currents in Damascus: heritage spaces and avant-garde spaces, places of authority and places of revolution, and religious spaces alongside secular ones, meaning bars and nightclubs.
Despite the tragedy of the gaps in Samee’ Raneen’s memory, there is an enduring, almost obsessive, love for music that survives the war. Do you view “Marvellous Music Memory” as a tragic story about loss, or a resilient celebration of artistic survival?
AR: I truly believe that, in the face of the tragedy, there is nothing but the arts—such as music for Samee’ and writing for me—to create beauty in the face of harshness and depth in contrast to the profound emotional impact. Since 2011, I have worked as a researcher and critic of Syrian arts and music during the revolution, which was followed by civil conflict, and then by the ensuing international war. In Syria, catastrophe and artistic creativity are inseparable, and I felt a need to highlight the artistic creativity accompanying this political and social experience.
As both an art critic and a storyteller, what can fiction do to capture the catastrophe and creativity in Syria that research and criticism cannot?
AR: Literature and criticism each have their own distinct nature. Fictional works like The Book of Damascus need creativity to illuminate them, but also research and criticism. Research can therefore inspire creative literature. A great literary work must rest on a solid intellectual and critical foundation, which provides the substance and depth needed to carry profound themes. To apply this to my own work, I conducted extensive historical, musical, and spatial research to write “Marvellous Music Memory.”
“Marvellous Music Memory” is the final story in Book of Damascus, and unlike the other stories, it turns inwards towards cognitive erasure. Do you see memory as the last frontier of resistance in Syria? And how does it feel to provide the final “note” for this collection?
AR: I do not believe in a straightforward concept of resistance. Instead, I lean toward innovation, criticism, artistic illumination, and the intellectual accountability made possible through literature and the arts. Memory is not an action but a result. I do not see it as a tool of resistance; rather, its role is to embody the entire artistic, literary, political, and cultural output of a society during a specific historical era. The main action must always be creativity and innovation. For example, instead of music that incites violence, let us create music that fosters connection. And instead of writing ideological or totalitarian literature, let us create a literature rooted in existential questions and human values.
As for where my story sits in the collection, I cannot yet say anything about that. I am waiting for my copy of The Book of Damascus so I can discover the other stories featured in it. Perhaps after reading all the stories I might have an answer.
Finally, if “Marvellous Music Memory” had a soundtrack, one piece of music that captures the essence of the story, what would it be, and why?
AR: It would be the music of Samee’ Raneen laughing at us, for believing that a musical piece could express a literary story.
Also read: “Every Alley, a Different Damascus” and “A Life not Defined by Death: A critical reading of The Book of Damascus”
Alaa Rashidi is a narrator, art critic and cultural journalist. He writes art and literary critique in a number of research centres, newspapers and websites. His fictions include Last Game before the Grammar Homework (Dar Mamdouh Adwan, 2014), Fantasies of Magic and Other Stories (Dar Al-Mouwaten, 2017) and Mirror Seduction through Music and Other Stories (2021). Find more on his books here.
Fifi Bat-hef is a literature enthusiast from Mombasa who revels in literary fiction and short stories, with a bias for postcolonial African and Arab narratives. Her reviews have appeared in Lolwe, The New Arab, Red Pepper Magazine, and Middle East Eye.