Book Review: Arène by Négar Djavadi

 

Disoriental by the Iranian-born Négar Djavadi was one of the revelations of the last year. Tracing the story of a family who left Iran for escaping political persecutions, it describes so accurately the overwhelming conflicts of being a stranger in a world that will always consider you an outsider, with no physical country where you can savely return.

Therefore, I was over the moon to read her latest novel, Arène which I´ve read in the original French language. Arène - arenna, in English - is a place of fight, the gladiator´s rig, where the spectators are encouraging the fighters clapping loudly their hands, stamping their feet and screaming loud in support of one competitor or another. In the book, it refers to a small borrough in the Eastern part of Paris, where immigrants live. 

There is a fictional arena where the events are taking place, using the real places as a pretexte, while they are taking shape as characters and encounters created by the author and her only.

A teenager is found death and while while a policewoman who discovered it is mistreating the corpse she is filmed by a teenager girl. As expected, the short movie becomes viral and leads to unrest. On the other side of the screen, there is Benjamin Grosmann, himself a product of the ´banlieue´ but with more luck, who is leading a Netflix-alike company. And who happens to be stolen his handy, among other small events happening to him around the day, when he is not too busy to follow religiously his probiotic fitness lifestyle and training habits.

The facts are exposed in a channel-like unfolding, with a strong cinematic visual power. Djavadi´s experience behind the camera provided an extensive experience and inspiration. This is the way in which things are supposed to happen in our world. This is how our world goes wild: in short installments - like tweets or Instagram stories; the essential compressed in few words and minutes. There is no time for nuances, there is the rough original move which counts, and the moment before and the moment after but nothing more. No perspective, no second thoughts. There is not too much time. This is the city beat, Paris, but that Paris which is never included in the list of ´10 things to do´.

Visually, there are also the blank spaces on the page who are telling something. Something about why there are no words left. That blank when you cannot think further. When there is too much going on around you and in your head. The world of too many tweets and Fake news that one cannot control because, among others, also forgot how to double check. There is no time left, remember.

With so much emphasis on the story development, the characters themselves are lost. They don´t think too much, they don´t express themselves outside the arena of the social media. We may even forget about them caught in the middle of the daily storm. But me, I would have like to see them reacting somehow. 

Arène is a great novel of our times. A time when a short Tweet can change the world. Or at least lives. I wish there will be a movie made out of it. Not Netflix series, though.

Rating: 4.5 stars