Leg over Leg : : Volumes One and Two / / Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter New York University Press Complete eBook-Package 2014-2015
• VerfasserIn: al-Shidyāq, Aḥmad Fāris,
• MitwirkendeR: Davies, Humphrey,; Johnson, Rebecca C.,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : New York University Press, , [2015]; ©2015
• Year of Publication: 2015
• Language: English
• Series: Library of Arabic Literature ; 1
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

Leg over Leg recounts the life, from birth to middle age, of “the Fariyaq,” alter ego of Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, a pivotal figure in the intellectual and literary history of the modern Arab world. The always edifying and often hilarious adventures of the Fariyaq, as he moves from his native Lebanon to Egypt, Malta, Tunis, England, and France, provide the author with grist for wide-ranging discussions of the intellectual and social issues of his time, including the ignorance and corruption of the Lebanese religious and secular establishments, freedom of conscience, women’s rights, sexual relationships between men and women, the manners and customs of Europeans and Middle Easterners, and the differences between contemporary European and Arabic literatures, all the while celebrating the genius and beauty of the classical Arabic language.Volumes One and Two follow the hapless Fariyaq through his youth and early education, his misadventures among the monks of Mount Lebanon, his flight to the Egypt of Muhammad 'Ali, and his subsequent employment with the first Arabic daily newspaper-during which time he suffers a number of diseases that parallel his progress in the sciences of Arabic grammar, and engages in amusing digressions on the table manners of the Druze, young love, snow, and the scandals of the early papacy. This first book also sees the list-of locations in Hell, types of medieval glue, instruments of torture, stars and pre-Islamic idols-come into its own as a signature device of the work.Akin to Sterne and Rabelais in his satirical outlook and technical inventiveness, al-Shidyaq produced in Leg Over Leg a work that is unique and unclassifiable. It was initially widely condemned for its attacks on authority, its religious skepticism, and its “obscenity,” and later editions were often abridged. This is the first complete English translation of this groundbreaking work.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- FOREWORD -- NOTES TO THE FRONTMATTER -- CONTENTS OF THE BOOK -- THE DEDICATION OF THIS ELEGANTLY ELOQUENT BOOK -- AUTHOR'S NOTICE -- AN INTRODUCTION BY THE PUBLISHER OF THIS BOOK -- PROEM -- BOOK ONE -- Chapter 1: Raising a Storm -- Chapter 2: A Bruising Fall and a Protecting Shawl -- Chapter 3: Various Amusing Anecdotes -- Chapter 4: Troubles and a Tambour -- Chapter 5: A Priest and a Pursie, Dragging Pockets and Dry Grazing -- Chapter 6: Food and Feeding Frenzies -- Chapter 7: A Donkey that Brayed, a Journey Made, a Hope Delayed -- Chapter 8: Bodega, Brethren, and Board -- Chapter 9: Unseemly Conversations and Crooked Contestations -- Chapter 10: Angering Women Who Dart Sideways Looks, and Claws like Hooks -- Chapter 11: That Which Is Long and Broad -- Chapter 12: A Dish and an Itch -- Chapter 13: A Maqāmah, or, a Maqāmah on “Chapter 13” -- Chapter 14: A Sacrament -- Chapter 15: The Priest’s Tale -- Chapter 16: The Priest’s Tale Continued -- Chapter 17: Snow -- Chapter 18: Bad Luck -- Chapter 19: Emotion and Motion -- Chapter 20: The Difference between Market-men and Bag-men -- BOOK TWO -- Chapter 1: Rolling a Boulder -- Chapter 2: A Salutation and a Conversation -- Chapter 3: The Extraction of the Fāriyāq from Alexandria, by Sail -- Chapter 4: A Throne to Gain Which Man Must Make Moan -- Chapter 5: A Description of Cairo -- Chapter 6: Nothing -- Chapter 7: A Description of Cairo -- Chapter 8: Notice that the Description of Cairo is Ended -- Chapter 9: That to Which I Have Alluded -- Chapter 10: A Doctor -- Chapter 11: The Fulfillment of What He Promised Us -- Chapter 12: Poems for Princes -- Chapter 13: A Maqāmah to Make You Sit -- Chapter 14: An Explanation of the Obscure Words in the Preceding Maqāmah and Their Meanings -- Chapter 15: . . . . . . . . . . Right There ☞ -- Chapter 16: Right Here! -- Chapter 17: Elegy for a Donkey -- Chapter 18: Various Forms of Sickness -- Chapter 19: The Circle of the Universe and the Center of This Book -- Chapter 20: Miracles and Supernatural Acts -- NOTES -- GLOSSARY -- INDEX -- ABOUT THE NYU ABU DHABI INSTITUTE -- ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR -- THE LIBRARY OF ARABIC LITERATURE