Abject Talks Gibberish: “Translating” Abjection in Rabih Alameddine's An Unnecessary Woman

Mohamed Salah Eddine Madiou

doi:10.13169/arabstudquar.43.3.0249

Abstract

The Lebanese Civil War, stretching over two decades of Lebanon's history, features prominently in any discussion of Rabih Alameddine's An Unnecessary Woman (2014), a novel fashioned according to the pent-up frustrations of a post-trauma period. Alameddine's novel manifests traumatic signposts of the civil war, which make it indelibly situational, and accordingly latches onto complex psychological issues. It is branded with the mark of “abject,” which besots its pages, a phenomenon that threatens identity beyond measure, triggering even an existentialist entropy. In making an effort to (persistently) “describe” this complex phenomenon beyond ken, the novel enmeshes in a baroque and a quite wordy style that tells of an arduous quest on the author's (and characters‘) part to find the “right” word for “abject.” Drawing mainly on Sigmund Freud's essay “The Uncanny” and Julia Kristeva's Powers of Horror, this article proposes to skirt the psychological archaeology of “abject” in An Unnecessary Woman. It argues that the Lebanese Civil War is not the originator of the characters’ feeling of abjection in the novel. Rather, it contends that this feeling, already inherent in the human being and thus universal, is activated by abject threats, such as, in this premise, the civil war, its suspect entourage, and aging.

Highlights

I don’t think we need to consult Freud or one of his many minions to know that there is an issue here. (Alameddine, 2014: 1)There must be a word in some language that describes the anguish you experience upon suddenly coming face-to-face with your terrifying future
Mohamed Salah Eddine Madiou is doing his second Ph.D. in English Literature at Memorial University of Newfoundland
Alameddine’s An Unnecessary Woman (AUW) is riven with universal anxieties, the feeling of abjection3 is one, and deals in universal phenomena, such as “abject” whose “description” the author pushes to disturbing extremes, likely to turn out unpalatable to the reader

Summary

Introduction

I don’t think we need to consult Freud or one of his many minions to know that there is an issue here. (Alameddine, 2014: 1)There must be a word in some language that describes the anguish you experience upon suddenly coming face-to-face with your terrifying future. In these places or spaces of a “sandbox” shape – to take Alameddine’s metaphor in the above quote – where “doors,” “windows,” and “bathrooms” serve as openings to the outside, “forts and castles” are built by, to use Kristeva’s phrase, “the borderline patient” or the “subject” assailed by threatening “abject.” Aaliya (and other characters) is a “borderline patient” who strives to challenge “abject” at the border.

Results

Conclusion