Introduction
The reality of modern life is such that the latter often offers numerous challenges and problems for a human to cope with. The problem arises: how to survive and not lose one’s identity in the treacherous and full of mistakes world? Moreover, how to succeed in it contrary to existing difficulties? In the current paper, we will consider the example of the young boy, the main character of Azuz Begag’s novel Le Gone du Chaaba (Shantytown Kid) whose story is a triumphant success against all odds. The significance of this semi-autobiographical narration is not only rooted in a marvelous description of one’s personal achievement but in charting a new and uncontested literary space for an emerging beur generation.
Historical Background of the Novel
The novel was written during the 1980s. This was the period when immigration and the new urban geography of France became a burning issue in the public debate. The earliest drafts of the novel date back to 1981. A complete version of Le Gone du Chaaba appeared in 1983 in a competition arranged for young immigrant writers by a small publisher in Lyon. No winner was identified as the publisher went out of business.
The Seuil publishing company published a much-revised version of the manuscript in 1986. By that time the problem of immigration was not discussed in the political circles only but it became a point of debate in the whole French society. New novels, films, media that focused on this problem gained more and more attention from the public. Their work identified the emergence of the new, “Beur” (Arabe) culture wherein Begag became a constituent part (Laronde 35).
The Title of the Novel
It is important to admit that the original manuscript did not contain any translation of the Algerian Arabic colloquialism shaaba (meaning a patch of spare land containing roughly improvised dwellings) and the Lyonnais slang word gone (meaning kid). The fusion of the two words encouraged the reader to discover the multiethnic context in which the described events took place. In the interview with Corinne Martin and Thierry Paquout Begag explained:
Gone is an idiomatic term used in Lyon to denote a child similar to Minot in Marseilles and perhaps titi in Paris. Chaaba is the name of the shantytown where I lived and grew up until the age of ten or eleven … We lived in temporary, makeshift conditions comparable to those of people living in the favelas of Brazil and the barrios in other parts of Latin America. It was the inhabitants of Le Chaaba who gave it that name as the kind of ironic commentary on their poor living conditions: Chaaba is more or less synonymous with the hovel … Calling our living quarters Le Chaaba was a way of saying: “What a slum!” (L’Invite: Azouz Begag 72).
Analysis of the Opening Passages and the Novel in General
The translation of the novel retains many other Arabic and French colloquialisms and instances of non-standard pronunciation of French words to make a vivid description of the life of North Africans in France. The description starts with the first lines of the novel:
Zidouma is doing her washing this morning. She has got up early so that she can have the only water-point in the shanty-town to herself. This is a manual pump drawing up water from the Rhône: the bomba (pump) (Bagag 1)
Soon the argument develops between the Zidouma and another woman who wants to use the pump and Bagag’s mother is quick to join in:
Leaving me to carry on drinking my coffee, she girds up her robust frame, cursing amply. I make no attempt to stop her. There’s no stopping a charging rhinoceros. I quickly down my beverage and jump up to watch the pugilists. I don’t know why, but I like sitting on the front doorstep and watching scenes like this at the bomba and the poola (pool). It’s so strange to see women fighting (Bagag 2).
These lines encourage the reader to think that the narrator is a mere observer of the events that take place around him. He seems to feel pleased when he watches scenes like that with fighting women. There is certainly a sense in which he is recalling his childhood reactions (Chossat 60). The peculiar feature of the extract and much of the novel is that it is written in the present tense that contributes to the reader’s general impression that the text is a direct transcription of events seen by the nine-year-old boy. Still, much of the language used by the narrator (“her robust frame”, “beverage”, “pugilists”) suggests that a great deal of the stories is told by the grown-up person who looks back at his life and presents his memories to the reader.
Though the place from which the narrator tells his story is not clearly defined the reader understands that the text is framed by two unspoken but omnipresent places: Algeria in which the author’s father spent his formative years and France out of which the narrator’s mature self speaks. The experiential itinerary connecting the two together forms the backbone of the text (Chossat 60).
As a child of immigrants le gone experiences a lot of difficulties. Algerian-born family comes to live in a shantytown outside Lyon. “I’m well aware,” the young Bagag says, “that I live in a shantytown of shacks made from crates and corrugated metal and that it’s only poor people who live like this.” (Bagag 45) The narrator describes life in the tin shacks and empty lots in horrifying detail. The harsh reality of the child is scavenging through a fresh garbage dump for interesting things. And this all goes along with observing the normal life of native French school friends: “I’ve been a few times to Alain’s: His parents live in the middle of the avenue Monin, in a house, the boy says, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a lot nicer than our shacks.” (Bagag 45)
Throughout the text, one observes the change of harsh realities that the child faces. And these realities push the boy to change something in his life. One day the young Begag decides to become one of those who live in wealthy houses and who do well at school. Still, the boy realizes that in order to leave the shantytown and to insert himself into the dominant French society he has to change his skin first: “For some months now I have decided to change my skin. I do not like being with the poor and the weak in the class. I want to be among the top students, like the French.” (Bagag 11)
The motto of his father “you work in school while I work in the factory” (Bagag 13) becomes crucial for the boy’s decision to change his life. Through education, he attempts to find his niche in society. In the preface to the book, one reads: “I have always considered myself to be someone who is at home on the borderline, in a place belonging to everybody and nobody, a space one generally just quickly walks across. This is where one really learns to be human” (Bagag 1).
And knowledge and tolerance seem to be the key tools in this learning. Determined to leave poverty forever the young Bagag works hard at school. He turns out to be a rather talented student: he learns quickly and speaks French fluently. This helps him to understand well a pied-noir teacher who introduces him to Algeria and the Arabic language in the way his parents fail to do. Gradually, Bagag becomes a star pupil at the local primary school thus evoking jealousy and racism of his Arab peers.
In the run for a new position in society, the boy risks losing his own identity. Once he refuses to help his Chaaba neighbor and classmate and does pay too much attention to this boy’s mother’s claims: “We are all Arabs, right? Why don’t you help each other? You help Nasser, he will help you, etc.” (Bagag 77) But if only Bagag helped his friend the latter would not have been bitten violently by his father because of his failing grades at school and drop out from it.
Another case where Azouz fails to defend his origin is a denial of his Arab identity when the Arab-Israeli war broke out. In fear of being persecuted by his Jewish classmates Bagag says he is a Jew: “I am a Jew, I said. Because the [Jewish] Taboul brothers are two because they know the teacher and many other students well. If I admitted I were an Arab everyone would have boycotted me […]” (Bagag 189)
Bagag’s actions of the type can still be justified by his young age. The boy did face numerous dilemmas ranging from assimilation through education to racism in a white society and as every human being, he had the right for making a mistake. His claiming of Jewish descent and his unwillingness to help the classmate should not be classified as his renounce of Arabian origin; instead, they should be treated as the young boy’s getting lost in the world offering too many questions to answer. In the long run, the boy’s strivings end happily. The immigrant successfully assimilates himself through the French culture and education and becomes a part of the so-called “beurgeoisie”.
The general lighthearted tone in which the whole novel is written keeps the reader in constant expectation of something good to happens. And, as it is seen from the end of the novel, this good really comes.
Conclusion
Read as a sort of fairytale about the boy who found his personal happiness in the cruel world Le Gone du Chaaba encourages the readers to believe in the possibility of changing the world for the better if making efforts towards it. If a young immigrant boy managed to make crucial changes in his life, why cannot we? The search for the answer to this question makes more and more people read the novel. While the need for changing one’s life for the better exists, Le Gone du Chaaba will not lose its popularity among the readers.
Works Cited
Begag, Azuz. Shantytown Kid. Bison Books, 2007.
Chossat, Michele A. “Hospitality, Integration, and Daily Life: Le the Au Harem d’Archi Ahmed and le Gone Du Chaaba.” West Virginia University Philological Papers (2003): 60.
Laronde, Michel. Autour du Roman Beur: Immmigration et Identite. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1993.
“L’Invite: Azouz Begag” (an interview with Corinne Martin and Thierry Paquout). Urbanisme. 325 (2002): 72.
Mehrez, Samia. “Ahmed De Bourgogne the Impossible Autobiography of a Clandestine.” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics (2002): 36.