Review of `Le Ciel est aux petits porteurs` by Daniel Boulanger

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World Languages and Cultures
2008
Review of 'Le Ciel est aux petits porteurs' by Daniel
Boulanger
Véronique Olivier
Chapman University, [email protected]
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Part of the French and Francophone Literature Commons
Recommended Citation
Olivier, Véronique. “Review of 'Le Ciel est aux petits porteurs' by Daniel Boulanger.” The French Review 81.4 (2008): 808–809. Print.
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Review of 'Le Ciel est aux petits porteurs' by Daniel Boulanger
Comments
This review was originally published in The French Review, volume 81, issue 4, in 2008.
Copyright
American Association of Teachers of French
This book review is available at Chapman University Digital Commons: http://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/language_articles/7
808 FRENCH REVIEW 81.4
Slimane.
Benaissa,
Les
du
Coleres
silence.
Paris:
Pp.208.17
2005.
Plon,
.
ISBN:
2-259-20025-7.
and author
Slimane
Benaissa's
novel
is an expression
actor, director,
Algerian
of the
of his native
land. In over a dozen
three novels,
and multi
suffering
plays,
ceuvre
conferences
and
Benaissa's
considers
the
factors
that con
ple
workshops,
tribute to the development of religious intolerance and political violence. Les
Coleres
du
silence
evokes
of
many
issues
the
that
the author's
underpin
creative
work: political corruption, the role of women, and life in exile, a condition he
knows well. After adapting, translating,and performing plays throughout Europe
and Algeria,
Benaissa
states:
etions
in France
exile
chose
in 1993 because
cen
of the increasing
sorship and danger caused by Algeria's civilwar (1990-1998). Benaissa thus pos
sesses a multilayered perspective on the situation of the exile,which he considers
to be not solely based on geographical location. As the protagonist of this novel
"nous
en exil
deja
a la recherche
d'un
(22).
voyage"
Les Coleres du silence tells the tale of conjoined twinsHassan
a few years
born
after Algeria's
are
independence,
and Hossein who,
to a New
flown
York
hospital
where they are surgically separated. Psychologically and spiritually lostwithout
one
can
a
de
another,
they
only experience
"complement
are
one child, Hossein
with
becomes
Married,
they
together.
Hassan
(40) when
doctor while
plenitude"
a court
takes refugewith their aging parents, writing poems and retreating from
After Hossein
society.
in love with
falls
the young
and
traumatized
a vio
Dawya,
lent earthquake hits Algeria. Hossein loses his entire family, including his twin
brother,who is killed while in prayer at a mosque. Filled with a silent, desperate
at the eternal
rage
of his brother,
absence
Hossein
convinces
to accompa
Dawya
ny him as he goes to France in thehope ofmaking a new life.
are met with more
and
Hossein
however,
Dawya
disappoint
are not able
to fulfill their profes
of their immigrant
status,
they
a clinic
as a
intern while
and he becomes
she works
capacities
telephone
French
taker. Working
hours
and
alienated
from
long
society,
they be
in France,
Once
ment.
Because
sional
survey
come more
in solitude.
and
Seine
Boualem,
Hossein's
and more
Dawya
unexpectedly
His
close
taken to a hospital.
cares for him as he falls
deeper
to worsen,
continues
health
returns Hossein
Boualem
as Hossein
estranged
After
to
Algeria,
seeks
returns
to
and
friend,
and deeper
which
where
he
he
in drinking
and Dawya
in the
Hossein
is found
refuge
Algeria,
a writer
fellow
dies
finally
in the desert.
Fundamentally, this tragic story is a meditation on what itmeans
to be in exile
on
writes:
de
Benaissa
lost a part of oneself.
parle
"quand
une chose:
souvent
la mort
de l'arbre mais
oublie
de preciser
and
to have
ment,
on
fruit qu'il
donnait.
Benaissa's
poignant
Comment
allais-je
m'enraciner
named
exile
illness.
into an unexplained
to the loss of his twin.
attributes
Dans
ailleurs?
deracine
aussi
du
terre?
quelle
Comment redevenir fruitier?Quel serait alors le fruit?Comment faire pour que
tout mal detruit soit bien reconstruit?" (144). In candid and reflective prose,
ask his
characters
University of Illinois, Chicago
Daniel.
Boulanger,
70581-9.
Daniel
Goncourt,
Pp.
245.17
Boulanger
il publie
Le Ciel
.
n'en
readers
to reflect on
Sage Goellner
est aux petits porteurs.
est pas
regulierement
the unbearable.
a son
Paris:
Grasset,
Membre
ouvrage.
premier
et nouvelles.
romans,
poesie,
2006.
de
ISBN:
2-246
l'Academie
Pourtant,
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
il est
REVIEWS
809
lu. C'est
peu
peut-etre
le narrateur
pourquoi
de
son dernier
roman
est aux
Le Ciel
petitsporteurs,ecrivain "en panne" (10) d'inspiration, faitappel a un negre litteraire,
a
sauve d'autres
est obsede
L'auteur
par la
qui
deja
plumes.
a ecrire la version
et espionne.
II n'arrive
Friselli, une danseuse
pas
a cet
de
de ce personnage.
Employe
egard, Marquenterre
s'embarque
a
de ce roman dans un train qui le conduit
done des le second
chapitre
Accourcy,
a tant d'autres
une ville
sans
"la reine d'un
villes",
pays
provinciale,
"pareille
cet univers
ou meme
banal
il devient
rival". Dans
dont
le narrateur
les
principal,
aux memes
va cepen
etres se ressemblent
"creatures
traits"
(26), Marquenterre
a ses rencontres.
dant trouver d'infinies
richesses
Romain
vie
Marquenterre,
d'Augusta
l'histoire
Comme
aux
mage
breuses
son titre
Le Ciel
l'indique,
aux oublies,
aux
antiheros,
traces de cette volonte
dans
auteur
autochtone
texte
d'un
est aux petits porteurs
semble
rendre hom
trouve de nom
done. On
litteraires
negres
a un
le livre. Lorsque
Marquenterre
parle
n'a pas
et qui avoue
"le
d'etre
signe
plaisir
qu'il
ecoute incognito" car "il y a quelque chose de divin la dedans" (75), cette voix se
fait Techo du visiteur. Lorsque Antoinette, une employee de la librairie locale
aimerait raconter "[s]on histoire, la [s]ienne" (51), ce dont semoque le patron ("je
me
ce que
demande
vous
a lui dire!"),
auriez
se nourrit
Marquenterre
de
chambre
de
ou
l'hotel
de Marquenterre.
l'egerie
ses
mais
existe derriere
n'y
histoires
sent
par
te laisse
roman.
Sans
l'interet
L'ironie
sans
de
pretendre
ce roman
"faux
dans
a une
profonde
reflexion
repose
sur
et leurs
protagonistes
realite et la fiction finis
sur
de
la litterature
son
se
de
ou
moquer
le lecteur
Or,
l'auteur. Mais
Part d'ecrire,
de
soi-meme.
referme
le livre
cette
question
le charme du Ciel est aux
petits
l'histoire
de Marquenterre:
trans
une
il tombe vraiment
espionne,
merite-t-elle
au
c'est que
l'ironie
s'efface
porteurs,
profit de
a
sur
une
ecrire
inconnue,
pour
porte
Accourcy
amoureux
La vie n'est done que
de Madeleine.
partiellement
Chapman University (CA)
Chen,
jeu et devient
a-t-elle
ja
des
La
la volonte
davantage
sujet: le manque
d'inspiration.
en est veritablement
veritablement
qui
meme
d'etre posee?
Ce qui fait finalement
vient
savoir
a ce
D'ailleurs
ren
la femme
entre Madeleine
et
l'echange
sur son activite
la jeune femme
et il retorque
Intriguee,
l'interroge
non sans ironie, que "le
(128). Madeleine
ajoute,
premier
journaliste
a dix
done pas de realite;
la vie est un
(128). II n'existe
longueurs"
Marquenterre.
"invente"
qu'il
venu
se
prete gracieusement
ainsi peu a peu.
s'efface
etabli,
Friselli
noms"
(96)?
et les aventures
les propos
n'ont
finalement
relative
qu'une
importance.
se
ce
est bien
illustre dans
rejoindre,
qui
a rien d'inedit
II
il s'est
La
ces
de
contres: "J'ai besoin de conversations inedites" (74). Ainsi, Madeleine,
Ying.
Le Mangeur.
Le Mangeur,
into questions
ters between
Paris:
un
roman.
Olivier
Veronique
Seuil,
2006.
ISBN:
2-02-085025-7.
the latest novel by Chinese-Canadian
of origin,
identity,
key afternoons:
two
Pp.
126.14
.
author Ying Chen, delves
and memory.
The novel
alternates
one in the
the narrator
past when
in its chap
nine
at age
teen hesitates between deserting her isolated lifewith her father and
becoming
incorporated (forexample, eaten) by him; the second afternoon is in thepresent,
when
she
returns
to her
childhood
house
in search
of her now
missing
slowly remembers her childhood relationship with him. Questions
tion, separation,
of the narrator's
birth,
and
childhood
death
and
roles
important
play
her eventual
break with
father
and
of assimila
in
the mystery
unraveling
that part of her life.
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions