Bakou, derniers jours par Olivier Rolin (review)

memory and forgetting of difficult moments and “[s]’unir / de nouveau avec [s]on intérieur” (61). Ombres confuses du temps features a narrative thread, a certain urgency and musicality, and a focus on healing through words, depicted as “[h]urlements sans âge” (71) torn from the soul and thrown to the sea. Epigraphs regarding false promises and a disdained Other set the tone for a pervasive “[n]octurne et colossal désespoir” (9) caused by “[d]es jours monotones” amid “un peuple / trahi et meurtri / qui vend ses rêves de liberté / aux touristes assoiff és” (15) as well as by a once-proud homeland’s equally appalling death and disfiguration as a “[terre] devenue le royaume des pires vices / dévorée par tant de mépris et de misères” (17). Examples of “jours agités / par des blessures hideuses” (18) that the speaker must overcome in North America include the ambiance of a “monde féroce / demeure de démons en transe” (28); the “terrible choc” of initial arrival (31); the “violences rageuses” that hide behind “sourires aimables” (42); accusations of sexism “[p]our offrande de roses blanches” (56); and the need to “prétendre trouver / réussite et bien-être / dans la poursuite du bonheur légendaire” (58). A real and metaphorical natural world surfaces periodically as a salve, nurturing the Other and providing an outlet for the “délire” of his “[g]rand désastre humain” (71). The primary motifs in this regard are the “ciel et mer” (14) that together open a space for liberating cries; the “barque” (22, 38) that represents the search for wholeness; a “marche habituelle sur le sable” (63) and references to autumn and winter that contextualize these various meditations; and “l’écume du temps” (52) that is expected to settle within this recuperation of the past and voyage toward a calmer future. Also of note are the lines of four to twelve syllables, whose groupings and metrical units by turns add edge to the bitterness expressed and embody the notion of time’s reassuring cyclical flow, for instance “Je vibre au vol d’un oiseau / haut dans le ciel / Et me dresse de ma léthargie / pour éviter de me disloquer / dans mon asile lugubre” (52). This “poète songeur” (21) inscribes a fairly wide range of moods into the framework of his “chant obscur et souterrain” (back cover), relying heavily on abstractions but nonetheless emphatically suggesting both inner turmoil and movement toward resolution, an emptiness that peoples “[s]es nuits agitées” and a rebellion “contre désordres débordants” (64). With numerous poetry volumes published since 2008 alongside his books on Maghrebian literature, Redouane should prove interesting to watch as one who “chemine sur les rides de [s]a vie” (64) in order to voice a continual thirst for freedom , whether from personal shadows or from other tribulations as they arise. Southwestern University (TX) Aaron Prevots ROLIN, OLIVIER. Bakou, derniers jours. Paris: Seuil, 2010. ISBN 978-2-02-100017-7. Pp. 175. 17 a. Fans of Rolin’s Suite à l’hôtel Crystal will be especially pleased to discover the premise of his most recently published work in Seuil’s Fiction et Cie collection. In Suite à l’hôtel Crystal (2004), Rolin declared the site of his future demise, which would take place in 2009 in a hotel room in Baku, Azerbaijan. “Depuis 2004,” he now declares, “j’étais donc mort en 2009 à Bakou, dans la chambre 1123 de l’hôtel Apchéron, d’une balle de pistolet Makarov 9 mm” (26). As the fateful year of 794 FRENCH REVIEW 85.4 2009 approached, friends warned him against traveling to Baku, but their prudent counsel had the opposite effect: Ces amicales mises en garde firent évidemment naître en moi l’idée qu’au contraire je devais m’y rendre pour honorer une sorte de rendez-vous, et y demeurer assez longtemps pour laisser à la fiction de ma mort sur les bords de la Caspienne une chance raisonnable de se réaliser. (back cover) The book, labeled a récit, and which includes fifty-seven photos (many taken by Rolin), is something between a...