One-Way: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Surreal Quest
Review: Aziz Kemal is not his real name. He lives in Marseilles, France, with the Gypsies who rescued him from the car crash in which his parents died. He carries fake Moroccan papers and he's not sure who or what he really is. His specialty is stealing car radios and he is very good at it. He has a brief shot at happiness when he is to be engaged to Lila, but then, at the engagement party, he is arrested, and soon he will be deported as an illegal alien.

Where will he be sent? Why, Morocco of course, a land he has never visited and knows nothing about. The government has thoughtfully provided a "humanitarian attache" to accompany Aziz and help him get settled in his "homeland." So far, strange enough, but now things quickly get stranger and stranger. Asked to identify his home town he is forced to invent one, and the two of them set out earnestly trying to find it.

From the first page, the author makes it clear that he is not dealing in ordinary reality. This is a mythic book, a surrealistic allegory about identity. A person is nothing more or less than the stories he tells about himself, so it seems to be saying, stories that may be based in reality or made up out of whole cloth. Maybe even stories that belong to someone else. Author Cauwelaert explores this concept in flowing, readable prose.

Although the story begins in delightful absurd whimsy, it gradually becomes more somber, more convoluted, more self-consciously significant. In fact, it begins to drag. Although One-Way is a short book, it was a bit of an effort for me to finish it. I would recommend it with some reservations, a novel that is enjoyable, intriguing, but flawed. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

Rating:
Summary: At Home in the Universe
Review: Van Caulwelaert's novel reads well in its English translation from the original French. It is a magical tale with its own sense of reality, one where truthfulness takes a back seat to practicality & imagination. The irony of circumstances that send the book spiraling out of control are hilarious. I often found myself laughing aloud, something I rarely do from the written word. For example, once in Morocco, Aziz tries to impress the hotel that he has papers from King Hussein, only to be corrected by the travel guide that King Hussein is in Jordan while King Hassan is from Morocco. Aziz's false bravado throughout the tale makes him a fascinating protagonist.

The twist of fate that results in the baby being rescued from a burning car in Marseilles, given fake papers by his Gypsy rescuers with an Arabic name that proclaims him a citizen of Morocco, and then to be apprehended by the French government at his engagement party at age 19 to be repatriated to a country to which he has never been, whose language & customs he doesn't know, befriended by the French agent Jean-Pierre Schnieder and bedded by tour guide Valerie in Rabat is an engaging plot that keeps us waiting for the next unexpected development page after page. The gypsy customs are also hilariously odd as Aziz makes love to his girlfriend Lila by the back door so as to preserve her virginity for her fiancee Rajko. The episodic foray into the untamed Atlas Mountains is a journey of wonderful stupidity as Aziz bluffs his way further and further into the unknown toward his imaginary home of Irghiz.

While a translation, I found the dialogue and description riveting that made the pages zoom. The dust jacket proclaims that this book won France's highest literary prize. I found it to be wonderfully endearing and was sorry to let the characters go. Enjoy!