Sunset and Writing

Description

In every collection of short stories written by Dr. Haifa Bitar: “We discover deeper meanings of life and a clearer vision. In “Sunset and Writing,” readings of human situations are more like journeys of varying distances in which the writer approaches the character to reveal to us what the human self hides, gently laying it bare and speaking on its behalf. Then we soon know that she wants to send us a message that awakens us from our slumber and takes us to safety, and makes us choose one of two things: either we reconcile with ourselves and accept life as it is, with its ups and downs, or we choose rebellion and change. This is the case of the Arab woman, for whom customs and traditions have drawn the image of the obedient, devoted, and faithful woman in the service of the husband and children. However, in some cases, life shocks her with its cruelty and falsehood, as in the story of a woman from the clouds,” which is one of her wonderful stories in this collection. This woman chose to remain alone like a cloud that resembles her exactly, as she says, after her husband decided to start his life anew in the middle of his life. His lifelong companion disowned her and began moving from one lover to another. A lover and here the woman stands perplexed “Suddenly the ember fell from the surface of the disc, alerting her to a truth that had remained a mystery to her all her life, as the most important values ​​in her life were the fear of people and the reverence for customs and traditions. Her wounded dignity after her husband’s betrayals pushed her to ask for a divorce, but (…)”. In the story “To the Soul of Ahmed”, the writer draws attention to the importance of monitoring human lives in government hospitals in most Arab countries. Neglect and disregard for human lives have become a characteristic of middle- and poor-class hospitals. Farid “died” at the age of twenty due to a medical error, a trivial death. He was admitted to the hospital for a hemorrhoid operation. The wretched national hospital did not care about sterilizing surgical tools, perhaps due to the staff’s excessive faith in divine providence. They did not sterilize the tools, and Farid’s blood became infected after the operation. The doctors were unable to save him, so he died three days after the surgery. In “Sunset” and “Writing,” our writer tries to ring the bells to tell every person that life has no meaning if we do not leave a mark that distinguishes us from others, and that waiting for the unknown is useless. The art of speech seduces me. I know that everything I do has a basic goal, which is to camouflage my feeling that I have no role in life. My days pass by like a pendulum, neither recording its past nor dreaming of a future. (…) The title of my life is waiting. There is something I do not know that I feel I can wait for forever, even my relationship with the people around me is waiting…. A collection of stories that is both enjoyable and purposeful. More than twenty tales in this novel, all of which depict the bitter state of alienation that has come to occupy a vast space in the Arab soul. It is a sensitive and disturbing state, that a person becomes alienated from himself and from his society, which threatens the structure of the Arab family, which must be preserved to build a sound society with its own privacy and values ​​that distinguish it from false civilizations. The necessity of rebuilding the Arab character in a new way that rises in word and deed above this chaos that has become an intellectual pattern in Our Contemporary World.