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Short Stories
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"A Handful of Dates" by Tayeb Saleh or Salih
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Saleh did a masterful job of painting the word picture of a precocious little boy who had learned to please adults in the first few pages of this story. Did you have the sense that he first learned to do this with his grandfather? The cousins were portrayed as "a stupid bunch", probably also something that he had learned from his grandfather. But, he had learned the pleasures of the land and the river for himself, not as something to acquire but for all of the sensual reasons. I'm still a bit confused about the ending. Massoud didn't seem to take any of the dates for his own eating. Was it because he saw them as living things, as in the "heart of the palm"? Do you think that he owed all of those people who took them or that he just didn't have the heart to stop them?
The "heart" of man is revealed by his actions, especially how he treats others. The boy's grandfather was unsympathetic to others who thought or acted differently from himself. The children were "a stupid bunch" and Masood was "indolent." Masood owed the grandfather fifty more pounds and that will result in Masood losing the rest of his land. Masood and the boy share a love of the land, but not for the economic profit it can give them, but rather for the pleasure it produces. As the boy begins to realize his grandfather is not a man he wants to emulate, he becomes sick.Is is possible that Masood that didn't take any dates because he needed every single one of them to be sold to reduce his debt?
I'll bet you're right, Emily. So, now all that he can do to appreciate them is gather them up to smell and then put them back.
Masood was a man who lived for his pleasures. He had three wives . It is not cheap keeping three wives , so the grandfather was voicing his opinion, that he made his bed , and will lose his land because he was lazy We know Masood was lazy because he did not help in the harvest of the dates.
I agree Emily Masood owed all those dates to the grandfather, so he rightfully had no access to them. I was confused about the ending but your take on it seems about right, The child was double minded about the fairness of his grandfather, because he liked Masood.
"the Sheik always asked me to stand up and recite the Chapter of the Merciful"The boy, star pupil, took his lessons to heart.
"When I again looked at the expanse of ground stretching before me I saw my young companions swarming like ants around the trunks of the palm trees, gathering up dates and eating most of them."
Masood, "the indolent" was feeding the whole village.
"my grandfather had fallen asleep"
Who was indolent?
"I saw Masood filling the palms of both hands with dates and bringing them up close to his nose, then returning them."
He owned the trees, but the none of the crop was his
to eat.
"I felt myself drawing close to Masood, felt my hand stretch out toward him as though I wanted to touch the hem of his garment."
The boy sympathized with Masood, who enjoyed life
and shared the bounty of the land. "Touching the hem"
implies more than sympathy, a reverence even, perhaps
the elevation of Masood to holiness.
"I heard him make a noise in his throat like the rasping of a sheep being slaughtered."
The boy understood that his grandfather, the neighbors and the strangers were bleeding Masood dry.
"For some unknown reason, I experienced a sharp sensation of pain in my chest."
The realization that his beloved grandfather lacked
mercy was a stab in the boy's heart.
"Then, without knowing why, I put my finger into my throat and spewed up the dates I'd eaten."
The boy would not be one of the ants swarming the
carcass of Masood.
Rannie what a lovely interpretation. Thank you for that. I am in agreement and I was wrong. Sometimes others will lead the way when our eyes are clouded. Now the story opens like a flower for me.
Thanks for your interpretation. It certainly fits the facts in the story.
Rannie, good close reading. In some ways, this is the perpetual story of what we study in our religions contrasted with our actions. The readings in the Koran were not just about his ability to memorize, but about his daily life.
Thanks. I think I was following Emily's lead. I'll be counting on y'all to offer insights when I'm stumped. It was a lovely story.
I am not to good at that Rannie. Sometimes I get a little insight, but it is rare. I hope to read more short stories this year.
I read this story because its title intrigued me. Anything that smacks of the Nile and Egypt will catch my interest.I thought it was a very sad story, and I agree with Rannie's assessment. The boy was a kind boy, a good boy, but his grandfather, as he became richer and richer lost more and more of his humanity. Poor boy! He recognizes that Masood is the superior person, the humane person. He would rather force himself to throw up the dates he'd eaten than be a part of his grandfather's inhumanity. Good for him.
Glad to find you here, Gabrielle. One of the achievements of this story, I thought, was capturing that moment of development when you see a person objectively.
hi everyone, sorry to be a little late with reading this. I agree with Rannie's close reading. The mathematician in me added up the sacks: 30 sacks, 10 to the merchant, 5 to each of the 2 strangers, 5 to the neighbour and 5 to the grandfather, therefore none left for Massoud.
The boy reflected on the understanding that Massoud had shown him
“Be careful you don't cut the heart of the palm”
“I pictured the palm tree as something with feeling, something possessed of a heart that throbbed. I remembered Masood's remark to me when he had once seen me playing with the branch of a young palm tree: Palm trees, my boy, like humans, experience joy and suffering. And I had felt an inward and unreasoned embarrassment.”
And this made him reflect on and contrast the attitude of his grandfather. He then saw a completely different side to his loving grandfather: the cold hearted, ruthless businessman who had cut out the heart of the Massoud palm, who'd fallen asleep as everyone lese worked. This sickened the bright boy to his core and in his abbhorance of this he symbolically spewed up the dates he had so enjoyed. A lesson learnt young that everything has its price, whether it is palm tree or person your actions have effects, . Nice parable like story. Very African.
I got
Season of Migration to the North for my birthday and have been saving it until we had read this short. Very much looking forward to it now
Sheila wrote: "hi everyone, sorry to be a littel late with reading this. I agree with Rannie's close reading. The mathematician in me added up the sacks: 30 sacks, 10 to the merchant, 5 to each of the 2 strang..."
This is such a well-crafted story. Every line contains
meaning, like a poem. It was indeed parable-like. Though a very different story, it brought to mind Ruth
and Naomi, and the ancient instruction to only reap
a field once - to leave something for the gleaners.
Masood, allowing the pickers to eat their fill,
understood. Is there a similar lesson in Islam?
I looked for Saleh's books in my library, and then in
my library system (state-wide.)I finally found one copy
in Atlanta, but not in my system. Disappointing. This
brings me to another thought. We used to donate books
to the library, and if they were "shelf-worthy," they
found a home there. Donated books now go immediately
to Friends of the Library sales. I understand this with tattered paperbacks, but once-read front list
hardbacks that the branch doesn't already own? What
sense does that make? OK, I'll get off my soapbox.
It is very much a parable, isn't it, Sheila? Let me know what you think of his book. It's a novel, right?Rannie, I'm going to check and see what my library does with donated books. I always thought that some went to the shelves, but maybe they don't anymore. I have certainly donated enough books to them.
I think most libraries try to sell the books and use the proceeds for items they need but can't afford to buy because of budget cuts.
The grandfather's character was two inches away from revealing its mistery ,it's purity ,magesty and importance ommited any kind of tension which provided us with a sudden suspicion ,the image of the grandfather was waiting to be disturbed and it did eventually .A handful of dates is one of the best short stories i've ever read and i must say that i am very impressed with the close readings on this page .
Constructively i'd like to add up a little to your intriguing prospectives :
1-"When I again looked at the expanse of ground stretching before me I saw my young companions swarming like ants around the trunks of the palm trees, gathering up dates and eating most of them."
-This passage here does not necessarly portrey Masood as someone who feeds the whole village Hense what it refers to Masood here is more of a symbol of compassion and tolerance .Here the writer ment to add some rooting to the text in order to symbolize the muslim sudanist culture and its components ,in that sense every farmer feeds the village at harvest season .
Thats all thank you all
Moulay, thank you so much for the insight behind the culture portrayed in this story. I'm hoping that you read more with us.I took the liberty of looking at your profile and wanted to let you know that I visited your country about 5 years ago and fell in love with it.
Anuradha, I just read about Ruskin Bond on goodreads. He definitely sounds like a writer I need to read.
Constant Reader
Books mentioned in this topic
A Handful of Nuts (other topics)Season of Migration to the North (other topics)
http://www.arabworldbooks.com/Readers...
The link to our story spells the author's name as Saleh, but I also found it frequently spelled Salih elsewhere. The following short biography is from the Encyclopedia Brittanica online:
al-Ṭayyib Ṣāliḥ, (born 1929, Al-Shamalīyah province, Sudan—died Feb. 18, 2009, London, Eng.), Arabic-language novelist and short-story writer whose works explore the intersections of traditional and modern life in Africa.
Ṣāliḥ attended universities in the Sudan (in Khartoum) and in London and devoted much of his professional life to radio broadcasting, for many years as head of drama for the BBC Arabic Service. Coming from a rural background of small farmers and orthodox religious teachers, he attempted in his work to harmonize the traditions of the past with the worldliness of the “traveled man,” the African who has returned from schooling abroad. His novel Mawsim al-hijrah ilā al-shamāl (1966; Season of Migration to the North) is a prose poem that reflects the conflicts of modern Africa: traditions and common sense versus education, rural versus urban, men versus women, and the specific versus the universal. Ṣāliḥ’s prose is polyrhythmic and haunting.
The tales in ʿUrs al-Zayn (1967; Eng. trans. The Wedding of Zein & Other Stories) evoke the warmth, compassion, humour, and sadness of traditional Sudanese Arabic life, examining authority and unwritten codes through its beautifully structured narrative rhythms. In the 1970s he wrote two short volumes, translated into English as Bandarshah, and later published a multivolume autobiography.
There is also an interesting obituary which was printed in The Guardian at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/...