Khatef-Zelh

While reading Chapter 6, we come across the name Khatef-Zelh. It's the name of the girl S. has a dialogue with while inside the store house of El-H----. Being a native Arabic speaker, I found the name odd and incomprehensible. Arabic names usually have a meaning and a format. This is a compound name made up of two words: Khatef and Zelh.

Let's start with Khatef  - خاطف. It's easy enough. It can be used as an adjective meaning "fleeting" or "momentary". It can also be used as a noun that means "kidnapper", "snatcher" or "pirate".

Zelh, on the other hand, had me stumped. I thought about it over and over again and couldn't find a suitable transliteration that would work....until now.

The problem is that we have Arabic words being written with Latin letters. There are 28 letters in the Arabic alphabet and 26 in the English alphabet. There is a lot of overlap but there are some letters that are unique to each language.

To transliterate Z you would have to consider many possible matches AND pronunciations. The Arabic letters that "could" be a match are as follows:

 This letter is a direct match and is pronounced like Z is in English

However, there are two other letters that, while not pronounced like Z is in formal Arabic, are pronounced like it in colloquial Arabic. Fun, I know.

This letter is formally pronounced like "th" is in the English word "The", but like Z colloquially.

 This letter is similar to the previous one but has a bigger, thicker, sound. 

Check this site for audio pronunciations of both if you're curious.All of the above are consonants by the way.

So, if we use  instead of  to start the second word we get : ظله which translate to "his shadow". Combining the two words we get  خاطف ظله or "snatcher of his own shadow".

Khatef-Zelh is one of the Arabic names for the Pied Kingfisher!

It is called Khatef-Zelh sometimes because of how it swoops down to the water to snare fish in its long beak, as though it were trying to snatch its own shadow.

One of the unique things about this bird is that it lays its eggs when winter is turning to spring (Feb - Apr) and the seas are calm. This led the ancient Greeks to develop a myth about this bird. Per Wikipedia:

"Modern taxonomy also refers to the winds and sea in naming kingfishers after a classical Greek myth. The first pair of the mythical-bird Halcyon (kingfishers) were created from a marriage of Alcyone and Ceyx. As gods they lived the sacrilege of referring to themselves as Zeus and Hera. They died for this, but the other gods, in an act of compassion, made them into birds and thus restored them to their original seaside habitat. In addition special "Halcyon days" were granted. These are the seven days either side of the winter solstice when storms shall never again occur for them. The Halcyon birds' "days" were for caring for the winter-hatched clutch (or brood), but the phrase "Halcyon days" also refers specifically to an idyllic time in the past, or in general to a peaceful time.

Various kinds of kingfishers and human cultural artifacts are named after the couple, in reference to this metamorphosis myth:

• The genus Ceyx (within the River kingfishers family) is named after him.
• The kingfisher family Halcyonidae (Tree Kingfishers) is named after his wife, as is the genus Halcyon.
• The Belted Kingfisher's Latin species name (Megaceryle alcyon) also references her name."

The Arabs, probably inspired by the Greeks, also saw this bird as a good omen and made the association with calm waters. The Arabic / Muslim version of the Kingfisher story appears in some detail in a work by  Zakariya Al-Qazwini, a famous Muslim physician, astronomer, geographer and , yes, science fiction writer. His epic work, "Marvels of Creatures and the Strange Things Existing" (عجائب المخلوقات وغرائب الموجودات), is a famous and beautifully illustrated work of Islamic Cosmography with quite a bit about birds both fictional and real. Here are some illustrations:

 

»: «في هذا البحر طائر يقال له فنون (تصحيف قيون) وهو مكرم لأبويه وذلك أن هذا الطائر إذا كبر وعجز عن القيام بأمر نفسه اجتمع فرخان من فراخه يحملانه على ظهرهما إلى مكان ويبنيان له عشاً وطيئاً ويتعهدانه بالماء والعلف. ذكروا أن الله تعالى أكرم هذا الطائر بأن سخر له البحر فإنه إذا باض سكن البحر أربع عشرة ليلة حتى تخرج فراخه في هذه المدة اليسيرة والبحريون يتبركون به فإذا كان أول سكون البحر علموا أن هذا الطائر قد باض

"In this sea there is a bird called cyon (as in Halcyon) who is dear to his parents. This bird, when he grows old and feeble, unable to be himself, two of his chicks carry him on their backs to a place where they will build him a sound nest and provide him with water and sustenance. It is said the Allah himself honored this bird by commanding the seas to be calm for 14 nights after it lays its eggs until they hatch and the chicks come out. Sailors find this bird a good omen and say to themselves when seas calm: The Cyon has laid its eggs."

Doing a quick web search reveals the regions where this bird can be found:

We now have another major clue that I will incorporate into the coming post on where S. is in Chapter 6.

Osfour's City - Part II

Click here to read the first part of my analysis of the clues regarding Osfour's city. Although at this point we could start guessing where S. has landed, I will continue parsing through the hints of Chapter 6 and summarize them in the end, hopefully, with a conclusion.

On page 229, we read the following:

"They leave the last of the date palms behind and tromp through a field of knee-high grass growing in sandy soil."

Date palms are native to many parts of the Arab world, including Libya.

Next there is an interesting passage with a specific clue (also identified by Eric in grey):

"Ahead is an entrance to the city: crumbling stone walls that centuries ago must have framed a gateway. Now though, anyone may pass."

The specification of crumbling stone walls that must have framed a gateway a few hundred years ago narrows down our search quite a bit.

The next hint is:

"Here and there, smoke rises, carrying the smell of roasted lamb and cumin."

Roasted lamb with cumin is a popular dish in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. It's Arabic name is Mechoui. Indeed, Jen asks Eric in the margins of page 230 if he's "been to the Moroccan restaurant out on 324?"

Page 232 describes a "night suq" or souk as it's commonly spelled. A souk is a traditional Arab street market and is present in most Arab cities.

One of the items for sale is the "oud" which is a pear shaped string musical instrument common in the Middle East and North Africa.

On page 233, there is an interesting clue:

"He watches a sale conclude: a short, pink, and shaved-bald man in western dress and eyeglasses hands money to the book vendor, hands him paper bills printed with purple and blue. (S. hopes to recognize the currency, but he doesn't.)

So the currency we're looking for would have a purple and blue bill(s). I have some candidates but will save them till I write the conclusion which would integrate all the clues we unearth.

On page 236 it appears that Osfour and S. pass next to a stall that is selling children:

"He blows into it, producing a single tone like a feline yowl, then diving between notes, never lingering on them, a wailing melody both mournful and sinister that has S.'s skin crawling even before he hears one of the baskets rustle, sees it shake ever so slightly though no one is touching it, and hears---could it be?---a childlike whimper coming from within. And is that the lid of the basket, starting to rise---?"

North Africa had been a very active region within the global slave trade. Many major slave trade routes crisscrossed the area. All of the major cities of North Africa housed dedicated slave markets.

The roasted nuts sold on a street cart on page 237 are a popular street food in North Africa.

Page 237 gives us the scene of S. hearing an aeroplane for the first time and mortars start bombarding the city. Eric's notes in the margin as interesting:

"Yrs. have passed since Ch. 4-5"

"Ref. to German invasion of North Africa?"

To be continued....

Escudo

This is a short post about the peculiarity of using the very specific term "escudo" in Chapter 6 of SOT. On page 205, S. is wondering about all the suffering he had witnessed in B___ :

"And what purpose did all that suffering serve? What was it all for?

Nothing he decides. Not yet. None of that sacrifice will be worth a single escudo unless S. can tell the world about what Vevoda has done and what he is capable of doing."

Escudo, as per Wikipedia, is:

"The escudo is a unit of currency. Historically it was used in Spain, Portugal, and in their colonies in South America, Asia, and Africa.^[1] It is still used in Cape Verde to this day. Escudo is Portuguese and Spanish for "shield"."

The fact that S. uses escudo in his thoughts would indicate that:

1- S. is from any of the regions where the escudo was in circulation and the currency is embedded into his memory. Here is a full list as per Wikipedia:

Circulating[edit]

• Cape Verdean escudo (1914 - present)

Obsolete[edit]

• Angolan escudo (1914 - 1928 and 1958 - 1977)
• Chilean escudo (1960 - 1975)
• Mozambican escudo (1914 - 1980)
• Portuguese escudo (1911 - 1999)
• Portuguese Guinean escudo (1914 - 1975)
• Portuguese Indian escudo (1958 - 1961)
• Portuguese Timorese escudo (1959 - 1976)
• São Tomé and Príncipe escudo (1914 - 1977)
• Spanish escudo (1535/1537 - 1833 and 1864 - 1869)

2- One of the two cities S. had been to up to that point in the story, "A city where river meets sea" and "B____" used that currency and that's where S. picked it up.

Osfour's City - Part I

While S. is being rowed ashore in Chapter 6 of the Ship of Theseus we get a description of the city he's going to:

"The city up ahead looks larger than either of the ones S. has visited thus far, sprawling out into the flatlands beyond, with minarets spiking the sky throughout. It is less brightly lit than S. would have imagined, considering the size. The city looks sleepy, tucked in on itself."

Clearly, the author is emphasizing that this is a large(r) city. The reference to minarets (hence mosques) indicates this is an Arabic / Muslim city. The city also has a lit harbor as is indicated on page 222.

As Osfour is waiting for S. to get dressed, he says:

" Vevoda has not needed the browncoats for years. Now he has a network of Agents who can blend in anyplace. You do not know when they are there, when they are not. Your neighbor, whose children play with your children, might be- "

While any battleground is filled with people of various allegiances, the capitalization of "Agents" as well as the insistence of Straka, according to footnote 8, gives me pause. I have done some preliminary digging but nothing has turned up so far.

A little later:

"I'm taking you to the resistance. They'll give you what you need."

Interesting to note that there is a resistance already in place.

Another item of interest is the specification that there are twelve Vevoda factories:

"His tightly guarded factories--twelve of them now, according to Osfour's sources--"

Then things get specific. Sort of.

"Of course," Osfour says. "The invasion of El-H---- is coming. Armies are crossing the desert as we speak."

Let's start with the obvious. "Armies are crossing the desert" means there is a desert to be crossed. This is another strong hint, in conjunction with the clothes being worn by our protagonist, that North Africa is where S. is in Chapter 6.

Now where exactly is El-H----? I'm going to leave that till later as there still might be clues further along in the chapter that help us find the answer.

To be continued...

Osfour's Clothing

Alright, now for my first contribution to the S. mystery! The word Osfour, in Arabic means bird. While not referring to a specific type, it is often used to describe little birds.

Osfour is also the name given to the character in Chapter 6 of SOT that guides S. through what seems to be an old middle eastern city. Osfour's appearance is described as follows:

"The stoop-shouldered man in the trees introduces himself as Osfour. Tobacco smoke wreathes his haggard face and the black checheya he wears low on his forehead. He wears a matching kaftan and trousers of loose-fitting grey linen, and flat, thin sandals on his feet."
SOT, Pages 222-223

Let's start with "black checheya" or chechia as it's sometimes spelled. The Chechia is the Tunisian and Libyan Arabic word used to describe a specific type of Fez, a traditional felt hat worn by inhabitants of the middle east. The Tunisian version is usually red and the Libyan version is usually black. Both do not have a tassel. So, the specification of a "black checheya" would indicate that Osfour and S. are at the very least somewhere in North Africa if not in Libya.


Next we need to understand what a kaftan is. As per Wikipedia:

"A kaftan or caftan ( قفطان qaftân) is a front-buttoned coat or overdress, usually reaching to the ankles, with long sleeves. It can be made of wool,cashmere, silk, or cotton, and may be worn with a sash. The caftan is of ancient Mesopotamian origin."

The kaftan comes in various colors with grey being a .winter color. The kaftan is also a traditional garment worn by both men and women in North Africa. Here is a picture of a man wearing a chechia and kaftan with trousers astride a horse as part of a Libyan festival. (Original Link)

I chose an image of a Libyan kaftan because we started with the very specific Libyan black chechia. I hope this leads somewhere!

Right after Osfour gives S. the clothes, he " pauses, waits for S. to start buttoning up". While chapter six could be describing the traditional clothes of most of North Africa, this appears to be confirmation that the type of kaftan is a buttoned down one and that we're on the right track.

Banner Image Relevance

I thought I would start by explaining what the Arabic script in the blog's banner image means. It's a very famous verse from a poem by Al-Mutanabbi. Al-Mutanabbi is widely regarded  as the greatest Arab poet of all time. In fact, his poetic skills were so strong, he believed he was destined to be a prophet. This is why people starting calling him Al-Mutanabbi or "The Would Be Prophet". His poetry often uses allegory and symbolism to convey complex pieces of wisdom.

As with most Arabic poetry much is lost in translation but the verse roughly translates to:



" A man does not attain everything he desires, winds can blow where ships would not go"

One of the themes in The Ship of Theseus is the helplessness S feels while he is aboard the ship. He does not know where he is nor where he is headed. Many of the literary images in the Ship of Theseus describe howling winds, storms, crashing waves, etc... Throughout the book, S. is searching for his identity but never finds it. At least not beyond what he can remember.

I hope this sheds some light on why I chose this verse for the blog's banner.

Introduction

I recently finished reading Abrams & Dorst's "S.". This blog is my humble attempt to, in addition to the already impressive work done by our fellow readers, contribute to the ongoing saga. Please feel free to post your comments and questions and I will do my best to reply as soon as possible.