A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Book

by Edmond Jabès, Rosmarie Waldrop (translator)

In this illuminating philosophical book, Jabes, who died in 1991 and lived in France after being forced to leave Egypt with other native-born Jews during the Suez War, ruminates on the link between being Jewish and being mislabeled as a foreigner. It is also an indictment of bigotry. Jabes writes, ``the basic racist is the man who refuses himself as he is. . . . The antisemite can never forgive the Jews for being capable of self-realization . . . . '' Elsewhere he observes in verse on his own experience of exile: ``I left a land not mine / for another, not mine either. / I took refuge in a word of ink with the book for space, / word from nowhere, obscure word of the desert. '' His seamless style brings to mind both religious and French existential writings, although some musings reach heights too abstract to follow: ``We must from now on grant citizen's rights to the foreigner's new name: the foreign I . / Foreign Me, foreign You designated by the I. '' Here, too, Jabes ( The Book of Questions ) evokes powerful images of the desert to underscore a mood of isolation and comments wisely about aging and power.

Genres: Poetry, Jewish, Literature, France, Nonfiction

123 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Edmond Jabes was a major voice in French poetry in the latter half of this century. An Egyptian Jew, he was haunted by the question of place and the loss of place in relation to writing, and he was one of the most significant thinkers of what one might call poetical alienation. He focused on the space of the book, seeing it as the true space in which exile and the promised land meet in poetry and in question. (This is summarized from the reader's description in A New History of French Literature, ed. Denis Hollier.) Very many of Jabes's books of prose and poetry have been translated into English, including The Book of Dialogue ( Wesleyan, 1987) and The Book of Margins (Chicago, 1993), both translated by Rosmarie Waldrop.

Reviews

[soulAdmitted · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Non si può pretendere che il deserto sia una distanza, poiché è, ad un tempo, reale distanza e non-distanza assoluta a causa dell'assenza di riferimenti. Ha per confini i quattro punti dell'orizzonte, essendo ciò che li congiunge e ciò che li separa. È la sua stessa separazione nel punto in cui diviene luogo aperto; apertura del luogo.
Non si può pretendere che il deserto sia il vuoto, il niente. Non si può neppure pretendere che sia il termine poiché è anche il principio".

Edmond, conterraneo.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have been carrying this book around for over a decade. Read it frequently. Full of marginalia. Personal favorite.

[NhaThuyen · Rating 5 out of 5]

simply i love it very much.

[Maurizio Manco · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Creare, amare, vi fa crescere le ali, ma ci si accorge un giorno che, a furia di non battere più da molto tempo, piegate l'una sull'altra, esse formano solo una gobba di cui non ci si può sbarazzare." (p. 108)

"Ogni pensiero è forse solo un sussulto spontaneo del Pensiero, un notevole varco nell'ineffabile.
La conoscenza non sarebbe, così, che un buco in un buco." (p. 111)

"Se il libro […] giunge a fare di un lettore anonimo, sconosciuto, un amico, questa è per l'autore la prova confortante che il libro al quale ha sacrificato tanto, non era inutile." (p. 125)

[Haytam · Rating 5 out of 5]

« Je me demande, grâce au recul que je prends, maintenant, avec ma vie, si ce goût prononcé pour le silence n’a pas son origine dans la difficulté qui, de tout temps, fut la mienne, de me sentir d’un quelconque lieu. Avant de connaître le désert, je savais qu’il était mon univers. Seul le sable peut accompagner une parole muette jusqu’à l’horizon.»
simply sublime.

[Marco Svevo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Essere sé stessi significa essere soli.

[Henri · Rating 5 out of 5]

天空堆满了棉絮，
道路隐入于迷雾。
茕茕孑立异乡人，
腋下夹着袖珍书。