Book Review: The Procession By Kahlil Gibran

 

This unique work of Gibran is unique in the sense that it is his first major work in verse. It was originally written in Arabic and translated into English by Dr. George Kheirallah. A biographical introduction has also been added by Kheirallah. This introduction puts light on the poet’s life and his perception in his native land. His mystical drawings have also been added in the book.

Gibran arrived in the United states with his mother and siblings. They went to Boston where other people of their town had settled. Gibran’s father was a shepherd. After some education in the U.S Gibran’s half-brother Peter now wanted Gibran to go back to Beyrut and learn his native language Arabic. He also wanted him to learn French. Gibran returned to America after four years of study. Upon his return to Boston he discovered that Sultana had died on April 4, 1902. Peter and Gibran’s mother passed away. Gibran and his sister Mariana left the plague-ridden house. Mariana sewed and Gibran wrote. By early 1904 Gibran had twenty drawings to offer. No gallery would receive his imaginative and mystical drawings. Mary Haskell became a close friend of Gibran who assisted him in writing English. She also prevailed upon him to accept her aid and to go abroad for study.

From 1908 to 1910 Gibran worked at his art in Paris under the guidance of older artists. After that he returned to Boston, but in 1912 he moved to New York where he lived for the rest of his life. A fatal ailment was gnawing in his body, but he kept his work going. On April 9, 1931, a friend came to see him and found him in pain and illness. He did not wish to be removed to a hospital. Next morning, he was taken to the hospital where he died on 10 April 1931, at the age of forty-eight. Mariana brought back her brother body to his native land. People flocked in large numbers to pay their respect to Gibran.

In this book Gibran addresses the themes of religion, justice, science, knowledge, freedom, happiness, hope, love youth, death, will and capitulation of the sage. I quote Gibran below:

• Life is but a sleep disturbed.
• As though religion were a phase of commerce in their daily trade; should they neglect it they would lose- or preserving would be paid.
• Yea, death and prison we mete out to small offenders of the laws, while honor, wealth, and full respect on greater pirates we bestow.
• To steal a flower, we call mean, to rob a field is chivalry; who kills the body he must die, who kills the spirit he goes free.
• For man is happy only in his aspiration to the heights; when he attains his goal, he calls and longs for other distant flights.
• For in nature we the children hold the sane as strange.
• Have you taken to the forest, shunned the palace for adobe?
• Have you ever bathed in fragrance, dried yourself in sheets of light? Ever quaff the wine of dawning, From ethereal goblets bright?
• Ever bedded in the herbage, quilted by a heavenly vast, unconcerned about the future, and forgetful of your past?