Assia Djebar (trans. Marjolein de Jager) Children of the World: A novel of the Algerian War. The Feminist Press, 2011, 233 p. ISBN: 9781558615106
Reading through layers A book that does not lend itself to a fast read makes for a difficult subject on which to write. The reader navigates through the eyes of multiple, intertwined, characters whose movement toward the future of a young, nascent nation unfolds as a spectacle; one where the reader is inexorably drawn and propelled to the radiant apotheosis. Clarisse Zimra describes it in her afterword as “visually kinetic [and] almost three-dimensional” (224). While Djebar wrote a work about the Algerian War, as the subtitle suggests, its appeal to a broad audience across time and place is aided by its style and structure. |
In her review of the work for Journal of Middle East Women's Studies in 2007, Ferial J. Ghazoul indicates:
The brilliance of the novel lies not in its theme, but in its style and structure. The novel opens with a bird’s eye view of the small town ... Djebar’s prose zooms in on a scene like a camera from above ... The cinematic exposition allows the reader to contextualize the characters.(122)
With this in mind, we delve into life in Blida -- a small town in Algeria that is being swept by the fast changes in the former French possession of Algeria and where deeper themes are subtly fleshed out in the daily lives of the characters. Every detail counts because the changes are momentous and, as the title states, part of a new world.
Complex sketches of life.
The kind of exposition Ghazoul speaks of is, however, not of a Brechtian kind. German playwright Bertold Brecht used a technique in (theater) acting in which “the spectator is prevented from feeling his way into the characters” (Brecht and Bentley 130). Djebar, however, does not resort to such an “alienation effect […] of the non-Aristotelian kind”. Zimra writes that Children of the New World has a “tightly Aristotelian structure (unity of time, place and plot […] and engages [a large] social canvas” (212). From the start the story beckons the reader to enter the town of Blida. Our eyes move at the pace of the character’s accounts. The women of the town raise the curtains of their homes “onto the courtyard and fountains [while] they quietly watch the spectacle the guard had announced was about to begin […]” (1). It is an invitation not only directed to the fighting on the mountain for which the women keep their eyes peeled, but also to the ogling of passengers at the train station that connects Blida to Algiers or the antics and rows of drunken family members on the central square in town.
The world that opens up to us is one of binaries: farmers and townspeople, the intelligentsia and the common blue-collar worker, home and work, children of the Algerian soil with ancient lineages and transplants from afar, women and men. However, if there is an expectation that a novel about the Algerian struggle for independence from France would contain battles between aggrieved colonized people and cold colonizers, Djebar breaks with this notion and underscores that the binaries are “by no means a Manichean struggle between good and evil” (Ghazoul 121). It is far more complicated than this. Tawfik, a jobless and forlorn youth murders his sister Touma, the town’s informant to the French authorities, in order to prove his revolutionary dedication. In doing this, Djebar requires the reader to see beyond the binaries and, as Zimra states, to critically analyze the fact that “Tawfik, to prove his loyalty to the new revolutionary values [that are purportedly] secular and socialist, behaves exactly as if he were stuck in the most obsolete, primitive and repressive of patriarchies”(218). In the same scene we encounter Cherifa, wife of Youssef, carpenter and member of a revolutionary outfit. After agonizing about what she as a woman can do in the sweeping new times, she scurries through the town square to warn her husband about impending danger of apprehension by the authorities. The two women could not be more different. Touma sneers at anything Arab and rejoices in having fled a world of veils and strictures, while Cherifa -- fully veiled during her mission-- is a woman of prestige in her circles who is careful to maintain the traditions of her people. Yet, the reaction to them is painfully similar. Upon her death the crowd’s reaction to Touma’s murder is tepid: “It is none of our business. A family matter […]. The last witnesses turn their backs on Touma” (178). Yahia, Yousef’s carpenter shop assistant, responds with an equal sense of dismissal to Cherifa as she insists he allow her to stay in the shop until her husband returns: “Without turning his face to her, without even catching her eye, the young man counters ‘I am chaste’ ” (142). These women have both transgressed established protocol. They are expected to remain in their assigned place: the home.
The intricate hinges between new and old
Further contextualizing such complex characters, the novel relies on a set of motifs that undergird the story. One such powerful motif is processions. In the novel they form a hinge that allows the rest of the account to swivel between the past and the future. In the opening pages, we encounter the funeral procession of Lla Aicha. Aicha’s title Lla is an honorific that Zimra underscores as one that “pays homage to her moral character, her advanced age and her wisdom […]” (224). She embodies the legacy of ages past and dies in her own courtyard when a stray shell catapulted into the air from the battle over the mountains reaches her. Not only does her death place the battle in the distant mountains squarely in the home, but in the most private of spaces within the home: the women’s quarters. The earth shattering movements can no longer remain outside. During her funeral procession we become witnesses to a lament for the old days: “Nostalgia overtakes them. ‘Where are the days,’ one thinks, ‘when we were wholly involved in these ceremonies with the calm gratification of our unchanging ways’ ” (29).
Nonetheless, once again, in an act of jarring juxtaposition, we encounter young Bachir sitting at an Arab café. When the mostly older men stand up to walk in the cortege, he joins them without quite understanding why or how, but as he walks along he starts awakening to something his French education in Algiers has not been able to satisfy: “Isn’t this [my] town anymore?” (31) Bachir has reached a crossroads and has to decide on a new course for his future while he participates in the funeral of an old lady who is part of the crowd with whom he feels a surge of kinship: “This crowd, these men, are my people” (32). His dear cousin Lila adds her voice to this epiphany: “My people […] are all my roots” (157). Djebar gives us a vision of the Algerian revolution that moves forward almost imperceptibly as “no one can say who was the first to take the initiative” (31). Zimra pointedly formulates that “[These women] are, as their men, works in progress, caught in an accelerating storm” (221).
The new world
It would be a mistake to think that Djebar is merely nostalgic for a return to an idyllic past. Building a new nation brings with it critical thinking. Bachir engages in self- analysis in spite of his aversion to it (32); the men in the procession, though attached to their traditions, ask themselves what those really are (29) and Cherifa considers that the real spectacle may not be on the mountain (189). It would be equally mistaken to believe that the novel revolves solely around the deeds of older people. In a country “where more than half of the population is under twenty” (184), Djebar employs the youthful verve that goes along with such a population to close her novel. As the revolutionaries under Youssef approach a devastated village in the mountains after a long procession, the last image to which we are privy is one of a child who coyly smiles and, unencumbered by the danger surrounding, her runs off into the rising sun of a new day (199).
The brilliance of the novel lies not in its theme, but in its style and structure. The novel opens with a bird’s eye view of the small town ... Djebar’s prose zooms in on a scene like a camera from above ... The cinematic exposition allows the reader to contextualize the characters.(122)
With this in mind, we delve into life in Blida -- a small town in Algeria that is being swept by the fast changes in the former French possession of Algeria and where deeper themes are subtly fleshed out in the daily lives of the characters. Every detail counts because the changes are momentous and, as the title states, part of a new world.
Complex sketches of life.
The kind of exposition Ghazoul speaks of is, however, not of a Brechtian kind. German playwright Bertold Brecht used a technique in (theater) acting in which “the spectator is prevented from feeling his way into the characters” (Brecht and Bentley 130). Djebar, however, does not resort to such an “alienation effect […] of the non-Aristotelian kind”. Zimra writes that Children of the New World has a “tightly Aristotelian structure (unity of time, place and plot […] and engages [a large] social canvas” (212). From the start the story beckons the reader to enter the town of Blida. Our eyes move at the pace of the character’s accounts. The women of the town raise the curtains of their homes “onto the courtyard and fountains [while] they quietly watch the spectacle the guard had announced was about to begin […]” (1). It is an invitation not only directed to the fighting on the mountain for which the women keep their eyes peeled, but also to the ogling of passengers at the train station that connects Blida to Algiers or the antics and rows of drunken family members on the central square in town.
The world that opens up to us is one of binaries: farmers and townspeople, the intelligentsia and the common blue-collar worker, home and work, children of the Algerian soil with ancient lineages and transplants from afar, women and men. However, if there is an expectation that a novel about the Algerian struggle for independence from France would contain battles between aggrieved colonized people and cold colonizers, Djebar breaks with this notion and underscores that the binaries are “by no means a Manichean struggle between good and evil” (Ghazoul 121). It is far more complicated than this. Tawfik, a jobless and forlorn youth murders his sister Touma, the town’s informant to the French authorities, in order to prove his revolutionary dedication. In doing this, Djebar requires the reader to see beyond the binaries and, as Zimra states, to critically analyze the fact that “Tawfik, to prove his loyalty to the new revolutionary values [that are purportedly] secular and socialist, behaves exactly as if he were stuck in the most obsolete, primitive and repressive of patriarchies”(218). In the same scene we encounter Cherifa, wife of Youssef, carpenter and member of a revolutionary outfit. After agonizing about what she as a woman can do in the sweeping new times, she scurries through the town square to warn her husband about impending danger of apprehension by the authorities. The two women could not be more different. Touma sneers at anything Arab and rejoices in having fled a world of veils and strictures, while Cherifa -- fully veiled during her mission-- is a woman of prestige in her circles who is careful to maintain the traditions of her people. Yet, the reaction to them is painfully similar. Upon her death the crowd’s reaction to Touma’s murder is tepid: “It is none of our business. A family matter […]. The last witnesses turn their backs on Touma” (178). Yahia, Yousef’s carpenter shop assistant, responds with an equal sense of dismissal to Cherifa as she insists he allow her to stay in the shop until her husband returns: “Without turning his face to her, without even catching her eye, the young man counters ‘I am chaste’ ” (142). These women have both transgressed established protocol. They are expected to remain in their assigned place: the home.
The intricate hinges between new and old
Further contextualizing such complex characters, the novel relies on a set of motifs that undergird the story. One such powerful motif is processions. In the novel they form a hinge that allows the rest of the account to swivel between the past and the future. In the opening pages, we encounter the funeral procession of Lla Aicha. Aicha’s title Lla is an honorific that Zimra underscores as one that “pays homage to her moral character, her advanced age and her wisdom […]” (224). She embodies the legacy of ages past and dies in her own courtyard when a stray shell catapulted into the air from the battle over the mountains reaches her. Not only does her death place the battle in the distant mountains squarely in the home, but in the most private of spaces within the home: the women’s quarters. The earth shattering movements can no longer remain outside. During her funeral procession we become witnesses to a lament for the old days: “Nostalgia overtakes them. ‘Where are the days,’ one thinks, ‘when we were wholly involved in these ceremonies with the calm gratification of our unchanging ways’ ” (29).
Nonetheless, once again, in an act of jarring juxtaposition, we encounter young Bachir sitting at an Arab café. When the mostly older men stand up to walk in the cortege, he joins them without quite understanding why or how, but as he walks along he starts awakening to something his French education in Algiers has not been able to satisfy: “Isn’t this [my] town anymore?” (31) Bachir has reached a crossroads and has to decide on a new course for his future while he participates in the funeral of an old lady who is part of the crowd with whom he feels a surge of kinship: “This crowd, these men, are my people” (32). His dear cousin Lila adds her voice to this epiphany: “My people […] are all my roots” (157). Djebar gives us a vision of the Algerian revolution that moves forward almost imperceptibly as “no one can say who was the first to take the initiative” (31). Zimra pointedly formulates that “[These women] are, as their men, works in progress, caught in an accelerating storm” (221).
The new world
It would be a mistake to think that Djebar is merely nostalgic for a return to an idyllic past. Building a new nation brings with it critical thinking. Bachir engages in self- analysis in spite of his aversion to it (32); the men in the procession, though attached to their traditions, ask themselves what those really are (29) and Cherifa considers that the real spectacle may not be on the mountain (189). It would be equally mistaken to believe that the novel revolves solely around the deeds of older people. In a country “where more than half of the population is under twenty” (184), Djebar employs the youthful verve that goes along with such a population to close her novel. As the revolutionaries under Youssef approach a devastated village in the mountains after a long procession, the last image to which we are privy is one of a child who coyly smiles and, unencumbered by the danger surrounding, her runs off into the rising sun of a new day (199).