CotNW: Week 4, The Afterword and the Novel as a Whole

[Melissa_W Moderator]

Please use this thread for discussion of the Afterword and Children of the New World in its entirety.  This is a SPOILER FRIENDLY thread

[Fozzie]

I finished the book last night.  I wish I had known going into the book that it took place all during one day and was meant as a snapshot or protrait, not as a story.  Once IBIS clued me into the fact that it takes place in one day, the reading was so much easier!

I'll go back and post some thoughts on other threads, but I have a general question here.

Why do authors make it difficult to understand their work?

Personally, I like a challenging book, but not one that becomes frustrating and confusing or with a structure that requires so much thought as to take away from the story.

[IBIS]

Laura, this may help you to understand Djebar's novel a little bit more.

Have you seen the contemporary films "Babel", "Traffic" and "Crash"?  In these films, we meet a kaleidoscope of multiple characters. And the audience has no clue how they’re connected.

Their stories overlap in time. It isn’t until the very end that the audience sees the whole picture… how individual stories weave together into one big story.

It's a similar narrative structure in “CotNW”. Time weaves into the past, the present, then back to the past, and so forth.

In the traditional timeline, it begins when Hakim questions Amna, Amna warns Cherifa who in turn runs off to warn Yoseff. At the same time, in another part of the city, Lila meets Suzanne, and by the evening ends up in prison with Salima. A parallel story is Touma, who flirts with treason, and gets killed by her brother Tawfik.

Historically, in 1954 at the point in the novel, Algeria is in social flux. The French have colonized Algeria for a century.  

“CotNW” day in the life of Blida, one character after another finds a previously stable existence breaking up. The revolution is launching these characters into cultural free-fall.

All these characters'  have to abandon customary and traditional practices because they're all moving into a uncertain “new world”. 

What I, as a reader, find more fascinating than traditional plot, are the characters’ themselves… how the revolution is shaping them into children of “the new world”.

Fozzie wrote:

I finished the book last night.  I wish I had known going into the book that it took place all during one day and was meant as a snapshot or protrait, not as a story.  Once IBIS clued me into the fact that it takes place in one day, the reading was so much easier!

I'll go back and post some thoughts on other threads, but I have a general question here.

Why do authors make it difficult to understand their work?

Personally, I like a challenging book, but not one that becomes frustrating and confusing or with a structure that requires so much thought as to take away from the story.

[Fozzie]

IBIS, your post comparing the book to the films (none of which I've seen) was very helpful.  I did piece together the sequence of the day in the same way you did. 

I, too, have found that after completing the book, what I am left contemplating is the characters.  In fact, I had come here to talk about the contrasts between the woman characters.  I am sure this was intentional by the author, but I was surprised that such contrasts existed even back in the 1950's.  I still have yet to read the afterword, which I am sure will be enlightening.

I didn't think women like Lila or Suzanne existed.  They were well educated women and modern in thinking. 

The opening of the book, with Cherifa and Amna sharing a house, was confusing.  What kind of a house was it?  Was it really one house they shared or was it a duplex? 

I was shocked when Amna lied to her husband Hakim about Youssef's whereabouts during the night.  I don't think Amna was just protecting her neighbors.  I think that she supported the revolution, but could not express her support because she was married to a policeman and in a very traditional and, as we find out later, abusive marriage.  So, even within the women characters themselves, there are contrasts --- outward appearance versus inner beliefs.

I enjoyed the side story about Lila's parents and how they really were in love.  So many types of marriages depicted in this book!

This post is a bit disjointed, but my thoughts on the book haven't completely gelled yet.

[IBIS]

Laura,

I think the well-educated characters of Lila and Suzanne are based on Djebar herself.

She herself was very active in the resistance. She left Algeria to study in France. In articles and essays, she's writes that she can't return to Algeria. Today she lives in exile in both France and the US.

As for the housing arrangement in CotNW,  on p.1 "each home is at the end of a cul de sac...."

 p. 2 " In every house, which generally contains four or five families, one family per room, there is always one woman..."

From this I understand that the houses each have four or five rooms, and one family shares a room.  Each house has a kitchen, toilets and a courtyard in common.

Cherifa and Amna were neighbors because they shared rooms in the same house.

Cherifa and Youssef live in one room with their twin boys, while Hakim and Amna live in another room with their four children. 

I hope this helps.

Fozzie wrote:

I didn't think women like Lila or Suzanne existed.  They were well educated women and modern in thinking. 

The opening of the book, with Cherifa and Amna sharing a house, was confusing.  What kind of a house was it?  Was it really one house they shared or was it a duplex? 

[Fozzie]

The afterword is proving to be very helpful in understanding the book.  I agree with what you posted, IBIS.  In the afterword, on page 217, I found further description of the living spaces.

...the traditional house is a female space.  In a gallery of rooms symmetrically spaced around a roofless courtyard, with a fountain or well at the center, women share a common area for cooking, washing, doing laundry and, often, a room for private bathing.  They move freely about without the impediment of a veil or a robe.  Returning men must announce their approach to give their female neighbors time to move back behind their curtains.

IBIS wrote:

Laura,

I think the well-educated characters of Lila and Suzanne are based on Djebar herself.

She herself was very active in the resistance. She left Algeria to study in France. In articles and essays, she's writes that she can't return to Algeria. Today she lives in exile in both France and the US.

As for the housing arrangement in CotNW,  on p.1 "each home is at the end of a cul de sac...."

 p. 2 " In every house, which generally contains four or five families, one family per room, there is always one woman..."

From this I understand that the houses each have four or five rooms, and one family shares a room.  Each house has a kitchen, toilets and a courtyard in common.

Cherifa and Amna were neighbors because they shared rooms in the same house.

Cherifa and Youssef live in one room with their twin boys, while Hakim and Amna live in another room with their four children. 

I hope this helps.

Fozzie wrote:

I didn't think women like Lila or Suzanne existed.  They were well educated women and modern in thinking. 

The opening of the book, with Cherifa and Amna sharing a house, was confusing.  What kind of a house was it?  Was it really one house they shared or was it a duplex? 

[Peppermill]

My apologies for "disappearing" for awhile.  We got away for a few revitalizing days in Vermont and then I worked the polls yesterday.   The voting was quiet enough that I finished most of the text of CotNW and this morning I did complete it and the Afterword.

First, let me say "thanks" to IBIS for introducing us (me?) to this author and to all of you who voted for this selection, placing it on our reading radar.

Second, I wish this book, and probably others by Djebar, were as popular as Jane Austen among American readers, especially our young women of the upcoming generations as well as those currently assuming solid responsibilities as mothers, workers, and citizens.  I love to imagine the conversations that would be possible.

Third, I did not recognize that the entire action took place within a single day as I read the book (I was away from my own PC and avoided Internet access for a few days).   However, the lack of exciting plot driven towards resolution did not particularly bother me because I was so enthralled with Djebar's subtle exploration of oft contradictory feelings within her characters and how those underpinned actions.  (Perhaps I also enjoyed the shift in reading pace from The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, which I had finished just a couple of weeks ago and which was a must-read-as-quickly-as-possible for me.)

Fourth, the horrors of torture and abuse may haunt as acutely as those in Larsson's Millennium Trilogy or in accounts of the Holocaust, the Inquisition, prisoners of war, or Iraq.  But, worse may be the sense of how embedded those are in human struggle for social justice and freedom.  And, how blessed are many of us to have escaped their most extreme presence in our own lives.  Still, some abuse, perhaps even torture, seems self-imposed.

Fifth, I find I want to know more about Djebar and whether or how difficult it is to hear her speak in person.  Also, what should I read next -- either by her or others named in the text, the Afterword, and its footnotes.

Sixth, although the Afterword suggests this is one of her better translated works, at times the English felt strained and awkward. The Afterword does suggest the difficulty of translating this woman with her obvious love of words and ideas and long sentences interspersed with short phrases.  I am wondering at the reactions to the language of others, especially those of you who have been able to read her in French.

Seventh, this book reminds me a great deal of Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, especially the final volume, as the Egyptian Muslim women adopt greater freedoms for themselves.  However, this book is much more interior and sensitive to feminine perspectives than I remember Sugar Street to be.  CotNW is, perhaps, set in a more immediately tumultuous time and space. (Incidentally, I highly recommend those books.  However, I think I would prefer not to read them in the single volume edition.)

I will leave this for now to take care of the pressing requirements of the day, but shall return.

Pepper

[IBIS]

Hi Pepper, I also want to thank Melissa and other readers whose votes put Djeba’s CotNW on our reading radar. I do wish that her writing was more readily available with English-reading audiences…

I’ve also read Mahfouz’s “Cairo Trilogy”, as well as Tahar Djaout’s “The Last Summer of Reason”… Mahfouz is Egyptian, and Djaout is Algerian. … two Arab authors whose writing is virtually unknown here in the US.

What attracts me to Djebar's work, although she's a strong feminist,  is that her writing is not polemic... she doesn’t write political tracts.

Her stories are gentle portraits of Muslim men and women who are firm believers… but who are human beings first.  

She doesn’t dissolve her Islamic characters into candidates for murder or martydom. Our current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq… the Taliban, Al Quada… makes it so easy to cast the war against terror as a clash of civilizations... of different cultures.

Djebar gives us a totally human view of her characters… unlike our news media which ordinarily present Islamic characters as irrational religious zealots.

There are millions of Cherifas, Amna, Harima and Lilas throughout the Islamic world. Djeba shares with us the thoughts of these frightened insecure women in wartime.

War is the great equalizer... no matter what century and no matter what our religious beliefs.

My 26-year old daughter has read Djebar, and we've had fascinating discussions contrasting our secular Western and Islam's devout world-views.

It's conversations like these that we should have more of with our young people.

Peppermill wrote:

First, let me say "thanks" to IBIS for introducing us (me?) to this author and to all of you who voted for this selection, placing it on our reading radar.

Second, I wish this book, and probably others by Djebar, were as popular as Jane Austen among American readers, especially our young women of the upcoming generations as well as those currently assuming solid responsibilities as mothers, workers, and citizens.  I love to imagine the conversations that would be possible.

Pepper

[Peppermill]

IBIS wrote:  I’ve also read Mahfouz’s “Cairo Trilogy”, as well as Tahar Djaout’s “The Last Summer of Reason”… Mahfouz is Egyptian, and Djaout is Algerian. … two Arab authors whose writing is virtually unknown here in the US.

I think I mentioned that I read Djaout's book about the time we were doing nominations and deciding on voting.  It was alongside Djebar's in the library when I went to check out CotNW and whether I would support reading it.   I found Djaout also compelling.

Another African author with a good grasp of Islam is Nuruddin Farah, whose Maps I read for a course in postmodernism.  He, like Djebar, is a Neustadt Prize recipient and frequently named as a Nobel Prize contender.  I found Maps difficult to read and comprehend, although easier than Herta Muller's  The Passport, which I also did get through, but without the level of understanding I would have desired.  Farah has  feminist sensibilities somewhat unusual for a male writer.

What attracts me to Djebar's work, although she's a strong feminist,  is that her writing is not polemic... she doesn’t write political tracts.

Have you read more recent books of hers?  The Afterword suggests they may be more postmodern in structure.  Also, that some were badly translated. I do agree with the view expressed there that Djebar is commenting on the probable future of Algeria even in CotNW, although certainly not as a "tract."

My 26-year old daughter has read Djebar, and we've had fascinating discussions contrasting our secular Western and Islam's devout world-views.

I intend to share this text with my son and daughter-in-law, although I know each of them are leading lives right now with little time for "recreational" reading.

It's conversations like these that we should have more of with our young people.

I agree totally!

Pepper

[Peppermill]

After reading the novel and gazing at the cover again, I am wondering how well it represents the women in the novel.

If I were to name one of the women in the novel as the woman depicted, I don't know which one I would choose, perhaps Amna?  But we don't see her outside at all?  And might she be more plump? 

What did Cherifa look like, wrapped in her white silk veil?  Certainly these are not the legs of that beautiful woman?

Perhaps this is old Lla Aicha?

Those are not Touma's high heels, even if she chose to cover her short skirts.

[Fozzie]

The structure of the novel has more to it than I thought.  Not only does it take place in one day, but is classically structured and is symmetrically arranged.

Through a tightly Aristotelian structure (unity of time, place, and plot), [Children of the New World] marks an evolution, an ambitious expansion of her writing skills, and engages a much larger social canvas.  (pg. 213)

The novel’s structure juxtaposes the public square, territory of the colonizer, with the traditional courtyard, inner sanctum of the colonized.  (pg. 214)

The plot is tightly wound up around this spatial and symbolic center, taking place over twenty-four intense and ultimately tragic hours.  Architecturally and sociologically, the same oppositional structure prevails:  old Arab quarter versus European town; illiterate urban proletariat versus committed bourgeois intellectuals; traditional Qur’anic schools versus secular French high schools; and, perhaps, just versus unjust causes.  (pg. 214)

In the novel’s well-honed use of spatial symbolism, the author stretches her writerly wings and plunges her characters into a specific historical situation where nothing is as it appears.  (pg. 214)

The balanced movements are made clear by the alternating chapters; the first four, dedicated to the women of the town (Cherifa, Lila, Salima, Touma) and the last three, to the men whose lives are forever changed by encountering them (Khaled, Bob, Ali).  These oscillations are articulated around chapter five, which functions as axis and hinge; it is devoted to Hakim, the native policeman, flanked by Touma and Hassiba.  (pg. 215)

Their positioning at the center of the story on either side of Hakim, forms a figure of unresolved and unresolvable contradictions.  This growing sense of contradiction suggest to the reader that taking sides is not as simple, the distinction between good and evil, not as pure as we may have thought.  (pg. 215)

[Fozzie]

One thing that caught my attention in the novel was the representation of many different types of people, many different view points, and the contrasts.  These excerpts from the Afterword develop my crude idea in a way I never could, so I defer to them.

By the middle of the twentieth century, Algeria contained a finely textured human variety that French conquest nevertheless stereotyped into two hostile camps:  “the Europeans” and “the Arabs.”  Upward of one million strong, the former could be of French descent, or, often, Alsatian (refugees from the wars with Germany); they might also be Spanish, or Italian, or Maltese.  One thing that distinguished them from the “Arabs” was that they generally met in public places where alcohol consumption was permitted.  The “Arabs” numbered close to nine million, and claimed separate identities, whether Arab, or Kabyle, or Chawia, or M’zab, or Tuareg, or those of Turkish descent who stayed on after the French had triumphed over the Ottoman Empire.

Children of the New World deploys a careful choreography of these various groups on the central square of the little town, quite attentive to their mixed ethnic and class origins.  Not to understand this complexity would reduce this intricate society to the binary opposition of the colonial vision, Europeans versus Arabs.  (pgs. 208-9)

Children of the New World offers a varied gallery of female portraits that manage to meet every expectation of Western feminism and, simultaneously, to destabilize them all.  Djebar introduces readers to the self-sufficient, French-born lawyer-wife (Suzanne), the self-indulgent, self-centered philosophy student (Lila), the abused cloistered wife with child at the breast (Amna), and the superstitious illiterate mother, suffering and scared (Tawfik’s mother).  (pg. 221)

[Fozzie]

Having had time to digest both the novel and the extremely helpful Afterword, I know that I did not have a complete understanding of this novel while reading it.  I did not fully appreciate the structure, the "anthropological situatedness" of the characters (term from the Afterword), or the writing itself.  This is a book that bears another reading in the future.

[chadadanielleKR]

The French cover of the French 1962 edition is quite different. It is a photography of a "modern" looking woman with long brown hair and a fringe around her face, gently smiling and looking at us. It could be Lila, Suzanne or Hassiba. In 1962, most young educated woman wanted to have an European look and the veiled women were thought to be backward. This cover points the attention towards the younger or/and the educated women who could be "The Children of the new World".

The American cover seems to consider all the women of the book who are caught in a changing world ; They'll have to change because their world is changing. They are going to be changed by the political upheaval: death, murders, torture, men going away...Moreover, veiled women are more familiar in the Western world nowadays than 40 years ago, a veiled women on the cover might have prevented the book to be bought.

Peppermill wrote:

After reading the novel and gazing at the cover again, I am wondering how well it represents the women in the novel.

If I were to name one of the women in the novel as the woman depicted, I don't know which one I would choose, perhaps Amna?  But we don't see her outside at all?  And might she be more plump? 

What did Cherifa look like, wrapped in her white silk veil?  Certainly these are not the legs of that beautiful woman?

Perhaps this is old Lla Aicha?

Those are not Touma's high heels, even if she chose to cover her short skirts.

[Peppermill]

chadadanielleKR wrote (excerpt):

The French cover of the French 1962 edition is quite different. It is a photography of a "modern" looking woman with long brown hair and a fringe around her face, gently smiling and looking at us. It could be Lila, Suzanne or Hassiba. In 1962, most young educated woman wanted to have an European look and the veiled women were thought to be backward. This cover points the attention towards the younger or/and the educated women who could be "The Children of the new World".

I am absolutely intrigued by the difference in marketing this book via its cover in 1962 France and Algeria versus 2005 English speaking world!

It really was expected in 1962 that the Western/European dress mode and living style would prevail as the world modernized.  What a surprise scenario the past 40 years have played out!

Children of the New World  by Assia Djebar

[Peppermill]

Fozzie wrote (excerpt):

Children of the New World offers a varied gallery of female portraits that manage to meet every expectation of Western feminism and, simultaneously, to destabilize them all.  Djebar introduces readers to the self-sufficient, French-born lawyer-wife (Suzanne), the self-indulgent, self-centered philosophy student (Lila), the abused cloistered wife with child at the breast (Amna), and the superstitious illiterate mother, suffering and scared (Tawfik’s mother).  (pg. 221)

Laura -- as I read the quotation you provided, I was intrigued to realize that Clarisse Zimra did not distill the essence of Cherifa (nor Touma, for that matter).   I even went back to see if there was more in the text, but I didn't find that either.  (Musing:  why didn't Clarisse write "Tawlik"s and Touma's mother"?)

It seems to me that Cherifa is the woman who has asserted her self identity but chosen to remain within traditional structures (or lacked the education or background to leave them) whereas Touma has abused her overthrow of cultural expectations, to her own self destruction and the destruction of those around her.

[Fozzie]

Peppermill wrote:

Fozzie wrote (excerpt):

Children of the New World offers a varied gallery of female portraits that manage to meet every expectation of Western feminism and, simultaneously, to destabilize them all.  Djebar introduces readers to the self-sufficient, French-born lawyer-wife (Suzanne), the self-indulgent, self-centered philosophy student (Lila), the abused cloistered wife with child at the breast (Amna), and the superstitious illiterate mother, suffering and scared (Tawfik’s mother).  (pg. 221)

Laura -- as I read the quotation you provided, I was intrigued to realize that Clarisse Zimra did not distill the essence of Cherifa (nor Touma, for that matter).   I even went back to see if there was more in the text, but I didn't find that either.  (Musing:  why didn't Clarisse write "Tawlik"s and Touma's mother"?)

It seems to me that Cherifa is the woman who has asserted her self identity but chosen to remain within traditional structures (or lacked the education or background to leave them) whereas Touma has abused her overthrow of cultural expectations, to her own self destruction and the destruction of those around her.

I thought the "list" was incomplete too.  I like your analysis of Cherifa and Touma.

[IBIS]

Djebar’ fragmenting of time and the characters’ intersecting stories made reading CotNW somewhat difficult for me.

I found the many clues (dates, position of the sun, the muezzin calls to prayer) helpful. They helped distinguish the past from the present. They also helped me to reconstruct a chronological order of events.

I parsed a present-time storyline from the interruptions of the recent past, the distant past and the characters’ anticipations of a future time.

The story begins at nine o'clock in the morning of May 24, 1956 and ends with sunrise twenty-four hours later.

In Chapter III, at ten o'clock in the morning Hakim, the police inspector, returns home unexpectedly to question his wife Amna about Youssef, their neighbor suspected of revolutionary activities. At the same time, Saidi the second suspect on Touma’s list, is arrested and tortured (p.157).

Alerted by Amna, Cherifa decides at a quarter-to-one to warn her husband (p. 133).

At one o'clock, the train named the Micheline arrives at Place des Armes (p. 179). Khaled, an Arab lawyer educated in France, goes to visit Salima a half hour later. (p 187).

From the same train Hassiba, a young woman of sixteen, meets Youssef to join the resistance in the mountain. Bachir admires her while waiting for the arrival of his accomplice. At the same time, Touma decides not to board the train despite her brother’s ultimatum.

At one-fifteen, Cherifa reaches Youssef’s tailor shop.

In the afternoon, Saidi dies from torture inflicted by Hakim under the orders of Commissioner Assistant Martinez.

CotNW refers to Europeans who take a drink at 6pm and the muezzin who calls Muslims to the fourth prayer of the day.

At sunset, the text mentions three times "This is the beginning of the end of the day". Bashir burns the farm of Colonel Ferrand (p.220)

At 8pm, Tawfik checks the train station. Touma continues to defy him and he shoots her to avenge his honor. Yahia, the waiter witnesses Touma’s public murder with the phrase, “The hour of justice” (p.241).

Later In the evening, the military operation ends on the mountain (p. 240).

"It's the end of the day, said Hakim" (p. 257) who returns home to beat his wife Amna (p. 275).

At night, Youssef flees with Hassiba to the resistance’s stronghold in the mountain, while Mahmoud, the revolutionary leader, returns to town secretly.

The next morning at sunrise, Bashir is killed by the guard while leaving Lila’s apartment. Lila is arrested and brought to the police station where’s she’s thrown into the same cell as Salima. Salima begins a new day of torture (p.310)

As a result of this one day, three civilians are dead… Saidi, Touma and Bashir .

The novel suggest that days follow one another and blend together. Memorable events and deaths of loved ones are signposts to indicate where we are in the vastness of history... what place is ours among the endless succession of men who have lived and events that have happened.

The protagonists of CotNW see May 24, 1956 as a bloody day, and their 8-year-war for independence is only one year old.

[Melissa_W Moderator]

Wow, IBIS, thank you for this  

I think the jumbled timeline also helps reminds us all that there is no single story during a war; there are many interconnected stories happening all at the same time.

---

IBIS wrote:

Djebar’ fragmenting of time and the characters’ intersecting stories made reading CotNW somewhat difficult for me.

I found the many clues (dates, position of the sun, the muezzin calls to prayer) helpful. They helped distinguish the past from the present. They also helped me to reconstruct a chronological order of events.

I parsed a present-time storyline from the interruptions of the recent past, the distant past and the characters’ anticipations of a future time.

The story begins at nine o'clock in the morning of May 24, 1956 and ends with sunrise twenty-four hours later.

In Chapter III, at ten o'clock in the morning Hakim, the police inspector, returns home unexpectedly to question his wife Amna about Youssef, their neighbor suspected of revolutionary activities. At the same time, Saidi the second suspect on Touma’s list, is arrested and tortured (p.157).

Alerted by Amna, Cherifa decides at a quarter-to-one to warn her husband (p. 133).

At one o'clock, the train named the Micheline arrives at Place des Armes (p. 179). Khaled, an Arab lawyer educated in France, goes to visit Salima a half hour later. (p 187).

From the same train Hassiba, a young woman of sixteen, meets Youssef to join the resistance in the mountain. Bachir admires her while waiting for the arrival of his accomplice. At the same time, Touma decides not to board the train despite her brother’s ultimatum.

At one-fifteen, Cherifa reaches Youssef’s tailor shop.

In the afternoon, Saidi dies from torture inflicted by Hakim under the orders of Commissioner Assistant Martinez.

CotNW refers to Europeans who take a drink at 6pm and the muezzin who calls Muslims to the fourth prayer of the day.

At sunset, the text mentions three times "This is the beginning of the end of the day". Bashir burns the farm of Colonel Ferrand (p.220)

At 8pm, Tawfik checks the train station. Touma continues to defy him and he shoots her to avenge his honor. Yahia, the waiter witnesses Touma’s public murder with the phrase, “The hour of justice” (p.241).

Later In the evening, the military operation ends on the mountain (p. 240).

"It's the end of the day, said Hakim" (p. 257) who returns home to beat his wife Amna (p. 275).

At night, Youssef flees with Hassiba to the resistance’s stronghold in the mountain, while Mahmoud, the revolutionary leader, returns to town secretly.

The next morning at sunrise, Bashir is killed by the guard while leaving Lila’s apartment. Lila is arrested and brought to the police station where’s she’s thrown into the same cell as Salima. Salima begins a new day of torture (p.310)

As a result of this one day, three civilians are dead… Saidi, Touma and Bashir .

The novel suggest that days follow one another and blend together. Memorable events and deaths of loved ones are signposts to indicate where we are in the vastness of history... what place is ours among the endless succession of men who have lived and events that have happened.

The protagonists of CotNW see May 24, 1956 as a bloody day, and their 8-year-war for independence is only one year old.

---

[Marek_S]

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IBIS wrote:

Laura, this may help you to understand Djebar's novel a little bit more.

Have you seen the contemporary films "Babel", "Traffic" and "Crash"?  In these films, we meet a kaleidoscope of multiple characters. And the audience has no clue how they’re connected.

Their stories overlap in time. It isn’t until the very end that the audience sees the whole picture… how individual stories weave together into one big story.

It's a similar narrative structure in “CotNW”. Time weaves into the past, the present, then back to the past, and so forth.

In the traditional timeline, it begins when Hakim questions Amna, Amna warns Cherifa who in turn runs off to warn Yoseff. At the same time, in another part of the city, Lila meets Suzanne, and by the evening ends up in prison with Salima. A parallel story is Touma, who flirts with treason, and gets killed by her brother Tawfik.

Historically, in 1954 at the point in the novel, Algeria is in social flux. The French have colonized Algeria for a century.  

“CotNW” day in the life of Blida, one character after another finds a previously stable existence breaking up. The revolution is launching these characters into cultural free-fall.

All these characters'  have to abandon customary and traditional practices because they're all moving into a uncertain “new world”. 

What I, as a reader, find more fascinating than traditional plot, are the characters’ themselves… how the revolution is shaping them into children of “the new world”.

Fozzie wrote:

I finished the book last night.  I wish I had known going into the book that it took place all during one day and was meant as a snapshot or protrait, not as a story.  Once IBIS clued me into the fact that it takes place in one day, the reading was so much easier!

I'll go back and post some thoughts on other threads, but I have a general question here.

Why do authors make it difficult to understand their work?

Personally, I like a challenging book, but not one that becomes frustrating and confusing or with a structure that requires so much thought as to take away from the story.

---

Thanks for your comments.  I, too, was very frustrated when I first started this novel.  The way it was constructed made it more difficult for me to wade through.

I think it's easy to view war as something distant and far away (if you're in the United States, like I am).  When you're at the "front," so to speak, the war is personal for several reasons; you know the people involved.  The person who died from the IED the other day was your friend's aunt/uncle/cousin/etc.  So that perspective really helped me read CotNW without feeling as frustrated as I was when I started out.

Years ago, war was so much more personal because we didn't yet have the Atomic Bomb or the kind of technology we have today.  When you are faced with violence each day, when you have to worry about walking to the market safely, when your friends are the ones who have died from the hands of violence, the story changes.