From Francophonie to World Literature in French by Thérèse Migraine-George

Author:Thérèse Migraine-George [Migraine-George Thérèse]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4962-0924-5
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Published: 2018-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

This antithetical and even cannibalistic maternal figure therefore underscores Condé’s desire to stave off—“parer”—didacticism and what Manenti calls “a monosemic reading” (2006, 192) of her novel, whose “heterogeneous aesthetics” fosters a fertile space of strangeness and obscurity and compels Kassem and the readers to differentiate themselves from preestablished codes and norms.

In fact Kassem at the end is confronted with an ultimate and solitary choice as he learns that Aminata, the woman he loved and unsuccessfully tried to marry in Marseille because of her father’s opposition, has become pregnant. Kassem now has to choose between staying with Ramzi, whom he loves as well, and reintegrating a stable family structure. Kassem decides to leave but cannot resist the temptation to see Ramzi one last time. The novel closes on the following uncertain ending after Ramzi embraces Kassem and entreats him to stay with him: “A thousand bittersweet memories swept over [Kassem] while a flood of contradictory feelings, dread, disgust, but mainly tenderness and desire rushed into him. Something gave in in his chest, softly tore like a piece of cloth worn out by too many washings. His eyes filled with tears and he heard himself sobbing like he hadn’t sobbed for years, since the days of his childhood in Sussy” (Condé 2008, 319). The final meaning of the book remains the readers’ and critics’ responsibility rather than the writer’s. Readers, who are often addressed directly in the novel, have to decide whether they want to choose a moral or “immoral” ending, whether they want to go back and live with Aminata or to stay with Ramzi. Condé herself indicates that as a writer, she has to give in to uncertainty: “It’s very hard to tell the story of one’s book. In fact you talk about things that you haven’t entirely mastered, that even escape you all the time—characters, places, adventures, you discover them gradually” (quoted in Fulton 2006, 153). Alternatively, instead of imposing meaning on the text, readers may just want, like Kassem, to abandon themselves to the bliss of ignorance and uncertainty, to the realization that they will never penetrate the book yet will remain fascinated by its evasive and deceitfully warm maternal embrace. Instead of struggling to find meaning, they might prefer to let themselves be overwhelmed by the turmoil of contradictory feelings—fear, disgust, but also tenderness and desire—while the book and its meaning “softly [tear] like a piece of cloth worn out by too many washings” (Condé 2008, 319).

Condé’s Explosive Littérature-Monde

Condé’s reflection on literature as a heterogeneous space of dialogic negotiations in Les belles ténébreuses can also be read as embodying her creative view on littérature-monde, whose conceptual birth she endorsed by signing the 2007 manifesto and contributing a piece to Pour une littérature-monde. To the question “Do you consider yourself a French, Guadeloupean, or Francophone writer?” Condé answers, “I see myself as a writer. People who want to add labels are free to do so. I don’t live my life as a Guadeloupean or a Francophone writer. I write, that’s all” (quoted in Pfaff 1996, 31–32).

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