Hello Gentle Reader
Jean Marie Gustav Le Clezio, it did not start out writing in his now more renowned and refined mature style. On the falling trail of the literary French literary movement nouveau roman whose prominent authors like Alain Robbe-Grillet, Marguerite Duras, Michel Butor, and even fellow Nobel Laureate (though he highly denied his connection to the nouveau roman) Claude Simon of nineteen-eighty five, where the writers of the transitioning phases of high literary modernism declining into the more reactionary postmodernism that follows. These earlier years are quite the contradiction to their later counterparts, and their more subdued stylist elements, and focus on almost describing and transporting the reader into the anthropological elements of the natural world that has come and gone, passed on and barely a distant dream – a historical record. J.M.G Le Clezio’s work spans time and it spans cultural landscapes. It spans continents, and can move across the world. This theme of migration and immigration and of foreign way of looking at the ordinary may come from his own background of a heritage that is rooted in French ancestry, but he himself grew up on an English colony – Mauritius. Though ironically J.M.G. Le Clezio was born in France. Allowing for him to have a dual citizenship of both France and Mauritius which Le Clezio regards as “his little fatherland.” His father during World War II was serving in the British Army of Nigeria. Later in nineteen-forty eight J.M.G Le Clezio as well as his Mother and brother boarded a ship and joined his father in Nigeria. The author’s restless legs did not end though there. J.M.G Le Clezio went on to study in France – finishing his undergraduate degree at Nice’s (his mother’s hometown) Institut d’études littéraires his education continued when in nineteen-sixty four had earned his Master’s Degree from the University of Provence. J.M.G Le Clezio went to the United States of America, to become a teacher. Yet his restless legs, found him once again and he served with the French military in nineteen-sixty seven, in Thailand. However he made morally protested against child prostitution, this lead to him to being transferred to Mexico to finish his military service. In the early to mid-seventies J.M.G Le Clezio found himself living with the aboriginal peoples of the Darién Gap with the Embera-Wounaan – when of course the lawless land was not as corrupted as it is now. Since nineteen-seventy five he has been married to a Moroccan woman. Since the early nineties, the author has divided his time between Nice France, Mauritius, and New Mexico. It becomes to no surprise that eventually J.M.G Le Clezio dropped the themes and concepts of his earlier novels of insanity, language, and alienation; instead focusing on the immigration/migration of people, childhood, and exile instead. These later novels themselves focus more on the authors own experiences of traveling and wandering. The uprooted nature of people, the immigration and migration, the foreign cultures and their experiences and almost a desire for oral story telling become components to the authors work, in general.
“Desert,” written in the nineteen eighties, could be called J.M.G Le Clezio’s breakthrough novel or rather his ground breaking novel that established the authors future output and eventually his Nobel Prize win.
“This work contains magnificent images of a lost culture in the North African desert, contrasted with a depiction of Europe seen through the eyes of unwanted immigrants. The main character is a utopian antithesis to the ugliness and brutality of European society.” -- From the Nobel Prize citation by the Swedish Academy.
At first while reading this novel, and its descriptive passage, lacking narrative, with its simple documented events; was resented and held with great scrutiny. Many times it occurred to me that if I had wanted to read a documentary novel, I’d go find one that would be a little more pleasing. However in time, eventually the beat of the novel and the words, and the first awkward steps of the novel were pushed aside as the rhythm of the novel became more like the repetitive and grounded steps of the nomadic people who are central to this novel; and eventually it became more and more easier to read – and more enjoyable.
The novel itself centers around the colonization and suppression during the French protectorate of Morocco, and the decimation it actively sought out to assimilate and culturally extinguish the Tuareg People or the “Blue Men,” as they are noted for in this novel. Between the years of nineteen-ten and nineteen-twelve, a young boy Nour who travels with the great sheik Ma al-Ainine along with other nomadic tribes is fighting against the colonization of their ancestral home. This is the shortest story of the two, intertwined parts of this novel. Sprinkled ever so lightly across the book. Allowing for both a change in scenery and time period. The second intertwined story is the more contemporary tale of Lalla, an exotic copper skinned child and then woman, whose childhood life is spent in a shanty town of, pallets for bed frames, tar paper roofs, open fire flames, and almost barbaric living existence. Yet it is all diluted for the most part by Lalla’s adventurous and wandering spirit, whose childhood naivety, obviously sees the brutality of her own living conditions, yet rather than stay and mope around like some street urchin, as one would expect, Lalla becomes a spirit of freedom. A wanderlust adventurer, who goes off and enjoys the surrounding areas, were her experiences of life, become the smallest magical wonders. Such as seeing a seagull or seabird flying in the sky. Lalla calls out different names in order to figure out the name of the sailor who once died at sea, and was reincarnated in the form of a sea bird, to forever enjoy the salty spray, and blue waters that were both loved, and tragically took his life.
Lalla is the best part of this novel. For the simple reason that she is the one that Le Clezio allows the reader to become more intimate with. Her characterization is deep and contemporary which allows for more relation between reader and character. A far more empathetic bond is allowed to form. Were as in Nour’s case, such empathic bonds are unable to grow. Such a relationship is left, shifting in the pages, and the torrent abstract historical events that are barely described or left to be acknowledged. That being said, their long felt consequences resonate in the story of Lalla whose own life is an ever consistency of the end results of colonization. Her own life in a shanty town, the failed efforts to re-establish a culture that had once prevailed. What is left is nothing more than a backwater of nostalgic memories, and stories that survive only through oral storytelling, a rebellious air against the once prevalent colonizer; and now nothing more than broken spirits reduced to beggars, and scratching livings off rocks in their tar paper shanty towns, and pallet made beds. Those that have prevailed to live in this new society of colonized northern Africa, making a more European style living – most likely betrayed their ways and eventually saw the inevitable in the colonization of their land.
Yet Lalla’s childhood however dilutes these harsh realities, as nothing more than the hand that she has been dealt with in life. It is nothing more than a reality. It’s not perfect or utopian but it is a home. A roof over her head. A place that she can come back to; however it is the freedom of the surrounding desert and ‘country-side,’ that shows her own roots, and nomadic nature. It is in this wild wilderness that Lalla experiences true happiness and life.
However the real main character is the title of the novel itself. The very desert is more than just the stage in which the novel unfolds – even when it’s removed physically removed, it plays its role.
Lalla’s childhood however comes to an abrupt end. This is when life changes for her. People look at the once, copper skinned shadow, now as something to possess. A rich man wishes to marry her – and her aunt (her mother died when Lalla was young) wishes to marry her off, for the money and service that could be provided by such an arrangement. Lalla the independent the free, the expansive and wide eyed child refuses such an offer. It is then she begins to experience more, and more trials and tribulations of the complex and at times the vicious adult world – such as the carpet weaver’s cruelty, and Lalla’s own sense of justice and moral standing, and once again takes a step. Finally however Lalla realizes her own home has become strange and unwelcoming. Her own spontaneous flight into the desert to be with the Hartani -- a mute shepherd and only companion to Lalla; but even he abandons Lalla. It is then that J.M.G Le Clezio turns to the most evident case of post-colonialism: immigration.
The ever present effects of colonization and its downfall and the loss of cultures, but also the flooding of unwanted immigrants into the streets of other countries. Now day’s people are taught to respect these other peoples. These cultures and the attitudes are less xenophobic or less racially intense. However such cultures are not beyond butting heads. When Lalla travels abroad in France, she at first does not fit in her. Her coppery skin shines and sparkles, like a radiant sun. However in due time, she is formed into a foreigner, in her new land. She fits in more, and becomes less noticeable. She is able to blend in with her new surroundings. She hides in doorways, hides in subways amongst people, and amongst parked cars. It is here in France that Lalla continues to grow – and where home becomes even less of a wasteland, and more of a utopian land of freedom and expansive space. Never ending, with the sky that stretches as far as the seemingly never ending desert.
When I first started reading this novel, I thought of it like a documentary movie that was discussing the nature of globalization, the effects of globalization, and the loss of small cultures. However, J.M.G Le Clezio eventually started to turn it around to become an interesting coherent narrative, which became relevant after patience and dedication in getting it done. It is no wonder, that “Desert,” became J.M.G Le Clezio’s breakthrough as a writer.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
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Stay Well Read
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M. Mary
