Promoted to the front page
Any serious student of the Arabic language will want to own a copy of the illustrious "A New Arabic Grammar of the Written Language", by JA Haywood and H M Nahmad.
First published in 1962, it has been through two editions and numerous reprints since - but has never been out of print. It remains the core grammar for most university level Arabic courses in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the Anglophone world.
At some 700 pages long, it is a hefty tome; and given that it is an academic text it is very expensive to buy in hard copy. However, courtesy of Shaykh Google and a little time, I have tracked down a scanned copy to download. It may be viewed, or saved (in either doc or pdf format) from the following site:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/8907360/Haywood-Arabic-Grammar
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As a bibliographical footnote - I used to own (before I lost it on a Bristol bus) a very old copy of Haywood's predecessor, "Thatcher's Arabic Grammar" - a volume that accompanied all Colonial Service types of the British Empire on their various derring-dos in the British possessions of the Arabic kind.
My copy had been the possession of a founding member of the British Army's SAS, which began life as the Long Range Desert Patrol in the North African campaigns of World War II. I found it in the rubbish bin outside the English library of the British Council in Tangier, Morocco, where its previous owner had settled after the last World War and practiced as a doctor.
Littered throughout this volume were pencilled notes in Arabic. Some were extensions of the text; others were more mysterious, in that they did not seem to be words at all - simply jumbles of Arabic letters. I had the chance the speak to the then octagenarian ex-owner of the book. He was both concerned that it had nearly ended in the rubbish (he had donated it to the library and it was still in good condition when I found it in the rubbish bins) and happy that it had at least found a new home with me. He explained his more mysterious notes as being a cipher he had developed with others using the text of Thatcher's Arabic Grammar as a key.
And then I lost the bloody thing on a wet Wednesday, on a Bristol bus making its way up the Gloucester Road...
Easy come, easy go.
Easy come, easy go.>>>>
But that's a very interesting story, the stuff of which novels are made. I'd keep that on a note card and when you feel the burning desire to write your novel someday (which the way you write tells me you might be that sort of bloke) overtakes you ... it's right there. I'm working on my own right now, and that story just BRISTLES.
Thanks for the compliment, Karen. It is nice to be encouraged.
I gave up writing for a while recently after the death last October of my dear friend, the American Cellist and professor of music, Lenny Stehn, who had encouraged me enormously - and was himself gifted with an erudition, wit and style that it is hard to imagine can ever be surpassed.
I used to get regular emails from Lenny, outlining his persistent, pertinently put and often hilarious obsessions with Vidal's writings, his recollections of the early Civil Rights movement (he moved to Britain in the early '60s) as seen through the eyes of a jobbing musician working north and south of the Mason-Dixie Line in the late 50s and early 60s, his commentaries on contemporary American politics and his nuanced contempt for reaction in all its many guises.
Then, one day, the emails stopped, to be followed a few weeks later by an email from his brother in the US informing me that Lenny (who I knew already was terminally ill and was obstinantly refusing further chemotherapy) had quietly died one night, after being admitted to hospital with jaundice.
I think iI can safely say that nothing has moved me quite so much as Lenny's passing - I was and I am bereft by his going (as are so many others who were privileged to know him) - and so, at least in as much as I shared this joy of writing with him, for him and to him, its light too went out, for a while.
So your kindness is doubly valuable - and I thank you for it.
Good luck with your writing - it is a mark that must mark.
Abu Faris ...
Thank you for sharing your story and your sorrow. In such relationships in writing, it's a special gift and losing one part of your writing self is a tragedy. No doubt after your period of mourning this loss, you will emerge with a new voice, one that contains a part of your friend. I used to think that writers existed on some kind of vacuum, creating all of their beauty from some inner petri dish un-unspired, shaped, pruned, and molded by others. How stupid! This attitude held me back for many years and I am still catching up. But that is part of the growth process too. Hard lesseons, I believe, are understood with a depth that easily won skills and understandings don't possess. Your writings are certainly valued here. I even had a recent expereince that has helped me as a writer. My current work was giving me a rough go in an area. I consideded a remedy and wondered if it would work. Low and behold, I was recently reading a book of essays by Turkish Nobel Prize winning author Orhan Pamuk, whom I love! He is extremely generous in outlining the back room processes and thoughts that go into his works. All the tricks and short cuts and ways he gathers and keeps information. Like the card I mentioned in my previous post. Well, he outlined exactly the method of organization I was considering for my own book and said it was his usual and standard method. Not that I was looking for permission per se, but if this exercise works for one of the greats, then I guess I'm on the right track. Cheers!
Just to let you know, a very moving and heartfelt obituary was written by Seth Freedman, the Israeli-British writer for the Guardian's "Comment is Free" blog, who - like me - was befriended and encouraged in his writing by Lenny Stehn. It can be found here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/17/lennystone
Lenny, a very secular Jew and a firm friend of justice once wrote:
"As a musician, I'd love to see an article about the wonderful Israel Philharmonic and promise that my only reservation would be that it's a shame Palestinians can't hear it."
Lenny was a "critical friend" of Israel; a strongly critical one, with a rigorous commitment to justice, freedom and democratic values, which led him to
"detest the 'nationalist Zionist' political programme, which has contributed little to the country's economic and cultural success, and compromises its security, by placing it forever at odds with its neighbours".
I - and many others - will miss him.
Go in peace, Lenny.
On a brighter note, Karen, your comments about note-taking remind me that much of what I write here (and on other blogs) are mostly a series of notes - sketches and skits of larger things that I either lack the will or wit to confront as adequately as I might with more patience and skill...
I know how that is ...
Writing is a discipline, not only of the time but of the mind. I use the blogs I participate in as laboratories of a sort. Testing ideas and form. Which is why I truly appreciate feedback of all kinds. And the negative is intersting as the positive. I am in the middle of a novel. And have procrastinated off and on for too long. Over the last weekend and Monday I pushed through that barrier and blasted out another 50 pages. Raw pages mind you, but it's like getting all the ingredients on the counter in preparation of a meal. But I found that once I got going, those pages started to just flood out. And I am still in the process of working out the various formulae between the characters. It's really quite exhilirating. I am taking two writing workshops over the summer, just to apply the right sort of pressure and get more feedback. It's critically important. And yes, there are Muslims in the story. Lots of' em. All flavors too. :)
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Salman Khan
Salman Khan
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