Fact, Fable, and the Fantastic Approaches Tothe Novel of Warin the Francophone Literatureof Algeria
Fact, Fable, and the Fantastic Approaches to the Novel of War in the Francophone Literature of Algeria A careful survey of the literature of this conflict-torn century would, one suspects, reveal that the art of novel writing and the fact of war are often incompatible. Poetry is the genre most usually seen as best lending itself, in its intimacy and its immediacy, to the portrayal of the anguish, anger, and questioning with which war confronts the individual. As Christiane Achour has it in Anthologie de la littdrature algdrienne de langue fran~aise:"When conflict breaks out, novel-writing gives way to forms of writing that are more incisive, more alert, more immediate, more easily transmissiblen (79).1 This is not, of course, to suggest that novels about war are never written, or indeed that they do not abound. But it is rather the case that, while other forms of dcriture de combat such as memoirs, chronicles, and other testimonies seem particularly suited to the task of conveying the impact of conflict, the novel too often becomes bogged down in patriotic didacticism or partisan stereotyping. Tolstoy, Stephen Crane, Joesph Heller: a few minutes of thought will cast up the truly great exceptions. But considerably less effort is required to call to mind writers such as Wilfred Owen, Paul hard, Siegfried Sassoon, Guillaume Apollinaire, Benjamin PQet, Ungaretti, Stephen Spender, Jacques PrCvert, Henri Barbusse, or R. C. Sheriff. The Algerian War of Independence (1954-62) is one example among many of a conflict giving rise to many mediocre, but some memorable, novels.
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