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Talismano
"Talismano" is a novelistic exploration of writing seen as a hallucinatory journey through half-remembered, half-imagined cities--in particular, the city of Tunis, both as it is now, and as it once was. Walking and writing, journey and journal, mirror one another to produce a calligraphic, magical a palimpsest of various languages and cultures, highlighting Abdelwahab Meddeb's beguiling mastery of both the Western and Islamic traditions. Meddeb's journey is first and foremost a sensual one, almost decadent, where the narrator luxuriates in the Tunis of his memories and intercuts these impressions with recollections of other cities at other times, reviving the mythical figures of Arab-Islamic legend that have faded from memory in a rapidly westernizing North Africa. A fever dream situated on the knife-edge between competing cultures, "Talismano" is a testament to the power of language to evoke, and subdue, experience.
265 pages, Paperback
First published May 3, 2011
11 people are currently reading
354 people want to read
About the author
Abdelwahab Meddeb
47 books17 followersAbdelwahab Meddeb (1946 – 5 November 2014) was an award-winning French-language poet, novelist, essayist, translator, editor, cultural critic, political commentator, radio producer, public intellectual and professor of comparative literature at the University of Paris X-Nanterre.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
sampled
July 9, 2019Read up to p.60. This Tunisian novel is too recondite and opaque for me, although the prose is an impressive netsuke of splendour on the sentence-making front. Here is a pleasing sample: For where does the writing begin? The body, surrounded by events and books, spills back into the world words of another kind, as it keeps accumulating and expending, inscribing a mirror image of itself, testifying as to all the coincident details, raising a looking glass where the body’s indescribable wealth and misery are displayed in all their glory. (p.42)
November 18, 2019
An obscene vaudeville de mauvais goût, where a few sentences were a light to his obscure writing.
I've heard of him during a meeting, a colleague praising the book to be as entrancing as Machiavels The Prince... I jumped on the name kept it, since I needed some outsider recommendations...
But I'm disappointed, the foreword promised more to this book than a mere juxtaposed words as épistolaire as Edmon Amran El Maleh texts (while those had a decent train of thoughts still)...
I was desperate to read about the maghreb, colonization, the few years after independence or simply know about more insolite anecdotes... All of which were not found...
Except for some Sufi quotes that were sparsely seeded in a few paragraphs, regardless of the context..
Sometimes I thought that maybe a big deal was lost in translation but whatever it was, I don't think it was worth reading anyway!
I've heard of him during a meeting, a colleague praising the book to be as entrancing as Machiavels The Prince... I jumped on the name kept it, since I needed some outsider recommendations...
But I'm disappointed, the foreword promised more to this book than a mere juxtaposed words as épistolaire as Edmon Amran El Maleh texts (while those had a decent train of thoughts still)...
I was desperate to read about the maghreb, colonization, the few years after independence or simply know about more insolite anecdotes... All of which were not found...
Except for some Sufi quotes that were sparsely seeded in a few paragraphs, regardless of the context..
Sometimes I thought that maybe a big deal was lost in translation but whatever it was, I don't think it was worth reading anyway!
February 27, 2020
an absolutely stunning lyric
October 5, 2011
Talismano, which was originally published in French by Éditions Sindbad in 1987, must have been quite a lot of work (and perhaps also quite a lot of fun) to translate. In her introduction, Jane Kuntz calls the book “willfully cryptic” and talks about how Meddeb’s language is a French inflected by Arabic, and not just Arabic, but classical Arabic and then also Tunisian dialect, “the latter being a delicious mixture of Arabic, Berber, Italian, and French” (V, XI). Kuntz also notes that Meddeb’s “ideal reader would almost have to be his intellectual match, someone well versed in the Koran and the Bible, in Islamic and Christian doctrine and culture, not to mention in the politics of one-party governmental regimes and the sprawling multigenerational households of the southern Mediterranean” (VI). Right. Put me down as a non-ideal reader for this book, then.
Maybe in part because I’m not Meddeb’s “ideal reader,” this book was a really slow read for me: it took me nearly a month to finish, though it’s under 300 pages. I wasn’t even reading any other books over the course of the month—though I was catching up on my subscription to the New Yorker. Sometimes I was reading slowly because the writing is so lovely I wanted to savor it; sometimes I was reading slowly because the writing is so dense and so allusive. I definitely like to look things up when I’m reading: I want to know more about unfamiliar words, unfamiliar places, philosophers or philosophies mentioned in passing, foods, drinks, architecture. There was a lot to look up in this book, and a lot to note down.
The book itself is twisty and difficult to describe: it’s a story of exile and a story of return and a story of rebellion, and it’s a mix of past and present, the narrator’s memories and the narrator’s imagination (and of course, Meddeb’s imagination). The narrative jumps around, but the book is divided into three main sections: “Return Prosititution,” about coming back, in memory or fact, to Tunis after a time away; “Idol Ghetto,” in which a crowd is struck with revolutionary fervor, which it expresses by building a grotesque idol from bits of bodies exhumed from a cemetery; and “Otherworld Procession,” in which that idol is carried through the streets to the mosque. Throughout there’s lots of sex and lots of rebellion against officialdom of many sorts (government, colonialism, religious strictures); there’s the crowd and its frenzy, the dream-logic of a mob, carnivalesque inversions of order, with a band of sorceresses taking control. There’s also a lot of delicious description, wonderful cityscapes, bits of Tunis, bits of Paris, bits of Rome, bits of Venice. The narrator is a writer and a walker, sometimes a flâneur, and the text is often very list-like, which I totally love: strings of images, the experience of a walk put onto the page: the narrator is “a wandering eye rummaging about, sometimes distractedly, transcribing the street”; he writes of what it is “to be body afoot, shaping the distances as they scatter” (86, 12). “I want to dissolve myself high on the city,” he says, (177), followed, a few pages later, by this:
I love the way the narrative jumps from place to place, city to city, Tunis to Venice, or Tunis to Paris to Rome to Cairo. Early in the book I was totally enchanted by the description of the birds of different cities, too long to quote here, but, oh, so good.
Maybe in part because I’m not Meddeb’s “ideal reader,” this book was a really slow read for me: it took me nearly a month to finish, though it’s under 300 pages. I wasn’t even reading any other books over the course of the month—though I was catching up on my subscription to the New Yorker. Sometimes I was reading slowly because the writing is so lovely I wanted to savor it; sometimes I was reading slowly because the writing is so dense and so allusive. I definitely like to look things up when I’m reading: I want to know more about unfamiliar words, unfamiliar places, philosophers or philosophies mentioned in passing, foods, drinks, architecture. There was a lot to look up in this book, and a lot to note down.
The book itself is twisty and difficult to describe: it’s a story of exile and a story of return and a story of rebellion, and it’s a mix of past and present, the narrator’s memories and the narrator’s imagination (and of course, Meddeb’s imagination). The narrative jumps around, but the book is divided into three main sections: “Return Prosititution,” about coming back, in memory or fact, to Tunis after a time away; “Idol Ghetto,” in which a crowd is struck with revolutionary fervor, which it expresses by building a grotesque idol from bits of bodies exhumed from a cemetery; and “Otherworld Procession,” in which that idol is carried through the streets to the mosque. Throughout there’s lots of sex and lots of rebellion against officialdom of many sorts (government, colonialism, religious strictures); there’s the crowd and its frenzy, the dream-logic of a mob, carnivalesque inversions of order, with a band of sorceresses taking control. There’s also a lot of delicious description, wonderful cityscapes, bits of Tunis, bits of Paris, bits of Rome, bits of Venice. The narrator is a writer and a walker, sometimes a flâneur, and the text is often very list-like, which I totally love: strings of images, the experience of a walk put onto the page: the narrator is “a wandering eye rummaging about, sometimes distractedly, transcribing the street”; he writes of what it is “to be body afoot, shaping the distances as they scatter” (86, 12). “I want to dissolve myself high on the city,” he says, (177), followed, a few pages later, by this:
The square has dissolved, trees seen from fifth-floor vantage, narrow balcony. Traces left behind, children’s merry-go-round leaves Chinese calligraphy patterns on the ground; over there, the pointy belfries of Saint-Jean-Baptiste of Belleville; beneath my feet the balcony drops away and I find myself airborne and light-headed, approaching the bell towers, sailing above the buildings, soaring over park and butte, bridge and pond, leaving behind apartment tower and suburb, Saint-Denis basilica, roof dripping green, dropping into the gloom, scattered cedars around Roissy, toward the land of mists. (179)
I love the way the narrative jumps from place to place, city to city, Tunis to Venice, or Tunis to Paris to Rome to Cairo. Early in the book I was totally enchanted by the description of the birds of different cities, too long to quote here, but, oh, so good.
January 30, 2022
"Not that the southern city is invulnerable—not that it does anything to dismantle the scaffolding of endless bureaucracy erected by politicians and technocrats; but the landscape seems to possess bottomless resources of resistance that facilitate the people's affecting a posture of somnolence and unity that better guarantees survival without deception or hypnosis: in this city, the people are masters of magnetism and of the power that breaks through the repressive asphalt, notwithstanding the residue of feudalism and the archaic pacts that still animate a propensity for the obsequious.
Where else can one find a more peculiar architectural form commissioned a century ago by the Sahrawi conquerors—pragmatic barbarians, makers of baroque cupolas, only one specimen of which remains, lost among palm trees and russet brick? This Ba'adiyin cupola, petals brightly salient on the calotte, a play of walls and openings, image of seashell and grape leaf, gathering their compartments into a central stem ending in the cupola faced with volutes, plaster worked into floral patterns, itself receptacle of figures, broken lines, curves and counter-curves, arabesque of line projected into space, perfect Almoravid accomplishment based upon the transposition of the principles of Islamic decoration, flora and planar geometry, to an architecture lending volume to flat motifs, rutilant container, a balance of breaches cleverly circulating blue sky: what uncertain solitude, what southerliness made possible this achievement by interpretation of register, audacity of one who emerges from the desert to impose the notion of unification, to attain an ideal to be formulated centuries later by a Borromini, a Guarini, to celebrate by monument the feast of Catholic power, triumphant propagator of faith after overcoming its schismatic trauma?"
—Otherworld Procession, p160-1
Where else can one find a more peculiar architectural form commissioned a century ago by the Sahrawi conquerors—pragmatic barbarians, makers of baroque cupolas, only one specimen of which remains, lost among palm trees and russet brick? This Ba'adiyin cupola, petals brightly salient on the calotte, a play of walls and openings, image of seashell and grape leaf, gathering their compartments into a central stem ending in the cupola faced with volutes, plaster worked into floral patterns, itself receptacle of figures, broken lines, curves and counter-curves, arabesque of line projected into space, perfect Almoravid accomplishment based upon the transposition of the principles of Islamic decoration, flora and planar geometry, to an architecture lending volume to flat motifs, rutilant container, a balance of breaches cleverly circulating blue sky: what uncertain solitude, what southerliness made possible this achievement by interpretation of register, audacity of one who emerges from the desert to impose the notion of unification, to attain an ideal to be formulated centuries later by a Borromini, a Guarini, to celebrate by monument the feast of Catholic power, triumphant propagator of faith after overcoming its schismatic trauma?"
—Otherworld Procession, p160-1
February 23, 2021
Difficult read that I admit I skimmed through. I got the general idea, but the stream of consciousness type books have never been attractive to me. I love when stories are part autobiographical or at least containe memories of the author. But this one hardly held my attention.
Read
May 2, 2022Started it... but I am sadly going to take a pass on this one, at least for now - perhaps I'll practice by reading Ulysses again, and then come back to it.
July 11, 2016
Starting this novel really made me think about just how Westernised my literary sphere is. I've read a couple of Japanese and Chinese texts (translated into English of course), but aside from that I almost exclusively read English and American texts. I rarely even branch out to European ones.
So, I ventured off into this avant-garde text written by a Tunisian author living in France with no idea what to expect in terms of tropes or themes or setting. I've read a few avant-garde texts before, the most memorable of which were definitely A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (a poem by Hugh MacDiarmid) and the poetry of Gertrude Stein. Seriously though Stein, you just endlessly elude me. I was basically prepared for this to be a little intangible as a result of this, and it definitely felt that way once I started the book.
I would probably describe Talismano as a sensory exploration of the clashing cultures of France and Tunisia. It is almost a recollection of the author's experiences in both places that are brought back through the haze of memory. As such, there are very few moments of dialogue, and it is hard to find one clear plot strand that continues coherently throughout the text.
The main message you receive amidst all the decadent sensual journeys of the text is that fundamentalist Islam needs to be altered to bring Tunisia into modernity. Meddeb himself is a strong believer in this ideal, and believes that Western influences may in fact nurture Tunisian Islam to a point of peace and prosperity.
The book is separated into three sections: 'Return Prostitution', 'Idol Ghetto' and 'Otherworld Procession'. The first section discusses the narrator's return to Tunis, and with this return comes a flood of memories of the brothels he has visited and still visits. The second section moves away from this bodily lust to a feverish mob atmosphere. The third is somewhat self-reflective, and moves between France and Tunisia, discussing writing and politics amidst a once more heady descriptive monologue.
I absolutely loved reading this text - it's like nothing I've ever read before, and was genuinely provocative. It made me pause to consider my surroundings: gather up the sounds, the smells, the sights, the tastes and my own sensations. It made me consider our Western world in an entirely new light. Most importantly perhaps, it opened up to me a whole new text that was like nothing I've ever read before.
I definitely feel much more encouraged to move away from Westernised texts and see what the rest of the world has to offer. So hopefully my reviews are about to get a whole lot more varied!
So, I ventured off into this avant-garde text written by a Tunisian author living in France with no idea what to expect in terms of tropes or themes or setting. I've read a few avant-garde texts before, the most memorable of which were definitely A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (a poem by Hugh MacDiarmid) and the poetry of Gertrude Stein. Seriously though Stein, you just endlessly elude me. I was basically prepared for this to be a little intangible as a result of this, and it definitely felt that way once I started the book.
I would probably describe Talismano as a sensory exploration of the clashing cultures of France and Tunisia. It is almost a recollection of the author's experiences in both places that are brought back through the haze of memory. As such, there are very few moments of dialogue, and it is hard to find one clear plot strand that continues coherently throughout the text.
The main message you receive amidst all the decadent sensual journeys of the text is that fundamentalist Islam needs to be altered to bring Tunisia into modernity. Meddeb himself is a strong believer in this ideal, and believes that Western influences may in fact nurture Tunisian Islam to a point of peace and prosperity.
The book is separated into three sections: 'Return Prostitution', 'Idol Ghetto' and 'Otherworld Procession'. The first section discusses the narrator's return to Tunis, and with this return comes a flood of memories of the brothels he has visited and still visits. The second section moves away from this bodily lust to a feverish mob atmosphere. The third is somewhat self-reflective, and moves between France and Tunisia, discussing writing and politics amidst a once more heady descriptive monologue.
I absolutely loved reading this text - it's like nothing I've ever read before, and was genuinely provocative. It made me pause to consider my surroundings: gather up the sounds, the smells, the sights, the tastes and my own sensations. It made me consider our Western world in an entirely new light. Most importantly perhaps, it opened up to me a whole new text that was like nothing I've ever read before.
I definitely feel much more encouraged to move away from Westernised texts and see what the rest of the world has to offer. So hopefully my reviews are about to get a whole lot more varied!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 24, 2021
Global Read Challenge: 30 Tunisia
This book made me want to go to Tunis for sure, and there were individual paragraphs that were beautiful, but the stream of conscious prose made it difficult to read.
This book made me want to go to Tunis for sure, and there were individual paragraphs that were beautiful, but the stream of conscious prose made it difficult to read.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews