L’envers du destin par Najib Redouane (review)

that the Malaussène series is a literature of the past, the analytical vision this fiction brings of the contemporary present is as entertaining and thought-provoking as reality literature, without the danger of inciting readers to a violence all too prevalent in real life. Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania Nathalie G. Cornelius Redouane, Najib. L’envers du destin. Paris: Vérone, 2016. ISBN 979-10-284-0183-2. Pp. 388. This novel has a richly-described cultural setting that includes the history of the Jewish diaspora in Morocco and depictions of the community’s celebrations, food, clothing, and customs—much of it explained further in an ample glossary of Hebrew/ Moroccan terms. Less pleasantly, the novel also portrays inflexible religious practices, unbridgeable divides (Muslim-Jewish, Israeli-Palestinian, Sephardic-Ashkenazi, etc.), and a volatile political history that seems bent on eliminating said cultural richness and variety.Against this backdrop, Mimouna, the youngest daughter of a Jewish Moroccan family living in Séfrou in the 1960s, tells her story. She is ravishingly beautiful, headstrong , passionate, and held as the apple of her father’s eye. Much to her detriment, she is unable and unwilling to please any other family member, especially her mother. Mimouna’s brief though unconsummated love relationship with a Muslim boy launches her reputation as a daughter who has brought shame onto her family. For unrelated reasons, most of them having to do with the sociopolitical mood of the era, Mimouna’s family uproots to relocate in Israel. Shortly after the move, Mimouna (now “Rachel”) is imprisoned, brutalized, and raped over a period of months by a PolishIsraeli soldier. The physical and psychic consequences of her traumatic experience drive the rest of this long narrative.We see Mimouna re-enacting the violence committed against her as she alternates between passive acceptance of abuse and perpetration of aggressive, even sadistic acts of her own. She caves to an arranged and loveless marriage, but also attempts to dominate cruelly other sexual partners. The result is a repeating cycle of deep pain and self-destructive behaviors that, in the telling, also plunge the reader into a seemingly inescapable morass of unclear thinking, illness, and sordidness. This last effect may very well be the author’s explicit intention. However , I believe the novel would have more focused impact either through some judicious editing of the protagonist’s forty years of traumatic repetitions or perhaps through greater development of an empathetic listener (the narrator does infrequently [81, 330, 348, 370, and last chapter] address a doctor whose mediating or therapeutic role remains unclear).Without such narrative development, the novel risks desensitizing readers to the very issues the author wishes to make evident. Caveat lector. Lawrence University (WI) Eilene Hoft-March 252 FRENCH REVIEW 91.3 ...