http://www.mytwostotinki.com/?p=2262

16 June 1957 - a rainy day but always to be remembered as a black day in the lives of all families in a small town at Mount Lebanon, the stronghold of the Maronites in Lebanon, the day when everybody's life changed forever in this community.

The rivalry between the two dominating clans, the Al-Ramis and the Al-Semaanis had been lingering since a long time despite the fact that intermarriage between the clans was not rare and that all were Christians of the same denomination. In a church, the conflict that is triggered by political and personal issues, explodes - and in the end 24 men are dead.

Eliyya, the son of one of the victims, comes back to his home town for a visit after having lived for more than twenty years in the United States. He wants to meet his old and nearly blind mother - and to find out who his father whom he never met was and why and how he died. But this is not an investigation that aims in finding a culprit, as the two Armenian photographers suspect that were witnesses of the church massacre and that may or may not have shot photos from the gunfight. For Eliyya it is also an attempt to find out why his mother has sent him away from the small town so early on in his youth, first to school in Beirut and then to study abroad. And what about the rumors that he was conceived after his fathers death?

Eliyya wants to find out where he comes from and why his life in exile is so unhappy and the sense of purpose is drifting away from him because he is for some reason unable to create lasting friendships or relationships with people. He goes out in the different areas of the town where the two clans live and talks to people who were either witnesses of the events or knew the victims of the massacre intimately. What we read is therefore a mosaic of voices told by different characters.

While reading the book, I realized that some of the traits of the people in the community that the author is describing are typical for many areas in the Mediterranean. The machismo of the small town and its men has a lot in common with what one could find also in Sicily or the Accursed Mountains in Albania for example. An exaggerated pride in traditions and an allegedly prominent lineage (frequently invented), the badmouthing of and gossiping about "the others", to whom all possible negative characteristics are attributed, the widespread misogyny, the contempt for those who don't join in the frequent violent skirmishes between the clans, the cult of the gun that plays such a dominating role in this society - it has very little to do with the usual stereotypes (the "bad guys"in this book, if we may call them like this, are all Christians - Muslims are practically absent in this novel) we are used to when we come from a "Western" country.

The author got the inspiration to this novel from a murder in his home town, and he goes to great length to present us a multi-faceted story; the complicated relationship between the people is revealed by the life stories of some of the minor characters, for example the baker who lived during the civil war on the "wrong side" of the town, i.e. surrounded by people from the other clan - being only a baker didn't protect him in the end. The tailor who takes so much interest in his good looks and his gun. Or the two Armenians, descendants of survivors of the genocide in 1915 whose ancestors found refuge amongst Arabs, but who feel estranged from the community in which they life after the catastrophe in the church. There is Muntaha, a neighbor of Eliyya's family and the best friend of Kamileh, Eliyya's mother, who knows a few things that the others don't know. And there are of course Eliyya's parents: Yusef, his father, a gambler and womanizer and there is, most importantly Kamileh, Eliyya's mother who is in a way the real center of this novel. We get to know her well as readers and we begin to understand that there is also another side to her than that of the constantly bickering, stubborn, and harsh old woman. But as a result of the events she had to go through, she was never able to share this side with her husband or her son or anybody else.

The novel has a very elaborate structure and the author knows obviously exactly about what he is writing. The motives of his characters, as difficult they seem to be understandable in the beginning, make much more sense while the story moves on. It is also a story of exile - not only Eliyya spends his life abroad, also many of the other characters have been emigrating at least temporarily to some godforsaken place in Brazil, Venezuela or Australia, some of them just coming home in time to become part of the group of men that perished in the church massacre (the "incident", as it is called by almost everyone).

One of the aspects of this novel that I found most interesting was the author's analysis of the already mentioned machismo of this very traditional society. It is not only about guns, but also about cars, something to which most of us can relate probably much more easily. The author mentions a rather revealing development - at a certain moment in the late 1950s, early 1960s, American cars are getting more and more replaced by German cars:

"...it was tempting to say that they found in German cars a kind of toughness and durability they had missed in the American cars...Mixed in with all of that praise for mechanics was also a general fascination with the German nation for having confronted the whole world by itself in WWII, which was a reason enough for pride, despite its eventual loss." - (The Falange, the fascist Lebanese party that has as an almost exclusive power and support basis in the Maronite community in Mount Lebanon was never hiding the fact that they were inspired in many respects by the Nazis, SS-like uniforms of their paramilitary militias that are responsible for some of the worst crimes in the Middle East included.)

One of the most interesting paragraphs in the book for me was when the author is explaining how the people were getting used to the sound of the different kinds of gunfire - with the single shot at point blank range being the most chilling since the distance is too short to fail. But there are even absurd cases like those people who are sending a tape with recorded gunfire to a brother in Australia - the poor guy is allegedly living in a place where he is deprived of that sound! That is so grotesque, it is even funny.

"And then there was the unverified claim that Abu Saeed's neighbours and relatives started shooting into the air one day, refusing to tell the reason for their joy. The secret didn't come out until days later, thanks to some women who sent out news outside the quarter that Abu Saeed had been experiencing a constant erection and was worried sick about it. He'd consulted numerous doctors and the day it finally 'slept' for him, as they say, all his family and neighbours fired their rifles in celebration."

I couldn't help but bursting out laughing when I imagined the whole family and neighborhood celebrating the receding erection of their leader - hilarious!

Jabbour Douaihy, a professor for French literature in Beirut, was a new name to me. I am glad I read this multi-layered and -voiced novel that didn't only give me a much better insight and understanding in the reasons for the violence in Lebanon and the Middle East in general, but that is also due to the great abilities of the author as a storyteller a book that will stay very long with the reader. It can be also read as a kind of Bildungsroman of its main character, but that is only one of the various approaches to this rich and thoughtful book.

In the end we see Eliyya saying good-bye to Kamileh, and it is very probably the final one. On his way back to the United States, Eliyya is getting rid of some excess baggage. That is sometimes very helpful - not only while traveling, but in life in general.

( )

Ce roman qui évoque la tuerie de Miziara, au Liban Nord, en juin 1957 durant laquelle Sleimane Frangié, chef d'une importante famille locale, fit assassiner dans une église un grand nombre de membres de la famille adverse Douaihy. En 1970, Frangié fut élu président de la République. Cet épisode de vendetta est devenu un des symboles de la violence archaïque qui anime la société de la montagne libanaise. La lecture proposée en fait d'ailleurs une sorte de répétition générale de la guerre civile, puisque dans le contexte de la "mini-guerre civile" de 1958, causée par la volonté du président Chamoun de briguer un nouveau mandat contrairement à ce qu'autorise la Constitution, la ville de Zghorta se divise en deux secteurs de part et d'autre d'une ligne de front qui correspond en gros aux quartiers des deux familles et de leurs partisans. Un des thèmes du livre est la violence absurde qui détruit le lien social. Les voisins issus d'une famille mais vivant dans le quartier de l'autre famille, les couples mixtes (dont la femme ou l'homme vient de l'autre côté), voire les étrangers qui n'ont rien demandé à personne sont intimidés, voire assassinés, forcés de déménager. La fascination des hommes pour les armes, la fidélité imposée aux morts et au cycle de la vengeance sont très bien montrés. Pour y échapper, seul est possible l'exil, ailleurs au Liban voire la rupture complète des liens, notamment le départ en Australie, en Amérique latine ou aux Etats-Unis. Le roman se présente justement comme le carnet de notes d'un fils du pays, dont le père est mort dans cette fusillade avant sa naissance, revenu de son exil américain pour semble-t-il retrouver ses traces et tenter de stabiliser son identité. En vain, comme le révèle la fin de l'ouvrage.
Son écriture est complexe, car le récit est comme diffracté par les témoignages de différents protagonistes qui tentent de se remémorer les faits de cette journée et de cette époque pour l'auteur, faits d'allers et retours entre le présent et l'histoire de la localité. C'est la vision d'un monde qui fuit et où la mémoire ne peut qu'être partielle, alors que la violence passée (le roman est écrit cinquante ans après les faits) ne cessent de hanter les habitants du pays et de structurer leur comportement et leurs schèmes d'appréhension du monde. Curieusement Beyrouth est largement absente du roman, sauf en creux, comme un lieu où l'on peut fuir ces attaches fatales. De ce point de vue, ce roman inverse la perspective par rapport à Learning English, livre de Rachid Ed Daïf, autre romancier zghortiote. Ce dernier abordait déjà ce thème du cycle de la vendetta dont le narrateur cherchait à se tenir à l'écart en renonçant à venir au village, et en cherchant au contraire à appartenir au village global en apprenant l'anglais. La diaspora - et le conditionnement des enfants pour le départ par l'apprentissage des langues étrangères - a ici une logique qui n'est pas seulement économique mais aussi psychlogique.
J'ai du mal à dire ce qui m'a déçu ou plutôt qui ne m'a pas satisfait. Sans doute quelque chose dans la construction, une écriture qui adopte un rythme assez lent qui perd un peu le lecteur. Sans doute aussi l'espèce de voile translucide que jette l'auteur entre l'histoire et le propos du roman en modifiant les noms, en construisant donc une fable comme pour tenter une mise à distance et peut être une généralisation. ( )