The Tragedy of Life

“And as I fled I reached the very spot where the great king … met his death.”

My aim here is to examine three of FM’s characters whose lives are brutally separated from those around them, transforming each into a “character with a unique destiny.”Footnote ²² These characters resist the seeming irrevocabilityFootnote ²³ that marks their lives, whether it is Wudinesh’s struggle against the recurring death of her loved ones or Bezabih and Seble’s struggle against what is referred to in the novel as “የሞት ህይወት” (a living death), that is, a life of forced celibacy.Footnote ²⁴ This tension on the level of character is registered in the novel’s formal/narratological dialectic between the temporality of the characters’ scenic/lived present (and, by extension, the temporality of ordinary existence) and the temporality of their fate. This dialectic, I argue, contributes to the emergence and breakdown of FM’s realism; the temporality of fate, and the allegories and irrevocability associated with it, threatens to dissolve the novel’s realism as this realism takes form through the narrative’s recurring convergence on the characters’ lived and scenic present and through the recognition of contingency and human agency that this convergence allows. I then link this narratological structure to the novel’s theme about the reproduction of daily life under the traditional social order by arguing that the dialectical tension described previously informs the novel’s critique of the reproduction of individual and familial life under the feudal order as being dominated by forces associated with death and communal domination. Lastly, I use Irele to argue that, though this unfreedom is seen by the characters themselves in supernatural and fatalistic terms, the authorial perspective is, nevertheless, a critically distant one that regards this unfreedom as earthbound and historical.

Bezabih’s mother Wudinesh is the first character encountered who seems to be in the inescapable grip of fate. Although she comes from wealth, she suffers from the improbable circumstance of being widowed three times.Footnote ²⁵ In the scene where she sits reflecting about her decision to marry Bogale, the dialectical tensions mentioned previously are manifest:

This scene captures a profound tension in Wudinesh’s conflicted self-conception. On the one hand, she is on her own and engrossed in a rather positive image of herself, enjoying a short-lived obliviousness to the demands of social conformity and even the threat of death. This is accompanied by a scenic quality of writing that largely halts the passage of time. On the other hand, she quickly becomes self-conscious and constrained by the imagined presence of others, seeing herself as cursed, symbolized by the words of insult on her reflection. Indeed, this mark of “fate”Footnote ²⁷ disrupts her suspended isolation, transforming her reflection into an allegoryFootnote ²⁸ of destiny. Thus, this scene is reinserted into narrative time, and a crushing sense of irrevocability drowns out Wudinesh’s momentary sense of autonomy.

Another notable scene that comes to allegorize a character’s unique destiny is the one that describes Seble’s father’s compound:

Seble subsequently realizes that this scene, teeming with life and seemingly still in time, will disappear with the change of seasons, and recognizes it as announcing her own passing youth and fecundity.Footnote ³⁰ Like Wudinesh, Seble is presented as separate from others,Footnote ³¹ only in her case it is because of “የክብር ባርነት,”Footnote ³² her forced celibacy to maintain the honor and “purity” of her family’s royal bloodline.Footnote ³³ Therefore, the scene is reinserted into narrative time as an allegory of Seble’s doomed fate of bondage at the hands of her father and his house.

Such scenes break from the realism advocated by the likes of Fikre. Moreover, for critics that give primacy to descriptions free of allegorical meaning, these scenes may not seem significant. Taye, for instance, argues that “the main centers of interest” such as Meshesha’s compound are not described in detail compared to “Alaqa Kenfu’s Qene school, for instance.”Footnote ³⁴ Indeed, the latter scene seems devoid of relevance to symbolism or plot, coming closest to Jameson’s category of the “eternal present.” Nonetheless, what strikes me as significant about these scenes is precisely what makes them invisible to such critics, namely the one-sided tension between destiny and the scenic present, and by extension between the characters’ sense of fatalism and freedom. Despite the momentary stalling of narrative time and the characters’ momentary sense of possibility, the story implacably resumes toward its fated conclusion and a sense of irrevocability overwhelms the characters involved.

Nevertheless, these scenes draw attention to the characters’ lived present and, by extension, to the temporality of their ordinary existence, presenting a more positive picture of the traditional village that captures “the distinctive poetry of its form of life,”Footnote ³⁵ to use Irele’s words. I am thinking, for example, of the scene that relates the account of Wudinesh preparing dinner after Bogale returns from work, their skirmish and immediate reconciliation,Footnote ³⁶ or the scene where Bezabih arrives at the house of qene (ቅኔ ቤት) as a student and sees Aleqa Kinfu’s masterful performance of that poetic form.Footnote ³⁷ Another is the memorable scene where Gebre plays his flute after putting the cattle to pasture and encounters and engages in love games with Habtish, a slave in Meshesha’s house who, momentarily free from her duties, is drawn by Gebre’s music.Footnote ³⁸ Yet another is where, in the absence of Meshesha and Tiruaynet, Bezabih, Seble, and Habtish interact freely and playfully during one of Seble’s lessons with Bezabih.Footnote ³⁹

However, these scenes also draw attention to nearly ineluctable circumstances that impede the reproduction of the characters’ personal and familial lives. In Wudinesh’s case, it is the death of her husbands and Bezabih’s recurrent life-threatening childhood illnesses, a result of the poor social and technical development of premodern society, which evoke in her a sense of spiritual irrevocability. As a result, she commits Bezabih to a vow of lifelong celibacy and ecclesiastical service to elicit divine assurance of his survival. Bogale contests this decision with the more worldly desire of teaching Bezabih the skills of agricultural production so he may take his place,Footnote ⁴⁰ stylistically enhanced through rhyming (ቀምበር/ሞፈር/ዘር/ነበር) that seems to echo this generationally repeated social reproductive practice or perhaps invoke the institution of rist, which mandates the hereditary transfer of the right to agricultural land.Footnote ⁴¹ It is Wudinesh’s position, however, that prevails.

This allusion to the practice of committing children to ecclesiastical service and celibacy in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and the contradictions it foregrounds between heaven and earth, celibacy and procreation, and commitment and freedom, provide the author with fertile grounds to develop his critique of the traditional social order through narrative irony. For Bezabih’s prohibition from engaging in carnal love, marriage, and having children, far from securing life, ironically guarantees untimely death.

Bezabih leaves his parents in their old age to free himself from this prohibition, abandoning his responsibility of retiring them.Footnote ⁴² This social reproductive role of children retiring their parents is ironically subverted by Wudinesh’s actions to secure it, leading the community to oxymoronically label her and Bogale as “የወላድ መካን,” childless parents. Wudinesh sees this as another sign of God’s prophetic curse on her: “እንዲያው በድሌ እንዲያው በጎዶሎ ሌሊት በፈጠረኝ በእግዚአብሄር ነው የማለቅስ.”Footnote ⁴³ Nevertheless, Bogale emphasizes Wudinesh’s own role in driving away their son.Footnote ⁴⁴ It is this that constitutes the tragedy of Wudinesh and Bogale’s story; through their attempts to avoid their “fate,” they ultimately fulfill it, albeit in a conflicted and ironically mundane way. This reversal, besides incisively critiquing the religious practice of vowing children to celibacy, underscores that people, although shaped by circumstance, play a major role in shaping their circumstances and that their lives are not divinely preordained. This ironic subversion of the doctrine of fatalism is informed by the dialectic in the narrative that maintains the semblance of destiny while simultaneously dispelling it.Footnote ⁴⁵

Despite the preceding intimate portrayal of the characters, however, Wudinesh and Bogale’s story concludes as follows:

Note the absence of the scenic and descriptive qualities shown previously, leaving us with a vague bare-bones tale, whose finality reveals the “teleological determination” of the récit.Footnote ⁴⁷ Indeed, Wudinesh and Bogale’s story is ultimately preserved in village tradition as an invocation of divine protection. As such, the ordinary and contingent existence of this couple is forever denied, and we are left with a tale of their unique and irrevocable fate.

Bezabih’s story bears a similar mark of fate, shot through with irony. He recognizes his being “የስእለት ልጅ,” a vowed child, as a curse that sets him apart from his peers and curtails his freedom.Footnote ⁴⁸ However, even his flight from home does not evoke a feeling of absolute liberty since the violated vow remains irresolvable in his mind.Footnote ⁴⁹ Bezabih’s freedom is, thus, hemmed in by his sense of being at the mercy of divine powers, indicative of the trope of divinely ordained destiny. More, fate functions as a formal element in Bezabih and Seble’s story as evidenced by its tragic resolution, which will be further discussed in the following.

Indeed, one finds a similar temporal dialectic here to the one explored previously, manifest in the following scene where Bezabih and Seble discover their common experienceFootnote ⁵⁰ and mutual attraction:

This suspended scene draws attention to the characters’ physical and grounded presence through the juxtaposition of dream and reality, of the spiritual and material. The narrative is frozen as Bezabih and Seble are engrossed in each other and in feelings whose import is relayed more by sense perception than narration or even speech. In a novel that relies on what Sahle Selassie describes as “the dramatic method … [where the] author prepares the stage and then makes the characters engage in dialogue,” such scenes of slow and silent interaction are markedly different from the dominant style of the novel.Footnote ⁵²

This scene, like the ones described previously, is eventually reinserted into narrative time: “የወይዘሮ ጥሩ አይነት መምጫ ደረሰ። ያን ተራ ፍቅራቸውን ዝሙታቸውን ፈጽመው ሱሳቸውን አሳልፈው የደናግሉን የንጹሀኑን ብሩክ ቅዱስ ፍቅር ለማቁዋረጥ የሚመጡበት ጊዜ ደረሰ!.”Footnote ⁵³ This ironic juxtaposition suggests that Seble and Bezabih’s blameless love will (hypocritically) be construed as an offense. It also hints at their fated end of celibacy, implicitly reintroducing the temporality of destiny.

Seble and Bezabih’s forbidden love, which creates for them an island of freedom in a world of slavery,Footnote ⁵⁴ eventually raises suspicion and Meshesha interrupts their plans of escape, imprisons her, and has his servants pursue him, leading to Bezabih’s binding sense of fate: “ለካ ክፉም ሆነ በጎ የሚሰሩ ሰዎች መሳሪያዎች ናቸው እንጂ ሰራተኛው እግዚአብሄር ስለሆነ … ክፉ የተሰራበት ወይም በጎ የተሰራለት ዞሮ ዞሮ ክፉውን ወይም በጎውን በሌላ አማክይነት አያጣውም ማለት ነው!”;Footnote ⁵⁵ Bezabih adds “እናቴ ምሽት ሳላገባ በድንግልና ታቦት እንዳገለግል በስእለት ስለሰጠችኝ በስዋ አዝኜ ከታሰርሁበት አምልጬ ምሽት አግብቼ ለመኖር ነበር አገሬን የለቀቅሁ። ይዩት አሁን በሌላ መንገድ ወደዚያው ጥንት ወደተመደበልኝ ህይወቴ መመለሴ ነው!.”Footnote ⁵⁶ This disavowal of the potency of day-to-day human choices indicates that the temporality of fate dominates the immediate temporality of ordinary existence. Indeed, from Bezabih’s perspective, filled with fatalistic guilt about offenses against God and family,Footnote ⁵⁷ the narrative appears little more than a moral tale about the insignificance of human agency in the face of divine providence. Although Gudu Kassa, in a manner reminiscent of Bogale’s earlier role, insists on an earthly explanation of events, Bezabih ultimately resigns to his “fate,”Footnote ⁵⁸ throwing Bezabih’s fatalism into sharp relief against Gudu Kassa’s worldly perspective. What is more, Seble ultimately adopts a similar apprehension of her own life,Footnote ⁵⁹ more on which later.

It is worth noting here the way Meshesha’s house is memorialized in the wake of Meshesha and Tiruaynet’s death, which happens on the appointed day of Seble and Tafere’s wedding and immediately after Seble’s escape. The wedding, in another ironic reversal, turns into a funeral, where a narrative poem is recited.Footnote ⁶⁰ Like the conclusion to Wudinesh and Bogale’s story, this narrative is one of singularity and mortality, told to invoke divine protection from a turn of events that can only be explained by the couple’s seemingly irrevocable fate, which is traced back to their having a female instead of a male child. Furthermore, the same minimalist style and withdrawn perspective are present here. This final taleFootnote ⁶¹ illustrates the concentrated force of the récit, reducing each event to a function that leads to the tragic conclusion of the story.

I contend, therefore, that the temporality of destiny and the philosophy of fatalism are vital for a fuller understanding of FM. In positing fate in a way that threatens to dissolve the novel’s realism, the author enhances the portrayal of the daily lives of individuals as being dominated by forces associated with death and communal domination/dependence.Footnote ⁶² These forces are wholly earthbound and historical, notwithstanding the characters’ recognition of them as divinely ordained, as evidenced by the form and flow of the narrative itself, the tensions immanent in its plot and narrative technique. This appearance of destiny is dispelled by the recognition of contingency and human agency allowed by the narrative’s constant convergence on the characters’ lived present and by the split between the narrator and the fatalistic subjectivity of the characters, a distance in point of viewFootnote ⁶³ maintained by including Bogale and Gudu Kassa’s contrarian views.

This distance resembles the one Irele identifies in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, for the narrative form of Achebe’s novel is not only linked to the state of unfreedom of individuals,Footnote ⁶⁴ but also signals an authorial perspective that seems culturally distant from “the background of life—of thoughts and manners” of the text’s referential world.Footnote ⁶⁵

However, one key difference between these two authors seems to be that whereas Achebe’s “identification with the indigenous heritage … [was] a later and conscious development” due to having been disconnected from it by the effects of colonial conquest and his Christian schooling, at least as Irele tells us,Footnote ⁶⁶ Haddis grew up in and was intimately familiar with tradition, a result of Ethiopia’s peculiarity in sub-Saharan African history of having maintained its political independence amid the onslaught of Western imperialism in the late nineteenth century.Footnote ⁶⁷ The traditional order thereby survived, albeit with numerous reforms, until the Ethiopian Revolution of 1974 despite the disruption of fascist Italian occupation from 1936 to 1941.

In addition to his familiarity with the traditional world, Haddis had immense exposure to the new and encroaching world of modernity. His background in traditional and modern education as well as his participation in the anticolonial war against fascist Italy and his positions as a diplomat abroad are important here.Footnote ⁶⁸ More, his numerous and unsettled rolesFootnote ⁶⁹ in the budding state bureaucracy of the postwar period, and his being a member of the educated middle class that came to assume administrative positions alongside the traditional nobilityFootnote ⁷⁰ indicate his knowledgeability of and disaffection with the ruling establishment and ideas of the day. I elaborate this point about Haddis as a (critically as opposed to culturally) distant insider and its relevance to FM in the next subsection.

The Tragedy of History

“It was human history, masquerading as God’s Purpose.”

So far, we have discussed social reproduction as it relates to the characters’ personal and familial lives. But this aspect of social reproduction is interwoven in FM with the reproduction of the feudal mode of production as a socio-historical system. And here, too, temporality plays a crucial role.

In what follows, I discuss the relation between the realist narrative mode and the older narrative modes of the traditional epic and gedl in FM, expanding our study’s scale from textuality to that of intertextuality. I then link this discussion to the novel’s theme about the philosophy of history that underpins the reproduction of the social relations and institutions of the traditional system. I argue that FM adopts the narrative modes of the epic and the gedl only to ultimately distance itself from these traditional narrative modes in favor of the realist narrative modes of novels and modern histories. This alternation and ironic juxtaposition of narrative modes informs the novel’s critique of the reproduction of the feudal socio-historical system as being based on the philosophical doctrine that humans do not make their own history and are subject to the cosmic order under which they live. FM’s ultimate disassociation from traditional narrative modes should be read, in my view, as underscoring the historicity of the traditional order and as endorsing the modern philosophy of history that frees humans from this position of subjects by recognizing them as the makers of their own history.

Seble’s inability to marry is not only linked to the preservation of her family’s aristocratic status but also to their claim of “unadulterated” royal lineage. Her future is thus foreclosed upon to preserve the inherited glory of kings and queens long gone, as related in the following scene where the family discusses the failed plans to wed Seble with Asege: “በፊታውራሪ መሸሻ ቁዋንቁዋ [ፊታውራሪ አሰጌ] አባት ብቻ ሳይሆን አያትና ቅድመ አያት ከዚያም በላይ ጭምር የነበሩዋቸው በቆዳና በቅቤ የተገዛ ሳይሆን ካጥንትና ከደም የተወረሰ ጌትነት የነበራቸው አጥንታቸውም ሆነ ደማቸው ሚዛን የሚደፋ ነበሩ.”Footnote ⁷¹ Notice the juxtaposition of two sources of power here. The first has to do with commodity production/exchange and money. The second has to do with belonging to a descent group and therefore kinship, with emphasis made on the warrior status of the group, which includes the dead.Footnote ⁷² Meshesha resents the potential commodification of aristocratic honor and property, something that he associates with the decline of his power and status,Footnote ⁷³ and is fond of Asege because of his lineage. However, Asege’s last-minute announcement of his unwillingness to marry Seble in the custom of marrying a maiden greatly offends Meshesha and their arrangement falls apart. When consulted to ask for restitution from Asege, Meshesha angrily rejects this by stating how that would amount to selling off his family’s and royal forefathers’ honor (“የኔንና ያባቶቼን የነገስታቱን ክብር”) for money.Footnote ⁷⁴ reaffirming his disdain for commodity exchange and money power and further invoking inherited honor and the dead.Footnote ⁷⁵ Moreover, Meshesha explicitly claims descent from the Solomonic bloodline.Footnote ⁷⁶

This portrayal of the aristocracy is in line with sociological and historical studies of the traditional order. The property right that belongs to the landed aristocracy is gult,Footnote ⁷⁷ usually translated as fief. Gult is the right to receive tribute from the peasantry living and working on a particular piece of agricultural land. Gult-holders were therefore tribute receivers whose rights to such property were often intended to be permanentFootnote ⁷⁸ and sometimes hereditary.Footnote ⁷⁹ This institution was often justified as state compensation for military services rendered.Footnote ⁸⁰ In addition, the nobility was not only a class distinct from the peasants (gebbar/balager) over which it ruled but was also constituted with steep hierarchies of its own. Those considered of royal descent (the mesafint) were distinguished from other nobles (the mekuanint), and their affiliations with the Solomonic dynasty afforded them supreme status.Footnote ⁸¹ Moreover, the nobility, whose “traditional functions were that of governor and warrior,” regarded any form of labor and profit-making as degrading.Footnote ⁸²

However, the portrayal of the aristocracy in FM is also imbued with literary qualities that require closer scrutiny. Meshesha’s sense of greatness and his tragic sense of decline are traits that can potentially be part and parcel of a heroic depiction. The reference to “የነገስታቱ … ክብር” (the glory/honor of the kings) heightens this potentiality as it can be interpreted as an allusion to the Kebra Nagast, The Glory of Kings, a fourteenth-century epic that chronicles the rise of the Solomonic dynasty and its transplantation, together with the Ark of the Covenant and, by extension, the true Zion, to Ethiopia. The heroic stature of King Solomon and Menelik I, his son and founder of the Solomonic dynasty, is primarily relayed in this narrative through the immense significance that their bloodline holds both in heaven and on earth:

The preeminence of Solomon and especially Menelik I here is surpassed only by the cosmic scope of the order of which they are ordained to be the earthly rulers. Further, this genealogical account is accompanied with a prophetic conception of time where, in Auerbach’s famous words, “the here and now is no longer a link in an earthly chain of events, it is simultaneously something which has always been, and will be fulfilled in the future.”Footnote ⁸⁴ This idea of divinely ordained irrevocability, expressed in the aforementioned quote’s emphasis on the eternal nature of the rule (Solomonic rule on earth and of the divine rule of Christ) of those who have been uniquely chosen by God (the descendants of David), is precisely what we have identified previously in connection to the temporality of destiny. Moreover, this prophetic conception of time is meant to provide divine sanction to the rule of the monarchs in the story and those that follow in their lineage. Indeed, the prevalence of this prophetic sense of time is such that it structures the narrative itself; though Menelik I is not yet coronated, the previous passage reads as though he, along with his descendants, is.

Meshesha’s invocation of the ancestral dead and claim of royal descent are based on this temporal conception where the present and future fulfill an eternal cosmic order. The royal forebears are thought to pass judgment on present affairs, thereby sanctioning the prestige and privilege of their descendants at present and in perpetuity.Footnote ⁸⁵ Moreover, such power is sanctioned by church officials such as Aba Mogese,Footnote ⁸⁶ for whom honor inherited by blood is recognized by the divine.Footnote ⁸⁷

Instead of being presented as a tragic heroic figure whose power declines with time,Footnote ⁸⁸ however, Meshesha is ultimately portrayed satirically in the novel. His claim to royal greatness is done to the point of extremity.Footnote ⁸⁹ Moreover, his victory over Asege is ironically reversed, heightening this sardonic effect.

The last-minute intervention of the priests on behalf of the patron saintFootnote ⁹⁰ of both Dima and Bichena, Saint George, to plead with Meshesha to forgive Asege’s transgression and to call off the duel adds a mystical element to Meshesha’s established but waning legendary prestige as a warrior, the fabled glory of which leads Asege to hyperbolically identify Meshesha himself as a patron saint.Footnote ⁹¹ Indeed, the tales about Meshesha’s former strength and valor are fantastical, incredible stories about his wrestling lions to the ground with his bare hands, jumping from one galloping horse onto another, and the like.Footnote ⁹² Further, the intervention of the priests is portrayed at first with the same sense of prophetic time associated with Meshesha’s lineage: “ያንለት [ፊታውራሪ መሸሻ] ለመፈጸም ታጥቀው የመጡለት በደል በአዳም እስከ ዘራዝርእቱ ሞት ካስፈረደበት በደል የሚመዛዘን መሆኑን ከሊቃውንቱ አፍ ሲሰሙ … እግዚአብሄር በእለተ ምጻት በግርማ መለኮቱ ወርዶ በሀጥአን ስለሚፈረደው ፍርድ አባ ሞገሴ ሲሰብኩዋቸው የኖሩት ያንለት በሳቸው የተፈጸመ መስሎዋቸው ይንቀጠቀጡ ነበር.”Footnote ⁹³ Even further, Meshesha’s journey to the duel is filled with prophesy and auguries.Footnote ⁹⁴ Indeed, Meshesha chooses the day of the duel to be on St. George’s Day to invoke the saint’s intervention on his behalf;Footnote ⁹⁵ Meshesha’s choice, thus, appears to prefigure what is fulfilled by divine providence, a narrative structure based on prophetic time that we encountered previously in the Kebra Nagast. Afterward, Meshesha and others look back at these events as miraculous,Footnote ⁹⁶ as symbolizing the former’s glory and as being predestined, resulting from his patrician courage and resoluteness.Footnote ⁹⁷

Despite these qualities that may lead us to read this part of the novel as adopting a style and structure characteristic of epic narratives, the story of Meshesha and Asege’s conflict ends on a satirical note with the revelation that the priests intervened not due to divine providence or Asege’s fearful entreaties but Qegnazmach Akalu’s (Meshesha’s relative and loyal subject) plan to prevent the duel and Meshesha’s almost certain defeat and death. Only Asege and the heads of the two churches are privy to his plan to have the priests intervene,Footnote ⁹⁸ leaving Meshesha and others in his house to continue to ignorantly revel in Meshesha’s courage and Asege’s cowardice. Like Meshesha’s self-aggrandizement, the ultimate revelation that Meshesha’s “victory” is a result of the secretive intervention of someone from his own house ironically undermines his stature. More, it reverses the epic narrative style to that of satire, ironically subverting notions of prophesy and prophetic temporality associated with the former genre by centering the role of earthly circumstance, human agency, and contingency in the chain of events.Footnote ⁹⁹

This satirical subversionFootnote ¹⁰⁰ sheds FM’s ties to epics such as the Kebra Nagast by undermining this mode’s narratological and philosophical underpinnings in favor of the realist modes of novels and modern histories. Indeed, the novel shrouds the events in mystery only to finally reveal Akalu’s role, dissipating any sense of awe sustained thus far. This demystifying narrative flow is a recurring one and is connected to the way the novel straddles different narrative modes. Moreover, it is reminiscent of Vico’s modern and secular conception of history as made by and therefore knowable to humans, a conception at odds with those of traditional epics and royal chronicles.

This formal and thematic tension between the old and the new is expressed by Gudu Kassa as follows:

This passage succinctly conveys the tension between the ethos of the traditional order and the ethos of modernity. By analogizing the traditional order to “a lifeless dry-stone wall” and describing it as archaic and oppressive, Gudu Kassa articulates a major theme that pervades the novel’s very narratological structure. He advocates instead for “an order of the living” that affirms people’s capacity to form their social order freely and collectively, thereby making their own history. This “philosophical break from the past,” as Samir Amin puts it, is how the modern era, “an era of freedom but also of insecurity,” began.Footnote ¹⁰²

Also note the tropes of life and death. The lack of personal vitality and liberty in Bezabih and Seble’s lives is reflected here in the lack of social dynamism and freedom in the traditional order, linking the tensions and reversals in narrative time with those in the narrative mode.

In my view, these modern ideals render Gudu Kassa an anachronistic character, especially considering his only having gone through traditional schooling.Footnote ¹⁰³ Besides acting as a foil to Meshesha’s aristocratic and volatile temperament, Gudu Kassa seems to reflect the author’s modern subjectivity.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ I disagree with those that see Gudu Kassa as representing tradition’s “immanent” or self-critiqueFootnote ¹⁰⁵ because his critique is not limited to the excesses of Meshesha’s power/privilege.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ His critique is a qualitative one aimed at the doctrine that humans do not make their own history and are subject to the cosmic order under which they live,Footnote ¹⁰⁷ a doctrine that was necessary “for the reproduction of precapitalist [tributary] social systems.”Footnote ¹⁰⁸

Kassa’s radical difference is marked by the derisive epithet of gudu used against him, which translates to unusual/odd. Moreover, others dismiss and even condemn his most profound criticisms.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ Gudu Kassa’s universal rejectionFootnote ¹¹⁰ signals that he should be read as the modern subject’s adversarial apprehension of the novel’s concrete referent, the traditional way of life, indicative of the split of “the writer’s creative consciousness” discussed earlier, or as anticipating the sensibilities of the modern novel reader. He may also be read as allegorizing modernity’s advance into the cultural realm of the feudal order.Footnote ¹¹¹

What is more, Gudu Kassa draws attention to the author’s concerns regarding the immediate historical context of his novel’s publication, concerns made explicit in Haddis’s short political text Ityopya Min Aynet Astedader Yasfeligatal? (What Kind of Administration Does Ethiopia Need?).Footnote ¹¹² The attempted coup of 1960 greatly troubled Haddis, which he viewed as a historic warning sign of discontent with the traditional system,Footnote ¹¹³ stressing the need for its radical transformation and the impossibility of returning to “የጥንቱ የኑሮ ሥራት,” the ancient order of life, if worse violent uprisings were to be avoided.Footnote ¹¹⁴ Haddis even echoes Gudu Kassa’s words when stating that governments are formed by people and are not created and imposed by a mysterious hand of obscure origin.Footnote ¹¹⁵

In addition to the epic, FM alludes to the gedl, a hagiographic tradition that began in Ethiopia early on with translations from foreign sources, eventually leading to the production of texts about native saints.Footnote ¹¹⁶ Direct references to the gedl in FM include Kelemework’s copying a section of a gedl “ታምረ ጊዮርጊስ,” The Miracles of St. George,Footnote ¹¹⁷ an integral part of the gedl narrative structure,Footnote ¹¹⁸ with the aim of selling it to a monastery, indicating the monastic significance of such texts.Footnote ¹¹⁹

More interestingly, however, the novel contains less explicit references to the gedl in connection to Aba Tekle Haymanot, a widely revered monkFootnote ¹²⁰ that Meshesha enlists to exorcise Seble from Bezabih’s “enchantments.”Footnote ¹²¹ The monk’s cryptic narration of how he miraculously received his exorcising cross from God by standing in prayer on one leg for fifteen daysFootnote ¹²² may be interpreted as a reference to the The Life of Takla Haymanot, a thirteenth-century Ethiopian saint, who, besides bearing the same name as the character, performs the similar but grander miracle of standing in prayer on one leg for seven years after his other leg breaks due to having stood on both for even longer.Footnote ¹²³

Even more interestingly, in a section that has bewildered critics, the novel temporarily but thoroughly adopts the style and structure of the narrative mode of the gedl in its account of Seble’s flight from her home disguised as a monk in Aba Tekle Haymanot’s garbs. Her identity is momentarily disguised not only from other characters but also the reader as she travels under the name of Aba Alem Lemine, which translates to “why should I covet the world,” a name seen as authentically monkish.Footnote ¹²⁴ This sense of mystery is compounded by Seble’s seemingly miraculous encounters when wandering in the wilderness of the Blue Nile Gorge, an area portrayed in mythic terms as hellishly fearsome.Footnote ¹²⁵ Forced to spend a night there, she encounters a leopard and then a lion, managing to escape by climbing a large tree when the two animals confront each other.Footnote ¹²⁶ When Seble relates this encounter to others, it is viewed as a sign of divine intervention on Seble’s behalf: “እንዴት ግሩም ነው እባክህ! ገረመንፈስ ቅዱስ በክንፉ አውቶዋቸው ነው እንጂ!”; “መለኩሴ አደሉ! ፈጣሪያቸው ቅዱስ ገብርኤል ጠሎታቸውን ሰምቶላቸዋል ጣድቃን ቢሆኑ ነው!.”Footnote ¹²⁷ The lion is even viewed as an allegory of divine protection that saves Seble from the leopard: “ገብሬል በለተቀኑ ታምራት ነው የሰራልዎ! የሚጣፍ ነው!.”Footnote ¹²⁸ Moreover, in typical gedl fashion, each of Seble’s escapes from danger is preceded by her praying.Footnote ¹²⁹

This curious section has been received with incomprehension and disapproval. Taye, for instance, views it as “a pointless diversion that lowers … the novel to the level of light entertainment.”Footnote ¹³⁰ Moreover, Sahle Selassie considers its lack of immediate disclosure of Aba Alem Lemine’s identity to the reader as unnecessarily confusing.Footnote ¹³¹ These critics, however, fail to recognize that this momentary shift in style and structure is linked to the novel’s allusions to and adoption of the gedl mode of writing. This appearance of mystery and miracle is created by Seble’s seemingly authentic monastic disguise and her dangerous encounters that seem like signs of divine trials and deliverance,Footnote ¹³² which are a major structural feature of gedl narratives. As Kidane Wold Kifle’s definition of the Ge’ez term gedl reminds us, the word denotes “hardships, struggles and trials undergone by believers in order to obtain victory and salvation in their life hereafter.”Footnote ¹³³ Additionally, I interpret this account as specifically alluding to and even imitating Gedle Tekle Haymanot, The Life of Takla Haymanot. In addition to Seble traveling in Aba Tekle Haymanot’s garbs and stating her aim of reaching Addis Ababa for St. Tekle Haymanot’s Day to receive a monastic title,Footnote ¹³⁴ we can cite her encounter with the leopard, which is highly reminiscent of one of St. Tekle Haymanot’s miracles: the saint saves a would-be monk traveling alone in open country from a leopard attack, a trial that is a consequence of the monk’s desire to marry, and guides him to wholly adopting the monastic way of life.Footnote ¹³⁵

The disguise is finally shed when Seble comes across Bezabih on his deathbed, a revelation occurring simultaneously with Seble and Bezabih’s mutual recognition, the former having assumed the guise of a monk and the latter having been rendered nearly unrecognizable by disfiguring wounds.Footnote ¹³⁶ Among the numerous reversals here, one is that Bezabih’s “fate” of an ascetic life, one he desperately resists, is ultimately realized not only in himselfFootnote ¹³⁷ but in the woman he desires to marry as Seble adopts monasticism after his death.Footnote ¹³⁸ A further irony, however, is that the novel disentanglesFootnote ¹³⁹ from the narrative mode associated with monasticism, the gedl, because the narrative’s subjects wish to free themselves from their forced celibacy. Indeed, Seble is hardly the saintly monastic figure she is previously made out to be and is compelled into monasticism by social customs that prevent her from marrying Bezabih, to whom she remains loyal even after his death.Footnote ¹⁴⁰ As for her wish to serve God to absolve herself of divine judgment for her parents’ death, Gudu Kassa, in characteristic fashion, stresses her parents’ own role for their fate.Footnote ¹⁴¹ This is accompanied by the narrative’s convergence on Seble and Bezabih’s bodily, as opposed to ideal, presence when they uncover each other’s identity: “ባሳብ አይደለም በገሀድ ባካል ሊያዩት ነው! ባይነ ህሊና ያዩት ባካል የሚያዩት እንደሆነ ምን ሊውጣቸው ነው?,”Footnote ¹⁴² thus bridging the distance between the narrator and the characters.

This is what I have identified previously as a demystifying narrative flow that is connected to the novel’s movement between different narrative modes and its advocation of the modern philosophy of history. It reveals that the tragic resolution of Seble and Bezabih’s story is not a result of them being followed by prophesy but of them being “hounded by history,”Footnote ¹⁴³ whose laws they break and who, in turn, are broken by agents of its conservation.