Mubarak Kamal’s A Slow Suicide “is a tale // Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, // Signifying nothing.” One is surprised by the wanton explosiveness of an idiot, and more so, and, especially from one we cannot tell with exactness the source of his violence. The novel abruptly starts with unrestrained destruction, increasing with energy from whence its fuel is unknown, and then we are ushered into his mundane world to inquire about a substantive narrative, feigning to justify such conclusions without satisfaction, to decide for ourselves if the chemical equation is balanced.

There are three alternating timelines in the novel: The protagonist’s abused childhood; his failed pursuits at becoming in his formative university years; and, the concluding prologue wherein the story is set, which is two generations before the writing of this biographical tale. The foreword sets the stage for what is to happen, or more precisely, what has already happened, to the author of this account.

                Each chronological period justifies the one to come after it, but none could explain with success the rationality of the conclusion. The protagonist was neglected as a child, uncared of, and learned to yield: his docility is enforced by his aunt, and through the helplessness of his mother and uncle; the absence of his father throughout his life gave him no recourse but to submit.

                As an undergraduate student in communications (an important theme in the novel), he sets out to protrude from the servile class of his peers and be a man with a cause – perhaps in revolt against his past: He was to announce to the world that he was there and that he deserved to be heard as he had something to say. What that thing that needed to be said and needed to be heard is not to be stressed, acknowledged, or known by any. However, in contemplating his behavior, the student gains self-awareness and realizes that this reaction is unjustified. What might have driven him to this was not solely his repressed past, but a need to grab the attention of the woman who grew inured to him, but who was, through her inaccessibility, become the object of his desire.

                It dawns as a harsh awakening how futile his efforts were, and with the winds his aspirations blew. He re-entered the servile class again, hoping to be content. His love interest is uncaring, untouched, unmoved. His writing stillborn career as a writer unpromising. He accepted his fate as another pebble on the shore, and he grew uninterested in the progress he deeply believed he was capable of accomplishing. Success is to be fought by all men, and as Steinbeck said: “Only mediocrity escapes criticism.” To be great is to have the world your enemy, and the rewards yield no riches nor respect, no admiring by men who were crushed suffices.

The sudden eruption started as a simmering of these heavy waters: A discontent, a lethargy, a bubbling hatred in the pot toward himself and the world, sudden remembrances of sexual abuses, a stew of illicit substances gurgling in his stomach influencing the images. The sirens sang no song. All elements conspired to produce a cacophony that remains unjustified: It seemed as if the author intuited the rule that all must play with, that to follow can only make one quiet for so long until one cannot be quiet anymore.

Mubarak Kamal’s novel may be one of the great existential novels of our times, because it describes the agonies of the modern man who is not contented by the trifles he has to endure every day, forever deprived of the materials by which he may shape himself.

Shuweikh,
April, 2024.