Jabra Ibrahim Jabraʼs In Search of Walid Masoud. A Polyphony of (Un)Orchestrated Opus

Abstract

This paper makes use of Mikhail Bakhtinʼs notion of polyphony to approach In Search of Walid Masoud, a novel written in Arabic by the Palestinian writer Jabra Ibrahim Jabra in 1978 and translated into English by Roger Allen and Adnan Haydar in 2000. It is the story of the mysterious disappearance of the protagonist Walid Masoud who does not flesh out as a character in his own right although he fills the world of the novel from beginning to end. As the novel hosts multiple characters with distinct voices, each telling his/her own version of the reminisced memories with the protagonist, there is a need to stitch up these parts in search of a possible vision lurking in the offing of the tale. In this context, Bakhtinʼs polyphony is used to deconstruct and reconstruct the fictional world which Jabra must have pedantically created in this fragmentary novel to send a holistic, non-fragmentary message. Pulling the threads of the various voices of characters rehashing non-identical pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that makes the story of the physically absent hero, this paper demystifies the un-orchestrated polyphonic ambiguities in order to unify the seemingly disconnected events that make the plotline of Walidʼs story and his baffling disappearance from the outset of the novel. In particular, this study looks at the narrative technique used by Jabra to create from a variety of reminisced and shredded personal narratives a totality of a clear-cut vision at the centre of which stands one image epitomizing the drama of a national saga that is worth-telling. Focusing on the impact of Jabraʼs narrative technique, this paper explores areas long viewed by some literary critics as marginal and unimportant. To this effect, the paper authenticates the voice of the absented hero as the ever-present figure who excels himself to address his homeland, Palestine, as a reverberating national cause.