Epigraphs:
It had come so softly towards us over the waters; this war; gradually, as clouds which quietly fill in a horizon from end to end. But as yet it had not broken. Only the rumour of it gripped the heart with conflicting hopes and fears. At first it had seemed to portend the end of the so-called civilised world, but this hope soon proved vain. No, it was to be as always simply the end of kindness and safety and moderate ways; the end of the artist's hopes, of nonchalance, of joy. Apart from this everything else about the human condition would be confirmed and emphasised; perhaps even a certain truthfulness had already begun to emerge from behind appearances, for death heightens every tension and permits us fewer of the half-truths by which we normally live.
-- Lawrence Durrell, Clea
Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come the myrtle tree, and it shall be to the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
-- Isaiah 55:13
الأخضر واليابس
Bayswater
:
Smilley Business Communications
,
1988
Z857149
1988
single work
novel
war literature
The narrator is in a peaceful beautiful village, Wahdeh, where the people are living in unity and harmony, until a stranger, who was an officer in the army and has turned to form his rebellious groups, succeeds in convincing the mayor to recruit the men of the village and train them to defend themselves against the enemies. When the mayor who has always been the first carer of Wahdeh and is considered the wise man of the village, finds out after the officer's death that he had hidden intentions and used the soldiers' skills for his personal objectives, he is overcome with sadness and dies in the middle of the village.
