{"id":7558,"date":"2022-03-15T10:20:34","date_gmt":"2022-03-15T08:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/?p=7558"},"modified":"2022-12-25T11:39:09","modified_gmt":"2022-12-25T09:39:09","slug":"gluttony-from-abbas-beydouns-frankensteins-mirrors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/gluttony-from-abbas-beydouns-frankensteins-mirrors\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cGluttony\u201d from Abbas Beydoun’s “Frankenstein’s Mirrors”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
“Crime and Punishment,” Marwan Sahmarani (b. Lebanon 1970), oil on canvas 250x400cm, 2013 (courtesy Leila Heller Gallery<\/a>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Frankenstein\u2019s Mirrors<\/em>, Abbas Baydoun presents a collection of autobiographical vignettes that reflect\u2014and reflect on\u2014moments both in and out of time. Each chapter captures an experience, however fleeting, as it ripples around the author\u2019s life in often unexpected ways. Though self-contained, the chapters work together to form a more perfect whole, to elucidate unnamed relationships and to paint the portrait not only of a particular man but also of the subjectivity he comes to represent.<\/p>\n

We enter \u201cGluttony\u201d just as the narrator finds himself awake and covered in cold sweat. We don\u2019t know why, only why not: it wasn\u2019t the heat and it wasn\u2019t a dream. The unsettled states of the opening paragraph seem to set up a traditional narrative arc. Indeed, the story is subsequently said to begin with a box of chocolates. Yet, what follows is not a story in the traditional sense but rather a discursive stream carving its way through a canyon of sensuous detail. Baydoun\u2019s attention to the smallest of things borders on excess, while his lack of exposition asks us to accept his world as a given. Who is this Dunya whose chocolates promise the narrator what others seek out in books? Again, we don\u2019t know. But from the very beginning, we are immersed in a uniquely material world, which\u2014like Dunya\u2019s namesake\u2014bridges the gap between human experience and spiritual ineffability, imagination and inspiration. A world that evokes bitterness, arousal, and of course gluttony.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Abbas Baydoun<\/h4>\n

Translated<\/strong> from<\/strong> the<\/strong> Arabic<\/strong> by<\/strong> Lily Sadowsky<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I awoke, my brow clammy with cold sweat. My blanket was light, and I had worried it wouldn\u2019t be warm enough. I had wound it around my body to guard against the cold night but had dozed off in front of the TV and couldn\u2019t muster the energy to get up and get another. All through the night, I\u2019d had the funny feeling that I wasn\u2019t covered, yet here I was\u2014awake, my head damp from cold sweat still seeping from my pores. Each time I wiped it with the sleeve of my pajamas, it flowed anew. Was this because of a dream? The thought crossed my mind, but I didn\u2019t remember dreaming and I didn\u2019t remember forgetting a dream. In fact, my dreams had been waning recently. Was this because my memory was receding? The thought also crossed my mind. I awoke with a bitter, almost funereal feeling. An idea had planted itself firmly between my teeth and in my throat: life begins as a loss and, from the outset, resembles death. I awoke with a stiff erection too, one devoid of desire though I\u2019m still young and full of promise.<\/p>\n

Layering the inside of my head were deposits of thought that accumulated as I churned. I was confused about where to begin. I felt that my engorged penis wouldn\u2019t bring glad tidings, that it was the trace of a bad dream\u2014one that had all but completely evaporated from my mind, one that had left behind only bitterness. I tried to bend it in my hand, beat and break its tumescence. And actually, I succeeded. But only for a moment before it stood anew. Then I remembered the three unrelated thoughts in my head: the bitterness, the erection, and the whisper of gluttony. I played with myself, imagining that I stood before three options and had to choose. I discarded the first and the second, deciding to take refuge in the third, at the very least as an exercise in shrugging off my morning funk.<\/p>\n

So the story begins with a box of chocolates that Dunya had given me after I bought the three books she had asked for. Christmas chocolates. Brightly colored orbs in a transparent box. I don\u2019t like to see foods through their packaging. Well, I don\u2019t like to see them packaged in plastic. Plastic\u2019s okay for tools, even for clothes. Toothbrushes, for example, or shower heads or shirts.<\/p>\n

\"\"They look expensive in that clear casing, more beautiful than their functions would suggest. It\u2019s added value, before we extract them from those attractive arrangements and transform them into waste. Foods that will soon be circulating through our bodies should be treated like our bodies themselves: protected and preserved, guarded and covered. It\u2019s better that they be kept in boxes, where they can lie in wait for us to share the secret bond of our bodies with them. The constant spectacle, beneath the watchful eyes of all, makes them common. And it makes us feel that our eyes have debased them.<\/p>\n

The chocolates in the box were round. I don\u2019t like when chocolates are round either. I imagine them square or rectangular, but round\u2014no. I don\u2019t like round balls of meat or ice cream. They\u2019re too perfect, feel too whole to be put in our mouths. They make us guzzle instead of gnaw. We start by breaking them down like doors that stand in our way.<\/p>\n

The box that Dunya gave me was for Christmas, and Christmas was close. But I didn\u2019t wait. I opened it, taking one of the chocolates and placing it between my teeth to taste. I didn\u2019t feel it breaking. As soon as it met my saliva, the chocolate readily gave way\u2014its skin melting with the touch of my tongue. I didn\u2019t apply any pressure. I simply sensed its spherical shape, and it collapsed on its own. I heard the fine, permeable interior break in my mouth. Of course, I didn\u2019t hear it with my ears. It wasn\u2019t, in essence, a sound. Rather, it happened within the wholeness of my being. I could also see\u2014with something other than my eyes\u2014that permeable body which had just disintegrated. The flavor took flight as if it had been liberated, but its delicacy and the speed of its disappearance made it seem like a figment of the imagination. The orb had dissolved immediately, but I had penetrated the gushing, doughy interior that was\u2014so it seemed\u2014the very truth of chocolate. Its flavor was concentrated, deepening and thickening with every movement of my tongue. In the end, I hit upon a solid almond. This was the core, which I recognized in the silence and splendor of knowledge. The tongue was no longer the only messenger capable of hearing, seeing, and feeling for me. My tooth had hit the almond bone, and there\u2019s a certain pleasure to bone meeting bone. It\u2019s a pleasure of mine to anticipate pleasure. I can\u2019t stand the pace of most things. To find joy in a song, I rush to its end. I rarely let anything play out. I\u2019m waiting for a pleasure that doesn\u2019t bring duration to mind. Time persists, ever stronger, and my sense of it is overwhelming. But a melody seemingly without speed or scope may arise in a single moment, a melody that is not captive to time but is itself captivating. That\u2019s how I take pleasure in eating. Quickly. Not clinging endlessly to flavor, not transforming it over time. I\u2019m satisfied with the first taste, pushing the morsel subsequently into my stomach.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I arrive at the true taste gradually, as it grows stronger and deeper with each bite. It is then that I lose control. It is then that I cannot stop.<\/p>\n

In Dunya\u2019s box were three colors, ten chocolates each, lined up in six rows. I wanted to try one of each and leave the rest for Christmas as Dunya had intended. But I lost control. The critical moment came when I hesitated, considered the next piece, and sensed that I wouldn\u2019t be able to deny myself. Still, I knew that I should wait. But it was as if I were being forced to continue\u2014a pleasure punctuated by light sorrow. I remember the caramel of youth. It was hard, so I had to start by tasting its surface, stripping it with my tongue again and again until it became rougher, more permeable, resembling a tongue itself. Then I could start to soften and soak it until its taste became stronger. It was long, analytical work, in which the milk and chocolate elements were unearthed. The taste didn\u2019t change but thickened more and more until finally arriving at its essence. The chocolates of Dunya were even more delicious. The solidity, the finesse, the gushing\u2014one after the other in a single, atomic moment\u2014sharpening then disappearing into blood and the imagination.<\/p>\n

As a teenager, I tried to keep away from sweets. I weaned myself off them early, unable to stand those things that reminded me of my childhood or brought me back, somehow, to my mother\u2019s breast. The union of milk and sweets often takes place precisely in chocolate, and in my youth, I abstained from everything that contained milk. While waiting at the alley\u2019s mouth for the confectioner, sucking sugary nectar from popsicle sticks and dreaming of two full jars of sugary Leblebi\u2014those candied chickpeas\u2014well, sweets were childhood itself\u2026<\/p>\n

My melancholy was the first sign of maturity. The more I plunged headlong into it, the more it seemed that I was becoming an adult: it is then that we\u2019re sufficiently severed from the mother\u2019s milk, even if we\u2019re less happy because of it. Manliness seems lonely. Truly lonely. Its desires, which are afraid of themselves, remain thirsty and restless like desert plants. Nothing compares to the complete pleasure of sucking on barley sugar or eating a serving of sugary Leblebi. Then it seems that there\u2019s no better escape from depression than to drown our hearing, sight, and appetite in a plate of sweets. But relapses are met with repercussions, and as soon as we start again, we cannot stop.<\/p>\n

But why sweets and only sweets? Every time I contemplate a dish, I find true perfection.<\/p>\n

The invention of a meal, any meal, must be an inspiration\u2014but one that is never wrong. Each time, as if by instinct, we discover something that is right\u2014and provably so. Each day, in fact, brings new proof. How did they think to fry coriander with garlic? Surely, a discovery like that is no less important than the discovery of Earth\u2019s gravitational pull. Our world has been changed ever since. Lunch has become something else. How did they think to mix oil with garlic and tahini? Surely, imagination alone is insufficient. Inspiration has got to be involved: light shot into the heart. Those who search for miracles, for proof of God\u2019s existence, are better off searching in this realm. People can construct countless arguments, all of which would be open to debate, but who can deny an onion with its many layers and thick aroma? Who can deny the testimony of a piece of cheese? The ingredients yearn for one another, but it takes a great instinct to know it. No apostles of spiritual magnetism will find better evidence. First of all, they\u2019d need to be psychic. It takes tremendous discernment to see that a plant in Asia yearns for another in Alaska and that the universe is actually one giant magnetic field. We\u2019re only now discovering it. We\u2019ve spent ages in this world, but it\u2019s only just beginning. There\u2019s no telling what will happen with the progress we make. Maybe the elements will unite at a single pole or maybe in a large network. Either way, the world will take its true form. A religion could start in the kitchen.<\/p>\n

I remember a friend telling me almost thirty-five years ago that fat is what makes food taste good. He must\u2019ve been thinking about food the way we think about God. He must\u2019ve been looking for a prime mover and found it: Fat is the Creator of taste. This could be a first cause, a potentiality with which to prove something greater. At the time, I thought he was right. There must be a single principle that governs this vast amount of flavor. Today, I\u2019ve lost my faith in the idea. We could contemplate fat without going to a restaurant. Then\u2014and who knows, I\u2019m no expert\u2014couldn\u2019t we produce a strong flavor without any fat at all? Still, like that friend, we may be led astray among the tastes. No other such network exists except for that of emotions. We\u2019ve thought a lot about feelings but haven\u2019t done the same with foods. In Arabic, and maybe in French, not one word exists for the sole purpose of describing alimentary pleasure. There are more than a few for sexual pleasure, but alimentary\u2014no. We simply say that food is good or pleasant. To be good and to be pleasant\u2014these are common. There\u2019s no special word for that pleasure which arises from savoring eggplant seasoned with garlic and lemon or from a piece of liver soaked in pomegranate juice.<\/p>\n

Language is incapable of being everything, or so I think. It misses so much more. It misses the essence of our existence. Sex, too, is mostly speechless. How can language be our history? As long as we keep living most of our lives outside of words, couldn\u2019t we consider ourselves essentially mute? We talk when we don\u2019t feel, and we feel when we don\u2019t talk. The distance between the taste of a grape and the taste of a mango is great, but each is a miracle in relation to the other. How to express that? I suppose it\u2019s beyond us. There\u2019s nothing superfluous about a cup of tea in the afternoon, but we treat it with much less gravity than reading the newspaper in the morning. But reading the newspaper isn\u2019t pleasant because of the information it contains but because of something else, something entirely like a cup of tea. The matter requires analysis yet to truly begin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lebanese poet-novelist Abbas Baydoun reflects in an autobiographical mode on the melancholy of language and existence, while contemplating sweets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":7560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,27,68,50],"tags":[97,231,294,507,1032,1118,1367],"coauthors":[1861,2011],"class_list":["post-7558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","category-review","category-memoir","category-tmr-19-desire","category-tmr-issues","tag-abbas-beydoun","tag-arab-literature","tag-autobiography","tag-desire","tag-lebanon","tag-memoir","tag-poetry","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\u201cGluttony\u201d from Abbas Beydoun's "Frankenstein's Mirrors" - The Markaz Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Lebanese poet Abbas Baydoun 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