Kiffe Kiffe Demain

Kiffe Kiffe Demain

The English translation of Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow seems to be doing very well. The original in French was a huge seller and even won the readers' prize of 2006 livre poche. If you asked a French reader about the book, the one would absolutely laugh it off as saying,

"Mais oui, ca fait longtemps (sans accents, for the limited quality of the type system that I have here)!"

Indeed, ca fait longtemps; it has been a while since the book was published initially in 2004 and took Europe by storm. The novel aqcuired its recognition and popularity in the literary scene in France first where the book was received as the long awaited voice to locate the right kind of vocabulary to capture the new generation of North African immigrants in the country, where the Arabic descents are ignored and dismissed for 'not to be French enough' as any other citizens. Think about what it means.

The blunt writing style and the sassy voice did draw a new and clearer image of the generation, which obviously hit the collective nerve, and I enjoyed it as well. At the same time, however, I found it slightly fall short for a regular novel reading experience. The first person narrative of 15 years old Doria living in the project where the new immigrants predominantly reside seemed to be right for teen audience rather than marketed to be a regular novel that happened t o use a teenage point of view. It is the right reading for young adults. I might use this for a reader if I still teach French as I used to in Japan. (I know it sounds twisted, but that was one of a few methods to make my living in Tokyo when I was there.) The author herself is the second generation of Algerian immigrants, who were described in the novel as 'their war did not seem to end in this country.' The protagonist is deliberately set to be a Morrocan descent, though, perheps to distinguish the fictional character from the author Guene herself.

Just when the fist work of Guene is put out here in English translation, her second novel "The Dream of Eggs" is launched in Franch. Let's see how the new one goes.

By the way, the interesting thing that I found about French literary scene is that their young adult market is not as established or big as the one we have in the US. The US YA market is way more developed and equipped with muticulturally educational elements, and fulfilling demands of those who want to have books to sufficiently represent themselves as indispensable part of the society no matter what they are; you name what kind of ethnicity you want to read about by rule of the PC climate that is dominant in the industry as well as in the society, especially for female ethnic kids readers. (Well, this is just the rule to play with, and that is one thing. How much it is reflecting the reality those kids live in is another.)

When it comes to French literary scene, though, the market seems not to be narrow, to say the least about how much they are faciliated with the ethnic diversity/PC rule/tokenism. 

This phenomenon seems to be a bit difficult and disproportionate given how many immigrants decsents, especially North African, are quite dominant in France populationwis e but somehow ignored, and you cannot ignore how much they are perpetually frustrated for their cultural identities torn and dismissed. All they have got is the frustration on how underappreciated their cultural heritage is and how French society has been dismissive about the contribution of their diaspora experiences, as pointed out in the novel.

There is this passage that I found to be the very core of the message the novel conveys, and the part is the very favorite of mine as well; an Algerian woman who is a friend of the protagonist's mom speaks very limited French although she has been there forever. Her husband left her with three sons when he used her up and moved onto another woman to start his life afresh back home in Algeria (this explains that having no son cannot be the only reason to leave his wife, as Doria's father did, but when the wife is worn out as well). Her sons call her DJ ZOZO for her re-mixing French that Moliere established and now making it into her own sounds. Her linguistic limitation in French adds a new value and it is the refinement her sons' generation recognize. This is the phrase to be remembered for the author's trait, and conveys the very condensed idea of the novel as the title itself indicates as well; the mix of French and Arabic; Kiff Kiff as same o in Arabic and kiffer as 'to like' in French is stating the author's wish to create values out of the predicament their&nb sp;parents struggled to be out of. 

The most interesting aspect of ths book is the protagonist's criticism on the third world's treatment of women, and how it is carried around even in the supposedly new country; the protagonist's father left her mother and herself to marry a younger woman in the name of his entitlement to have a male child, which was not possible in the marriage. In that case, the wife becomes an official failure, as in any  case that does not meet demands of the husband; having no son is bad enough to leave the marriage as well as that his wife grew too old to attract him, you name it. The protagonist is doomed to face how undervalued and exploited women are in the culture, and she dares to question the distorted logic made by men to serve only men's interests. When the culture imposes and even justifies the institutional abuse system against women, and if the women themselves are lucid and educated enough to say that is the bullshit that deteriorates the community, what could be the right manner and method to revolt the system? Is there any way to pursue justice for women? This is the third world feminism issu, and the novel is completely aware of the importance of giving voices to the voicelessness women have suffer from, and how to say the firm no to the predicament. I felt relieved to hear the fresh voice of a girl saying no so effortlessly to those lame fathers and useless male figures in the culture, and still does not lose her dignity as a member of the community; she keeps her head above water, and grows wise to distingusish right men from wrong men even in the same culture where her father was created from.

You always have to know how to say no and when to go if you are a woman, and the earlier you learn it, the better your life gets. (The message YA market is to convey to female kids and young women all around the world. THIS IS THE MISSION OF TODAY'S LITERATURE.)

This book also reminds me of another best seller on the same agenda of third world feminism, Reading Lolita in Teheran by Azar Nafisi. I was not entirely for the book when I read it; it has got a couple of obvious flaws, but I read it through any way for it offered a rare documentation of the underrepresented culture and curious stories of how feminism wa s studied and practised in the limited condition of the society of the particular time, under the Khomeini goverment, when the basic human rights, both men's and women's, were japordized.

One of the obvious flaws the book suffers for is that the author seemed to have a rigid game plan (=hyperthesis) she knew she would write on and did not seem to utilize the secret book reading group to the fullest; she would discuss anything but the harvest that came out of the real interaction with those readers whom she invited to share in the text and the occasion. The author, who had been teaching and quit the position for her political and ideological incompatiblity with the regime and fled to the US eventually, wanted to criticise the goverment for its inhumane treatment of their people, especially women, which sounded just correct to everybody outside of the country, inculuding a reader like myself. But the way the author compares those  texts as Nabokov, James etc. to the political system in the society sound so stretched and exaggerated that I almost called too unscientific, too much departure, or almost a kind of sophism. The biggest trouble even the author is not lucid about, or could not care less, might be that this is another text of narcissism of a super elite member of the society, and this point is not really examined in the context, for the author was supposed to be a victim enough to be female in the society. She keeps on and on about how her family is long run previledged one in Iran, and I know that it matters a lot, but I just got turned off. Just as Majene Satrapi, another Iranian female author of Persepolis did turn the readers like myself off for her elitism. And this jsut reminded me of the time when Marxism was still fashonable item to associate oneself with to show off like 1920's when all the artists were automaticly Marxists. Those who brag about their social standings and previledges coincidently seemed to like to consider themselves to be Marxists as well.

I believe what Nafisi had in mind to write would not have been any different whether she had or not had the secret reading group with her own students who shared the struggle with her, because her subject and ideas remained  unaffected by the experiences of the group. She had those fellow reader/students to pursue what she believed to be read in those texts, and/or she just made associations with anything forcefully and put them altogether as if they had to be told as their irreplacable stories, which did not really convinced me. Those students were more like hired to present data just to support her theory, and to offer an excuse to write about the author's previleged stance; she was there just to come back to the US where she had been before she started teaching there when anyone scacely had the previlage or luxury of the exile. This is what is shared in common with Satrapi as well.

The book is well written because she was after all a teacher who could handle literary criticism and knows how to read texts. But when it comes to using them to make scientific enough connection, consistency, proper cmparison&nbs p;and/or careful examination between those selected texts and the reality they were in, she fails. To draw any meaning regarding for the comparative studies on women's conditions or human conditions under oppressive states people often succumb to, the book marvellously succumbs to trivial and unfortunately self indulging one. There are so many departures in the book that I thought that you can use any social condition as an example or as a metaphor if you can make comparisons with these students and texts and call them relevent connections. It really could have been on anything and on any text when she forges such irrelevent evidences just to say 'the government is bad, the victim is everybody's womanhood in the culture, and I can catch it because I am previledged.'

I say this because I do understand that this sort of phenomena are j ust about everywhere when we try to see it in the level of universality rather than in particularity. If that was her attempt, however, what was the point of writing on the time, the place and the people she brought up as the subject? If she used the reading group to back up what she already knew she would write on, why didn't she read and write alone?

Another flaw that I could name was that the handle of the issues such as the silenced problem of sexual abuse women suffered from but hardly brought to light, and connecting it to the text of Lolita appeared to be too naive and shallow. But then, it might be always this awkward and uncomfortable when something that was not revealed before gets revealed. Therefore, if the aftertaste of disclosure was unpleasant, I believe it is not to be attributed to the book's limitation, but more to the cultural sore that has been untreated too long, but what else can be done but to expose when the sore is there? Let's not forget the time when the reading grounp took place was before Edward Said and his school Post Colonial Theory came to rise as the new and necessary tool of literary theory; the reason that those chosen texts appeared to be very ancient and uncool to be studied in the readers' community as the authors. Demn it. If only the author was more aware of the fellow literally scholar's on-going effort at the time. I got axcited and kicked myself for the what if fantasy that never happened in the reality. Nafasi's choice of texts were nothing to make students aware of that angle of reading English literature.

Summing up, Reading Lolita brings up issues, and the author did not really resolve them. It might be too much to ask the book to have sorted them out  before none of those issues gets taken care of or recognized by people there. But contradictorily, that might be the reason the book read insufficient and just exploiting the novelty value on Muslim women by a Muslim woman author. Still, this made me think; how much can you really ask for people who are midst of immediate survival to fulfill needs that might be beyond them. At the same time, there was another element that stirs the muddy enough water already;

I wound up feeling torn and uncomfortable when a sort of then lover of mine-a college professor- vohemently rebuked the book saying that the book was doing harm to the Muslim community and someone like himself (North American Middle Eastern descent) who was making an extra effort to defend Muslim people's rights as a whole regardless male or female in the US when odds were ultimately low under the current affair; the conflict of interests was tearing the community into pieces at the time, and he was ultimately frustrated, and he raised the book as the worst example of Muslim women's pointless claim  ;that was destroying the community. The crucial point was/is always if women remained silent or not, as so in the history. I think back and remember that I wondered how difficult it might be to be a woman in the culture and still be proud of oneself in the community.

I consider this issue somewhere so close to my own because I am still in the process of survival by denouncing the background of the likes more or less; I refuse to conform or silence myself under anything that negates each and everyone's life in any form. And I understand to my bones that the whole process would take sacrifices of any sense of belonging. Women often end up free only if they are disowned from communities they were originally from.

Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow was the book that got accepted for the voice nobody dared to voice nor to hear out until the riots broke out recently by those kids in France exactly like the protagonist of the story. And I have got to say that French twist of Muslim culture is more sophisticated than at least the one we observe here in the US even if it is underrepresented for subcultures often paradoxically thrive as resisting to the mainstream ones to battle over human rights restored for each and everybody in the name of liberty, equality and fraternity.