Desert

by J.M.G. Le Clézio

Book Overview

From master storyteller J. M. G. Le Cl zio: winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature Desert is two stories. The first takes place in the desert between 1909 and 1912 and evokes the migration of a young... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1567923860
• ISBN13: 9781567923865
• Release Date: July 2009
• Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Man & Women

I have just discovered LeClezio so I'm glad he won the Nobel. If he hadn't, I wouldn't have found him. The prose is poetical and his descriptions very beautiful. If, like me, you like beautiful prose, read this. Having become accustomed to novels that follow the formula of - create the friction between characters right away and let the story be told through dialogue - I started my usual fast reading, skim, scan, get the idea and move on but it didn't work. LeClezio's prose demanded that I respect it. I started reading aloud to slow myself down to a gentle read and I was thrilled with the lyricism, rhythm, and care that was taken with the description. I sank into it and allowed myself to ride along with the author. Slow down and read. You will be pleased you did. The story of Lalla was, in addition to being a comment on the horror and greed that accompanies colonialism, restored to womem a sense of respect. I have always wished that I could be someone like Lalla, that I wouln't bow to the society's view of women. She allows me to have a strong, independent view of myself of a women. She is what I should be and what I should have been before capitualization to pragmatism and compromise. Nours story is the sad story of the elimination of a culture seen as barbaric. For example Christians proselytize and view other religions as paganistic. They criticize and 'save' the barbarians and in the process kill off all who differ with them. Nour is a pure, good, wonderful boy. He wants only to do what is good. He, along with the shiek he follows are murdered. This juxtaposes the view of the shiek's followers to whom he is a 'Christlike' figure and the view of the French that he is evil. In India, Rama had blue skin and this appears elsewhere in other religions. Blue skin means a diety is among us. Just a comment. It is not really part of the book.

Beautiful, lyrical language

This isn't a traditional novel, it certainly don't contain a strong plot where the interaction between characters drive it forward. She meets other characters, she moves through a landscape, but she doesn't understand them anymore than they understand her. It's a beautiful poetical meditation about the inner-life of the people of the Maghreb. The main character that you spend the most time with is an uneducated orphan that creates explanations for what happens around her out of superstitions, stories told by the fire, and dreams. Seen through her eyes, there's a lot of magic and wonder in the desert. It's all about the images.

Suzanne M. Necoechea should learn how to use these reviews

The previous reviewer, Suzanne M. Necoechea, should realize that these are BOOK reviews. She may have a legitimate complaint about the delivery of her order, but in creating a one-star review she has unjustifiably given the book itself a bad review. Since there are only a few reviews posted for the book so far, her one-star rating has a disproportional impact and severely downgrades the overall rating for the book. Many customers will not bother to look beyond the overall rating when browsing the catalog. She should withdraw her review.

"As if she had only slept an hour or two... "

Lalla and Nour, the two young protagonists of this engrossing novel, have a lot in common. Descendants of an ancient Berber tribe in the Western Sahara, they carry the traditions, the stories and visions of their tribe, and, last not least, the intimate connectedness to the rugged desert lands of their forebears. Still, their lives never connected directly: Nour was born at the end of the nineteenth century and Lalla could have been his great-grandchild, a teenager probably in the nineteen seventies. Their two narrative streams are interleaved, resulting in a moving and extraordinary portrait of two special children, their culture and times. Each an astute observer of their surroundings, their view of the world, while innocent and dreamlike, also holds depth and hope for the future. From the first pages Le Clézio's "Désert" carries the reader into another world: a caravan of nomadic Berber tribes, led by the famous "Men in blue", the Tuareg, slowly winds it way through a landscape harsh and bleak to the extreme, yet stunningly beautiful and profoundly mystical. The Berber and Tuareg clans have called this part of the Sahara desert their home for thousands of years. In the North (today's Morocco) the chiefs were promised new pasture land to settle. Based on the historical events of 1909 to 1912 when the sovereignty of the tribal chiefs under the leadership of Ma el Ainine was finally crushed by the French colonial forces, the author introduces Nour as the young observer. Through his eyes we follow the Berber efforts to protect the ancestral lands from invading forces and ward off the "soldiers of the Christians". Ma el Ainine, revered as a holy man and grand chief by his people, was regarded by the French as a "fanatic", a "savage" and murderer who needed to be destroyed at all cost. Le Clézio realistically depicts the desolate conditions facing the chiefs, their ragged warriors, and the women and children, weakened by hunger, following behind as well as they could. Nonetheless, his empathy with these proud defenders of their desert lands is openly displayed through Nour's perspective. At the time of publication in 1980, it was rare for a French author to take so determinedly the position of the historical underdog as Le Clézio. The other protagonist, Lalla, a lone orphan raised by her aunt, is like a spirit child of African story telling. Living in a desolate shanty town on the outskirts of a Moroccan sea-side town, she prefers nature to people and is irresistibly drawn to the desert close by, the rugged hills and high plateaus where she dreams and loses herself in the stories of her mysterious past. She senses, mainly subconsciously, her unique heritage deeply rooted in herself: belonging to an ancient desert tribe, deeply connected to the sun-drenched and parched land that constantly calls her. The line between reality and visions are easily blurred, especially whenever she feels the intense watchful eye of "Es Ser", who she calls "th

A novel about freedom?

This book makes everybody dream who reads it. Written in two different time areas set up in a very interesting way, it tracks the life of African nomads at the beginning of the century through a young descendant of this tribe, Lalla. Lalla lives a childhood in a poor environment, but she is free and can grow up wildly following the shepherd boys into the desert. It is a country, where speech doesn't count - anyway, this would be too exhausting. The story continues to always surprise, especially by the beautiful pictures drawn - full of sadness and strength. She grows up, but the lyric of her life stays alive, she withstands modernisation and everything money brings with it, too.