Where's Gebel?

Bob Dylan, writer of the song "The Gates of Eden"As I was reading Naguib Mahfouz’s The Journey of Ibn Fattouma, I couldn’t help but notice that I identified with Ibn Fattouma’s character much more than many of the protagonists from the other books we’ve read this semester. Mahfouz writes the book in an interesting way, as well, by having the protagonist narrate his own journey. The Comfort of Strangers and The Sheltering Sky had less identifiable characters and overall I could not see myself in them. But Ibn Fattouma seems to be a more independent, focused and overall likeable individual. This could possibly be because he is alone on his journey and he shares a lot of information about himself as the narrator.

I also identify a lot with Ibn Fattouma’s search for Gebel, which symbolically represents his search for perfection. This could arguably have been the motive that drove Colin and Mary to travel (to find perfection in their marriage) but, unlike Colin and Mary, Ibn Fattouma states clearly from the beginning that the wonders of the land of Gebel are what he is setting out to find. The prevalence of religion in his journey offers insight into the nature of the journey. Ibn Fattouma is not simply looking for a physical place, but also a mental state of being that he naively associates with the land of Gebel. It is his very naïve sense of hope that makes him an identifiable character.

It seems natural for many travelers to associate travel with moving to greener pastures, as in when people began to come to the United States as immigrants. In The Journey of Ibn Fattouma, the journey to Gebel is idealized so much by the protagonist that it becomes a religious journey and, in many ways, Gebel is representative of some sort of paradise like Heaven or the Garden of Eden. Already a questioner of his beliefs, Ibn Fattouma is forced to face the reality of living in places with religions that are not Islam as when he tries to marry Arousa, but is not granted permission because of the religious differences of her people. Ultimately, Ibn Fattouma is interested in finding a greater good. Through his unorthodox methods of teaching religion to his kids we can see that Ibn Fattouma isn’t as interested in fitting into one religious group; instead he is more interested in finding perfection and enlightenment. These are values that I can identify with because they transcend social and ethnic boundaries.