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ACTES SUD (2014), Broché, 160 pages
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"This response to Camus's The Stranger is at once a love story and a political manifesto about post-colonial Algeria, Islam, and the irrelevance of Arab lives. He was the brother of "the Arab" killed by the infamous Meursault, the antihero of Camus's classic novel. Seventy years after that event, Harun, who has lived since childhood in the shadow of his sibling's memory, refuses to let him remain anonymous: he gives his brother a story and a name--Musa--and describes the events that led to Musa's casual murder on a dazzlingly sunny beach. Harun is an old man tormented by frustration. In a bar in Oran, night after night, he ruminates on his solitude, on his anger with men desperate for a god, and on his disarray when faced with a country that has so disappointed him. A stranger among his own people, he wants to be granted, finally, the right to die. The Stranger is of course central to Daoud's novel, in which he both endorses and criticizes one of the most famous novels in the world. A worthy complement to its great predecessor, The Mersault Investigation is not only a profound meditation on Arab identity and the disastrous effects of colonialism in Algeria, but also a stunning work of literature in its own right, told in a unique and affecting voice."--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member baswood
The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud.
Children of the New world by Assia Djebar.
The Algerian war of Independence 1954-62 was fought between France and the independence movement in Algeria. It was a conflict characterised by guerrilla warfare and was notorious for the weapon of torture used by
The Meursault Investigation is in part a reworking of Albert Camus famous novel L’estranger in which an unnamed Arab is killed on the beach by the Frenchman Meursault. Kamel Daoud gives the Arab a name: Musa, thereby providing a critique of Camus’ colonial perspective in centring his story on the Frenchman: Daoud imagines that Musa’s younger brother and his mother painstakingly investigate the murder; an event that shapes the rest of their lives. It is the mother who is the prime mover cajoling her surviving son into greater efforts to attain some sort of closure that ends with him taking out his own retribution.
Daoud’s novel starts with the single sentence: “Mother’s still alive” today which mirrors the first sentence in Camus’ novel: “Mother died today” and from the moment I read this I was alert to the idea that this was a novel too clever for its own good; nothing I read subsequently changed my view. Daoud’s writing imitates Camus short staccato-like sentence structure and is alive with references to Camus’ novel and other writings. For those readers who are not familiar with Camus novel Daoud must outline the story and he does it like this:
“I’m going to outline the story before I tell it to you. A man who knows how to write kills an Arab who, on the day he dies, doesn’t even have a name, as if he had hung it on a nail somewhere before stepping onto the stage. Then the man begins to explain that his act was the fault of a God that doesn’t exist and that he did it because of what he’d just realised in the sun and because the sea salt obliged him to shut his eyes……..”
This was the moment I threw the book across the room for two reasons. Daoud by a sleight of hand is making the reader believe that Camus’ novel was a real life testimony - “A man who knows how to write kills an Arab” This is a lie. Although Camus’ novel was written in the first person, the point of view was of his hero Meursault not his own. This is important because Camus has been castigated as a colonialist and this book is riding on a wave that furthers that myth. Camus was a Frenchman born and raised in Algiers who could not bring himself to support the independence movement because of the horrors of the war and fears for his family. Unlike other armchair critics on the left (Sartre et al) and at some personal risk to himself, he went to Algeria near the start of hostilities and attempted to broker a peace. He had a history of sympathy and support for the Arabs from his days as a journalist and so does not deserve the acrimony he has since garnered. The other reason for tossing Daoud’s book is the crude attempt to belittle Camus writing, which I think is evident from the extract above.
How refreshing then to turn to Assia Djebar to find a novelist who effortlessly tunes into the lives of both Arab and French Algerians at a time near the start of hostilities. She does not need the crutch of a famous novel of the past on which to base her story, but weaves her themes into a single day in the actions of eight characters whose lives intersect on a day when everything changes for each of them. Her characters get a chapter each starting with Cherifa’s story, She is a muslim women whose respect for tradition and family keep her bound within the confines of her own house. From her courtyard along with other women of surrounding dwellings she watches the fighting taking place over the mountain that dominates the small town.
“The days of intense fighting pass quickly inside the homes that people think of as unseeing, but that now gape at the war, which is masked as a gigantic game etched out in space. The planes are soaring and diving black spots that leave white trails, ephemeral arabesques that seem to be drawn by chance, like a mysterious but lethal script . “Oh God” a woman cries when one of them nose dives into flames and the bullets that they can picture in their mind, but then it shoots up out of the smoke running along the ground (“Death the damned thing has brought death in its wake!”) There it is again, spiralling way up in the sky; then nearby artillery fire ruptures the air, so close that the walls shake”
The women are fascinated by the aerial ballet, but are not just interested bystanders; Cherifa’s mother-in-law has recently been killed in the courtyard by falling shrapnel.
Each chapter fills in a little of the back story to the characters and so we learn that this is Chjerifa’s second marriage; she is married to Youssef and is very much in love with him and fears for his safety being aware that he is a local political leader and so is in danger of his life. Her story also introduces many of the other characters, who will have a chapter to themselves, but Cherifa’s own heroic walk across town (she has rarely ventured out of her house and certainly not alone) to warn her husband of impending arrest is told in another characters chapter and so Djebar skilfully interlinks her chapters to give a mosaic affect to her story.
The first four chapters tell the women’s story; Lila is fresh from university somewhat westernised and married to her college sweetheart who has left her to fight with the rebels in the mountains, then there is Salima a teacher at the local girls school who is arrested and interrogated and finally Touma who has become an informer for the French police. There are four chapters that fill in the male’s stories, but still it is the women’s stories that take priority, many of the characters are related
or know each other from living in the small town, which is changing rapidly due to the internecine conflicts which overtake their lives. The book has a clear female perspective and it is their pain, horror, and fear that we, the readers are made to feel, however Djebar never loses sight of other aspects of their characters and their strength, courage and love predominate for the most part. The female characters generally have a deep understanding of their male counterparts and live their lives accordingly, but are not afraid to stand their ground in a society that is male dominated and they bring a sensuousness to their relationships that they are not afraid to express.
Two novelists then that take a very different approach and while it could be argued that Daoud’s book is not wholly concerned with the war, as its other main theme is Camus’ existentialist viewpoint, however it does increasingly move towards the conflict in Algeria when it runs out of things to say about Camus. I was pleased to have read (yes I did pick it up from the floor) Daoud’s book first, because once I got into Djebar’s book I understood how superficial Daoud was. Reading the Meursault Investigation was like listening to politicians campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union; much cleverness and bluster on the surface, but underneath no substance and what was even worse a lack of honesty. Yes of course Daoud’s book has been nominated and won literary prizes but the gloss did not fool this reader. If you haven’t read Camus’ L’étranger read that and don't bother with The Meursault Investigation unless you are in the mood for a quick and painless beach read. Assia Djebar’s book is the real deal, its beautifully written and well translated from the French and has an authenticity to it that comes from the authors deep empathy with her characters and the situation in her country of birth.
The Meursault Investigation - 2 stars
Children of the New World - 4.5 stars.
Children of the New world by Assia Djebar.
The Algerian war of Independence 1954-62 was fought between France and the independence movement in Algeria. It was a conflict characterised by guerrilla warfare and was notorious for the weapon of torture used by
Show More
both sides. It was a bitter and complex struggle between a colonial power and its former colony with terror attacks and retribution being key elements. The Meursault Investigation and Children of the New World are novels written by Algerian authors whose central themes radiate from events during the war. One is clever, witty, utterly modern and ultimately vacuous, the other is a profound exploration of Muslim men and women caught in a dirty war and fighting for survival.The Meursault Investigation is in part a reworking of Albert Camus famous novel L’estranger in which an unnamed Arab is killed on the beach by the Frenchman Meursault. Kamel Daoud gives the Arab a name: Musa, thereby providing a critique of Camus’ colonial perspective in centring his story on the Frenchman: Daoud imagines that Musa’s younger brother and his mother painstakingly investigate the murder; an event that shapes the rest of their lives. It is the mother who is the prime mover cajoling her surviving son into greater efforts to attain some sort of closure that ends with him taking out his own retribution.
Daoud’s novel starts with the single sentence: “Mother’s still alive” today which mirrors the first sentence in Camus’ novel: “Mother died today” and from the moment I read this I was alert to the idea that this was a novel too clever for its own good; nothing I read subsequently changed my view. Daoud’s writing imitates Camus short staccato-like sentence structure and is alive with references to Camus’ novel and other writings. For those readers who are not familiar with Camus novel Daoud must outline the story and he does it like this:
“I’m going to outline the story before I tell it to you. A man who knows how to write kills an Arab who, on the day he dies, doesn’t even have a name, as if he had hung it on a nail somewhere before stepping onto the stage. Then the man begins to explain that his act was the fault of a God that doesn’t exist and that he did it because of what he’d just realised in the sun and because the sea salt obliged him to shut his eyes……..”
This was the moment I threw the book across the room for two reasons. Daoud by a sleight of hand is making the reader believe that Camus’ novel was a real life testimony - “A man who knows how to write kills an Arab” This is a lie. Although Camus’ novel was written in the first person, the point of view was of his hero Meursault not his own. This is important because Camus has been castigated as a colonialist and this book is riding on a wave that furthers that myth. Camus was a Frenchman born and raised in Algiers who could not bring himself to support the independence movement because of the horrors of the war and fears for his family. Unlike other armchair critics on the left (Sartre et al) and at some personal risk to himself, he went to Algeria near the start of hostilities and attempted to broker a peace. He had a history of sympathy and support for the Arabs from his days as a journalist and so does not deserve the acrimony he has since garnered. The other reason for tossing Daoud’s book is the crude attempt to belittle Camus writing, which I think is evident from the extract above.
How refreshing then to turn to Assia Djebar to find a novelist who effortlessly tunes into the lives of both Arab and French Algerians at a time near the start of hostilities. She does not need the crutch of a famous novel of the past on which to base her story, but weaves her themes into a single day in the actions of eight characters whose lives intersect on a day when everything changes for each of them. Her characters get a chapter each starting with Cherifa’s story, She is a muslim women whose respect for tradition and family keep her bound within the confines of her own house. From her courtyard along with other women of surrounding dwellings she watches the fighting taking place over the mountain that dominates the small town.
“The days of intense fighting pass quickly inside the homes that people think of as unseeing, but that now gape at the war, which is masked as a gigantic game etched out in space. The planes are soaring and diving black spots that leave white trails, ephemeral arabesques that seem to be drawn by chance, like a mysterious but lethal script . “Oh God” a woman cries when one of them nose dives into flames and the bullets that they can picture in their mind, but then it shoots up out of the smoke running along the ground (“Death the damned thing has brought death in its wake!”) There it is again, spiralling way up in the sky; then nearby artillery fire ruptures the air, so close that the walls shake”
The women are fascinated by the aerial ballet, but are not just interested bystanders; Cherifa’s mother-in-law has recently been killed in the courtyard by falling shrapnel.
Each chapter fills in a little of the back story to the characters and so we learn that this is Chjerifa’s second marriage; she is married to Youssef and is very much in love with him and fears for his safety being aware that he is a local political leader and so is in danger of his life. Her story also introduces many of the other characters, who will have a chapter to themselves, but Cherifa’s own heroic walk across town (she has rarely ventured out of her house and certainly not alone) to warn her husband of impending arrest is told in another characters chapter and so Djebar skilfully interlinks her chapters to give a mosaic affect to her story.
The first four chapters tell the women’s story; Lila is fresh from university somewhat westernised and married to her college sweetheart who has left her to fight with the rebels in the mountains, then there is Salima a teacher at the local girls school who is arrested and interrogated and finally Touma who has become an informer for the French police. There are four chapters that fill in the male’s stories, but still it is the women’s stories that take priority, many of the characters are related
or know each other from living in the small town, which is changing rapidly due to the internecine conflicts which overtake their lives. The book has a clear female perspective and it is their pain, horror, and fear that we, the readers are made to feel, however Djebar never loses sight of other aspects of their characters and their strength, courage and love predominate for the most part. The female characters generally have a deep understanding of their male counterparts and live their lives accordingly, but are not afraid to stand their ground in a society that is male dominated and they bring a sensuousness to their relationships that they are not afraid to express.
Two novelists then that take a very different approach and while it could be argued that Daoud’s book is not wholly concerned with the war, as its other main theme is Camus’ existentialist viewpoint, however it does increasingly move towards the conflict in Algeria when it runs out of things to say about Camus. I was pleased to have read (yes I did pick it up from the floor) Daoud’s book first, because once I got into Djebar’s book I understood how superficial Daoud was. Reading the Meursault Investigation was like listening to politicians campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union; much cleverness and bluster on the surface, but underneath no substance and what was even worse a lack of honesty. Yes of course Daoud’s book has been nominated and won literary prizes but the gloss did not fool this reader. If you haven’t read Camus’ L’étranger read that and don't bother with The Meursault Investigation unless you are in the mood for a quick and painless beach read. Assia Djebar’s book is the real deal, its beautifully written and well translated from the French and has an authenticity to it that comes from the authors deep empathy with her characters and the situation in her country of birth.
The Meursault Investigation - 2 stars
Children of the New World - 4.5 stars.
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LibraryThing member kidzdoc
A French graduate student whose main interest is Albert Camus's novel The Stranger and its characters travels to the Algerian port city of Oran, to learn more about what happened to the unnamed Arab that the protagonist, Meursault, shot to death on a beach in Algiers 70 years ago. In a seedy pub he
As the student, who like Musa in The Stranger is also unnamed and voiceless, listens, Harun shares the story of his own absurd life, which mirrors that of Meursault's in many respects. Although Harun is fiercely critical of Meursault and Camus, who chose to ignore his brother, thus dehumanizing him and, therefore, all Arabs, he knows The Stranger by heart and respects what its author has accomplished in writing it. Through him a portrait of Algeria from an Arab viewpoint emerges, from the colonial days when they were often brutally suppressed by the pied noirs, to the War for Independence, and especially the current state of the troubled country, where the possibility of a restricted society run by Islamic fundamentalists is juxtaposed against the similar restrictions of life under the current government run by the military.
The Meursault Investigation is a superb novel, which both mirrors and expounds upon The Stranger to portray the life of Meursault's victim, critique the actions of Meursault and the limited viewpoint of Camus, and explore the near parallel life of the victim's brother and the absurdity of post-independence Algerian society. I would strongly advise you to read The Stranger before starting this book, as it assumes that the reader is familiar with Camus's novel. You will get much more out of this book if you do so.
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meets Harun, the younger brother of the victim, an irascible old man who still seethes with resentment over the events of that fateful day and its aftermath. Through Harun we learn that his brother's name was Musa, and that his corpse was never found, which prevented his mother from achieving a sense of closure, and led her and her son on an futile and endless quest to find him and to gain both revenge and peace.As the student, who like Musa in The Stranger is also unnamed and voiceless, listens, Harun shares the story of his own absurd life, which mirrors that of Meursault's in many respects. Although Harun is fiercely critical of Meursault and Camus, who chose to ignore his brother, thus dehumanizing him and, therefore, all Arabs, he knows The Stranger by heart and respects what its author has accomplished in writing it. Through him a portrait of Algeria from an Arab viewpoint emerges, from the colonial days when they were often brutally suppressed by the pied noirs, to the War for Independence, and especially the current state of the troubled country, where the possibility of a restricted society run by Islamic fundamentalists is juxtaposed against the similar restrictions of life under the current government run by the military.
The Meursault Investigation is a superb novel, which both mirrors and expounds upon The Stranger to portray the life of Meursault's victim, critique the actions of Meursault and the limited viewpoint of Camus, and explore the near parallel life of the victim's brother and the absurdity of post-independence Algerian society. I would strongly advise you to read The Stranger before starting this book, as it assumes that the reader is familiar with Camus's novel. You will get much more out of this book if you do so.
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LibraryThing member RandyMetcalfe
Set in the post-modern land of deconstructive textuality, a confessed liar, Harun, affirms his affinity by blood to “the Arab”, the unnamed other in Camus’ famous novel, L’Étranger, the one whom Camus’ narrator, Meursault, murders in cold (or hot) blood on that sandy beach in Algiers one
Daoud’s novel is brilliantly set in the shadow of Camus’ novel but equally in the shadow of Algeria itself and its blood-soaked transition from French rule to, most recently, a quasi-religious state. Daoud’s narrator is ambivalent in the extreme but for this one certainty — that he is the brother of the slain unnamed Arab of Camus’ novel. It is a claim both definitive and absurd, as befits an inheritor of Camus’ mantel. Daoud plays with the possibilities, including numerous allusions to Defoe’s savage, himself re-imagined by Michel Tournier in his famous novel Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique. Indeed, there are levels of play at work here that only an adept may be able to discern. That, of course, makes Daoud’s novel fascinating but also challenging; neither an easy read nor an entirely satisfying one. Nevertheless, for the sheer audacity of it I could hardly do less than at least gently recommend it.
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afternoon. Harun names the unnamed victim to be none other than Musa, his brother. Now, fifty years later, in a wine-soaked, maundering rant, Harun wants to share his story. His chosen interlocutor is an unnamed academic, a researcher exploring the broader aspects of Camus’ existentialist novel. Harun describes his mother’s investigation into the death of her son, the empty grave, her abandonment of Algiers with her younger son, and the years of lassitude followed by one decisive act in the middle of night on the 5th of July, 1962.Daoud’s novel is brilliantly set in the shadow of Camus’ novel but equally in the shadow of Algeria itself and its blood-soaked transition from French rule to, most recently, a quasi-religious state. Daoud’s narrator is ambivalent in the extreme but for this one certainty — that he is the brother of the slain unnamed Arab of Camus’ novel. It is a claim both definitive and absurd, as befits an inheritor of Camus’ mantel. Daoud plays with the possibilities, including numerous allusions to Defoe’s savage, himself re-imagined by Michel Tournier in his famous novel Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique. Indeed, there are levels of play at work here that only an adept may be able to discern. That, of course, makes Daoud’s novel fascinating but also challenging; neither an easy read nor an entirely satisfying one. Nevertheless, for the sheer audacity of it I could hardly do less than at least gently recommend it.
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LibraryThing member thorold
What Daoud does is to pretend to take L'Ètranger literally, as the report of a murder, and retell it from the point of view of the victim's family. The man Meursault kills has essentially no identity in Camus's story: all we are told is that he is "an Arab", who is seeking revenge on his sister's
It soon becomes obvious that we aren't meant to take Haroun's postcolonial rant entirely literally, any more than Camus wants us to take Meursault as a simple projection of his own views. For one thing, Haroun lives in a language-space that is almost entirely defined by Camus's French prose. Practically every phrase in the book is an echo of something from L'Ètranger, often inverted or bizarrely repurposed. True to his rhetoric, Haroun never mentions Camus by name, and talks about him as though he and Meursault are one and the same, but nonetheless he never fails to acknowledge him as "votre {the listener's} génie". For another, Haroun is himself at odds with modern Algeria in much the same way that Meursault was with its colonial predecessor. His real crime is that he has also killed someone (a Frenchman, in the closing stages of the war of independence), but what he is condemned for by his neighbours is his consumption of alcohol and refusal to conform to the outward norms of Isalmic society.
There's also obviously a lot of Biblical symbolism going on in the background too. The brothers are Moussa and Haroun, i.e. Moses and Aaron - Moussa being the one associated with a rock and a spring, Haroun the one who gets to see the promised land of independent Algeria; Haroun's sometime girlfriend is Meriem, the Arabic counterpart of Marie, the name of Meursault's young lady; the Frenchman Haroun kills is Joseph, who is symbolically put in a well...
So, I'm not completely convinced, but this is certainly a very clever book, and one that is rather more respectful of Camus's text than might appear at first sight, and I think it also adds some non-obvious insights into the cultural legacy of colonialism.
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pimp, Meursault's neighbour Raymond. Daoud gives him the name Moussa, writes the girl out of the story, and gives him a younger brother, Haroun, who is telling a long-suffering PhD candidate the story of his life in one of the few remaining bars in post-independence Oran. It soon becomes obvious that we aren't meant to take Haroun's postcolonial rant entirely literally, any more than Camus wants us to take Meursault as a simple projection of his own views. For one thing, Haroun lives in a language-space that is almost entirely defined by Camus's French prose. Practically every phrase in the book is an echo of something from L'Ètranger, often inverted or bizarrely repurposed. True to his rhetoric, Haroun never mentions Camus by name, and talks about him as though he and Meursault are one and the same, but nonetheless he never fails to acknowledge him as "votre {the listener's} génie". For another, Haroun is himself at odds with modern Algeria in much the same way that Meursault was with its colonial predecessor. His real crime is that he has also killed someone (a Frenchman, in the closing stages of the war of independence), but what he is condemned for by his neighbours is his consumption of alcohol and refusal to conform to the outward norms of Isalmic society.
There's also obviously a lot of Biblical symbolism going on in the background too. The brothers are Moussa and Haroun, i.e. Moses and Aaron - Moussa being the one associated with a rock and a spring, Haroun the one who gets to see the promised land of independent Algeria; Haroun's sometime girlfriend is Meriem, the Arabic counterpart of Marie, the name of Meursault's young lady; the Frenchman Haroun kills is Joseph, who is symbolically put in a well...
So, I'm not completely convinced, but this is certainly a very clever book, and one that is rather more respectful of Camus's text than might appear at first sight, and I think it also adds some non-obvious insights into the cultural legacy of colonialism.
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LibraryThing member John
Kamel Daoud: The Meursault Investigation
It is a bold writer who takes an acknowledged classic, Camus's The Stranger (aka The Outsider) and writes a novel that gives the other side of the story as told by the brother of the man who is murdered in the Camus book.
Daoud does it well. First, by giving
The novel is more about Harun's life in the decades that have passed since the murder; an event that completely overshadowed, determined, shaped Harun's life and relationships, especially with his mother who spends her life mourning and martyred for the loss of her son, seeking witnesses and testimonies and documents to try to puzzle-out the "why" of the tragedy. But of course, there is no "why", no explanation. In Daoud's novel there is not even a body. In Camus nothing is said about the disposal or mourning or burial of "the Arab"; in Daoud the body has simply vanished thus compounding the deep disorientation and loss.
Daoud's goal is broader than just a clever re-telling of the Camus story from the angle of the victims, i.e. the murdered man and the ripple effects through the lives of Harun and his mother. Musa becomes a metaphor for all the nameless, marginalized, forgotten people in the cauldron of colonialism and who,, more broadly, have always existed, and continue to exist, in all societies. Some, like Musa, are murdered, others are killed in wars and conflicts, and some are "killed" by simply being passed over in silence and forgetfulness--those who are invisible because they are different in colour, class, nationality, religion, sex, age or whatever pigeon-hole is used to classify the "other". Harun says he wants to "speak in the place of the dead man", but in so doing, he speaks to humanity.
Harun is decidedly anti-religion which does not serve him well in the increasingly Islamic society that follows independence from France. He abhors religions, "All of them! Because they falsify the weight of the world" and he applies a novel metaphor: "As far as I'm concerned, religion is public transportation I never use. This God--I like traveling in his direction, on foot if necessary, but I don't want to take an organized trip."
A number of themes weave through the novel. One is the nature of language in structuring the world as enabler of expression and insulator from ideas. Harun learned French because his mother's Arabic is, "...rich, full of imagery, vitality, sudden jolts, and improvisations, but not too big on precision...I had to learn a language other than that one...Books and your hero's language gradually enabled me to name things differently and to organize the world with my own words."
The extension of language is the ability to present it in writing and Harun is full of admiration for how Camus achieved this: "I knew your hero's genius: the ability to tear open the common, everyday language and emerge on the other side, where a more devastating language is waiting to narrate the world in another way. That's it! The reason why your hero tells the story of my brother's murder so well is that he'd reached a new territory, a language that was unknown and grew more powerful in his embrace, the words like pitilessly carved stonse, a language as naked as Euclidian geometry."
Memory is critical. As Harun says in an opening line in the book, "I've rehashed this story in my head so often, I almost can't remember it anymore." The past frames and validates the present, but the past is continually reshaped by the mutability of memory, aside from any deliberate attempts to reframe it to justify actions and experiences. So, where does 'truth' lie? In speaking of a principal character in Camus, Harun says, "...I wonder if he ever existed. Just as I've come to doubt the time of the killing, the presence of salt in the killer's eyes, and even, sometimes, my brother Musa's very existence." The amorphous and sometimes self-serving natures of 'fact' and 'truth' pervade the novel, and life.
Daoud blurs the lines between fiction and reality. The books by Camus and Daoud are stories that take place, "somewhere in someone's head, in mine and yours and in the heads of people like you. In a sort of beyond." But at times Daoud reads almost like a report as Harun rejects key points in the Camus story as fabrications or unproven, and talks about the trial of Musa's killer as if it were a real event. The blurring of lines is interesting and gives a sense of verisimilitude to the stories. As do Daoud's critical comments on modern Algeria itself, from the "oil wells and their surrounding architecture of wholesale relocation; and finally the shantytowns" to Algiers loathed for, "the monstrous chewing sound it makes, its stench of rotten vegetables and rancid oil!" Nor does he spare societal norms in modern Algeria, especially the pressure to conform to conservative Islam, and the disappearance of a type of woman: "free, brash, disobedient, aware of their body as a gift, not as a sin or a shame." Little wonder that Daoud has come into conflict with conservative religious persons in Algeria.
Finally, Daoud's comment on the gratuitousness of death, a phrase that he uses more than once and which fits with Harun's philosophy of life: "the best proof of our absurd existence, by dear friend: Nobody's granted a final day, just an accidental interruption in his life."
I liked the writing which in more sensual than Camus. Camus is the starting point and the lodestar, but this is a book with its own commentary and thought-provoking ideas. For the full flavour, one should read the two books together, Camus first and then Daoud.
It is a bold writer who takes an acknowledged classic, Camus's The Stranger (aka The Outsider) and writes a novel that gives the other side of the story as told by the brother of the man who is murdered in the Camus book.
Daoud does it well. First, by giving
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the murdered man a name. In Camus, he is always just referred to as just "the Arab", but the narrator of Daoud's story, now an older man, Harun, identifies him as his brother, Musa. Something as simple as a name recognizes a common humanity and elevates the impact of the tragedy of the murder. Through Harun, we learn something of Musa as an individual with life, work, personality, interests, family...all snatched away in an instant in the broiling sun on a beach that no longer exists. The novel is more about Harun's life in the decades that have passed since the murder; an event that completely overshadowed, determined, shaped Harun's life and relationships, especially with his mother who spends her life mourning and martyred for the loss of her son, seeking witnesses and testimonies and documents to try to puzzle-out the "why" of the tragedy. But of course, there is no "why", no explanation. In Daoud's novel there is not even a body. In Camus nothing is said about the disposal or mourning or burial of "the Arab"; in Daoud the body has simply vanished thus compounding the deep disorientation and loss.
Daoud's goal is broader than just a clever re-telling of the Camus story from the angle of the victims, i.e. the murdered man and the ripple effects through the lives of Harun and his mother. Musa becomes a metaphor for all the nameless, marginalized, forgotten people in the cauldron of colonialism and who,, more broadly, have always existed, and continue to exist, in all societies. Some, like Musa, are murdered, others are killed in wars and conflicts, and some are "killed" by simply being passed over in silence and forgetfulness--those who are invisible because they are different in colour, class, nationality, religion, sex, age or whatever pigeon-hole is used to classify the "other". Harun says he wants to "speak in the place of the dead man", but in so doing, he speaks to humanity.
Harun is decidedly anti-religion which does not serve him well in the increasingly Islamic society that follows independence from France. He abhors religions, "All of them! Because they falsify the weight of the world" and he applies a novel metaphor: "As far as I'm concerned, religion is public transportation I never use. This God--I like traveling in his direction, on foot if necessary, but I don't want to take an organized trip."
A number of themes weave through the novel. One is the nature of language in structuring the world as enabler of expression and insulator from ideas. Harun learned French because his mother's Arabic is, "...rich, full of imagery, vitality, sudden jolts, and improvisations, but not too big on precision...I had to learn a language other than that one...Books and your hero's language gradually enabled me to name things differently and to organize the world with my own words."
The extension of language is the ability to present it in writing and Harun is full of admiration for how Camus achieved this: "I knew your hero's genius: the ability to tear open the common, everyday language and emerge on the other side, where a more devastating language is waiting to narrate the world in another way. That's it! The reason why your hero tells the story of my brother's murder so well is that he'd reached a new territory, a language that was unknown and grew more powerful in his embrace, the words like pitilessly carved stonse, a language as naked as Euclidian geometry."
Memory is critical. As Harun says in an opening line in the book, "I've rehashed this story in my head so often, I almost can't remember it anymore." The past frames and validates the present, but the past is continually reshaped by the mutability of memory, aside from any deliberate attempts to reframe it to justify actions and experiences. So, where does 'truth' lie? In speaking of a principal character in Camus, Harun says, "...I wonder if he ever existed. Just as I've come to doubt the time of the killing, the presence of salt in the killer's eyes, and even, sometimes, my brother Musa's very existence." The amorphous and sometimes self-serving natures of 'fact' and 'truth' pervade the novel, and life.
Daoud blurs the lines between fiction and reality. The books by Camus and Daoud are stories that take place, "somewhere in someone's head, in mine and yours and in the heads of people like you. In a sort of beyond." But at times Daoud reads almost like a report as Harun rejects key points in the Camus story as fabrications or unproven, and talks about the trial of Musa's killer as if it were a real event. The blurring of lines is interesting and gives a sense of verisimilitude to the stories. As do Daoud's critical comments on modern Algeria itself, from the "oil wells and their surrounding architecture of wholesale relocation; and finally the shantytowns" to Algiers loathed for, "the monstrous chewing sound it makes, its stench of rotten vegetables and rancid oil!" Nor does he spare societal norms in modern Algeria, especially the pressure to conform to conservative Islam, and the disappearance of a type of woman: "free, brash, disobedient, aware of their body as a gift, not as a sin or a shame." Little wonder that Daoud has come into conflict with conservative religious persons in Algeria.
Finally, Daoud's comment on the gratuitousness of death, a phrase that he uses more than once and which fits with Harun's philosophy of life: "the best proof of our absurd existence, by dear friend: Nobody's granted a final day, just an accidental interruption in his life."
I liked the writing which in more sensual than Camus. Camus is the starting point and the lodestar, but this is a book with its own commentary and thought-provoking ideas. For the full flavour, one should read the two books together, Camus first and then Daoud.
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LibraryThing member ralphcoviello
"The Meursault Investigation" a remarkable work by Kamel Daoud which goes beyond its meta-fictional origins as a sequel to and meditation on "The Stranger" by Albert Camus to become a powerful story in its own right as well as an examination of identity and the absurd. The story is told by Haroun
After previously reading "The Literary Companion series of essays on The Stranger" I noted that Camus could not have anticipated the variety of interpretations or how social, cultural and historical changes have impacted how the book is thought about. He certainly did not conceive, 75 years after publishing "The Stranger", a celebrated prize winning book written in French by Algerian author Kamel Daoud would give a name to his unnamed Arab victim, however he likely would have smiled at the absurdity of it all.
"The Meursault Investigation" is beautifully translated from the original French into English by John Cullen and you can read an excerpt in the April 6, 2015 issue of The New Yorker.
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who identifies the previously nameless Arab shot and killed by Meursault in "The Stranger" as being his brother Musa. Haroun sits in a bar talking to a stranger about his life, telling how his brother's murder and the book which left his brother nameless haunted his entire existence. In the end the narrator Haroun turns out to have issues with his Mama, the consequences of an absurd murder and trial and to be something of a stranger and outsider himself. After previously reading "The Literary Companion series of essays on The Stranger" I noted that Camus could not have anticipated the variety of interpretations or how social, cultural and historical changes have impacted how the book is thought about. He certainly did not conceive, 75 years after publishing "The Stranger", a celebrated prize winning book written in French by Algerian author Kamel Daoud would give a name to his unnamed Arab victim, however he likely would have smiled at the absurdity of it all.
"The Meursault Investigation" is beautifully translated from the original French into English by John Cullen and you can read an excerpt in the April 6, 2015 issue of The New Yorker.
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LibraryThing member michaelbartley
This a mirror image of the stranger or outsider by camus. the main character is the brother of the arab murder in the stranger. he is telling the story 20 years or so after the event. a excellent novel, one covers the same ideas that camus wrote about.
LibraryThing member LynnB
If you haven't read The Stranger by Albert Camus, you definitely should before reading this book. In this story, Mr. Daoud talks about the story of being an outsider/stranger from the perspective of Mr. Meursault's unnamed Arab victim. Mr. Daoud puts the context of colonialism around Camus's famous
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story and thereby enriches it, adding layers of complexity. Show Less
LibraryThing member stephengoldenberg
A bit unfair giving this 3 stars. I realised once I'd started reading it that my having read Camus's "The Stranger" 40 years ago wasn't sufficient. I should have re-read it before reading this. Sometimes you can get away with reading a novel based on another text or a sequel without having read the
I remember liking "L'Etranger" a lot which is why I wanted to read this and it has interesting things to say about colonialism and identity. However, I found the narrative style became irritating even in such a short novel. Daoud's narrator, the brother of the unnamed Arab murdered by Meursault in The Camus novel tells the story as if he has just buttonholed the reader in a bar - he's a kind of ancient mariner, you feel, forced to tell his story over and over again as a punishment for what he has done. He apologises at regular intervals for 'rambling' and you can't fault Daoud's for the authenticity of this authorial voice but I found it became as wearying as I suspect it would have done to the listener in the bar.
Another interesting take on the Camus novel is the song 'Killing an Arab' by The Cure - never played on the radio for obvious reasons.
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original text and sometimes you can't. However, that's also a risk the author takes when they write this kind of novel.I remember liking "L'Etranger" a lot which is why I wanted to read this and it has interesting things to say about colonialism and identity. However, I found the narrative style became irritating even in such a short novel. Daoud's narrator, the brother of the unnamed Arab murdered by Meursault in The Camus novel tells the story as if he has just buttonholed the reader in a bar - he's a kind of ancient mariner, you feel, forced to tell his story over and over again as a punishment for what he has done. He apologises at regular intervals for 'rambling' and you can't fault Daoud's for the authenticity of this authorial voice but I found it became as wearying as I suspect it would have done to the listener in the bar.
Another interesting take on the Camus novel is the song 'Killing an Arab' by The Cure - never played on the radio for obvious reasons.
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LibraryThing member trile1000
I really enjoyed this book. It's a great companion piece to Albert Camus's The Stranger. A fascinating look from the perspective of Harun, brother of the unnamed "Arab" killed in The Stranger and the parallels between him and Meursault. It is a huge look at identity and one's search for it. It
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gives The Stranger a greater depth and a different interpretation of events. Show Less
LibraryThing member JRCornell
This response to Camus's The Stranger is at once a love story and a political manifesto about post-colonial Algeria, Islam, and the irrelevance of Arab lives. He was the brother of "the Arab" killed by the infamous Meursault, the antihero of Camus's classic novel.
LibraryThing member Dreesie
This novel is a response to [author:Albert Camus|957894]'s [book:The Stranger|49552]. While The Stranger is all about the pied-noir (French colonizer; born in Algeria) Meursault and his crime of murdering "the Arab", Daoud has written this book to give that Arab a name and family. The book is
I was expecting something very different from what I got. While Harun names his brother Musa, we don't learn much more about him. Instead Harun rants--about the police who never found/lost his brother's body, the French, the readers of The Stranger, Algerians who expected him to fight for independence, religion in general, his own crime, the difficulty his mother had raising him alone. Really he shows (and admits) ho disturbingly similar he and Meursault are, right down to not knowing how old their mothers are (which, among other details irrelevant to his crime, got Meursault executed). So the colonizer was executed for his lack of social graces while his victim was ignored and unnamed, while Harun is let go and his French victim is named--there is a lot here to unpack between the results of their crimes, the similarities between the mothers and the sons and their relationships, their inabilities to fit in "properly". Despite all this, the book was still quite dull to read.
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narrated by Musa's brother, who was just 7 when he was murdered, and Harun's entire life has been dictated by his brother's murder, his mother's grief, his own confusion.I was expecting something very different from what I got. While Harun names his brother Musa, we don't learn much more about him. Instead Harun rants--about the police who never found/lost his brother's body, the French, the readers of The Stranger, Algerians who expected him to fight for independence, religion in general, his own crime, the difficulty his mother had raising him alone. Really he shows (and admits) ho disturbingly similar he and Meursault are, right down to not knowing how old their mothers are (which, among other details irrelevant to his crime, got Meursault executed). So the colonizer was executed for his lack of social graces while his victim was ignored and unnamed, while Harun is let go and his French victim is named--there is a lot here to unpack between the results of their crimes, the similarities between the mothers and the sons and their relationships, their inabilities to fit in "properly". Despite all this, the book was still quite dull to read.
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LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50
The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud is an Algerian answer to Albert Camus’ story The Stranger in which a Frenchman, Meursault, casually murders an Arab on the beach at Algiers. This short novel is supposedly narrated by the brother of the murdered Arab and is told some 70 years after the
In The Stranger much is written about Meursault, his feelings, his reactions, his story and yet the victim of the crime remains a nameless Arab. In this account we are given his name, Musa, and although he is unable to speak for himself, his brother, Harun, tells of his family and home. One of the tragedies of this story is the fact that Harun and his mother were unable to claim the body, as his name is never entered into any of the official records. The mother, tremendously grief-stricken becomes obsessed with seeking retribution. In an effort to appease his Mother, Harun kills a French settler, but instead of calling attention by committing a revenge murder, his action is considered a badly-timed killing as it occured shortly after the cease-fire that signalled the end of the war for independence.
The Meursault Investigation is a literary re-telling but in this version it is more than a simple counterpoint to the original. The country of Algeria becomes more than just the setting as the author meditates on the post-colonial failures of his country and doesn’t particularly sing out praises for how it is now being run. The author has received mixed reactions to this book, some shower him with literary acclaim, while many right-wing Muslims feel he should be on trial for blasphemy.
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event.In The Stranger much is written about Meursault, his feelings, his reactions, his story and yet the victim of the crime remains a nameless Arab. In this account we are given his name, Musa, and although he is unable to speak for himself, his brother, Harun, tells of his family and home. One of the tragedies of this story is the fact that Harun and his mother were unable to claim the body, as his name is never entered into any of the official records. The mother, tremendously grief-stricken becomes obsessed with seeking retribution. In an effort to appease his Mother, Harun kills a French settler, but instead of calling attention by committing a revenge murder, his action is considered a badly-timed killing as it occured shortly after the cease-fire that signalled the end of the war for independence.
The Meursault Investigation is a literary re-telling but in this version it is more than a simple counterpoint to the original. The country of Algeria becomes more than just the setting as the author meditates on the post-colonial failures of his country and doesn’t particularly sing out praises for how it is now being run. The author has received mixed reactions to this book, some shower him with literary acclaim, while many right-wing Muslims feel he should be on trial for blasphemy.
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LibraryThing member RickGeissal
This is an extraordinary rebuttal of the anonymity of "The Arab" murdered by the Frenchman in L'Etranger (The Stranger/ The Foreigner/ The Other) by Albert Camus, written from the perspective of the brother of the murdered man. The book takes us into the world of colonized Algeria and to some
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degree into the minds of colonized Algerian people - people in their own country who are "the other" to the dominant French prior to 1963. As I wrote to the author, Kamel Daoud, "C'est extraordinaire. J'ai apprendre. Pardonez-moi la francaise." Show Less
LibraryThing member ritaer
A graduate student interviews a man who claims to be the brother of the unknown Arab killed in Camus' novel The Stranger.
Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2017)
Best Translated Book Award (Longlist — 2016)
French-American Foundation Translation Prize (Shortlist — 2016)
Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize (Shortlist — 2016)
Prix Goncourt (1. Auswahl — 2014)
Goncourt du Premier Roman (2015)
Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year (Fiction — 2015)
NPR: Books We Love (2015)
Boston Globe Best Book (Fiction — 2015)
San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year (Fiction — 2015)
Los Angeles Public Library Best of the Year (Fiction — 2015)
Language
Original publication date
2013-10
Physical description
160 p.; 4.57 inches
ISBN
2330033729 / 9782330033729