Sunday, July 6, 2025
Lucas Bracco - A World Of Fallacies (Prometheus, 2023) ***
Richard Whatmore - The End Of Enlightenment (Allen Lane, 2023) ****
"The assumotion is that eighteenth century authrs, would, if they were beamed across time into the present, recognize and appreciate that many of their hopes and dreams about politics had been realized. They would praise the creation of democracies defending human rights. They would applaud the extent of toleration and the breakup of empire, even if the latter had been largely within living memory. They might accept that war remained part of the human condition, but the extent of social and technological progress would no doubt overwhelm them. Many of our intellectuals would seek to congratulate their ancestors on establishing the foundations of our world: many global traditions of revolution, we might tell them, can be charted from their historical moment, and so too can traditions of gradual reform, the basis of breathtaking technological and social progress that deserves to be lauded" (p. 310)
"Those battling to prevent the end of enlightenment worried about the loss of cultural diversity, the loss of alternative political or economic systems, and the identification of happiness with theever-growing consumption of luxury goods. They worried that their own world was a return to the past: to times of division, turbulence, sacrifice, war and death. Enlightenment figures saw what we call modern politics largely in religious terms, with politicians in free states presenting themselves as latter-day priests. They were concerned that fanatics had won the day, with enthusiasm the most powerful force in social intercourse. Political puritanism, they believed, had defeated enlightenment". (p. 312)
Jacqueline Harpman - Moi Qui N'ai Pas Connu Les Hommes (Stock, 1995-2025) ***
"- Les hommes, petite, c' etait être en vie. Que sommes-nous, sans avenir, sans descendance? Les derniers maillons d'une chaine cassée.- La vie donnait done tellement de plaisir?- Tu as si peu idée de ce qu' était avoir un destin que tu ne peux pas comprendre ce qu'il en est d'être dépourvues au point où nous le sommes. Regarde notre façon de vivre : nous savons qu'il faut faire comme si c' était le matin car ils augmentent l' éclairage, puis ils nous passent la nourriture et à un moment donné les lumières baissent. Nous ne sommes même pas sures qu'ils nous fassent vivre sur un rythme de vingt-quatre heures, comment mesurerions-nous le temps ? Ils nous ont réduites au dénuement absolu." (p.61)
What is life without any future, any past, any action, any plans, any joy, there is not even a sense of time since the women live by the rhythm of the artificial light in the cave.
Philippe Claudel - Quelques-uns Des Cents Regrets (Stock, 2005) ***½
Saturday, July 5, 2025
Hannah Arendt - The Freedom To Be Free (Penguin Books, 2018) ***
Juan Carlos Onetti - De Werf (Meulenhoff, 1978) ***½
"El Astillero" (1961) is een aangrijpende verkenning van existentiële thema's aan de hand van het verhaal van de antiheld Larsen, die na een ballingschap van vijf jaar terugkeert naar het fictieve gebied Santa Maria.
"Schor, gesmoord en weinig overtuigend klonk driemaal achtereen een misthoom op de rivier. Larsen tastte in zijn zakken naar sigaretten, maar hij had niet de kracht zich te ontdoen van de natte jas die om hem heen plakte en hem bedwelmde met z'n trieste, laffe geur, z'n stank naar een kater en naar verschraalde lotions uit eindeloos weerspiegelde kapsalons die misschien al jaren waren afgebroken en hoe dan ook irreeel geworden waren. Ineens vermoedde hij wat iedereen vroeg of laat beseft: dat hij de enige levende mens was in een wereld vol schimmen, dat communicatie onmogelijk en niet eens wenselijk was, dat medelijden niets meer waard was dan haat, dat verdraagzame afschuw en half respecterende, half zinnelijke participatie het enige was wat een mens kon verlangen en moest geven." (blz. 96)
"Daarom moet Larsen, toen hij het plein dwars was overgestoken, af en toe even in de motregen en wind zijn blijven staan om met verbazing, afschuw en onbeschrijflijke opwinding tot de ontdekking te komen dat het feit dat de werf een complete, oneindig geisoleerde, autonome wereld geworden was, het bestaan van de andere wereld, waarin hij nu liep en zelfs ooit gewoond had, niet uitsloot" (blz. 100)
Dit zijn misschien enkele frappante voorbeelden, maar zo is ongeveer het hele boek. Je vraagt je af waar het allemaal om gaat, je voelt de verlatenheid, de uitzichtloosheid, de zinloosheid van wat er gebeurt in elke zin. En naast het creëren van deze bevreemdende sfeer, houdt Onetti dit gevoel aan doorheen het boek.
Het zoeken waard.
Friday, July 4, 2025
Stefaan Top - Volksverhalen uit Vlaams-Brabant (Het Spectrum, 1982) ***
Van den man, die zingen moestArjaan moest den kelder van Mijnheer Pastoor witten. De pastoor dacht bij zichzelf: Ik moet zorgen, dat hij van mijn wijn afblijft. 'Arjaan,' zei de pastoor, 'ge moet zingen, terwijl ge werkt. Dan gaat het goed vooruit!'En Arjaan trok den kelder in en zong, dat heel de pastorij er van dreunde, eerst al zijn liedjes uit de jongelingsjaren, dan de kerkzangen en ten slotte de mis der overledenen.Zoo had hij reeds verscheidene uren al zingende in den kelder doorgebracht, zonder een enkele minuut te zwijgen.Toen hij aan 't slot der mis gekomen was, ging hij over 't baarkleed zingen:'Pater noster ... ' klonk het plechtig, en Arjaan zweeg.'Nu drinkt hij,' zei de pastoor.
Van een Vrouwken, dat alleen woondeDe man was dood en begraven, en luttel tijd daarna bracht de pastoor aan de weduwe een bezoek.En om haar te troosten sprak hij over den Hemel en over de eeuwige rust, welke heur man daar genoot.En nog, vrouw lief,' zei de goede pastoor 'gij moet eens denken op onzen God, op Kristus, die voor ons gestorven is .. .' Is die brave man ook al dood?' steende het vrouwken. 'Ja, wij weten toch van niets: wij wonen hier ook zoo alleen.
Sinter-Wijen als peerdeknecht
Sinter-Wijen, patroon van Anderlecht, was eerst peerdeknecht in die gemeente. Al het brood dat hij voor zijne peerden medenam naar 't veld, deelde hij uit aan de arme lieden. Dat was den eigenaar ter oore gekomen, en op zekeren dag trok hij naar 't veld bij zijn knecht, ten einde zich met eigen oogen te overtuigen of Guido werkelijk het brood der peerden durfde weggeven. Toen Guido hem zag afkomen was hij heel en al uit zijn lood geslagen, en, in zijn schrik, raapte hij haastig eenige aardkluiten op en stak ze in het broodzakje der peerden. En zie, de meester ging regelrecht op het broodzakje af, en vond het gevuld met brood.
Deze korte vertelsels als voorbeeld van wat de lezer kan verwachten. Interessante lektuur, een leuke inkijk in de cultuur van onze voorouders, maar ons niveau van humor is - gelukkig - toch nogal wat geëvolueerd, net zoals het plezier in de spot te drijven met de goedgelovigheid van andere mensen. Alhoewel, misschien is het nu wel allemaal een stuk brutaler.
Marcus Aurelius - Meditations (Penguin, 2006) ***
- "No more roundabout discussion of what makes a good man. Be one!"
- "Keep constantly in your mind an impression of the whole of time and the whole of existence - and the thought that each individual thing is, on the scale of existence, a mere fig-seed, on the scale of time, one turn of a drill".
- What dies does not pass out of the universe. If it remains here and is changed, then here too it is resolved into the everlasting constituents, which are the elements of the universe and of you yourself. These too change, and make no complaint of it.
- 'If you want to be happy', says Democritus, 'do little.' May it not be better to do what is necessary, what the reason of a naturally social being demands, and the way reason demands it done? This brings the happiness both of right action and of little action. Most of what we say and do is unnecessary: remove the superfluity, and you will have more time and less bother. So in every case one should prompt oneself: 'Is this, or is it not, something necessary?' And the removal of the unnecessary should apply not only to actions but to thoughts also: then no redundant actions either will follow".
- Either an ordered universe, or a stew of mixed ingredients, yet still coherent order. Otherwise how could a sort of private order subsist within you, if there is disorder in the Whole? Especially given that all things, distinct as they are, nevertheless permeate and respond to each other."
Jean-Paul Van Bendegem - Abecedarium (Houtekiet, 2025) ***
Álvaro Enrigue - You Dreamed Of Empires (Vintage, 2025) ****
"Atotoxtli smiled. Neither of you has a clue about anything, she said, but Moctezuma doesn't either, so we're all equal. She looked at the cihuacoatl as if he were a foolish child. You're his only friend, the only person in the world who doesn't want what he's got, she said; he took you out of the game to get the priests off your back; he's doing what he thinks he must, but not saying anything, like the ant." (p. 157)
"The cihuacoatl grimaced. I should worry, shouldn't I? Cuauhtemoc shrugged. I asked the shaman, and he said maybe not, because Moctezuma nearly fell over laughing when he gave the message to be delivered, but he also said that maybe you should, because the emperor was swimming in slides. Tlilpotonqui felt his chin and said: So be it. Then he added, so as not to be left wondering: What about the Tlaxcalteca? The general could hear that the question had the ring of the last wish of a condemned man, whether Tlilpotonqui was one or not, so he told him the truth. They're still divided: the young lords want to come to an agreement, but the old ones aren't sure; they won't do anything until Moctezuma has spoken to El Malinche. Whatever for? asked Tlilpotonqui. I don't understand it, the general said; they're like the emperor, they think the Caxtilteca are important; it's a mystery. The cihuacoatl rolled his eyes and went back to his grandchildren." (p. 178)
"Friar Geronimo never attended the religious services held by the chaplain, though he lived like a priest in every sense of word. He was always praying, he spoke Latin and Greek, he was learned in church doctrine, he refused to wear military garb, he slept, ate and drank as austerely as a Carmelite, and he only bedded handsome youths." (p. 65)
Thursday, July 3, 2025
Gerwin van der Werf - De Krater (Stichting CNPB, 2025) **
In een interview zegt de auteur: "Het persoonlijke zit ‘m verder vooral in de gedachtenwereld van die jongeren: alledrie staan ze dicht bij de mijne. Vind ik dit leven eigenlijk wel leuk? Is dit de moeite waard? Dat zijn de vragen die mijn personages zich stellen. Ik worstel daar zelf natuurlijk geregeld mee, en zie dat bij meerdere jongeren, dus het is belangrijk dat we die vragen stellen en het daarover hebben met vrienden, familie en lotgenoten. Het zijn of niet zijn van Hamlet heeft me altijd wel beziggehouden.”
Lize Spit - De Eerlijke Vinder (Stichting CNPB, 2023) **
Richard Dawkins - The Genetic Book Of The Dead (Head Of Zeus, 2024) ****½
Dahlia de la Cerda - Reservoir Bitches (Scribe, 2025) ***½
"I became pregnant and gave birth twice. Both times I felt like a sinner because my children were not the fruits of love but of violence and degenerate sex. I baptized them Adam and Eve.The Old Testament says that the Lord reveals himself to his servants in different ways - for example, as the scent of myrrh or as fire, like he did with Moses and the burning bush. The message was always the same: "Your prayer has been heard". Every night, as I prayed, I begged God to free me from my hushband. "'Our Father in heaven. Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done. Abba father, I know your will is for your daughter to be treated like lillies and caressed with fine linen here on earth. Adonai, take this chalice from me, and let it not be my will but yours". In my prayers, I only ever asked for one thing: to be a widow. God never revealed himself to me, but He did answer my prayers: five years from the day the holy sacrament of marriage was profaned, meaning from the day I was wed, the man I was forced to call my husband came home drowning in alcohol and fell asleep in the living room. As I watched him snore like a beast I prayed even more fervently to God. My prayers were heard. Vomit trickled from his mouth, smelling of liquor. I dropped to the floor with tears in my eyes and prayed he would choke. ''Dear Lord, let the walls of Jericho fall before my eyes, throw off my shackles and drag this man to the gates of Hell. Give me victory over my enemy, knock down the walls of my prison and the fortresses that cast down my heart. Like David before Jehovah, I danced and danced and rejoiced as I watched Efrain's face darken from red to purple. Then, to the sound of trumpets, I confirmed that he was dead. My spirit glorified and praised the seed of Abraham who crushed the head of the serpent. I called an ambulance and after the mandated autopsy, had him cremated. I did this so there would be no body to rise among the dead on Judgment Day." (p.91)
Javier Marías - Tomás Nevinson (Penguin, 2024) *****
"'After having been Someone,' he added, 'it's very difficult to go back to being no one. Even if that Someone was invisible and almost no one would recognize him" (p. 51)
This requires of course to be able to disappear in one life, and to create another, fictitious one, with all its challenges:
"Anyone in hiding, though, if she's smart, must appear to be the opposite of - or as far removed from - what she was and possibly still is. I know from personal experience how difficult this is, and I have, on occasion, allowed my real or my old me to resurface, or have sometimes aroused suspicions by not totally rejecting the old me: one's natural tendency is to discourage or avert misfortunes when what you should be doing is fomenting and even precipitating them." (p. 249)
'Cruelty is contagious. Hatred is contagious. Faith is contagious ... It can turn into fanaticism at the speed of light .. .' Now his tone was part assertive, part recollective. 'That's why those attitudes are so dangerous, because they're hard to stop. Before you know it, they've spread like wildfire. That was one of the very first things we were taught, that you need to spot the initial symptoms and nip them in the bud. (...) 'Madness is contagious. Stupidity is contagious,' he said, completing the list.I remembered that list very well, I had all too often found out how very accurate it was. People adopt a faith and grow, first, very serious, then very solemn. They start to believe everything their faith embraces and involves, and then they become stupid. If contradicted, they fly into a rage, they won't accept you calling them stupid or challenging what has suddenly become their all-in-all and their raison d'etre. From that point on, they develop a purely defensive, irrational hatred of anyone who doesn't share their fanaticism. And they treat anyone who openly opposes it with great cruelty. Once they discover cruelty, they embrace it and pass it on to others, and it takes a long time for them to grow weary of putting their cruelty into practice" (p. 104)
"They had chosen to help the people they were helping or hide the people they were hiding, or serve the cause they were serving and to dedicate themselves to whatever they were dedicated to, although they had sometimes been duped or hypnotized into doing so, as had many inexperienced men. The woman I was charged with uncovering and identifying in that town in the north-west, whichever one of the three she turned out to be, had been responsible for massacres and should pay for that. Or if not 'should', it would be appropriate that she did. Or if not 'appropriate', since she no longer presented any danger and had turned around her unhappy life, it would be best to interrupt that life just in case, and because we were by our nature avengers. If we weren't, who would be, in this forgetful world?
Tupra was right: hatred was an emotion unknown to us, but we were the archive; the record, the ones who never forgot what everyone else forgets out of weariness or so as not to wallow in bitterness. I don't know if he realized it, but the words he had spoken made us - with all our human, mortal limitations - rather like the God of all those past centuries of belief, or should that be credulity: the God who retained and stored away everything in his motley, moveless time, in which nothing was new or old, remote or recent. 'For us, what happened ten years ago is yesterday or even today, and is happening right now.' This is how that God - now outmoded, but very much a force to be reckoned with for most of recorded history-must have regarded everything. That's why he forgave nothing, for that really wasn't in his remit, for in his eyes no crime has an expiry date or grows less heinous, they are all simultaneous, and all persist. There was, though, another motive behind my decision to return to active service, to accept this mission: the only way not to question the usefulness of what you have done in the past is to keep doing the same thing; the only justification for a murky, muddy existence is to continue to muddy it; the only justification for a long-suffering life is to perpetuate that suffering, to tend it and nourish it and complain about it, just as a life of crime is only sustainable if you persevere as a criminal, if villains persist in their villainy and do harm right left and centre, first to some and then to others until no one is left untouched.Terrorist organizations cannot give in voluntarily, because if they do, an abyss opens up before them, they see themselves retrospectively and are horrified by their annulment, and therefore their ruin. The serial killer keeps adding to his series of murders because that's the only way he can avoid looking back to the days when he was still innocent and without stain, the only way he can have meaning. To do otherwise would be to reach Lady Macbeth's horrified realization, something almost no one is willing to do, for it requires great integrity, a quality that has vanished from the world: 'Nought's had, all's spent.' In other words: 'We have done infamous deeds and gained nothing.' (p. 138-139)
"Justice can obscure, can wrap everything in a mist as time moves on, and when it expires, it can erase and cancel out, can decree that what happened didn't happen or has ceased to happen. We are neither the victims nor the family of the dead, but we are memory, those who never forget. In that sense, and only in that sense, we are like the terrorists and the mafias from whom we differ in one vital detail, as Tupra reminded me on that January day: 'They're also ahead of us when it comes to hatred. But hatred isn't our style, as you know. That's unknown territory for us.' That's true and as it should be, for we must always remain immune to the five contagions as taught to us by our former legendary instructor Redwood. 'Cruelty is contagious. Hatred is contagious. Faith is contagious. Madness is contagious. Stupidity is contagious. We must avoid all five.' (p. 435).
And what is true of the need to avoid hate, is also true for love. Tomás Nevinson may be in love with his wife, even if they are divorced, and his alter ego Miguel Centurión may become infatuated by one of his potential victims, this is indeed to be avoided, because he could kill the one he loves.
"One must never forget that Spaniards from all over Spain - even those who don't consider themselves to be Spanish - have a deep-seated tendency to elect the worst possible leaders on offer and to cheer on whatever tyrants are imposed on them, as long as they make nice promises and seem pleasant enough, even if they have larceny written all over their faces and are clearly very nasty pieces of work. (p. 498)
"It seemed that the action, the act, the deed was getting closer. And that I would not escape. One always nurses the vain hope that something will· crop up, that the sentence will be commuted ( even a prisoner on the scaffold has high hopes), that the orders will be rescinded or cancelled, that someone will back off at the final moment. And if that doesn't happen, you appreciate and treasure each day's delay, each hour's deferral, each minute of procrastination, anything that allows you to keep telling yourself: 'It will be, it will be, but not yet, not yet.' (p. 532)
Sally Rooney - Intermezzo (Faber & Faber, 2024) ***
Thursday, January 2, 2025
Books of the Year 2024
It's been a great year, with 50 books read, thanks to the shitty weather, especially during the holiday season. The choice is hard, especially in the non-fiction area.
In the non-fiction space, I loved the two major books by neuroscientists about whether or not we have free will. The challenge came from Robert Sapolsky, the reply by Kevin J. Mitchell. An equally important and excellent book is Sarah Bakewell overview of the history of humanistic thought.
In fiction, many of the great writers, such as Murakami, the posthumous Garcia Marquez, or Han Kang, did not meet my high expectations. The winner in my opinion is again Olga Tokarczuk, now stylistically totally different, reminiscent of the Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, published a century ago. We see again great literature from Mexico and Cuba, Spain and France, the UK and Australia. As a total coincidence, four books describe a strange form of paradisiac themes: Paul Harding's "The Other Eden", Murakami's "The City And Its Uncertain Walls", Jim Crace's "Eden" and Abbott Kahler's "Eden Undone".
I also felt quite happy to have (re)read Douglas Hofstadter's unparallelled "Gödel, Escher & Bach", and to have read Martin Amis's "Einstein's Monsters", which makes him feature on my list of authors of whom I've read every novel (further featuring Roberto Bolaño, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Milan Kundera, Haruki Murakami, Michael Chabon, Thomas Pynchon and the translated works of Olga Tokarczuk).
It is also remarkable that in my top-5 of novels, four were published by the excellent publishing house Fitzcarraldo.
Fiction- Olga Tokarczuk - The Empusium *****
- Fernanda Melchor - Hurricane Season ****½
- Carlos Manuel Álvarez - The Tribe ****½
- Paul Harding - This Other Eden ****½
- Munir Hachemi - Living Things ****
- Sorj Chalandon - L'Enragé ****
- Jim Crace - Eden ****
- John Banville - The Singularities ****
- Teju Cole - Tremor ****
- Tim Winton - Juice ****
- Kevin J. Mitchell - Free Agents - How Evolution Gave Us Free Will *****
- Sarah Bakewell - Humanly Possible *****
- Irene Vallejo - Papyrus ****½
- Michael Taylor - Impossible Monsters ****½
- Robert Sapolsky - Determined - Life Without Free Will ****½
- Anne Applebaum - Autocracy, Inc. ****
- Bart D. Ehrman - Armageddon - What the Bible Really Says About the End ****
- Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony & Cass R. Sunstein - Noise - A Flaw in Human Judgment ****
- Giorgio Parisi - In A Flight Of Starlings ****
- Bart Van Loo - De Bourgondiërs ****
Michael Taylor - Impossible Monsters: Dinosaurs, Darwin and the War Between Science and Religion (Bodley Head, 2024) ****½
The discoveries of ancient animals and Darwin's theory of evolution found fertile ground in the now formal questioning of the actual reality of the Bible stories:
"In 'The Essence of Christianity' (1841), Ludwig Feuerbach developed an anthropological approach to religion, which he described as merely 'the dream of the human mind'. Here, the God of justice represented human ideals of justice, and the God of love was the perfection of human ideals of love; it followed that Christ the miracle-worker was 'nothing else than a product and reflex of the supernatural human mind'. In 'The Life of Jesus' (1835) David Strauss had meanwhile looked at the gospels, striving to separate historical evidence from mythology. Though he did not deny that Christ had lived, Strauss decried the New Testament's 'false facts and impossible consequences which no eye-witness could have related'. Fatally, in his view, 'there was [for a long time] no written account of the life of Jesus', so that 'oral narratives alone were transmitted'; such tales had become 'tinged with the marvellous', growing into 'historical myth[s]'. For Strauss, these stories 'like all other legends were fashioned by degree', only in time acquiring 'a fixed form in our written Gospels' (p. 133)
"And what of the Lord Himself? (conservative priest) Richard Froude despaired at the 'goodness' of a god who had chosen to bless 'arbitrarily, for no merit of their own, as an eastern despot chooses his favourites, one small section of mankind, leaving all the world besides to devil-worship and lies'. Just why were the chosen people chosen? And how could Sutherland believe the Lord to be 'all-merciful, all-good' when He was 'jealous, passionate, capricious, [ and] revengeful, punishing children for their fathers' sin', tempting men 'into blindness and folly' when He knew they would fall, and punishing them eternally in a 'hell prison-house'? This god was not divine. He was 'a fiend' (p. 135)
"Here, he (William Parker Foulke, an American lawyer) compared 'the modified bird Archaeopteryx' with 'the ordinary Dinosauria' in which class, in contradiction of Wagner, he placed the Compsognathus. There were differences to be sure, but Cope remarked upon 'the union of the tibia and fibula [of the Compsognathus] with the first series of tarsal bones, a feature formerly supposed to belong to the class Aves [ that is, birds] alone'. He also looked at 'the transverse direction of the pubes', the hip-bones, and again observed 'an approach to the birds'. After describing other 'bird-like features' such as the number and nature of its vertebrae, Cope suggested that the Compsognathus stood 'intermediate between the position in most reptiles and in birds' (p. 249)
"All this was proof, he concluded, that 'the facts of palaeontology . . . are not opposed to the doctrine of evolution, but, on the contrary ... enable us to form a conception of the manner in which birds may have been evolved from reptiles'. The 'fowl that may fly above the earth', supposedly created by the Lord on the fifth day of the first week, had in fact evolved from the sixth day's creatures 'that creepeth upon the earth'. The book of Genesis lay in ruins, the dinosaurs had triumphed, and even Richard Owen recognised the quality and force of the bulldog's performance. (p. 251)
"John William Draper (American chemist, professor at New York University) moved from the library at Alexandria to the 'pillared halls of Persepolis', from the Arabian schools of mathematics to the courts of the Inquisition, and from Renaissance universities to the learned societies of London. There was no question of his favour: 'The history of Science', he declared, 'is not a mere record of isolated discoveries; it is a narrative of the conflict of two contending powers, the expansive force of the human intellect on one side, and the compression arising from traditionary faith and human interests on the other'. Of that 'traditionary faith' he was unsparing, describing the development of Catholicism as an 'intellectual night' which settled on Europe, .during which spiritual affairs passed from the control of classical philosophers 'into the hands of ignorant and infuriated ecclesiastics, parasites, eunuchs, and slaves'. At last, however, that night was lifting, and civilised society had recognised the truth: 'that Roman Christianity and Science are recognized by their respective adherents as being absolutely incompatible; they cannot exist together; one must yield to the other; mankind must make its choice - it cannot have both'. (p. 286).
Kamel Daoud - Houris (Gallimard, 2024) ****
Algerian author Kamel Daoud has taken a risk by writing about what cannot be written according to the rules of his country of origin, much like Salman Rushdie took risks or Orhan Pamuk took risks (and was jailed for it).
The story of Aube, the narrator, takes place against the backdrop of the Algerian civil war (1992-2002), when the government and the army took control when it became clear that the islamists risked to win the elections. This 'dirty war' in this 'black decade' possibly resulted in the death of 200,000 people, mostly civilians.
Aube, 26 years old, is pregnant and tells her story to her unborn child, addressing her as "houris", the word for the virgins in paradise. Gradually her story unravels in between long moments of opinion and reflection on her situation and that of women in Algeria. During the initial uprising, her village was raided by bearded men, who killed every person and animal, cutting their throats and moving on. Five-year old Aube miraculously survived, yet her vocal chords were destroyed and a scar on her throat gave her an internal smile under her face.
Now, more than twenty years later, this story is still hidden. Daoud brings it back to life in a very personal and intimate way, and it may even be that the story is inspired by a real story: according to the Algerian media, Saâda Arbane, a survivor of a massacre during the black decade, who was treated medically by Kamel Daoud's wife, says she recognized herself in the main character of “Houris”. As soon as he came to power in 1999, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika passed a law, still in force, prohibiting the sale of books about this period.
"Les gens ici ne te parleront jamais de la guerre qui a tué les miens le 31 décembre 1999. Je passe souvent par ce boulevard, et ces vieillards qui preétendent avoir vaincu la mort frarnçaise se trouvent toujours la à nous épier, nous les nés-plus-tard, a nous scruter comme si nous étions des voleurs. Je détestais reciter cette légende nationale a l'école ; le professeur d'histoire ne comprenait pas pourquoi je décrochais de si mauvaises notes dans cette matière. Il ne voyait pas que je voulais également une voix pour ma guerre. Apres dix ans de tueries, nous n'avons rien pu obtenir comme butin, pas même des corps. Pas même une parole." (p. 116)
She has become independent, with her own hairdresser's shop and beauty salon. After the place is ransacked, she goes back to her native village to find possible relatives.
Daoud tells the story gradually, in a very lyrical manner, with lots of metaphors. The whole story is built around the opposing forces: Aube has no voice against the amplified voice of the minaret, Aube makes women beautiful while religion wants to hide them from view. She is the victim but is seen as a perpretator, whereas the ones responsible get all the rewards.
"C'est ma vie, ce salon, ma piece de monnaie rare. C'est la que je gagne mon argent et mon indépendance, et le privilège d' avoir les cheveux a l'air et les épaules nues, et de fumer et de boire du vin. Ce n'est pas grand comme commerce, mais ça rapporte de quoi tenir les autres à l'écart. Tu sais, ma perle, l'Etat donne une misère aux victimes survivantes de la guerre civile comme moi et le double aux families des egorgeurs." (p. 56)
When her shop is ransacked, the finds a package, containing a veil and a copy of the Quran, as a token that she needs to submit to the powers of religion. She defies the threat an goes in the street, lighting a cigarette:
"Puis je l'ai vu, la, le gros paquet, et je ne sais pour quelle raison, les histoires de la guerre, la mienne, me sont revenues. A l'époque, lorsqu' on affichait aux portes des mosquées la liste des gens a abattre, on leur envoyait un linceul propre et un savon parfumé. Pour la dernière toilette mortuaire. J'y songeai, tourmentée par cette irruption du rève rouge dans ma vie de tous les jours. Je l'ai ouvert : on m' offrait un voile en mauvais tissu, noir et ample. Et un Coran, vert et impassible, avec des lettres dorées (...) J'allumai une cigarette et, devant les curieux, clans la rue qui sépare le salon de la mosquée, j'ai fumé. En plein jour, je fixais leurs regards durs. Je laissais l'odeur du tabac lentement glisser vers leurs narines indignées. Un moment, j'ai pensé briser les vitres de la mosquée ou crier des insultes, mais avec quelle voix, ma Houri?" (p. 71)
It's not only her own voice that is literally destroyed, no women's voice has the power to be louder than the voice of the minaret.
"Une grosse voix tonna clans le ciel en suspendant le temps. Elle hurlait, tour a tour suppliante et dédaigneuse, boudeuse et exigeante, comme le cri d' un délaissé. Aucune femme n'avait cette force vocale ni le droit de l'imiter clans un minaret. C'etait l' appel a la prière de 13 heures. Tout le monde accourut, et la rue se vida." (p. 72)
Aube is the complete opposite of the oppressive political and religious authority of the system. She wants feminine beauty, self-expression and personal choice.
"Je crois que je suis soulagée d'avoir ete cambriolée. Parce que cela ramène a la surface une guerre muette entre mes houris et les houris de l'imam d'en face. Certains devinent mon identité véritable, la tueuse en moi, la morte. L'imam de la mosquée par exemple. C'est lui, j' en suis presque sure. Quand on s' est croisés pour la première fois clans la rue, qu'il a vu mon « sourire » et le trou clans mon larynx, il a battu en retraite avant de se ressaisir. Chaque fois que je le rencontre, le rire clans mes yeux vert et or l'incommode et lui arrache ses vêtements, devant tous les fldèles, auprès de son propre Dieu. Mon métier est de rendre belles les femmes, vendre des parfums, lisser des chevelures pour qu'elles soient plus longues que les fleuves du paradis. Le sien c'est parler de jihad, de guerre, de butin, de la France, des lois, du pêché sous toutes ses formes, de paradis et de prophètes." (p.78)
To demonstrate the political value of the book, publisher Gallimard issued a formal statement in protection of the author: “Since the publication of his novel, Kamel Daoud has been the target of violent defamatory campaigns orchestrated by certain media close to a regime whose nature is known to all,” The publishing company was banned from presenting Daoud's works at the Algiers International Book Fair, in October 2024.
In sum, a courageous and major achievement by Daoud, whose main character, the plot of the novel and the balance between action, reminiscence and reflection are beautifully constructed, as well as the moral dilemma of the mother who's considering to abort her foetus as the best measure to protect her about the world she risks to be born in.
In my personal opinion, the text could have been better served with less excursions outside of the main plot. The slow progress of the main character back to her roots diminishes the tension needed to keep the reader's attention.
A real-life horror story.