The Demon Cycle by Peter V. Brett

     I just finished the first two books of the Demon Cycle : The Painted Man and The Desert Spear ... Soon I'll go on with the Daylight War.

     I have a highly mitigated view on these books : they're efficient, the story is well built, but too major aspects prevent me from loving them totally, so let's go with the bad stuff first, and the good afterwards :

-  the writing is not "seamless". You can actually see, sometimes, how carefully built the whole thing is, you can see the stitches, sometimes at the expense of some sentences and situations that don't feel natural, or way too convenient to make the reader forget about the "story skeleton".

-  the peoples : the authors says, for example, that he created the Krasians thinking of Spartha and medieval Japan, and added a bit of midde eastern aspects to it. The thing is, what you see is only a huge orientalistic picture of the middle east or the "orient" in the general old sense (I'd almost say parody, I couldn't believe the tons of clichés piled up). The word "minaret" and "harem" repeated a bit everywhere don't exaclty help either in imagining an invented culture (let alone one from Ancient Greece or Japan !). So for people who know the Middle East a little bit will cringe reading this book, despite the commendable efforts of the author to create credible peoples. After all the same can be said of the Thesans, north-western-like people. Most fantasy readers won't care about those clichés, but in the current world we live in, I don't think we needed additionnal clichés about the middle east, most medias take care of it very well ... I love fantasy precisely because it's usually less stupid than most medias. But if "post 9/11 fantasy" was a subgenre, then that would be it.

Now the good sides :

-   Despite the clichés, the author really tries to show good and bad sides to everyone, and that's good, not to the extent of the blurry mentalities and morals of Game of Thrones, but the intent is there, and that's good. The characters are most typical fantasy characters, no surprises there, but like old friends you appreciate finding them again, throughout the fantasy genre.

-    Lots of ideas are very enjoyable : this warding system to protect oneself against the demons, the differents uses they have, according to where they are used, the old almost lost knowledge of a vanished world of science, the vision of beliefs each character have (from the unbeliever to the fanatic, with all the shades in between : the one who appreciate some verses of a religious books without being religious, etc)... In the end, I reckon it could make a great movie, lots of visuals to work on.

Anyway, I'll wait for the end to really assess if the clichés are just clichés serving an cliché end or if the author will surprise us with a more subtle and interesting ending that what we can expect (the clichés then being just a way to usefully confuse the reader).

Just read books, Dawkins, damn it.

"One could make the case that the Islamic religion is not friendly to science", Richard Dawkins in the Observer (and Guardian Weekly). He might be regarded as a great scientific, but he definitely sucks at history ... It's not hard to take a history book and see that the great scientifics breakthroughs in the middle ages were taking place in the muslim world.
How can he not see that scientific greatness is linked much more to economics than we care to imagine ? It's not a war-torn country that will be able to spare money and brains for science (like Europe in the middle ages, and the middle east today).

Tarmon Gai'don ... At last.

(Note : possible spoilers for those who haven't finished yet the Wheel of Time series).

     Ten years ago I bought a book, The Eye of The World, by Robert Jordan. And even though the writing style didn't strike me as great, the story held my attention, and decided to continue the adventure, to the last book, which was released a few months ago but which I couldn't read before this month. And I just just finished it, book N°14 of The Wheel of Time series (W.O.T).

       Some years ago when the author, Robert Jordan, passed away, I got rather desperate, having read all these books, gotten into the story, and no knowing if there would be an end. Brandon Sanderson was picked to finish them with what the authors had left behind of outlines and drafts. Thank God ... so I re-read the whole stuff and finished five minutes ago. Ten years of adventures, just finished. I feel a bit sad ...

     In the fantasy/science fiction world, these books don't have always good press : too long a story, dragged out and slowed from book 6 to book 10 (more or less), characters a bit too cliché sometimes, a writing style bordering somtimes on the dull, and much more could have been done with the scope of this very rich universe ... but what I think these books suffer the most from is that it's a old-school fantasy adventure. The Good vs Evil is clear and neat, Star Wars style. Now fashion is more to "realistic" fantasy stuff, such as A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) by George R R Martin, where all the characters are not quite good nor quite evil (whichi is a very good development in my opinion), and have the habit of dying quickly, or stupidely, or unexpectedly, like in real life. 

     These two series can't really compare, they're quite opposite for me in the Fantasy literature world, even though in the writing style they could be compared : neither is great, it's only an efficient writing (essential criteria to grip the reader into the story), but there is no poetry, no literary sense or subtelty which we can find in other fantasy novels.

     As for the stories, I must say that somehow, even though I really enjoy reading the Song of Ice and Fire, I prefered the Wheel of Time, for all its old-school-ness and things that could have been done better. It takes me into another world much more efficiently than the George R R Martin's one which only reminds me of the real world, with not much more to it than a little bit of magic and dragons. I love fantasy when it makes me travel, makes me dreams of other things, makes me take a huge step outside reality (if only to better look at it too, from a distance !), when you can be more or less sure that the good guys win* (it makes the one who dies even more dramatic for me, like, in W.O.T, Egwene). And this is why W.O.T is clearly a fantasy book for me, and for that I prefer it to a Song of Ice and Fire, which I would classify almost as a realistic novel (it leaves me much the same impressions and thoughts than when I read a realistic or historical fiction. I love both things, it's just that when I've been presented Song of Ice and Fire as fantasy, I was initially pertubed ... I'm sure I would have better appreciated it from the start if I had been told it was more like a historic-style thing, as I now do).

       Anyway, no use to mix up two books that are so different, it was just to point out what you should expect when reading the W.O.T series, at a time when the Game of Thrones' style is all over the place. Something akin to the Lord of The Rings but not an extension of it, as would the bookcovers quotations make us believe, the writing style is not up to it, and well, the Lord of the Rings has been there before, it clearly set the specifics of the fantasy sub-genre Robert Jordan followed.
       And damn, what great movies W.O.T would make. All these peoples, costumes, and special effects ... Maybe not 14 movies, but at least 10. And not TV series, I would really want to see it on the big screen.
      The only negative remarks I could say about this last novel, A Memory Of Light, is some awkward sentences (maybe edited too quickly ?), and the end of the book : if only there had been a longer epilogue ! After 14 books and 10 years of seeing the characters and the world evolve, you're highly frustrated not to know anything about the "after", for example, if ever Rand reveals himself again to his best friends and his father, or anything like it. Or what has changed in the world, if some of Aviendha's visions would come true or not ... If only glimpes of stories set in the future all packed up as an epilogue. The epilogue, as it is, is way too thin as compared to the massive story to which it puts an end. Maybe this frustration is deliberate, but I can't say I'm happy with it !




* It is why I think fantasy novels are always popular. It's one universe at least that doesn't make you anxious because you get attached to characters that might fail and die quickly, like in real life. There is always one or two dying in the process of the story, but not too many. That the good ones win gives you energy and happiness and hope, as stupid as it might sound, but essential for me, like listening to good music.
(And this is something that George RR Martin is set to change, and which made me almost quit reading his novels - before reagarding them as pseudo-historic, now I can say I really like them and enjoy reading them - , I barely stand having to read a book and keeping an emotional distance from the characters not to be overwhelmed by their sudden deaths ... Or at least the fantasy literature is the one domain where I usually can safely not do that, I keep that capacity for realistic novels).

Books

Lost In Transmission - by Jonathan Harley

     Most interesting book on an australian foreign correspondent experience in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He doesn't get the religious side exaclty right (or rather, he doesn't delve too deeply into it, contenting himself with sometimes unadequate generalities), but the rest is very good, informative but above all, it makes you discover the experience of a journalist who tries to do things the right way in impossible circumstances. It's especially interesting on the personnal level : no one is a hero, and the ones who are die very quickly and those who only appear to be are the worst of the lot.

     Also a good book to be read when you start forgetting, as a sheltered westerner (sheltered from wars and such), what the rest of the world looks like. As he rightly says, we are not the norm, we're just lucky. The last pages on the death of his friends, on this subject, are moving and disturbing.

     And once again, the experience of someone who is "hooked up" by Afghanistan. This terrible and beautiful country seem to have this effect on so many people who ever managed to go there, capturing their minds for ever.

City of Veils - by Zoë Ferraris

      Good thriller, good crime story set in Saudi Arabia. This is the reason, as always, that made me buy the book, since anything on this country interests me, but in the end, the book in itself is really good, as any good thriller I read before. 

      It's the first book from her that I read, and I'm quite happy to have ordered the other two, that seems to take up the same characters in the same place (mainly Jeddah).

      The author obviously knows stuff about the place and the country, even though you might detect, through the characters (what they say of the islamic veil, etc), that the author knows very well the religion as practised in Saudi Arabia in hard-line milieus, but not really, if at all, how it is percieved and practised elsewhere. As if she knew islam only through the lense of hard-core Wahhabism, and so sometimes I would have wished so feel the texture and deepness of the rest of the islamic world, if only the neighbouring countries, and its past ... Since wahhabism is only a recent phenomenon there.
        So the plot is good, the writing is ok, but if you want to learn anything on the religion or the culture, it's not really the book to buy. It still relies too much on the usual clichés, and it doesn't have the deepness you could expect from someone who researched the subject. Though I don't know anything about the author, I would say it's the sort of book written by someone who lived there for a short time but whose experience didn't end well.

       Well, you can't blame an author for giving the western reader what life is like sometimes there and giving into the cliché to grip a usually ignorant western audience, but even in this country there are other forms of living and religious practise and understanding that have yet to be described (after all, like every Gulf country, Saudi Arabia has a lot of migrants from the arab and non-arab world). But then, I haven't read the other books, maybe it gets more "real" in the others ... !

Impossible Man - by Michael Muhammad Knight

      Most interesting autobiography. I don't want to comment much on it as I haven't read what seems to be the follow-up "journey to the end of islam", but I would say that I enjoyed his novels more that his autobiography, thus far. 

     It explains how he got to know so much about islam, but also why he is locked, always, in a patriarchal vision of everything, despite islamic feminism or any other phenomenon producing other discourse. I would have thought that with everything he had studied, he would have at least seen the huge roles of women both in history and nowadays in the middle east, but he seems to see islam only through a patriarchal lense, to mix up the cultures where it is practised with the religion that is practised (well, most of people do, but still, it's not an excuse). Maybe because he was confronted since the start to a near "hardcore" version of the religion. (We can understand this it to an extent ... These are times where, in any country and any culture, you only hear about the hardcore part of politics and ideologies, the "quiet majority" keeps to itself, hidden).

       Anyway, more than the religion, it's a story of a quest for absolutism, what any and every teenager is after, a quest that fails since life doesn't give much into absolutism of any sort ... He was looking for perfection and found a religion practised by most imperfect humans, like any religion or anything else. He expected religion to stand the test of science, and there too many people, in my opinion, fail to get that science has nothing to do with religion. One explains the rational part of the human being, the other tackles the irrationnal one. And the danger begins when you want to wipe off one of these two ...

      Anyway, I've been a bit carried away. Back to the book : the real hero is his mother, and the book's key sentence is something his insane father told him "Woman is the  nigger of the world". (Something that is only true if you keep seeing the world, like the author, as a classic-style patriarchy. Because my experience of so-called patriarchal societies shows something much more complex ...)

"Le voyageur sans orient" de Salam al-Kindy

(FRA)

« Le voyageur sans orient : Poésie et philosophie des Arabes de l’ère préislamique» de Salam al-Kindy

     Voilà un très beau livre, plein de réflexions qui donnent à réfléchir et à revoir la culture arabo-musulmanne classique d’un oeil neuf. L’auteur maîtrise tellement son sujet, la pensée philosophique occidentale et la littérature des deux mondes arabe et européen qu’on se sent un peu bête parfois, et quelques passages son quelque peu difficile, mais si on prend le temps de le lire, et de le relire, c’est fascinant.

     Il nous explique l’essence de la poésie pré-islamique, pourquoi tant de spécialistes l’ont mal comprise, et ce en quoi elle diffère de la poésie post-coranique, même si de forme les similitudes sont grandes. Et de là, la différence radicale entre la vision du monde jâhilite (pré-islamique) et la vision du monde après l’apparition de l’islam :

«On présente parfois la Jâhiliyya et sa poésie comme ayant ‘‘préparé»» l’ère coranique ; il serait plus exact d’écrire que le Coran a bâti une réponse terme à terme à la vision du monde de la Jâhiliyya et à son élaboration conceptuelle»

p.161

     Et je dirais même qu’il est peut-être essentiel, à qui «l’esprit» de l’islam lui échappe, de comprendre d’abord l’esprit et la vision du monde de la Jâhiliyya. La réponse monothéiste apparue ensuite prend tout son sens. Dans le monde jâhilite ultra-pessimiste, étrangement  très moderne pour nous occidentaux du 21ème siècle, vient une réponse optimiste avec la promesse de l’au-delà, et l’affirmation d’une existence divine qui donne un sens là où les poètes erraient «sans orient», subissant les pertes du temps, sans retour possible aux joies passées ...

     Il ne faut pas y voir une hiérarchisation, façon «quelle vision du monde est la meilleure ?», mais simplement ce va et vient entre les deux opposés, et comme les concepts de l’un sont repris par l’autre (voir le dernier chapitre qui parle du soufisme) pour aller encore plus loin ... et qui forme finalement la base de la culture arabo-musulmanne.

Bref, même si la poésie n’est pas notre tasse de thé, ce livre vaut vraiment le coup d’être lu (et relu).

(ENG)

«The traveller without orient, poetry and philosophy of the pre-islamic Arabs» by Salam al-Kindy

         Excellent book, in french, but I highly doubt it's been translated into english ... A shame really.

      It is essential in my opinion for who wants to understand the spirit of arabo-islamic cutlure, and in what world the islamic religion appeared. It unearth this often over-looked and almost always badly apprehended poetry that is the «jâhiliyya» poetry (pre-islamic), and the world view it shows. A world view that is strangely very modern and very «pessimistic», to which comes the Quran, bringing an «optimistic» view with the afterlife and the affirmation of the existence of God. Not that one is better than the other, but you suddenly understand what this is all about, and on what opposites is based the whole arabo-islamic culture. And how this post-quranic culture took and used some pre-islamic concepts and made them into something both similar and different, on another level.

       The author master both litteratures and philosophies, western and arabic, so the book sweeps through philosophy and poetry, and also mystical concepts, and all becomes clear and coherent, which is very rare, when the subject is both so precise and obscure (pre-islamic poetry) and large (world views).

    Anyway, despite some difficult paragraphs (especially for those who are not used to philosophical prose), this is worth reading, and re-reading.

"المسافر بدون اتجاه : شعر وفلسلفة عرب الجاهلية" 

لسلام الكندي  ـ لا أعرف إذا ترجمتي صحيحة ...الكلمة "اتجاه" بالفرنسية هنا هي نفس الكلمة من "شرق"

 كتاب مكتوب بالفرنسية على يد مثقف عربي من سلطانة عمان, عن الشعر الجاهلية والرؤية وراءها, رؤية العرب أناذاك عن العالم والحياة وهذا الكتاب كان مهم جدًا بالنسبة اليّ ففهمت الكثير وفي أي عالم ظهر الاسلام وما هو من أجوبة في عالم رؤيته متشائمة بالمعنى الفلسفي فالقرآن يحمل رؤية متفائلة ... صعب جدًا أن تختصر مثل هذا الكتاب الذي  يستوعب الشعر وفلسلفة وحتى التصوّف  ... ولكنه مهم جدا جدا بالنسبة لأي شخص مثلي الذي\التي يريد أن يفهم عما أُسّس الثقافة  العربية القديمة , وبشكل ما المعاصرة أيضًا 

نكتشف أن الرؤية "الجاهلية" هي متشابه جدًا من رؤية يمكن أن نجدها في فرنسا والغرب ـ لا أتكلم عن سلبية الأمر أم اجابيته فقط أجد التشاؤم الجاهلي قريبًا من تشاؤم نعرفه في فرنسا وأن في النهاية الشعر الجاهلي قريبًا منا وليس شيئًا قديمًا بعيدًا..

  

...

Ce qu'il se passe en Turquie .... Et pourquoi les manifestations anti-Morsi en Egypte sont très comparables. Et pourquoi l'intervention de l'armée est plus qu'inquiétante.

On what's happening in Turkey ....And why demonstrations against Morsi in Egypt are sor much alike. And why intervention of the army in Egypte is very worrying.

American Dervish - by Ayad Akhtar

     Beautifully written, great narrative, and a very interesting central character (Mina, the narrator's aunt). Character who, rare enough to be noticed, sums up at the end of the book what I always felt like : striving to make one's decision the same that what some call God's will. Freedom of choice being the same than destiny, two things seemingly opposite that always looked to me like two sides of the same coin, one not understandable without the other.

     The story of a young boy trying ot understand the people around him : his nice but desperate father and mother, his aunt he adores but whose life is awful, and all the others guys - stereotyped but greatly rendered here so that they sound very real - you can find in the american-pakistani community.

      But it was nonetheless a bit disapointing in the end : a coming of age book, the sentiments of the narrator sounds truthful, and all the characters are very realistic, but in the "american-muslim" area, it's rather poor. You have the choice between the alcoholic non-believer and the stupid or fanatic believer who interprets religions as he/she likes or sees fit. Only the central character brings some nuance, and her former jewish lover Nathan, but their story are so sad that this interesting middle ground is killed off from the start. So you're left with the lost nice alcoholics and the stupid fanatics. Too bad because the world has so much more nuance to offer than these clichés about believers and non-believers and "muslim men". The narrator mother's is left ranting about "muslim men" and all their faults (machismo, etc) and if all other men were exempt of them ... It leaves the false impression that any other man is better than these "muslim men", and I don't think (I hope) it is what the author wanted to convey. But in the end, you're left with this view that is, needless to say, very untrue (you only need to look at some UN statistics or whatever to be convinced).

       Really too bad for a book that is so good on so many other points. The character-narrator finds freedom only when discarding religion, and even though I recognize the reality of this for many people, what about the other ones, who find freedom and self-empowerment with religion, and in another manner than the terrible and sad destiny of Mina ? What about all the normal people, who have some degree of religion and belief, leading normal lives, with no fanaticism, happily juggling with their differents identities (american/something else for example) ? After reading this book, it seems you can only pick hard-line sides, the intelligent middle ground reduced to dust, like Mina and Nathan. The best you can hope is ending up as a tolerant non believer (which I wouldn't mind if they weren't so rare !). It is very pessimistic, and so, rather disappointing. Great potential at showing nuances throughout but ending up very black and white.

      Not that I want to read fairy tales, but real life is so much less depressing than this, yes the middle ground exists, it can be shaky on the borders, but it's big and shared by so many !

Yasmine Hamdan

Concert "Ya nass" à la Boule Noire, Paris , 7 Juin 2013.

Il est rare que je trouve un concert mieux que le CD, mais là, c'était le cas. Il y avait moins de "flou artistique" au niveau du son que sur le CD, et sa voix en vrai est bien aussi belle, sinon meilleure, en vrai ...

Je connaissais cette chanteuse depuis quelques temps, depuis la sortie de son précédent CD "Arabology" sous le nom "YAS", et j'avais beaucoup aimé ce mélange de style électro-"occidental" avec des paroles en dialectes arabes. Me restent à dégoter les chansons de son groupe de départ, "Soapkills" ...

Je suis donc allée avec une amie, et nous sommes sorties avec deux avis contraires sur le concert : elle n'a pas supporté la façon dont la chanteuse mettait son corps en avant, au centre de tout le concert, par sa façon de bouger incessante, ses habits moulants, la concentration qu'elle semblait mettre dans ses gestes, et l'égoïsme que cela pouvait illustrer, selon elle. Ce qui fait qu'elle n'a pas réussi à apprécier ni se concentrer sur la musique, qu'elle aimait pourtant bien ...

De mon côté, j'ai pris ça comme partie prenante du spectacle total. On est habitués depuis longtemps à ce que nombre de chanteurs fasse autant de "scénographie" que de musique, sur scène. Par exemple on ne va pas voir Mylène Farmer juste pour la musique, on attend aussi le spectacle, la dimension visuelle. Et là aussi, il y avait la dimension visuelle, centrée principalement sur la chanteuse, une façon de bouger aux accents de danse orientale, mais surtout quelque chose relevant presque de la transe, comme déconnectée de son environnement, complètement prise par la musique (ce qui bien sûr contraste avec ce que les gens attendent d'un concert, que le musicien "se donne" au public). J'ai donc très vite intégré la gestuelle omniprésente de la chanteuse comme partie prenante du spectacle, pour la reléguer en deuxième plan et j'ai pu profiter de la musique.

Musique qui, à mon avis, a donc été bien à la hauteur du CD, sinon mieux. Prochaine occasion, j'irai la revoir avec plaisir, mais je tâcherai de prévenir ceux qui m'accompagnent ... !

Osama Van Halen

And Why I Like Michael Muhammad Knight's books so far.

This book is a follow-up of The Taqwacores*, by the same author, who has since written many more, and I'm in the process of getting them ...

So. After the Taqwacores and the good and strange impressions it left on me, I decided to delve deeper and see what else I could read from this author. This one didn't disappoint me. Light, dark, funny and weird, you can appreciate it even if you're not punk (I'm not, I'm just a free-style convert).

Of course open-mindedness help deal with the recurrent sex themes, the wide variety of critics adressed to religion(s), and references to everything everywhere, of which the american ones usually eludes me, but the muslim ones are numerous, and the authors doesn't bother explaining them, he assumes the readers get it (I usually do, but still, he has a serious and wide knowledge of the arabo-islamic culture). Even though I don't always agree with his point of view on certain subjects, I'm glad that there's someone like him writing these books, and wish it was more known ...  But then it's underground and punk, and by definition traditionnal and mainstream might have a hard time understanding or appreciating that kind of work.

An he has this capacity, always appreciated, of being able to sum up impressions and thoughts in a few sentences that you wouldn't have been able to explain in a few pages, if express it at all. A rare capacity of self-reflection and self-criticism that produce a narratively strange and unusual fiction.

And the after word sets a point to something that has always made me crazy, watching the news : when a muslim woman is killed by her husband, we call it honor crime and accuse the religion of being responsible for this, but if the same stuff happen in a "white christian setting", we call it something else, as the author shows from his own personnal story, and we justly look for responsibilities elsewhere then cutlure and religion.

A few excerpts :

"Basim's own Islam was a cultural thing, and being a fellow immigrant's son, Amazing Ayyub related to that Islam on a level that I couldn't with my convert experience - for the converts, Islam is only books; there's no heart or culture or family tenderness, which is why we often go nuts" (p.69) **

"Fuckin' A," Ayyub replied. Vulgarities peppered taqwacore dialogues to the point of either becoming meaningless, like those constant mash'Allahs insh'Allahs, and subhana'Allahs in conversations of the pious, or effortlesly replacing actuel vocabulary, like the word "smurf" in Smurfspeak" (p.89)

"-(...) This white filmmaker was hanging around for a minute, wanting to do a documentary on Muslim punk bands. So I introduced her to the Kominas, and she asked them, "What's it like being Muslim adn knowing that you have these extremists in your community ?" Can you believe that ?
- That's terrible. What'd the Kominas say ?
- Basim had a pretty good comeback : "What's it like being white and knowing that there's Enron ?" (p.157)

* A fiction taking place in the US, in the muslim-punk scene, adapted to screen in a movie (same title), very good too. But the wikipedia article is much more complete than anything I could say.

** My opinion on that is : 1 - so true, and 2 - some go nuts too because, from what I saw, like many conversions of all kinds (not only religion) is done by people looking for a sense of belonging, a family of sorts, and well, it never ends up being what they want it to be ... I didn't go nuts, even didn't change much at all, because I already had long accepted my sense of not belonging anywhere, and I'm definitely not looking for any kind of make-up family. The pure bookish and spiritual side of the religion are enough for me ... Way before actually converting I already knew I wouldn't find many free style converts like me. But yes, his explanation sounds very good to me.

Ha ha. Ha ha.

I don't always laugh at reading the news, I even very rarely laugh, but this last week has been quite good to me, as to what happens in KSA : it seems the religious police has a very keen sense of what sort of men women might find overly handsome (I'm still waiting to see pictures of the guys though, since I already find that quite a lot of Arabian gulf guys are handsome, I'm frankly curious at how do these three look like ?!)*, and another story about what they never tell you in the west, or how a patriarchal system doesn't always go the way the guy want in the first place ... I wonder if he will ever regret his decision ? And why in the world the woman demanded such a condition ?!


* Update : I just heard one of them is Omar Burkan, which I'd already heard about. Well, true, even if he's not exactly my type, he's still too handsome for his own good.
Makes me think that well, we're not born all equals, life must be very different depending on whether you're handsome or ugly ... Despite of the political correctness at denying this, you see everyday that physical appearance is a huge factor.

If The Sun Doesn't Kill You, The Washing Machine Will

(ENG) 
     Another awesome book. Is it that I only blog about the books I love ? It seems I always start a post with that phrase. Anyway, pure british sense of humour throughout, I laughed from the beginning to the end of this short book (made even shorter by the fact that it is funny) : the actions and reflexions of a british expatriate in Qatar, author Peter Wood.
     A simple example of this humour is that sentence : instead of just writing «my cooker is broke» or «my cooker is not working anymore», the author writes «My cooker has temporarily withdrawn its co-operation». It may appear simple, but a whole book of it is just brilliant. I wish I was able to think and write like this ...
     And so, wether you are much into Gulf countries stuff like me or not, it doesn't matter, the author will make you interested. It gives you a good idea of what might have been Qatar in the early 90's and it surely has changed a lot since, but it's not what is important as much as the view and incredible experiences in a Gulf country of a Londoner who has never set foot there before. There are some subjects that eludes him still, which leads him to make some statements I wouldn't quite agree with, as would be expected from a lot of foreigners (and they're always the same : the desert, and the women), but a very interesting piece is his comparison of the judicial system between the U.K. and Qatar when dealing with crime and its punishment. And I find myself kind of agreeing with him even though it is a very unconventional view to be held by a westerner. The basic argument is that a very harsh system on crime in the end benefits much more society than a liberal system as the british one ... It sounds backwardish and all but his examples are quite convincing, I'll leave you read it ...
     That peculiar piece of opinion you might or might not agree with doesn't reflect at all the whole book, and I really recommend reading the whole thing, if you need a laugh, it's exactly what you need.

(FRA)
     Récit s'un expatrié anglais au Qatar, Peter Wood, dans les années 1990. Et c'est drôle. Du pur humour anglais d'un bout à l'autre, je le recommande à toute personne qui a envie de rire et qui comprend l'anglais sans trop de difficultés, peut importe que le Qatar l'intéresse ou pas à la base. (La prince il a dit, c'est un bouqin génial ...)
    Les seules pages dénuées d'humour sont au nombre de 3, et l'auteur y compare les système judiciaires qatari et anglais, en faveur du premier, donnant un point de vue inhabituel et peu consensuel, pour un européen, et bizarrement je me suis retrouvée à peu près convaincue. L'argument est que plus le système est dissuasif de par sa sévérité, plus les gens évitent, finalement, de faire n'importe quoi, et bien que de prime abord cela paraît réactionnaire et stupide pour l`ère du temps, les exemples qu'il relate donnent à réfléchir...
     Mais bon, ce n'est que marginal, le livre est à mourir de rire, cela donne envie de s'expatrier dans un pays du Golfe juste pour voir si tout cela est vrai, et si au final on pourrait avoir autant d'histoires drôles à raconter ... Peut etre beaucoup moins, car le Qatar a beaucoup changé en 20 ans, mais bon, en bref, le sujet principal de ce livre est l'humour propre au style de l'auteur tout autant que des situations improbables qu'il a vécu d'un européen parti loin de son univers familier.

سيرة ذاتية لرجل إنكليزي الذي راح يعمل في دواة قطر خلال التسعينات أي قبل عشرين عامًا ويسرد مغامراته بهذه الفكاهية الانكليزية العظيمة وتضك كيرًا منذ البداية حتى النهاية. في الاساس هي قصة اصطدام مضحك بين ثقافتين ... وتجد أيضًا بعض الصفحات حيث يقدم بدون سخرية اراء مثيرة للانتباه خاصة مقارنته بين النظام القضائي في قطر وفي إنكليترا وكيف يفضل هو النظام القطري القاسي الذي يجعل الكل يشعر بالأمان (لأن الناس يعرفون ما هي النتيجات إذا تختلف القانون) أكثر من النظام الانكليزي وعدم قسوته يجعل المجرمين لا يخافون أي شيئ ولا تشعر بكثير من الأمان ... بالنسبة لأروبي هذا الرأي غير عادي وفي خلاف من الرأي العام ولكن كل الأمثلة والحجات يعطيها كانت مقنعة... 
ولكن من جديد، الموضوع العام هو الأحداث والحالات المضحكة التي انخرط فيها في بلد حيث يعيش ناس من كل أنحاء العالم.  

The Kingdom - "A freak of geology gave the Kingdom oil ..." the rest is History.

  "the Kingdom" by Robert Lacey, published in 1981.

    

(ENG) 

       Not a fiction book, it’s a historical piece about the foundation of modern Saudi Arabia and its evolution up until the 80’s (I also bought the sequel by the same author which deals with Saudi Arabia from the 80’s up to nowadays, «Inside The Kingdom»). And I just finished it yesterday and loved it. 

Despite some out-of-date vocabulary and depictions (a bit orientalistic), it gathers everything I love : one of the arab countries that interests me the most (Saudi Arabia), subjects that interests me the most (geopolitics, arab culture and old traditions) and History. And the way of telling it all is so enjoyable, and typically british, that you forget that the book is actually big and deals with all sort of foreign or complicated notions. You read it like and epic more than like a history book.

I expected, being written by a westerner, that it would be like all the usual stuff written about that country and the neighbouring ones and which is focusing on digging up the scandals and the clichés that will frighten you, «reel bad arab» style. But on the contrary, even though he does bring up everything that can be brought up, good and bad, the book made me even more fascinated with this country than before. I’m in the process of buying everything I can about it, both in english and in arabic.

And through this book I’ve been discovering a legendary character in the person of the state founder, Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, the sort that you meet only once in a century, the likes of Napoleon. You can critizise some of his actions all the while applauding others, and as a westerner you might be more than puzzled by such a character, but in the end you’re fascinated (for Robert Jordan’s fans, he is a 20th century ta’veren). I wonder if anyone made a movie about him, because his story is the stuff of legends. Story of a handsome and ruthless old-school arab warrior, it has even got the battles and the swords and the castles, not only oil and modern stuff which come up only later. The man himself sounds dashing, with everything to make for an awesome biopic.

And Saudi Arabia of the beginning of the twentieth century sounded so beautiful, with deserts, palm groves and mud castles, and no cars or modern constructions to smear the scenery, and the last possibility of witnessing bedouin life.

I know that modernity in several aspects is a good thing (i.e. hospitals) but the price paid for if so high, it will always make me sad that now anywhere I’ll be travelling, the world will look the same, or try to look the same. Ugly buildings, same cars, pollution. And this is why I always admire anyone who try to keep some of their heritage, and try not to get wiped out by modernity (or rather westernization, you can be modern without being westernized). Even though I can't say that today heritage is well preserved in Saudi Arabia, from what I read in the newspapers of old buildings' desctruction ...

Anyway, digressions apart, some parts of the books shows that the author really tried to understand the country and its people, i.e :

(after writing about censoship) «On the other hand, ordinary Sa’udis can, and do, voice the most direct and bitter criticisms to the king, princes and ministers to their faces - and here perhaps is a clue. You can say what you like in the Kingdom within the intimacy of the personal bond, face to face. That is acceptable; it is dignified; it is your right. But to make a public criticism is different : it implies disrespect; it invites shame». (p.506)

And sometimes, you feel the author is confronted but something unfathomable for him, even though he sees it well : «If you come in to land at Jeddah, Riyadh or Dhahran airports any Friday around sunset you will see the desert around the towns dotted with the little groups, many of them lit, as darkness falls, by the blue glow of a portable television ont the corner of the rug. (...) This is where they have come from. The desert is the source of everything they hold dear - their religion, their code of honour, their ancestry, their black gold - and regularly the inhabitants of the Kingdom flee the modern pyramids their riches are creating to return to the bleak void that they find so consoling. (...) Do they catch wind of some secrets, these Arabs, as the desert breeze blows ? Do they find answers to their problems ? What does this communion with emptiness telle the men and women of the Kingdom about themselves and about the world in which they live ?» (p.522-533)

It’s not always that lyrical of course, but it shows how the author catches glimpes of everything or almost, but, at times, using his own western perception of the few things that are out of his grasp : «bleak», «emptiness», that’s how deserts look to him, and to many who never lived near one. But I guess everyone has places and situations like that will stay out of their grasp forever . A lot of aspects of western life looks like that to me : out of my grasp (which is a shame, since I was born and grew up in Europe). But deserts, I would most definitely not describe them as «bleak» and «empty». My dream is precisely to live near one, so that I can do exaclty that : have a night out in the desert every week or so, so far and so close to everything. It was what I loved best in Australia when I lived there, the central desert, and what I loved best in Jordan : driving trough it (and more cliché, cameling through it, tourist-style, but I don’t care, it was the best thing ever).

I could go on for long quoting the book, I highlighted practically one page out of two, there are so many incredible, unexpected stories and examples (for a western reader at least), it is really worth the read. It covers pratically all aspects and the differents elements that come crashing into that place during the last century (politics, culture, economics) and it’s a very good introduction, I think, for people who don’t know much about it. This book is reckoned a classic, and I understand why. If anyone is interested in this «mysterious» country (sorry for yet another cliché), read it !

(FRA)

Livre historique sur l’Arabie Saoudite au 20ème siècle (jusqu’aux années 1980. Publié en 1981, l’auteur en a depuis écrit récemment un autre, la suite). Malgré un vocabulaire un peu daté (orientaliste), c’est un des meilleurs livres que j’aie lu, toutes catégorie confondues. Au lieu de me faire détester ce pays, comme beaucoup de livres écrits sur le sujet le font (ou voudraient le faire), cela m’a encore plus fascinée par la péninsule arabique ... Je voudrais maintenant pouvoir acheter tout ce que je peux sur le sujet, en français, arabe et anglais.        L’auteur passe en revue à peu près tout : politique, religion, culture, économique, et l’occasionnel inévitable scandale ... Pour quelqu’un qui ne connaît rien au pays, je pense que c’est un bon plan de commencer par ce livre. Il me reste à lire la suite par le même auteur, qui m’attend sagement sur le rayon ...

     Pays inaccessible, ça me donne encore plus envie qu’avant de le visiter. Et je me demande ce qu’on attend pour faire des films sur la vie des rois de ce pays : le premier en particulier, Abdul Aziz, relève de la légende, style Napoléon. Il en existe une fois par siècle, ce genre de personnalité. Qu’on le déteste ou l’aime, il ne laisse pas indifférent, et tous les éléments sont là pour faire un biopic de fou, les guerres, les châteaux, le sabre et le fusil, la technologie qui vient se mêler de tout ça avec le pétrole, l’ancienne culture du désert, les mouvements religieux, la géopolitique mondiale, etc ... J’ai lu ce livre comme de la fantasy. Et j’ai en même temps compris pas mal de choses sur l’économie du pétrole, qui l’eût cru ?

      Et comme toujours, le désert ... Un sujet qui reste mystérieux à l’auteur, la relation entre les habitants et le désert, qui est un des sujets qui m’attire le plus, et que je comprends le plus (un de mes objectifs étant de vivre vers un désert un jour).

فرني كما يريد كثير من الكتب عن هذه الموضوع لمؤلفين غربيين فأنا اللآن منجذبة للجزيرة العربية أكتر من قبل. كتاب تستوعب تقريبا كل شيء من التأريخ والسياسة في المعنى العام والعلاقات بالدول الخارجية والثقافة للشعوب في الجزيرة و و و  ... وأنا الغربية أتساءل لماذا لا سمعت أبدا عن أفلام على حياة الملوك آل سعود. تحديدا على حياة عبد العزيز التي تشبه خرافة مثل يحبها الغربيين, أي فيها الحروب والقصور والسيوف والعالم الحديث والنفط وهذا الشخصية العظيمة, عبد الزيز, مثل نابوليون وغيره من الشخصية الإستثنائية تظهر إلا مرة في أي قرن. مهما تفكر في مثل هذه الشخصية وهذا التأريخ, الكل مثير للاهمام. المؤلف رغم مصتطلحات قديمة استشراقية تنجنح في فهم الكثير وأحيانا لا يمكنه أن تفهم عناصير  مخصصة مثل العلاقة بين السعوديين والبادية (التيه ؟ الصحراء ؟ لا أعرف الكلمات المناسبة) وبشكل غريب هو تحديدا واحد مما افهمه ؛ واحد من أحلامي هو أن أعيش قرب صحراء مثل ما شفت في )الأردن وأستراليا ... أحلم بأن أزور السعودية ولكن أعتقد أن هذا مستحيل للوقت الحاضر ـ ما عندي محرم ولا فرصة للعمل هنا). 

على كل حال الكتاب جعلني أريد أشتري كل الكتب أجدها عن السعودية بأي لغة ... يوم الأمس اشتريت إثنين بالعربية. لنرى اذا استمتع 

بها مثل ما استمتعت بكتاب روبيرت لاسي

أعرف أن كثير من الناس عرب وغير عرب يكرهون هذا البلد ـ نفس شيء في فرنسا اذا تصبح غني فالناس يكرهونك ـ والثقافة الناس لا تهتم بفهمها يجعل الوضع أسوأ ... ولكن لا أجد ما هو أسوأ في النهاية في الجزيرة العربية مما هو الحال هنا في فرنسا. بل وعندهم الصحراء واللغة العربية وكل هذا ...

Oil is destroying History once again * ... While muslims are only half aware that Mecca and Medina are being destroyed and turned into some kind of pseudo-religious Las Vegas.


* There's supposed to be a link there but it's gone ... (trying to retrieve it).

Mitosis

This blog being a bit of a draft, nothing quite definite, I decided to duplicate it with a more specific blog, dedicated to the arabic novels and books I'm reading. I'll leave this blog for the rest, the books in other languages and the bits and pieces I sometimes post here.

Ce blog étant un genre de brouillon, rien de défini, j'ai décidé de le dupliquer avec un blog plus spécifique, consacré aux romans et livres en arabe que je lis, et je laisse ce blog pour le reste, les autres livres que je lis, dans d'autres langues, et les choses et autres sur lesquelles j'écris de temps en temps ici.

هذه المدونة يشبه مسودة أكثر من أي شيء محددة فقررت أن أنشأ مدونة أكثر مخصصة ... مدونة عن الكتب العربية التي أقرأها وأترك هذه المدونة للكتب الأخرى في اللغات الأخرى والأشياء المختلفة أكتب عنها هنا

Yep ...

I really liked both movies as movies in themselves, but here are good articles to be read about them, Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, and makes you remember that cinema is rarely inoccent. And that you can't oversee the context. On of my litterature's teachers tried to convince me otherwise, that context and author were irrelevant to the understanding and analysis of a given text, and I never heard something sounding so stupid. The glaring evidence are these movies : can you ignore the whole geopolitical stuff in which these movies have been made ?

Exactly like orientalist art and knowledge, you can appreciate them for themselves, even believe some of their authors were genuinely interested in the people they depicted with the minimum of racist/politial thinking behind it (though I highly doubt was the case for the movies), but still, ignoring the politics, ignoring the whole context would be absolutely dumb. It's there whether you like it or not, whether the authors liked it or not, they acted in, around, with it.
And this good article, and this one, about Homeland TV series ... The storytelling was gripping, but yes, for anyone who knows anything about the middle east, you laugh a lot.

الإغواء الأخيرة ـ رواية لعفاف البطانية

عمومًا أحب ذلك الكتاب مع أن لم أقرأه كاملًا بعد. مثل كثيرًا من الروايات العربية الذي أقرأها هذه القصة حزينة. بطلة فلسطينية الأصل, قصة عائلية أو بالأصح عدم العائلة, الغربة, الفقد, الأحبة المفقودون ... على الفكرة, هل هناك أحد يممكن أن يدلني على ريوايات التي قد يضحكني شوي ؟

على كل حال وجدت بعض المقتطفات كلاسيكية في ما سميّته "الإستغراب" أي رؤية بالدان الغرب بشكل وهمي وسطحي (وكثير من الكليشيهات) مع أن من السهل أن نقول إن هذه الرؤية صحيحة ... صحيحة ولكن بشكل محدود جدًا. 

مثلاً

    ـ الراوية تحكي عن الحياة في إنكليترا

"تراقب سارة ازدحام الشوارع والأماكن العامة بأناس يركضون من دون التفاف إلى غيرهم من الراكضين, و من دون تحرش لفظي أو بصري بمن يمرون. تستوقفها الوجوه المحتفلة بعشاء أو مشروب أو حديث أو لقاء. يشدها تفرغ الناس لحيواتهم بعد أن تفرغوا في الصباح من أعمالهم. في نهاية الأسبوع, تسير وتراقب العائلات المحتفلة بوقت يتفرغ فيه أفراد العائلة, كبارًا وصغارًا, لعلاقاتهم الأسرية, فيخرجون إلى الملاعب أو الحدائق أو حتى السير على الأقدام أو الركوب الدراجات, وقد نسي كل منهم مكانته في المجتمع, ومنصبه في العمل, وتحول إلى شخص بسيط. يستوقفها أب يحمل طفلته على كتفيه وقد ابتسم وجها الاثنين. تجلس في الحدائق وتراقب الأمهات والآباء يركضون مع أبنائهم ويطيّرون الطائرات الورقية في الهواء. تلتفت إلى المراهقين والشباب من الجنسين وهم 

يحتفلون علنًا وبلا خجل ولا خوف بعلاقاتهم ومشاعرهم ورغباتهم"

(ص. ١١٦)

ـــ فأولًا ... لو ما كنت أضحك من ذلك الصورة الفردوسية لأغضبت. أغضبت لأن يجب ألا نجعل الأجانب يفكرون أن الحياة في الغرب هي كذلك. أنا غربية وعشت في بالدان الغرب معظم حياتي وذلك الصورة غير صحيحة. يمكن أن تستخدم القصة ذلك الصورة لافخام وإطارة رغبة البطلة إلى بلادها "رغم كل شيء" وحياتها الطيبة في الغرب ولكن ... كل ذلك غير صحيح !  هناك تحرش  (ولو مكبوت ولكنه موجود) ولا ينسا الناس مكانتهم وأعمالهم, فقط يتظاهرون كذلك, وألأمهات والآباء مهتمون بأولادهم ليسوا كثيرين ... لا أكثر مما نجد في البالدان الأخرى. والمراهقين مخجلون جدًا من أجسامهم. تعرفت على شخص واحد فقط الذي قال لي إنه عاش بدون أن يخجل من جسمه. واحد فقط. 

نفس الصفحة يلي

لا أحد يسأل الآخر عن ديانته ولا مذهبه ولا أسماء أجداده وعشيرته. لا أحد يُصنّف في هذه الخانة أو تلك. لا أحد يُحسب على هذا" التوجه أو ذاك. لا أسألة عن إن كان الواحد يعرف فلانًا ابن فلان الذي يعمل كذا وكذا, ولا احد يستشهد بصلته بفلان"

ـــ حقيقة ؟؟؟؟؟ في أي عالم شهدت ذلك ؟ هل هناك عالم غربي لا سمعت عنه ؟ الشيء الوحيد الصحيح هو ال مقطع عن العشيرة والأجداد لأن مجتمعتنا ليست قبلية. الباقي وهمي تمامًا. . يا أيها القراء انتبهوا, ليس الغرب كذلك. 

نفس الصفحة أيضًا

" الناس متساوون في فرص العمل والتعليم والحماية والحقوق والخصوصية والواجبات والكرامة والحرية"

ـــ تعليق واحد : هههههههههههههه هاهاها. في أحلامك. أو في نصوص الوزارات و في اعلانات حقوق الانسان فقط. الشيء الوحيد الذي يجعل نفكر أن أي من هذا صحيحة هو أن نحن الغربيين أغنياء مقارنة لباقي العالم. فقط. من جديد  أنا مضطرة أن أقول : غير صحيح !

نفس الصفحة

"لا ارتباك ولا فوضى ولا تأخير ولا صراخ. لكل من الكهول والشباب والأطفال والنساء والرجال أماكن ترفيههم ومتعتهم ونشاطاتهم. لا خوف ولا كذب ولا اختباء ولا هرب ولا تمثيل زائفًا ولا أقنعة"

ـــ  ههههههههه من جديد.  ليت الحياة مثل هذا الفردوس. ممكن في مكان آخر, غير الغرب.

الصفحة التالية : 

"لاحظت أنهم ليسوا مشغولين بالسياسة ولا الحروب ولا الممنوعات ولا الرقباء ولا الأعداء ولا القضايا الكبرى, وبعد حين, أدركت أنهم تركوا تلك الأمور لمؤسساتها وأنظمتها وقوانينها, وانشغلوا بالحياة"

ـــ و تعتقد البطاة ذاك شيئًا جيدًا ؟!؟!؟! هي كارثة العالم الغربي ! فقط هناك الوصف صحيح جدًا : تخلوا الناس في الغرب من الأشياء الكبرى ... ولذلك تقصف حكماتنا بالدان آخرى مثل العراق ونتترك الاستعمار اللإسرائيلي تزدهر وبافية العالم تشتخدمنا وأنظمتنا الاقتصادية التي تقتل الناس  ... ولا نهتم بالمرة ! لأن بالضبط تخلنا عن الأشياء الكبرى واشغلنا بحياتنا الصغيرة ... حياة نقتلها تدريجيًا بدون أن ندرك ذلك. أنا مصدومة من قراءة ذلك المقطع من الرواية كأنه هذا التخلي شيء يُرغب فيه. 

كل ما يمكنني أن أقول هو إن نعم, أعتقد هناك مشاكل وقضيات كبيرة في العالم العربي ... ولكن لا تأخذ الغرب للصورة العكسية من عالم مثالي ! عندنا في الغرب في معظم الوفت نفس المشاكل وفقط شكلها الظاهرة مختلفة. المشاكل التي تختلف جوهريًا من مشاكل العالم العربي قليلة جدًا.  تحدث ادوارد سعيد عن الجانب الوهمي للاستشاقية فالآن آن الأوان أن نحكي عن الستغرابية الوهمية لدى الناس غير غربيين.
طبعًا أفهم أن مثل الوصفات الخيالية تخدم هدف الراوية التي تدعو لتغيير والتحول الاجتماعي والسياسي و ... في العالم العربي ولكنني لا أفكر أن هذه أفضل الحيلات لمثل الهدف. يجب أن ندعو الى التغيير في كل مكان. بدلًا من أن يجعل الناس يفكرون أن  المشاكل موجودة في ركن من العالم فقط.

على كل حال باقية الرواية ممتعة, بالنسبة لي الغربية على الأقل. 

Une recette de cuisine

(extrait de "Sublimes paroles et idioties de Nasr Eddin Hodja", éditions Phébus Libretto - un des nombreux ouvrages existant en plusieurs langues sur ce personnage légendaire du moyen orient, le mollah Nasr Eddin, connu pour les histoires drôles ou bizarres dont il est le sujet et/ou l'objet)

    Au salon de thé où Nasr Eddin se trouve en compagnie de quelques amis, la conversation porte sur les recettes et les expériences culinaires de chacun. On se flatte d'originalité et de réussites exceptionnelles. Seul le Hodja ne dit mot.

- Et toi Nasr Eddin, lui demande-t-on, tu n'as donc jamais inventé une recette ?

- Si, une fois, répondit-il. J'ai mélangé longuement du pain avec de la neige.

- Du pain avec de la neige ? C'est stupide !

- Oui, et en plus ce n'est pas bon.

Zero Dark Thirty

       I don’t know if I only liked the movie or loved it ... I would have definitely loved it if it had made a short «why» story : the origins of al Qaida, etc, and if it had been a bit more nuanced about some of the bad guys. We don’t see much of the ones who are «grey», of why and how someone becomes a terrorist, I mean, on the psychological side, the TV series Homeland is somewhat better. Even though both movie and series continues in associating everything oriental with potential danger in a neo-orientalistic way, but then, the subject doesn’t give much choice, and the movie is really good, I have to admit, even taking into account criticisms.

Really good because you see the evolution and some of the dark side of the good guys : the first half hour is basically a torture scene conducted by americans on an alleged terrorist guy, and I heard it caused quite a stir in the US, showing that sometimes good guys can look a lot like the bad ones ... It gives a realism that is really welcomed (in my opinion), and that’s what makes the movie really good for me. And the last hour is thick with suspense, even though everyone knows how it ends, I have been rarely that open-mouthed, you even recognize the house (if you read newspapers back at the time when news broke out Bin Laden was dead), it’s like seeing the «hunt» in live, and it doesn’t hide anything : the blood, the shootings (men, women, kids), and finally, the shooting of the one we’re all waiting for. 
Even though it does raise the question : why did they kill him him instead of capturing him and interrogating him and present him to the international court to face justice ... ? Was there something, some knowledge that needed to be "erased" ?

And nothing pompous, no usual scenes of great congratualions, barely a «yay» by one of the army guys, we don’t even see the president or the famous «emergency room» (I don’t recall of it’s the exact name) where they were all following the events. We just see the intelligence woman who pushed for the track for years confirming that they got the right guy, and then we see her in a military plane, supposedly taking her back home. But she’s unknown even to the military transporting her, forever anonymous, and she sits down alone there, and literaly breaks down for the first time, and cry. And the movie ends like that. I thought it was the most awesome end you could give for such a movie. Because you can interpret it by many ways, and the whole thing is so realistic. 

        I understand why it might be disturbing, for those who have a Disney view of war stuff in a way or the other. This realistic touch reminded me of «The Kingdom», a movie that I really liked too about a FBI mission in Saudi arabia, where the first ten minutes and the end where terribly efficient and so, a bit scary too.

        Last comment : how come they don't get actors some foreign words pronunciation courses ? Both there and in Homeland, I didn't see a single actor saying an arabic name in a decent way, if not a good and proper arabic accent (but I won't ask that much). Their characters are supposed to have spent years studying arab suspects, if not learn a bit of arabic along the way (thank god most of the bad guys are perfectly bilingual !) ... It's not credible if at the end of all those years the main character still says "abou Akmed" with an insecure flexing about the "k", as if she still doesn't know if it's the proper way, instead of something close to the arabic "abou Ahmed".

Update : I just got a very different point of view of the movie, rather very negative, and it had some good points. I am a too lenient public, and since I don't know anything about Pakistan, I overlooked a lot of things, even though even I could have said that people speaking in arabic in Pakistan is pretty much totally stupid. And that for people who know the place, most of the sets and scenes are utterly fantaisist, as compared to the reality.
I'd really like to know what Jack G. Shaheen (author of "Reel bad arabs") has to say about this movie ...

________________________________________________________________________

Donc, le fameux film qui parle de la chasse à Ben Laden ... Très efficace, même si j’y ajouterai mes habituelles critiques (manque de nuance sur les «méchants», comment, pourquoi devient-on terroriste, qu’est-ce qu’un terroriste, l’association systématique de tout ce qui est oriental à «danger potentiel» même si le sujet ne peut guère laisser place à un autre point de vue, le manque d’info sur les origines d’al Qaida etc ...).

Au final, j’ai aimé, ne serait-ce que par la dose de réalisme que la réalisatrice a mis là dedans : la première demi-heure est à peu près une scène de torture, menée par les américains sur un terroriste reconnu mais de «petite échelle». Donc ça explose dès l’entrée l’image des bons toujours bons (paraît-il que ça fait du bruit outre atlantique). Ca replace les choses en contexte : en ce qui concerne l’aspect des méthodes et des pratiques, il n’y a plus tellement de différence entre les uns et les autres, ça réduit tout à une «simple» histoire de vengeance, ce qui donne un autre aspect à cette chasse à l’homme.

Sur le plan cinématographique, je ne suis pas experte, mais la dernière heure était terriblement efficace, j’ai rarement été aussi prise de suspense, alors même qu’on connait tous la fin. Et la caméra n’épargne rien, le sang, beaucoup de monde tué (hommes, femmes et enfants, et un seul armé), ça ne s’est clairement pas fait dans la dentelle ...
          Et bien sûr ça renforce la question : pourquoi l'avoir tué alors qu'il était facile de le prendre vivant, et le poursuivre en justice, etc ... ? Y avait-il donc quelque chose à cacher, vite fait bien fait, pouf avec un balle dans la tête ?

Et la fin, une des plus belles fins de cinéma que j’ai vu : la femme qui mène la traque depuis le début arrive vers le corps, atteste que c’est bien lui, Oussama, l’objet de son boulot depuis des années, et on la voit repartir dans un avion militaire, sûrement de retour pour les Etats-unis, mais elle est seule, inconnue même des militaires qui la transportent, hors du cercle rapproché dont elle faisait partie personne ne la connaît, boulot de services secrets oblige. Et elle s’assoit dans l’avion, et craque, pour la première fois depuis le début, et se met à pleurer. Et on sait pas très bien pourquoi, les interprétations peuvent être multiples tout autant qu’évidentes. Et pouf, générique de fin. Par de grandiloquence à l’américaine habituelle, de scènes de drapeaux et de festoiement, on ne voit pas même le président ou la fameuse pièce où ils regardaient tous l’opération en direct qu’on a tant vue en photo dans les journaux. On voit l’opération, effectivement, comme si on était, la fin, et l’agent qui pleure. Sobriété réaliste qui fait vraiment du bien, et qui me fait rappeler «The Kingdom», qui termine dans le même genre, avec une fin assez mémorable (et un début très informateur et essentiel, le début qui manque à Zero Dark Thirty au final).

       Dernière remarque : des cours de prononciation de mots étrangers pour les acteurs, s'il vous plaît ! Que ce soit là ou dans la série Homeland, des personnages qui sont sensé avoir bossé des années sur des suspects arabes et voire même, avec un peu de chance - ce serait pertinent -, avoir appris un peu d'arabe, et qui ne sont pas foutu de prononcer les noms correctement ? Sans demander un bel accent arabe, au moins quelque chose de cohérent et d'approchant. L'héroïne passe tout son temps à dire "abou akmed" au lieu d'un simple "ahmed" (pourtant plus simple, le h inspiré en anglais ... ce n'est pas le h arabe, mais c'est plus proche qu'un k!), le tout en ayant jamais l'air trop sûre se savoir s'il faut effectivement prononcer ce k ou pas ... En tous cas globalement, heureusement que tous les méchants parlent eux parfaitement anglais et comprennent tout ce qu'on leur dit ... !

Update : Je viens d'avoir un compte rendu du film très différent du mien, et très pertinent dans ses critiques ... Je suis trop bon public et pas du tout spécialiste du Pakistan, donc beaucoup de choses m'ont échappé. Le fait par exemple que tout le monde parle arabe. Au Pakistant c'est une bonne blague. Ou que beaucoup des scènes et décors (ambassade américaine, etc ...) sont tout à fait invraisemblables, pour qui connaît le terrain.

How to Avoid Being Killed In a War Zone

       «How To Avoid Being Killed In a War Zone : the essential survival guide for dangerous places» by Rosie Garthwaite.

The title in itself made me buy the book as soon as I saw it (or rather, as soon as I got the money). And I just recieved it, and took five minutes in my crazy schedule to go through it and I loved it at first glance : it is precisely what the title suggest. Not a novel, not a collection of events, just a heap of info and counsel to deal with about every subject and incidents one might encounter in the everyday life of someone who happen to live in a war zone (not only journalists, even if the book seem to be directed primarily at them).

This has been written by a war reporter working for Al Jazeera (the english version I suppose), and she interviewed a great many others to complete the book as best as possible ... which seem pretty true at this first glance. I can’t wait the end of exams to read it. 

It is the crazy book of the month, the book that make me remember one of my dreams, to become a war reporter. Traveling to Israel-Palestine made me realize that it could be a great job for me. 

I discovered there that something almost inocuous and traditional in my home country that is peaceful demonstrations, could mean death elsewhere, even if you didn’t break any laws whatsoever. During this afternoon when the group made of «internationals» (including me), israelis and palestinians got shot at and chased by the israeli army, and that « we were lucky because two of us got only midly injured that day and no-one was killed», I never felt so much that this was where I was supposed to be, with the desire to tell afterwards what I saw to anyone who cared. Or didn’t, for that matter. 

      I wasn’t even scared, and that got me thinking for a long time about my sanity : simple situations in life can stress the hell out of me, like taking the bus or buying a bread at the bakery, but weird things and out-of-the-usual situations (for a low-middle class westerner) make me feel almost relaxed, and I can deal with them with a clear mind.

Anyway, I’m curious about reading this book, the reading of which sounds like fun in itself ... I hope to review it very soon, meanwhile, there’s this article.

"كيف تتجانب أن تُقتل في منطقة حربية"

كتاب من صحفية انكليزية عملت لقناة الجزيرة (بالانكليزية على ما أعتقد) والعنوان جعلني أشتريه مباشرة ... واحد من أحلامي أن أصبح صحفية في مناطق حربية منذ رحت الى فلسطين شفت الواقع هناك. ويظهر أن الكتاب يعالج أي موضوع الحياة يمكنك أن تفكر به حتى المواضيع لن تفكر فيها قبل أن تعيشها في حياة يومية وسط الحرب. فأنتظر نهاية دراساتي بعد أشهر حتى أقرأ ذلك لكتاب وأقدم رأيّ فيه ...

La prudence des saints

(extrait de "Sublimes paroles et idioties de Nasr Eddin Hodja", éditions Phébus Libretto - un des nombreux ouvrages existant en plusieurs langues sur ce personnage légendaire du moyen orient, le mollah Nasr Eddin, connu pour les histoires drôles ou bizarres dont il est le sujet et/ou l'objet)

     Nasr Eddin se rend à la mosquée pour la prière, mais au lieu de laisser ses sandales à l'entrée, il les prend avec lui et les cache sous son djubbé, car on les lui a déjà volées deux fois.

     Le kateb remarque tout de suite ce renflement suspect :

- Nasr Eddin, arrêt ! Que caches-tu donc là ?

- C'est un livre sacré.

- Peux-tu m'en dire le titre, s'il te plaît ?

- Il s'appelle la Prudence des saints.

- La prudence des saints ? Je n'ai jamais entendu parler de ce livre-là ...

- Oh ! Ca ne m'étonne pas, repartit le Hodja : c'est un livre qu'on ne trouve que chez le coordonnier.

My thing with men clothing in Arab countries

Something I don’t usually talk about - clothes - although I pay a great deal of attention to the way people dress anywhere I might be, and I also am quick to critizise the way they dress too, because I have a weird but very definite taste about what fits who and how ... Unless, of course, the person gets the real secret of looking good : being confident with what you wear, whatever it is. Make the others believe the clothes you’re wearing are exactly what you wanted to wear and the look you have is exaclty the one you wanted to get (even if it’s not). That’s one of my hidden cliché-french sides for you then.

All that aside, for years I’ve been evaluating traditional and modern clothing in all the places I have visited for what they look like in general by people wearing them (regardless of the bad or good exceptions on individuals), and after all those years the first place for the best looking clothes ever, for both men and women, is always occupied by the same ones : for women, the indian sari, of which I will speak in a future post. And for men ... The traditional and modernized-traditional arabian dress, the stuff that includes most of the time now :

• the white thawb / thobe / kandura / dishdasha / etc: the arabic names for this long white dress as seen on the Gulf princes on TV.
• the black overcoat or bisht. 
• the keffieh / shimagh / etc : it seems they had a ton of different names according to the region for the head-dress.
• the iqal : the (usually) black cord that keeps the latter set on the head.

Knowing that if we take old orientalist paintings and old pictures taken in arab countries into account, the clothes were much more colorful and with more variations in the past (and in my opinion, even more beautiful ... Seriously, what’s better than a well-wrapped turban ? Some of the afghan people were well-minded to keep that style). Nowadays it pretty much goes down to the above elements with few variations : white, black, possibly creme and brown for the bisht, and red or black checkered keffiehs. Sometimes I even saw a wild grey thobe or even a black one ... I guess it is due both to modernization, like everywhere in the world everyday things and clothes tend to become simplified, and also maybe to the wahhabisation of clothes : getting rid of anything that might appear ostentatious or too rich (colours, extravagant patterns, gold threads everywhere, etc). I would have prefered seeing more diversity but well, I can’t say the black and white simple stuff doesn’t have its own charm, since it is still n°1 on my list !

Why is it my favorite ? I can’t really say. I just know that in my eyes even the ugliest guy could attain some sort of class by just wearing it. I think most of people say that of an Armani costume or something western and expensive well-known brands. So if the guy wearing it is handsome ...

Everything in these clothes fascinate me : the moves like old greek statues’ drapes and the swoosh-sounds given by the movements, the fabric, the cut, the differents ways of wearing it. I have the same sort of fascination for my favorite haute-couture designer, Jean Paul Gaultier, but the arabian clothes have the advantage of not wanting to be fashionable at all.

It might also be that my totally subjective tastes makes me say that arabic is the most beautiful language of the world (even though I also like the sound of anything from italian to pashto, or any semitic languages, but if you want me happy, you’d better talk in arabic, preferably with oriental dialects), and that my own personal prototype of prince charming is definitely arab-looking, but still ... Way before learning a single word of arabic or knowing anything about middle eastern cultures, foreign clothes fascinated me, especially the oriental ones. Proof of my almost objective tastes in clothing is that, not knowing anything about indian culture, I still maintain that the indian sari is the best for women ( followed in second by arabian abayas and other women robes, yes, I admit. And middle-age european costumes, definitely.)

And I wonder why I am quite alone in having this fascination for arabian clothes. I actually bought in Jerusalem, for a cheap price, a white thobe and a black bisht, the vendor must have wondered why I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the clothes hanging with others by his little shop’s door and why I didn’t even bother haggling at all before buying it, but he saw me walking away with my bundle quite happy ... It just hangs there in my dressing among my other (wearable) clothes, with no use in perpesctive at all, but it makes me happy, looking at it from time to time.

The other day I was roaming inside the university library, in the usual part of it (arab world) where whole shelves ar dedicated to arabian gulf countries, and reading through some article I discovered that this dress was imposed on men quite the same way the black abayas are on women (sometime maybe to a lesser extent, but still), and it suggested that if some sort of revolution were to happen in these countries, this imposition might well be broken and most of the guys would start wearing western clothes, the way they all do when they have the choice ... And reading that made me so sad. I am deeply upset by this stupid cultural westernization of the world. How can you trade something so classy and comfy at the same time, the thobe, for something so average and not comfy at all like blue jeans and shirt ? (I tried the women version of both and the comparison doesn’t stand : the first one is definitely better on all sides). Just because some singer wears it in some stupid song ?

       Another awful thing I saw in my travels in the arab world (outside gulf countries) is this tendency of men, when they want to appear "serious", "responsible" or classy or something, to dress with particularly ugly western outfits. It's like watching a old TV series with out-of-fashion clothes with ugly colours and patterns. Or like my university professors. A university professor in France, especially in the languages department, just don't get it, they must live so outside of the normal world that they got stuck in the 70's or the 80's or something. White shirt, black pants, black coat, that's the minimum to look O.K. Forget the brown, the patchy, the weird grandpa patterns. And in the arab world they worsen it with the mustache. I can't abide with the mustache ... A beard is way better (I won't stress it enough), or even nothing, but why in the world would anyone want to wear a mustache ?

I can only hope that the «hype» sort of things will get more multicultural and world-level, instead of only western based, so that some guys on this planet will keep wearing beautiful clothes out of choice ... and women beautiful ones too. And slims are not among them in my book, except on very particular occasions. 

P.S. : I just read that interesting article about the UAE "national dress" ... It does have mysterious powers !

أكتب هنا عن حبي للملابس العربية خاصة الملابس الرسمية في الخليج  (الثوب والبشت وكل ذلك ولها أسماء مختلفة حسب المنطقة فلا أعرفها كلها ... ) والملابس التقليدية في العالم العربي. أفكر أن الملابس الخليجية هي الأكثر جميلة على الرجال مقارنا لأي ملابس أخرى وكذلك أن الساري الهندي هو الاكثر جميل على النساء دون أي ملابس آخر.

سأحاول أن أترجم كل ذلك قيما بعد, بعد الامتحانات. ولكن يجب أن يعرف العرب أن ملابسهم أفضل وأجمل بكثير من ملابسنا البلهاء في الغرب, وهذا رئي كفتاة غربية التي عاشت في الأردن والتي شافت النوعين (الذين مع الثوب والذين مع الجينز)