Rêveurs by Alain Blottière (review)

Blottière, Alain. Rêveurs. Paris: Gallimard, 2012. ISBN 978-2-07-0-13833-3. Pp. 162. 15,90 a. Inspired no doubt by his dual residency in France and Egypt, Blottière has produced a timely novel that gives, among other things, an insider’s look at the Egyptian version of the Arab Spring in early 2011. In keeping with his biculturalism, the author spins his tale of two adolescent boys, one a comfortable resident of Issy, France, the other a street child in a Cairo ghetto. At first blush, the boys have nothing in common, but the author forces comparisons by having his alternating narratives of their lives slip mid-sentence from one boy’s consciousness to the other’s.Nathan’s existence ensconced in Western wealth certainly clashes against Goma’s daily struggle to subsist, but this obvious contrast is attenuated by their parallel psychological pain: Nathan has lost his mother and the girl of his dreams, and Goma, an orphan, loses a close friend. Both are spurred by these losses to reckless behaviors. Nathan uses self-strangulation to achieve a dream-like state in which he tries to grasp the unattainable; Goma joins the tumult in Tahrir Square with the now-famous objective of regime change. Although both boys reason they have nothing to lose, the novel suggests they have, on the contrary, nothing to gain, especially not the dreams that shape their actions in real life. Many have credited recent technology and social networking with being the stuff of modern revolutions.Blottière does not take up the banner of technology quite so quickly.Goma, while putting his body in harm’s way, has no access to technology and, as becomes apparent, no access to the social benefits of a polity without Mubarak. Nathan, on the other hand, is a typically over-connected twenty-first-century adolescent,a messagingtexting -tweeting state he wishes wholly to undo. His one escape, aside from nooseinduced unconsciousness, is a virtual reality computer game called “Serious Sam III,” set in twenty-third-century Egypt. Here then is the other narrative cross-over: the boys meet by chance along the banks of the Nile, but the meeting only confirms each boy in his mistaken belief that the other lives in the virtual reality of his dream. Even the real, human connection plays out as a radical disconnect from reality. Blottière achieves many things with this novel. He creates an evenly-written drama without pathos, despite signals of an impending train wreck or two. His cautionary message is especially sensitive to the dilemmas of young adolescents: in addition to sorting out all manner of social relationship (family, ersatz family, friends, and sexual partners), adolescents have been further burdened with the lure of an illusory and ill-defined freedom that may cost them every last one of those relationships. Come to think of it, Blottière’s warning about a very costly freedom may hold true for many people in the Middle East struggling to realize the dream of a new social order. Lawrence University (WI) Eilene Hoft-March 266 FRENCH REVIEW 87.1 ...