I attended this book's launch on Oct 9th. The book's described as "a memoir of a largely vanished world and of Jewish North Africa." The author (named after Victor Hugo, her mother's favourite author) was born in Algeria to Jewish parents. They moved to Casablanca. She grew up in Fez. Then the family moved to France (the French in 1871 had offered Jews French nationality).
The author avoids info-dumping dollops of history and authentic detail. The background for each story is contained in the others. We don't always know the cultural background, but nor does the girl in the stories. We deduce from observations, as she does. In some instances we know more than the girl does - about adult hypocrisy for example.
The anecdotes from when the author was a young girl are richly detailed, the details going far beyond "local colour". There was social friction between the Arab and French speakers, but it didn't stop them joking together in the same cafes. There was snobbery amongst the French speakers, and between Jews of differing thoroughness. The girl observes and questions the adult world without yet understanding it. She experiences a locust swarm, a once-a-year traveling cinema, fossil-hunting, US paratroopers landing, sudden disappearances of classmates.
The second part mostly comprises stories that the author, then living in England, heard from her mother (then living in Paris). They're never too long. There are potted biographies, anecdotes that summarise a life, facts about a person that only come to light after their death. Family traditions are more closely adhered to than religious ones. Each piece is capable of being read in isolation, though they're interlocking and cumulative. Sometimes the reader doesn't find out the significance of a piece until the end. Even more than in the first part, we're made aware of the differences between people's actions and intentions, even if the characters aren't aware at the time. I'll summarize just a few of the pieces.
In the first of these stories, "The Cello Player", Marcelle, a girl who plays the piano, is rather in awe of Nathan, an accomplished cello player. At the end we read "Marcelle was my mother. Her childhood sweetheart, Nathan, died before he reached twenty."
"Uncle Mordecai" is perhaps my favourite piece - only 3.5 pages long yet revealing much about arabs/Jews, rich/poor, male/female. In other stories there's undisguised disappointment when yet another daughter is born - daughters mean dowries and nobody to carry on the business. Mordecai has 12 children, 9 of them girls. But all's not lost. He's the richest man on the street of Jews. He owns his house (albeit a concrete bunker built by Arabs). He's only a cobbler, so how did he get his money? It's world war two, leather and food are in short supply. He gambles with Arabs sometimes. He works hard, rising early, passing the hamman and next to it, the public ovens for bread. Most of his clients are well-off Arabs, but if they wear long robes how will people see their fashionable shoes? So he tells customers that if they give him a dozen large eggs, he can make the leather for their shoes squeak louder.
"My Grandfather, the Opera Lover" is about Felix, who owned a bar in Oran. There were productions by touring French companies mainly for civil servants and government officials. Gifted amateurs performed the rest of the time. From the gods, "peanut shells and tightly padded sweet papers" bombarded the lower circles. The interval was a chance to top up on projectiles. When Carmen's about to be stabbed, the chewing and heckling stopped. Soon after, Felix was called to war. He was wounded and eventually committed suicide, his grave by a wall away from the cemetery's main alleys. The narrator's mother never told the narrator how her father died. She found out many years later, when visiting a distant relative who knew.
"There was no clock in my grandmother's flat. There was no need for one". Thus begins "Reine". We read about the noises by which she knew the time of day - a neat way to introduce us to her life style. Every Saturday lunchtime grandmother feigns surprise when her sister Reine knocks. She invites Reine to stay for the day. Each time, Reine plays hard to get. We learn why her husband left her, why she took refuge in Oran, taking meals with a rota of relatives. "Although she became demanding and cantankerous with age, no one objected to her eccentric ways. My lasting memory of her was her unique and uncontested ability to piss standing up."
In "The Son" the narrator's invited on a day trip away from Paris. She goes with Aunt Mani, the widow of Uncle Mordecai. We learn that "In spite of the appalling treatment she had been subjected to through all her married life, she had remained good-natured and doggedly devoted to him". They are visiting the plot of Mani's son's planned house, a glimpse of the future, but they also pop into a care home where Mani's cleverest son is. We learn how he rebelled against his father's wish for him to continue the business. Doctors had asked for consent from the parents to operate on him. Aunt Mani said that afterwards "Thank God he has calmed down ... there are no tantrums, no violence any more. He's put on weight since, which is a good sign, isn't it?" At the end she says "I can't see what's so marvellous about these recovery places. They're all right, but there's nowhere like home. Only parents can look after their children properly. A mother and a father always know what's best for their own, don't they?"
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