Multiple Reading Personalities

Une si longue lettre, un si court roman, et pourtant si longtemps pour en noter quelques idées… Lu au coeur de la tourmente de la préparation des examens, pour faire une petite pause plaisir, que me reste-t-il en mémoire avant que de rouvrir le livre pour y vérifier mes souvenirs ? J’ai oublié les noms, l’écriture, mais ni les personnages ni leur histoire. En fait, le récit vit plus dans ma mémoire sur le plan de l’histoire personnelle que sur celui de la littérature, c’est-à-dire qu’il a pris place sur l’étagère mémorielle “biographies des amis et de la famille”, une petite place a-spectaculaire, difficilement analysable ou critiquable, car relevant de l’expérience personnelle et non d’une construction intellectuelle. C’est faux: Une si longue lettre est un roman, non un mémoire. Il a parfois été qualifié de semi-autobiographique (c’est un premier roman, après tout), mais “semi” est un terrain sur lequel mieux vaut ne pas trop se précipiter.

“Hier, tu as divorcé. Aujourd’hui, je suis veuve.”

Ces mots sont parmi les premiers de la lettre que Ramatoulaye (je viens de vérifier le nom) écrit à son amie  de toujours, Aïssatou, pendant les quarante jours de réclusion que lui impose son veuvage. Ces mots disent tout le livre. Les coeurs brisés, mais aussi l’opposition qui apparaît immédiatement entre les deux amies, entre celle qui a choisi son destin même dans l’échec et celle qui l’a accepté. Nous apprendrons en effet assez vite que les époux des deux femmes les ont soumises à la même épreuve, celle de devoir accepter une seconde épouse, et que les amies ont pris des décisions opposées. Mariama Bâ, qui avait pour sa part divorcé, fait donc un choix éclairant de point de vue en choisissant de donner la parole à la femme qui est restée. Le propos n’est pas de prendre parti, mais de comprendre.

Cette volonté d’empathie va d’ailleurs plus loin — les jeunes filles qui sont entrées, par une violence plus ou moins pernicieuse, dans la vie des maris, sont en grande partie justifiées, comprises, “contextualisées”  (Binetou, la seconde épouse du mari de Ramatoulaye, pourrait faire figure de chasseuse d’or tout à fait détestable si sa cruauté n’était expliquée : “victime, elle se voulait oppresseur”…). Il y a certes des figures féminines rien moins que positives (la mère de Binetou, la “belle-tante” haineuse d’Aïssatou) ; ce  sont systématiquement des femmes plus âgées, présentées comme des instruments de la société traditionnelle.

Les hommes en revanche manquent terriblement de profondeur dans ce livre, pas tant je pense par échec de l’écriture que comme représentation d’une incommunication réelle. Lâches et fuyants, ils sont surtout totalement incompréhensibles. Pourquoi deviennent-ils l’obstacle principal à la société plus moderne et plus bienveillante à laquelle ils aspiraient pourtant, jeunes hommes ? Pour une femme docile, jolie, et ne ressemblant plus en rien à ce qu’ils adoraient à vingt ans ? Il y a là un mystère irréductible, car Bâ n’évoque pas de simples beaux-parleurs, mais bien des hommes qui ont sérieusement consacré des années de leur vie à un rêve qu’ils “cassent” ensuite pour une manifeste chimère qui ne leur apporte évidemment pas le bonheur.

Le livre a été dédié par Mariama Bâ “à toutes les femmes et aux hommes de bonne volonté“. Cela reflète parfaitement l’aspiration désabusée, le désir de croire encore en l’homme (sans majuscule),  mais aussi la méfiance qui s’est installée, le besoin de qualifier : de quels hommes parlons-nous ? La tristesse, la déception dominent ; l’espoir a reflué de la vie de Ramatoulaye, même si elle veut encore se convaincre qu’il subsiste pour ses enfants, pour les générations à venir. Ses fils et ses filles semblent mieux armés, plus forts qu’elle ne l’était; l’amitié ne l’a pas trahie. La fin du livre est même ostensiblement positive, une décision d’aller de l’avant, de vivre à nouveau… Pourtant ce que j’en retiens c’est d’abord un profond sentiment de tristesse, les ”lacérations dans l’individu” évoquées, et une image (étrangère au livre) qui m’a accompagnée dans sa lecture, celle d’une Pénélope “inversée”, qui tenterait de tisser un ouvrage qui se déferrait sans fin. Bien sûr, la lettre écrite dans une période de deuil en a forcément une amertume circonstancielle que je ne voudrais pas généraliser. En fait peut-être le souffle d’espoir est-il cyniquement justement dans ce deuil : le vieux monde meurt, la société paternaliste meurt avec ses pères, et le deuil est possible. Alléluia?

“Je suis un optimiste aussi, répondit Igor. Le pire est devant nous. Réjouissons-nous de ce que nous avons.”
(“I’m an optimist too, replied Igor. The worst is yet to come. Let us rejoice in what we have.”)

Most of my reading these days is class-oriented, and it is an interesting experience in and of itself. There’s Proust, which represents an enormous amount of reading and demands close attention: I’ve never really read like this, taking notes, consulting commentaries, reading a novel and its author’s critical writing in parallel, and generally making myself be so deliberate (some would say mechanical!) about it. Some days it’s really hard and brings too much effort between the text and me; other days (like today), it can be really rewarding and glorious, when some deeper understanding, some new connection appears.

But that’s not what I want to talk about.

At the beginning of the week, I went through a rough reading patch. Proust tasted dry and pompous. I decided to break my “one book at a time” rule, at first with very short reads. Nice… but unsatisfying. So I went to my TBR pile intending to pick a book at random: I choose Guenassia’s novel out of pique, because with its 750 pages, it was the thickest of the pile and mocking me and my Proust block.

It was of course a little paradoxical, looking for a breather in the longest book available, but Le Club turned out to be the right choice. A simple, generous book, it leaves its reader ample space to daydream and feel without demanding too much thinking. It is unfortunately not translated in English yet, but it’s been published so recently that I hope it will be soon: I’d love to share it with my husband, as it tells a lot about Paris without ever making it its subject (which avoids all the nostalgia and cliches and generalizations that seem to go hand in hand with this city).

The book’s hero, Michel, is 12 years old when the book starts in October 1959. We follow him through the next five years, until the summer after his baccalauréat. I guess if one was looking to criticize the novel, the main issue might be that in these five crucial years, Michel doesn’t seem to change a lot. The story, or rather the stories, are not in him but around him: in the collapse of his parents’ marriage, in the experiences of the Eastern European refugees who gather at the café Michel and his friends go to, in the political and intellectual effervescence of the early 60′s, in the books Michel reads voraciously, in his first love stories, in the repercussions of the Algerian War on French society… There’s an undercurrent of bitterness in the book — as Guenassia said in an interview, there’s probably not one character in his large cast who doesn’t commit a betrayal at one point or another, Michel included.

And yet the overwhelming feeling left by the book is one of delight, of the richness of the world and of the human experience. All these betrayals, even the worst, stem from aspirations, desires, idealism; and no matter how low men (and women!) fall, there’s always a measure of redemption for them. There is something very comforting in this book, something optimistic in the ease with which Michel makes friends with everyone, in the way the book tells us we all belong, we all have have fascinating stories to tell, in its amusement with human weakness which isn’t so much oblivious to the amount of pain it might inflict as deliberately forgiving, a choice of to smile and take it lightly.

I imagine there might states of mind where this glibness is not welcome, but for cold, damp winter days when one needs to know that the world of men is alive and well, and that not every motion of the soul needs to be scrutinized, nor can be – it is perfect.

“…the pioneer debauchee, who during one phase of the American life brought back to the Eastern seaboard the savage violence of the frontier brothel and saloon.”

Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby – a short, finely-wrought novel – as a demonstration of his talent. Now considered a success in this respect (among many!), it however received a lukewarm welcome upon publication.Wide success would not come to it until after Fitzgerald death, in December 1940.

The narrator of the story, Nick Carraway, is a well-born, well-bred young man come to New York to learn a trade. While Nick ostensibly tells the story of his neighbor Gatsby, he also shares how the experience helped him realize what his values truly are, and how to live accordingly.

Shortly after arriving to New York, Nick renews his acquaintance with his cousin Daisy Buchanan and her husband Tom. Both appear to be rather vapid characters. While affectionate and charming, Daisy appears to be self-absorbed and superficial; as for Tom, the fabulous wealth and physical talents hide an egocentric brute who cheats on his wife and doesn’t even bother to hide it. He doesn’t treat his mistress Myrtle Wilson any better, lying to her, even beating her up when drunk. Nick also gets to know his neighbor, the parvenu Jay Gatsby, who gives decadent parties in his gaudy property, with the local gentry in full attendance, trading rumors about their host past, in which he successively appears a murderer, a spy or a bootlegger.

As Nick gets to know Gatsby, however, he realizes that the man is fundamentally naive. Gatsby reminded me a little of Pip (from Great Expectations), a child from a humble family with the ambition to become a gentleman for the love of an idolized lady, in Gatsby’s case Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby lives in an illusion, and tries to weave his own with a sort of earnest dishonnesty: he is a liar, let there be no doubt about it, but a core of truth subsist in all his stories (for instance, he lets other thinks of him as “an Oxford man” by telling them he “went to Oxford” – for five months, as a veteran, not as part of a rich kids’ education as is implied). Similarly, the accusions of having made his money in a dubious manner are true – but certainly not the murder rumors, and one can legitimately wonder if he even realizes that his business dealings are shoddy.

In contrast, the wealthy set he admires keep very little illusions, whether about themselves or about the world. This constrains them to a sort of impotence (while Gatsby truly loves and builds his fortune, they are idle, bored and superficial), but also endows them with power to destroy other people’s dreams. When Tom realizes that his wife is becoming enamored with Gatsby, he promptly shatters his reputation. True to her shallowness, Daisy deserts her lover, and when in her emotion she runs over Tom’s mistress, she flees the scene.  Tom demonstrates his amorality again by blaming the accident on Gatsby, leading to his assassination by Myrtle’s husband. The Buchanans will not even attend the burial Nick organizes for his friend. The young man, his eyes open to the corruption of the East Coast, then decides to return to the Midwest.

Beyond the denunciation of the corruptive power of money, Fitzgerald asks some powerful question about the fundamental myths on which American society is built. It might seem at times as if he is denouncing the “Jazz Age” as a corruption, with the East Coast as its epicenter. However, other details (such as the quote I choose, or the fact that he concludes “I see that this is a story of the West after all – Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I were all Westerners…“) indicate that the issue might have deeper roots into the American psyche, in the thirst for freedom and material ease of its first pioneers. Nick does not return only to “the West”, he returns to his West, “not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns, but the thrilling returning trains of my youth“, a place which is also a time of his life, that of childhood with its hopes, its illusions and its lofty goals. Gatsby was not wrong because of his striving, but rather because of what he strived for. Fitzgerald, with his fascination for rich girls, fancy living and his habit of writing for material gain rather than for his art, fought the same battle in much of his personal life. The Great Gatsby is all the more moving for giving us insight into its author’s inner life.

“So much for human fortune. When all is well/ a mere shadow can turn it upside down/ in the face of calamity, the slightest blow destroys/ like a wet sponge blotting out a drawing./ I do not pity myself, I pity mankind.” (Cassandra, in Agamemnon)

In what is likely to be a common complaint here, writing this entry was terribly difficult, not so much as was the case for Beowulf for all the uncertainties associated (though they are, if anything, more numerous), but because of the fascination I have with all myths, legends, interpretations and characters peripheral to the story. I have spent hours reading through Wikipedia and other sources, have started re-reading modern adaptations (including from Giraudoux), and I just cannot get enough.

The Oresteia is a trilogy relating the final episodes of the malediction on the House of Atreus (which, strangely enough, starts with Tantalus, Atreus’s grand-father). The early episodes of the House’s history are not part of the Oresteia. Child cannibalism and murder run through it (I checked out infantivore, but it doesn’t seem to be a word… yet): Tantalus fed his own son, Pelops, to the Gods, in a sort of deranged test to see if they would notice. They did, and that landed him in Hell, where he was made to endure the aptly-named Torment of Tantalus. The Gods also put Pelops back together, including a piece of ivory to replace the shoulder eaten by a distracted Demeter – and in good ancient Greece logic, proceeded to curse him and his descendants for the sin of his father. Pelops made matters worse by assassinating his future wife’s father: to gain the hand of Hippodamia, he needed to beat her father King Myrtilus in a chariot race. He ensured his victory by having his opponent’s chariot sabotaged, killing Myrtilus in the process.

Pelops’s two sons, in turn, had a troubled relation, which much treason, adultery and stealing the throne from one another repeatedly (with the help of meddling Gods). Suffice to say that, as a result, illegitimate children were fed to their father Thyeste by their uncle Atreus. Aegisthus was then procreated by Thyesthe (through incest, of course), expressly to avenge his father. Atreus meanwhile had two sons, Agamemnon and Menelaus, who lived in good intelligence, each reigning over a different city. The brothers married half-sisters Clytemnestra and Helen, daughters of Leda. When the Trojan War started, Agamemnon went to support his brother, sacrificing his daughter Iphigenia to get favorable winds.

The first play of the Oresteia – Agamemnon – starts with the return of the victorious king to his city of Argos. He is triumphant, bearing treasure and a new concubine (Cassandra) as the reward of his toils, but the celebration will be short: Clytemnestra leads him into his house with disproportionate honors, and immediately murders him with all the ritual pomp of a sacrifice to the Gods. Cassandra, who predicted the murder as well as her own death, faces her fate soon after. The play ends with the triumph of Clytemnestra and her lover. He appears decidedly weak and arrogant in the play – letting her commit the act (which makes it more dishonorable to Agamemnon), bragging about his new position when she calls for peace now that her daughter has been avenged. The play ends with the threat of Orestes’s revenge.

The next play, The Libation Bearers, is the story of that revenge. Orestes, back from exile, tricks his mother into granting him an audition with Aegisthus and herself, and kills them both. I read (from a source I can no longer locate) that the tragedy marks a symbolic transition from a world where males and females where equally valued to a dominance of the masculine. This could be confirmed by the fact that Electra, Orestes’s sister, takes up the cause of her brother and father: she is deaf to the appeal of her mother in the name of her sister Iphigenia. The Furies, a remnant of the old order (they equally pursue patricides and matricides) then appear to persecute Orestes.

The third play tells of the resolution of the curse: Orestes flees first to Apollo, who ordered the murder of his mother, but the God cannot convince the Furies to leave his protege alone. He is then sent on to Athena’s temple: she arranges for him to be tried by 12 (male) judges, who are split equally between forgiveness and revenge. She settles the matter by casting her vote in favor of acquittal, making it a principle that pardon should be preferred to revenge when in doubt. She also renames the Furies to the Eumenides (the Kindly Ones), given them the new, much more feminine role of making the fortune of worthy humans. This settlement ushers more changes: the switch to a mortal justice and the abandon of vendetta as the preferred mode of conflict resolution.

The theme of the place of women is always one I am very sensitive to, so it certainly struck me strongly during my reading – especially as I was not expecting it there. Another dimension I was not expecting in tragedy was the surprising humor that permeates the play. Witticisms (“your speech was like my absence, too long“) and sarcasms (Cassandra, on being praised for her courage: “the fortunate never hear praise like that”) are certainly far from laugh-out-loud jokes, but they help a text otherwise impressive by its directness and darkness keep a very theatrical elegance.

“After many trials, he was destined to face the end of his days in this mortal world; as was the dragon, for all his long leasehold on the treasure.”

Starting a note on Beowulf, even in this remote corner of the web, is a daunting endeavor – even though the poem itself was a captivating read, far from the dusty and obscure epic I was dreading. It certainly helped that I had encountered the story before, even in such inaccurate forms as in The Thirteenth Warrior and Zemeckis’s eponymous animated film.

The poem itself is not the culprit for my feeling intimidated: I cannot judge the merits of Seamus Heaney’s translation except for one thing – its ability to make the story feel close to the reader, lively and still pulsing with a sense of both excitement and loss. I am very aware, however, that I barely even scratched the surface of the work.

Set in Scandinavia (Denmark and Sweden) in the late 5th to mid-6th century, Beowulf tells the story of a Geat (Southern Sweden) warrior, a slayer of monsters: Beowulf. A man of extraordinary strength, courage, loyalty and generosity, Beowulf is the perfect embodiment of the Germanic code of honor. Searching for occasions of valor, he comes to the rescue of Hrothgar, a Danish king whose Great Hall is plagued by repeated incursions from Grendel, a monster jealous of men. Beowulf ambushes him and fights him without weapons, tearing a limb from the monster who flees to die in his lair. This first victory is greatly celebrated, but Grendel’s mother soon comes to avenge her son. This strikes me as in keeping with the blood-feud the men themselves wage (perhaps a condemnation of the primitive, unforgiving vendettas?), though it is not a comment I have come across elsewhere.

Beowulf does not shy from this new enemy, but increases his fame by pursuing her to her cave at the bottom of a monster-infested lake. He kills her in combat, and is greatly rewarded in honor and in gold. Returning to the Geats, he loyally passes on the gold to his king Hygelac, who rewards him in land and rings. The thane remains faithful when his king dies, refusing to take the throne as long as a legitimate heir lives. He will finally access it, and reign as a great ruler for many years, protecting his people from its enemies. His own end will come in the form a dragon (a wyrm!) awaken from his sleep and devastating the land. Beowulf will fight it and win with the help of Wiglaf, a young warrior, but victory is bitter: Beowulf dies from his wounds and most of his thanes deserted him in his hour of need, their cowardice hinting at a defenseless country who soon must fall.

Of course, the battles with fantastical creatures are no more factual than they need to be, but I imagine them to carry a great deal of symbolic truth: the age of men, meaning in this interpretation the age of Christianity, is coming. The old myths are dispatched by men still mostly pagans (and perhaps it is why their kingdoms must fall…). Additionally, much of the historical dimension of the poem (human wars, alliances and family trees) is supported by other findings (cultural, archeological, etc.).

Transition from one order to another, then? This is the interpretation I choose to favor, for in the poem I feel a mourning for the old world as well as a resignation to its unavoidable disappearance. Some scholars have argued that Beowulf is closer to an “ethnographic” rendition of Germanic mores for an English readership. I cannot judge the merits of these ideas, so I am going to go with my instincts here!

Another transition I am extrapolating from the raging debate on the origins of the epic (dated from the 8th to the 11th century, depending on whom you choose to trust) is that from the oral to the written: Beowulf is written in old English alliterative verses and contains traces of a wide variety of dialects, not to mention clear signs of having been (re?)-transcribed and edited by two different scribes. It has been argued to be anything from a mere transcription of oral tradition to an original, singular-author work, with  multiple intermediate interpretations (two authors, three authors and two scribes, etc.).  I could not pronounce myself on this, but the strong structure of the work (three battles interlaced with poet songs and reminiscences, two locations separated by a sea and many years, etc.) seem to speak to some level of intention.

I, for one, felt a strong cohesion in the work, with deep echoes from one part to the next, from one aging, falling king to the other. And I have to admit it moved me.

“What crime had they committed? The Earth had decreed that they were an offense on the land and must be destroyed. “

Nothing in Achebe’s novel is simplistic, and the quote I chose to illustrate it is a good example of this: far from describing the fate of the Igbo people, oppressed by white colonists ignorant of customs of the land, it applies to the traditional destiny of twins, abandoned at birth for being decreed “abominations” and left to die a horrendous death in the evil forest.

Things Fall Apart is full of complexities: written as a rebuke to the mid-twentieth century white vision of Africa and colonialism, it takes its title from an Irish poet (Yeats); a harsh indictment of Christian missionaries, it shows how their religion was an instrument of acceptance for outcasts of traditional society; a lament for tradition, it also highlights its shortcomings and violence. This sensitivity is the novel’s best trait, making it impossible to discount as partisan, and probably a very important argument for its immediate impact at release. I found it to also make the novel slightly less compelling from a story point of view, making empathy with the characters even more difficult than it already was from their distance to me (a woman from post-colonial France, an agnostic and a hater of conflicts). What remains is a thoughtful, intelligent discussion, and the memory of a writing more rhythmic and somewhat less melodic in language than I often associate with gifted novelist. That last point also is a clear intent from Achebe, in homage to the intrinsic beauty of the Igbo language, misunderstood as it was by colonists.

The story itself is that of Okonkwo, a man on a quest of strength and respectability. His entire life is built in opposition to that of his father, a man seen as weak for his lack of material ambition and leisurely tastes. In contrast, Ononkwo is hard-working and inflexible to the point of violence in his moral convictions. Both men however are victims of a contrary fate, dying alone and their bodies denied a clan burial, Okonkwo as punishment for his sin (in the Igbo tradition) of suicide, his father for dying of a taboo disease.

Okonkwo’s fate is perhaps even harder for the long struggle that has been his life. A hard worker, he is marked by ill luck from the start: the year he first attempts to make his fortune (by planting yams lent by a local strong man) is one of astounding adverse weather. Still Okonkwo perseveres, and soon makes a fortune sufficient to live comfortably with three wives. His status in the clan rising, he is asked to take care of a prisoner from another tribe. The young man, Ikemefuna, becomes a loved member of his family and a model for Okonkwo’s own son, the gentle Nwoye: tragedy strikes again when the clan orders the murder of Ikemefuna. Driven by fear of weakness, Okonkwo not only accepts, but also participates in the execution despite warnings not to – a treason he will pay the price of depression for.

As Okonkwo starts to get better, things sour again when he is the accidental cause of the death of one of his friend’s sons. A seven-year exile with his family ensues, and when finally they return to the clan, it is to find the village slowly infiltrated by white missionaries. As Nwoye joins the ranks of the converted and a series of skirmishes between old and new rules take place, Okonkwo’s anger mounts, until finally he tries to confront the white men despite the tribe’s reticence. Defeated, Okonkwo finally hangs himself before he can be executed, a final act of defiance that signs his definitive ostracism from the clan.

For a book closing on the death of its main character (and on the subsequent meditation of the European District Commissioner who, seemingly unaffected by the reality of the scene, dreams of a tamed Africa), Things Fall Apart ends with a singular feeling of unresolved questions. The Commissioner’s dreams of a quick and total “pacification” (how condescending!) of Africa are as doomed as Okonkwo’s dreams were. What does the future hold? The narrator does not seem to have any better answer than his creations.