Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2002 06:33:56 +0100 (BST)
From: =?iso-8859-1?q?eldorra=20mitchell?= <manynotone-AT-yahoo.co.in>
Subject: Re: More on Kuchuk Hanem


--0-494509894-1023341636=:47357


 

Yasamak sakaya gelmez, 
buyuk bir ciddiyetle yasayacaksin 
   bir sincap gibi mesela, 
yani, yasamanin disinda ve otesinde hicbir sey beklemeden, 
   yani butun isin gucun yasamak olacak. 
---------------------------------

  piers smith <piersmsmith-AT-yahoo.co.uk> wrote: I'm mystified by a recent exchange on Said's analysis
of Flaubert's 'Kuchuk Hanem' in _Orientalism_.

The name appears in one post as, variously, 'Kuuck
Hanim' (apparently Persian, as heard in Turkey),
'Kuchuk Hanem' (as read in Said, apparently the
phonetically-rendered name of an Egyptian courtesan),
and 'Kachuk Hanem'. This name, it appears, 'has
significance on several levels'; 'significantly
enough, [it] is quite literally translated, "the
little woman" or "miss little one". The same post
concludes: 
> This nickname for a courtesan whose actual name and 
> history we never know is a staggering metaphor for
the > indifference with which the Empire approached 
> colonials. The apathy toward the actual humanity of

> this "little woman" and the similar focus on the 
> insignificance of the innocents in need of direction

> and focus, primarily from a male hierarchy of 
> intelligentsia, assured that names and histories
would
> remain unrecorded. And I am interested in the way 
> in which women writing as postcolonials continue to
be
> "the little women" of contemporary fiction. 
> Postcolonial and minority women have frequently
been, 
> like Kachuk Hanem, nameless and voiceless.

Staggering along, these women writing-as-postcolonials
might not wish to be named and voiced over the special
charms of Kuchuk Hanem's non-life. But perhaps Kuchuk
Hanem, who may well have existed outside of the
poster's murderous prose and Said's shocking omission,
is not in danger of becoming nameless and voiceless
just yet. Flaubert, who seems to have met her and to
have enjoyed a few 'coups' with her, says she came
from Damascus and that she was amused by his and his
companion's shaved heads and the latter's attempt at
bearing witness to Allah in Arabic (humour, as we
know, has its own logic). His description of the night
he spent with her has other rewards for the
postcolonial reader. The bed-bugs, brutal reader, ah
the bed-bugs.

A second poster takes issue, without much regard for
this endlessly slippery slope. Apparently, 'Kuchuk
Hanim' (sic) does not translate as 'the little woman'.
'Hanim' means 'lady' rather than woman, and so 'kucuk
hanim' (sic) means 'little lady'. This formulation, it
seems, is 'a term commonly used socially to young
girls in their early teens'. Quite apart from
overlooking the distasteful associations of term
'lady',the post does not say whether the subjects of
such usage are Egyptian, Turkish, Damascene, Persian,
French, or Anglo-American for that matter--compare
'The little ladies' (most of late-Victorian Eng Lit or
David Letterman on a good night).

The same post continues, in its game counter-intuitive
way:
> That Flaubert's love interest calls herself that is
> interesting for if one understands the language the
> inference is not so much of female surpression 
> but of an alias - a sense (of which Flaubert is
often
> uneasily aware) that there is more than meets the
eye
> - she's using a nom de plume/guerre - 'young 
> lady' - rather than giving her name . She is
> independent - both financially and because she
> refuses to be named. 

Ignoring the problem of what this language can
possibly be that the poster understands, we might be
surprised by the claim that this 'courtesan', this
'almeh', is not an object of sexual traffic but a
'love interest' who, notwithstanding Flaubert's verbal
jouissance ('Her mound, warmer than her stomach,
heated me like a hot iron'), is capable of warlike
resistance both to commerce and naming. 

Flaubert comes off worse in the exchange, but only
because he cannot be sure that Kuchuk Hanem will
remember him (his name). The rider to this, though, is
that he liked brothels, as the third post intimates:
> Given Flaubert's own troubled sexual identity, I'd
> wager he was as much in awe of his Turkish partner
and
> what she represented, as in fear or contempt.

Now Kuchuk Hanem's Turkish, but never mind
('traduttore traditore'). Flaubert's 'troubled sexual
identity' is a puzzling claim, given F's self-declared
quite untroubled fondness for sex, regardless, it
would seem, of the gender of his sexual partner. As to
awe and fear or contempt of our Turkish almeh, he
writes, with a certain grim paleontological relish,
aged, one likes to think, 15 and 3/4: 'The idea of
prostitution is a meeting place of so many
elements--lust, bitterness, complete absence of human
contact, muscular frenzy, the clink of gold--that to
peer into it deeply makes one reel. One learns so many
things in a brothel, and feels such sadness, and
dreams so longingly of love!...'

Regards,
Piers Smith



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Yasamak sakaya gelmez,

buyuk bir ciddiyetle yasayacaksin

bir sincap gibi mesela,

yani, yasamanin disinda ve otesinde hicbir sey beklemeden,

yani butun isin gucun yasamak olacak.

  piers smith <piersmsmith-AT-yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

I'm mystified by a recent exchange on Said's analysis
of Flaubert's 'Kuchuk Hanem' in _Orientalism_.

The name appears in one post as, variously, 'Kuuck
Hanim' (apparently Persian, as heard in Turkey),
'Kuchuk Hanem' (as read in Said, apparently the
phonetically-rendered name of an Egyptian courtesan),
and 'Kachuk Hanem'. This name, it appears, 'has
significance on several levels'; 'significantly
enough, [it] is quite literally translated, "the
little woman" or "miss little one". The same post
concludes:
> This nickname for a courtesan whose actual name and
> history we never know is a staggering metaphor for
the > indifference with which the Empire approached
> colonials. The apathy toward the actual humanity of

> this "little woman" and the similar focus on the
> insignificance of the innocents in need of direction

> and focus, primarily from a male hierarchy of
> intelligentsia, assured that names and histories
would
> remain unrecorded. And I am interested in the way
> in which women writing as postcolonials continue to
be
> "the little women" of contemporary fiction.
> Postcolonial and minority women have frequently
been,
> like Kachuk Hanem, nameless and voiceless.

Staggering along, these women writing-as-postcolonials
might not wish to be named and voiced over the special
charms of Kuchuk Hanem's non-life. But perhaps Kuchuk
Hanem, who may well have existed outside of the
poster's murderous prose and Said's shocking omission,
is not in danger of becoming nameless and voiceless
just yet. Flaubert, who seems to have met her and to
have enjoyed a few 'coups' with her, says she came
from Damascus and that she was amused by his and his
companion's shaved heads and the latter's attempt at
bearing witness to Allah in Arabic (humour, as we
know, has its own logic). His description of the night
he spent with her has other rewards for the
postcolonial reader. The bed-bugs, brutal reader, ah
the bed-bugs.

A second poster takes issue, without much regard for
this endlessly slippery slope. Apparently, 'Kuchuk
Hanim' (sic) does not translate as 'the little woman'.
'Hanim' means 'lady' rather than woman, and so 'kucuk
hanim' (sic) means 'little lady'. This formulation, it
seems, is 'a term commonly used socially to young
girls in their early teens'. Quite apart from
overlooking the distasteful associations of term
'lady',the post does not say whether the subjects of
such usage are Egyptian, Turkish, Damascene, Persian,
French, or Anglo-American for that matter--compare
'The little ladies' (most of late-Victorian Eng Lit or
David Letterman on a good night).

The same post continues, in its game counter-intuitive
way:
> That Flaubert's love interest calls herself that is
> interesting for if one understands the language the
> inference is not so much of female surpression
> but of an alias - a sense (of which Flaubert is
often
> uneasily aware) that there is more than meets the
eye
> - she's using a nom de plume/guerre - 'young
> lady' - rather than giving her name . She is
> independent - both financially and because she
> refuses to be named.

Ignoring the problem of what this language can
possibly be that the poster understands, we might be
surprised by the claim that this 'courtesan', this
'almeh', is not an object of sexual traffic but a
'love interest' who, notwithstanding Flaubert's verbal
jouissance ('Her mound, warmer than her stomach,
heated me like a hot iron'), is capable of warlike
resistance both to commerce and naming.

Flaubert comes off worse in the exchange, but only
because he cannot be sure that Kuchuk Hanem will
remember him (his name). The rider to this, though, is
that he liked brothels, as the third post intimates:
> Given Flaubert's own troubled sexual identity, I'd
> wager he was as much in awe of his Turkish partner
and
> what she represented, as in fear or contempt.

Now Kuchuk Hanem's Turkish, but never mind
('traduttore traditore'). Flaubert's 'troubled sexual
identity' is a puzzling claim, given F's self-declared
quite untroubled fondness for sex, regardless, it
would seem, of the gender of his sexual partner. As to
awe and fear or contempt of our Turkish almeh, he
writes, with a certain grim paleontological relish,
aged, one likes to think, 15 and 3/4: 'The idea of
prostitution is a meeting place of so many
elements--lust, bitterness, complete absence of human
contact, muscular frenzy, the clink of gold--that to
peer into it deeply makes one reel. One learns so many
things in a brothel, and feels such sadness, and
dreams so longingly of love!...'

Regards,
Piers Smith



__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Everything you'll ever need on one web page
from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts
http://uk.my.yahoo.com


--- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---