Weaving through the “Sunday Souk” (also open on Saturdays) isn’t exactly a “shock” to the senses (I’m not an orientalist writing paeans to the grand bazaar), but it certainly is a vibe. There’s one surreal sensory dimension to this Souk that I could never handle for more than a couple of minutes: multiple pre-recorded messages on tiny squawk-boxes and megaphones repeating the latest deals over and over and over and over in the same deadpan monotone. They made me laugh but I could easily see my sanity slip away if I had to endure that for a whole day.
I didn’t get the photo I wanted to get because a woman kept asking me what I’m taking photos of while I was trying to take it, so I quickly showed her my LCD screen to assure her that I was trying to take a photo of the new president looming over the market, and not her ladyship. Upon review, I liked the missed focus after all.
There’s a semi-obscure book I’ve been looking for by a former cadre of ‘Socialist Lebanon,’ an influential Marxist groupuscule that eventually merged with another larger group to become the Organization of Communist Action in Lebanon. The book is by a lesser-known figure (at least, to me); not the famous AUB professor who’s been published by Pluto Press, but a former comrade who became disillusioned with the left in the very first years of the civil war. His writing took shots at both sides of the dividing line, first, from a Maoist perspective, but eventually, not even that. According to the study that introduced him to me, he never became anti-Marxist like so many “formers” of that generation, but he also rejected the limits of that discourse and practice; a line he played a major part in advancing during the heady years of revolutionary foment. But since he rejected all doxa about the war, he no longer fit into any particular box, and so, faded into a degree of obscurity on the international scale, if not even here. Naturally, I was curious about what he wrote.
My brother-in-law suggested this stall in the antiques section of Souk el-A7ad as the perfect place to look for it, and I must admit, I was stunned to see this “stack” when we arrived. Almost too stunned to speak. But he insisted that I just ask the guy, because he’d know how to navigate this mess.
Abu Imad, the owner, immediately recognized the book and knew the publisher from the cover design I showed him on my phone. For a $5 preorder, he told us he’d ask around his network for it and let us know within a week; if he doesn’t find it, we’ll get it back. And then he and his friend started talking our ears off about various publishing and literary matters that I just nodded along to the way I do when taking a service-taxi, resting assured that at the very least, this guy knew his stuff.
The stall is called “7ibru Wara2,” btw. There’s no sign that says that, but now you know.
Swipe to see a completely unrelated but no less delightful find at a different stall.