التشابك السردي

Can we say that the re-distortion in oral narration is inevitable?

And does your talk, as the years go by, become a kind of regurgitation?

These are two intertwined questions that are difficult to separate when the folk tale unfolds.

Let’s reflect a bit on what I wrote about the oral and the written. Yes, I have previously delivered many lectures on various literary issues, and perhaps most of them were testimonies about my novelistic experience. With the advancement of information revolution tools, I remained centered on the idea that information is abundant, while the knowledge of how to access that information remains limited for the seeker (with a click of a button). There is a difference between information and knowledge; let’s set this point aside and touch upon the elusiveness of oral treasures as a talk. Yes, many still strive to document the oral narratives that have passed through us, yet there is a point of utmost precision that escapes us: the warmth of the folk narrator, the modulation of their voice, the disappearance of their movement, their silence, and their continuation of the talk—many things accompany the folk storyteller. Yes, I am a child of the folk tale; the first schools I attended were sitting in front of a (storyteller) and listening attentively to everything they said. Perhaps this was the first beginning of understanding the impact of the tale on the audience. Since that time, I have been trying to grasp the secret of the tale—the secret of speaking while everyone listens.

Does the tale have jinn or angels so that the listener becomes a piece of pleasure flowing with desire and honey as the tale unfolds? In my childhood, I wanted nothing but to follow the events as if they were the (artistic) channel through which life flows.

And when I (opened the line), I began to learn from the written tale, and I remained immersed in the pleasure of the written, yet my oral world and the written one have vast spaces filled with emptiness between them.

The transition from oral to written has created enormous differences and an impact on the tale in its semantic data and its rapid dynamics.

The folk tale has different techniques from the written one. The oral narration is free and unrestrained, while the written one is a captive being. The recipient must be aware of the fundamental differences in narrating the event between the two forms.

The oral is appealing to the ear, while the written attracts the eye, and the pleasure differs between the two speeds.

In a previous period, literary clubs were active in celebrating the story, and multiple evenings were held, where in each storytelling evening, the differences between the heard and the written emerge.

And if those evenings were committed to the written, the trainee in listening to oral tales becomes frustrated with what is said, because the narrator is like someone carrying two watermelons in one hand; they want to make you hear their story, yet they are entangled in the written, and success is contingent upon the representational ability of the storyteller, so they borrow part of the tools of the oral storyteller.

And the most important features of oral narration:

- The continuous repetition of phrases serves as a transition point from one event to another.

- The storyteller integrates all senses during the narration: hand, eye, body movement, voice modulation, and representing the state of the event with exaggeration or submission.

- The listener's participation in the storytelling, whether by interjecting, adding, or inquiring.

The pleasure of storytelling differs according to time and place during the reading of the written tale, while the folk tale has taken the night as its dwelling; usually, one does not sit to hear the tale except at night.

- The psychology of the folk storyteller affects the narration positively or negatively, as does the psychology of the listeners. If either of them experiences turmoil inside, the state of narration slows down as an indicator of the psychological distress of either.

- In the folk tale, events are added or omitted.

- Every storyteller of a folk tale adds and subtracts. This may be the most important characteristic of the folk tale, while the written story is rich with other aspects.

- After finishing writing the tale, it is prevented from deletion or addition, as it is in a state of completeness.

- The more advanced the writing style, the harder it becomes for the reader to have a real connection with the event.

- The written story no longer gives the listener a chance for change and alteration but grants it a dimension from their imagination.

- Moreover, the written story attempts to mediate between the written and the oral when narrated by the reader, and here the oral triumphs over the written... We find that the self wanders between the two worlds as it pleases without being bound by the differences between the two processes.

The formulation of written and oral events needs a filter to refine what has fallen here or there, for in both cases, something from the tale has fallen that time cannot restore, even if (for the reader or listener) there is a vivid imagination, for what the imagination produces is surplus and not from the essence of the tale.

- Can I say that we are incomplete tales?

Therefore, I truly feel the deficiency of the written tale compared to the delightful necessities that accompany the oral tale, which I consider to be part of the tale itself and not incidental to it or upon it.

Now, with the calls for the death of the poet... criticism... radio... television, the term death has spread to the point where you might think that those calling for it are (grave diggers), and the statement about the death of the folk narrator becomes a (closure of a guarantee).

Now, artificial intelligence has emerged as if it were the monster that came to surpass previous expressions or tools, and because I do not believe in death in the sense of disappearance, for every death is followed by a life that changes what preceded it, artificial intelligence will divide itself to create a state of reproduction. Among the methods of receiving commands, there are voice commands, and voice is an oral state; sound does not die even if it fades, for its energy continues to oscillate... So let’s bring back the circle between the oral and the written.