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The Pillar of Salt
Originally published in 1953 (in English in 1955), The Pillar of Salt the semi-autobiographical novel about a young boy growing up in French colonized Tunisia. To gain access to privileged French society, he must reject his many identities – Jew, Arab, and African. But, on the eve of World War II, he is forced to come to terms with his loyalties and his past.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1953
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About the author
Albert Memmi
67 books138 followersTunisian Jewish writer and essayist who migrated to France.
Born in Tunisia under French protectorate, from a Tunisian Jewish mother, Marguerite Sarfati, and a Tunisian-Italian Jewish father, François Memmi, he speaks French and Tunisian-Judeo-Arabic. He claims to be of Berber ancestry. He was educated in French primary schools, and continued on to the Carnot high school in Tunis, the University of Algiers where he studied philosophy, and finally the Sorbonne in Paris. Albert Memmi found himself at the crossroads of three cultures, and based his work on the difficulty of finding a balance between the East and the West.
His best-known nonfiction work is "The Colonizer and the Colonized", about the interdependent relationship of the two groups. It was published in 1957, a time when many national liberation movements were active. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote the preface. The work is often read in conjunction with Frantz Fanon's "Les damnés de la Terre" ("The Wretched of the Earth") and "Peau noire, masques blancs" ("Black Skin, White Masks") and Aimé Césaire's "Discourse on Colonialism." In October 2006, Memmi's follow-up to this work, titled "Decolonization and the Decolonized," was published. In this book, Memmi suggests that in the wake of global decolonization, the suffering of former colonies cannot be attributed to the former colonizers, but to the corrupt leaders and governments that control these states.
Born in Tunisia under French protectorate, from a Tunisian Jewish mother, Marguerite Sarfati, and a Tunisian-Italian Jewish father, François Memmi, he speaks French and Tunisian-Judeo-Arabic. He claims to be of Berber ancestry. He was educated in French primary schools, and continued on to the Carnot high school in Tunis, the University of Algiers where he studied philosophy, and finally the Sorbonne in Paris. Albert Memmi found himself at the crossroads of three cultures, and based his work on the difficulty of finding a balance between the East and the West.
His best-known nonfiction work is "The Colonizer and the Colonized", about the interdependent relationship of the two groups. It was published in 1957, a time when many national liberation movements were active. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote the preface. The work is often read in conjunction with Frantz Fanon's "Les damnés de la Terre" ("The Wretched of the Earth") and "Peau noire, masques blancs" ("Black Skin, White Masks") and Aimé Césaire's "Discourse on Colonialism." In October 2006, Memmi's follow-up to this work, titled "Decolonization and the Decolonized," was published. In this book, Memmi suggests that in the wake of global decolonization, the suffering of former colonies cannot be attributed to the former colonizers, but to the corrupt leaders and governments that control these states.
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August 12, 2022
Live It Out
Albert Memmi's (1920 --2020) novel, "The Pillar of Salt" (1955) is set in French Tunisia in the between the two World Wars and through WW II. The book is told in the first person by a highly introverted, self-centered young man, Alexandre Mordekhai Benillouche, and tells the story of his life through early manhood. The novel is much in the character of French existentialism.
The narrator is a Tunisian Jew and the child of a poor family that lives in an alley ghetto. His father is Italian and a craftsman who works with leather while his mother is illiterate and a Berber. The narrator is raised in an observant Jewish home and after a rudimentary early education is accepted into a high school through a sponsor who pays all his expenses. Young Benillouche graduates at the top of his class with the ambition of continuing his education and becoming a philosopher. His dreams are interrupted by WW II.
The story is told in a highly personal, almost atomized voice, and its theme is the narrator's search for personal identity. Benillouche sees himself as a combination of Jewish, Arabic, and African. As he studies in school, he comes to want to see himself is a European, as a French intellectual. He is not accepted by his peers due to his poverty, national origin, religion, and mannerisms. Benillouche comes to understand through these experiences and through subsequent experiences in the War that he cannot be accepted as a European, either by others or by himself. He continues to reject the earlier parts of his identity. With the end of the war, Benillouche appears isolated and at a loss as how to lead his life.
The novel offers a mostly convincing portrayal of the young narrator and of how he forms his outlook on life. It includes many well-drawn scenes, including the pictures of the alley in which the narrator grows up, his growing love for philosophy, his sexual initiation in a brothel, and more.
It also offers a picture of Jewish life in French Tunisia, a place I knew little about. I could understand the young man's dreams of philosophy and the way there were dashed. With all the echoes of French existentialism, the book reminded me most of Ralph Ellison's novel "Invisible Man." in the protagonist's ultimate feeling of loss and isolation.
The novel illustrates a mood as well as telling a particular coming of age story. It might encourage other ways of thinking of questions of personal identity than the ways largely forced on the young narrator by himself and by those around him. Individuals might be viewed as having many identities, not a single essence, and different identities are shared with different people. That is not the tenor of this book or the young narrator. This approach might not be suggested by his own experience.
Memmi revisited this novel late in his life. In a brief Introduction written in 2013, he described the book as "a young man's account of a difficult journey at the dawn of his life among the fears and humiliations of his family, the suspicious ambiguity of Muslims and the contempt of Western colonizers and a document about a community that has now all but disappeared." Albert Camus wrote a Preface to the original French edition of "Pillar of Salt". He praised the book and the author's depiction of the struggles of its young protagonist. Camus wrote perceptively: "All of us, French and born in North Africa, also remain who we are, faced with contradictions that today bloody our cities, and which we will not overcome by fleeing them, but by living them out." Camus' recognition that difficulties and contradictions are not to be overcome by flight but by "living them out" beautifully summarizes the response I had to Memmi's fine novel.
Robin Friedman
Albert Memmi's (1920 --2020) novel, "The Pillar of Salt" (1955) is set in French Tunisia in the between the two World Wars and through WW II. The book is told in the first person by a highly introverted, self-centered young man, Alexandre Mordekhai Benillouche, and tells the story of his life through early manhood. The novel is much in the character of French existentialism.
The narrator is a Tunisian Jew and the child of a poor family that lives in an alley ghetto. His father is Italian and a craftsman who works with leather while his mother is illiterate and a Berber. The narrator is raised in an observant Jewish home and after a rudimentary early education is accepted into a high school through a sponsor who pays all his expenses. Young Benillouche graduates at the top of his class with the ambition of continuing his education and becoming a philosopher. His dreams are interrupted by WW II.
The story is told in a highly personal, almost atomized voice, and its theme is the narrator's search for personal identity. Benillouche sees himself as a combination of Jewish, Arabic, and African. As he studies in school, he comes to want to see himself is a European, as a French intellectual. He is not accepted by his peers due to his poverty, national origin, religion, and mannerisms. Benillouche comes to understand through these experiences and through subsequent experiences in the War that he cannot be accepted as a European, either by others or by himself. He continues to reject the earlier parts of his identity. With the end of the war, Benillouche appears isolated and at a loss as how to lead his life.
The novel offers a mostly convincing portrayal of the young narrator and of how he forms his outlook on life. It includes many well-drawn scenes, including the pictures of the alley in which the narrator grows up, his growing love for philosophy, his sexual initiation in a brothel, and more.
It also offers a picture of Jewish life in French Tunisia, a place I knew little about. I could understand the young man's dreams of philosophy and the way there were dashed. With all the echoes of French existentialism, the book reminded me most of Ralph Ellison's novel "Invisible Man." in the protagonist's ultimate feeling of loss and isolation.
The novel illustrates a mood as well as telling a particular coming of age story. It might encourage other ways of thinking of questions of personal identity than the ways largely forced on the young narrator by himself and by those around him. Individuals might be viewed as having many identities, not a single essence, and different identities are shared with different people. That is not the tenor of this book or the young narrator. This approach might not be suggested by his own experience.
Memmi revisited this novel late in his life. In a brief Introduction written in 2013, he described the book as "a young man's account of a difficult journey at the dawn of his life among the fears and humiliations of his family, the suspicious ambiguity of Muslims and the contempt of Western colonizers and a document about a community that has now all but disappeared." Albert Camus wrote a Preface to the original French edition of "Pillar of Salt". He praised the book and the author's depiction of the struggles of its young protagonist. Camus wrote perceptively: "All of us, French and born in North Africa, also remain who we are, faced with contradictions that today bloody our cities, and which we will not overcome by fleeing them, but by living them out." Camus' recognition that difficulties and contradictions are not to be overcome by flight but by "living them out" beautifully summarizes the response I had to Memmi's fine novel.
Robin Friedman
February 9, 2017
This is a well-written novel about the life of a Jewish Tunisian boy, growing up in the years leading up to WW2. It is generally considered to be autobiographical, and though the narrator’s name is not the author’s, it reads more like a memoir than a novel: it records Alexandre’s memories and thoughts about his life, but has few if any traditional scenes and very little dialogue or physical description; the detail is primarily emotional. And yet, the specific incidents that make up the narrator’s experiences feel drawn from life, rather than the types of occurrences an author is likely to invent.
The first section of the novel is about Alexandre’s childhood, and it begins in almost idyllic fashion, though it gains complexity as he becomes aware of his family’s poverty and the divisions in his society. The second and longest section follows him through high school, torn between the traditional lifestyle of his family (who come to resent allowing him to study at all, since it means not bringing in money) and the European middle class. This part of the book reminded me of Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels in its examination of social class, through the lens of an impoverished student trying to succeed in an almost foreign world. The final section is about WW2 and the German occupation, and while this is by no means a thriller, it introduces some suspense and is a different sort of war story than I’d read before.
At any rate, I enjoyed this book: it is well-written (or well-translated), and the narrator is complex and feels genuine. While there’s no single plot, the story kept my interest, and formed a great introduction to the complexities of a place I knew next to nothing about. The supporting characters receive less development, and there are more of them than we could get to know well – again, in memoir-like fashion – but in a story focused on the narrator’s search for identity, it works. I would recommend this one.
The first section of the novel is about Alexandre’s childhood, and it begins in almost idyllic fashion, though it gains complexity as he becomes aware of his family’s poverty and the divisions in his society. The second and longest section follows him through high school, torn between the traditional lifestyle of his family (who come to resent allowing him to study at all, since it means not bringing in money) and the European middle class. This part of the book reminded me of Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels in its examination of social class, through the lens of an impoverished student trying to succeed in an almost foreign world. The final section is about WW2 and the German occupation, and while this is by no means a thriller, it introduces some suspense and is a different sort of war story than I’d read before.
At any rate, I enjoyed this book: it is well-written (or well-translated), and the narrator is complex and feels genuine. While there’s no single plot, the story kept my interest, and formed a great introduction to the complexities of a place I knew next to nothing about. The supporting characters receive less development, and there are more of them than we could get to know well – again, in memoir-like fashion – but in a story focused on the narrator’s search for identity, it works. I would recommend this one.
February 1, 2018
Every day that I picked this up, I thought how fortunate I am to be part of the Goodreads community. Otherwise, I likely would never have known about this book, nor availed myself of the opportunity of reading it. It isn't long enough for it to have taken nearly a week to finish. I found myself time-challenged several days and, though that should not be an excuse, time somehow has a way of escaping despite my best intentions.
The description of this tells us it is a coming of age story. The last sentence is accurate: This is an unusual man’s coming of age story and a document about a community that has now all but disappeared. I'd like to emphasize the word unusual, because this is anything but what one might expect of a coming of age story. It is so much more than that, though, because the second part of that sentence is what makes this of enduring interest. What would I know about Tunis if it were not for this book? (And yes, I know little of the Tunis today, but can feel confident it is much different.) It begins between the wars.
The description of this tells us it is a coming of age story. The last sentence is accurate: This is an unusual man’s coming of age story and a document about a community that has now all but disappeared. I'd like to emphasize the word unusual, because this is anything but what one might expect of a coming of age story. It is so much more than that, though, because the second part of that sentence is what makes this of enduring interest. What would I know about Tunis if it were not for this book? (And yes, I know little of the Tunis today, but can feel confident it is much different.) It begins between the wars.
I was ten years old, as I’ve said, and an only son. I indeed had my sister Kalla, but in our families the son, especially an only son, is truly a privileged being. For a long while, I actually expected to hear God speak to me personally, and my heart often beat faster if I thought that I could distinguish a voice speaking in the rustling of tree leaves. Always encouraged and confirmed in my awareness of superiority, I was convinced that an extraordinary destiny awaited me.Later, our first person narrator has begun to see things a bit differently. In this sentence, we perhaps learn how difficult a melting pot that doesn't melt can be for some. How difficult it can be to be no one who matters!
I’m African, not European. In the long run, I would always be forced to return to Alexandre Mordekhai Benillouche, a native in a colonial country, a Jew in an anti-Semitic universe, an African in a world dominated by Europe.I cannot write enough good things about my reading experience of this. While I cannot relate in any way to the first person narrator - and never shed a tear - Memmi well conveys the pain of this childhood, this coming of age. Memmi has written others. I don't know if I will have the opportunity to read any of them, but I most certainly would not avoid him - ever. This belongs on my 5-star shelf!
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December 25, 2020Shout out to this book here https://themillions.com/2020/12/a-yea...
May 13, 2025
"La statue de sel" est deux choses. Premièrement, c'est un bildungsroman assez ordinaire où l'auteur raconte l'histoire de sa jeunesse à Tunis entre les années 1920 et 1945. Deuxièmement, c'est une réflexion sur la hiérarchie de becquetage dans une société coloniale. On lit le roman pour l'analyse des rapports de force entre les groupes ethniques présents en Tunisie plutôt que pour l'histoire personnelle de l'auteur.
Alexandre le protagoniste du roman (et alter ego de Memmi) est fils d'un bourrelier juif maghrébin ce qui le place à l'avant dernier barreau de l'échelle sociale tunisienne de l'époque. Sur les barreaux plus élevés il y a les juifs de souche européenne, des musulmans et en haut les français en haut. (La Tunisie est à l'époque un protectorat français.) Parce que le père possède sa propre boutique, la famille n'est pas du plus niveau de la société. Alexandre a l'ambition de se hisser au niveau français via la réussite de scolaire.
L'occupation allemande mêle les cartes. Dans un camp de travail, Alexandre décide qu'il tient a son statut de juif. Après la libération de Tunis par les forces américains, Alexandre essaie de s'enrôler dans l'armée de la France libre mais on l'accepte pas parce que son nom est juif. Alors, Alexandre quitte la Tunisie pour l'Argentine.
J'ai trouve le dénouement de "La statue de sel" peu convaincant mais dans l'ensemble le roman est assez bien réussi. Plus important, on trouve dans "La statue de sel" l'exposé des thèses d'un grand expert sur les rapports sociaux dans les sociétés coloniales.
Alexandre le protagoniste du roman (et alter ego de Memmi) est fils d'un bourrelier juif maghrébin ce qui le place à l'avant dernier barreau de l'échelle sociale tunisienne de l'époque. Sur les barreaux plus élevés il y a les juifs de souche européenne, des musulmans et en haut les français en haut. (La Tunisie est à l'époque un protectorat français.) Parce que le père possède sa propre boutique, la famille n'est pas du plus niveau de la société. Alexandre a l'ambition de se hisser au niveau français via la réussite de scolaire.
L'occupation allemande mêle les cartes. Dans un camp de travail, Alexandre décide qu'il tient a son statut de juif. Après la libération de Tunis par les forces américains, Alexandre essaie de s'enrôler dans l'armée de la France libre mais on l'accepte pas parce que son nom est juif. Alors, Alexandre quitte la Tunisie pour l'Argentine.
J'ai trouve le dénouement de "La statue de sel" peu convaincant mais dans l'ensemble le roman est assez bien réussi. Plus important, on trouve dans "La statue de sel" l'exposé des thèses d'un grand expert sur les rapports sociaux dans les sociétés coloniales.
November 2, 2007
Présenté comme un récit fictionnalisé, il s'agit des mémoires d'un jeune juif tunisien du ghetto.
Un très beau récit. A lire absolument.
Un très beau récit. A lire absolument.
November 10, 2020
"If my principal had only known how I envied him! This average Frenchman from Burgundy, with his old culture and good background, a university man and a Republican of good family, suffered because he was in a foreign land! I am ill at ease in my own land and I know of no other. My culture is borrowed and I speak my mother tongue haltingly. I have neither religious beliefs nor tradition, and am ashamed of whatever particle of them has survived deep within me. To try to explain what I am, I would need an intelligent audience and much time: I am a Tunisian but of French culture ("You know, the art of Racine, an art that is perfectly French, is accessible only to the French…."). I am Tunisian, but Jewish, which means that I am politically and socially an outcast. I speak the language of the country with a particular accent and emotionally I have nothing in common with Moslems. I am a Jew who has broken with the Jewish religion and the ghetto, is ignorant of Jewish culture, and detests the middle class because it is phony. I am poor but desperately anxious not to be poor, and at the same time, I refuse to take the necessary steps to avoid poverty."
This book was my introduction to Jewish MENA diaspora literature. Being so familiar with Ashkenazi writers, I expected a different experience from a Tunisian writer, but from the first chapter I was half surprised to note more familiar themes than new ones, and very well written. The theme of Colonialism is an added layer to the classic Jewish narrative of ghetto life, pogroms, parents who use guilt as a weapon, Nazi labor camps, and the holy Shabat.
Identity is the central theme in this book. I wish Monsieur Memmi took time to develop the secondary characters more. I'm curious about some characters who drifted off suddenly in the narrative. I did appreciate that the narrator is transparent and honest with himself, even if he may be a tad self-absorbed.
I note the influence of the French existentialists, but thankfully the melodrama is kept within a tolerable limit.
This book was my introduction to Jewish MENA diaspora literature. Being so familiar with Ashkenazi writers, I expected a different experience from a Tunisian writer, but from the first chapter I was half surprised to note more familiar themes than new ones, and very well written. The theme of Colonialism is an added layer to the classic Jewish narrative of ghetto life, pogroms, parents who use guilt as a weapon, Nazi labor camps, and the holy Shabat.
Identity is the central theme in this book. I wish Monsieur Memmi took time to develop the secondary characters more. I'm curious about some characters who drifted off suddenly in the narrative. I did appreciate that the narrator is transparent and honest with himself, even if he may be a tad self-absorbed.
I note the influence of the French existentialists, but thankfully the melodrama is kept within a tolerable limit.
December 19, 2017
Ce roman, préfacé par Camus, est considéré comme un classique de la littérature maghrébine. Son écriture, sobre, limpide, est démonstrative et presque didactique. Ses thèmes sont l'interrogation sur l'identité et les rapports du moi avec sa communauté et les autres groupes qui cohabitent à Tunis avant et pendant la seconde guerre mondiale. Sa structure est celle du roman autobiographique : le héros, Alexandre Mordekhaï Benillouche, Juif tunisois pauvre, découvre tour à tour l'école, la sexualité, la peur, la solidarité. Apparenté à un roman à thèse, ce livre s'ouvre sur l'impasse Tarfoune, la hara, le quartier juif et finit par l'exil volontaire et presque fortuit. Entre les deux, le héros n'arrive à s'ancrer ni dans sa famille et sa communauté, trop dévalorisées par référence au fascinant rationalisme occidental appris à l'école française, ni dans ce rationalisme même, mis à rude épreuve par les intérêts sordides et les compromissions historiques de l'Occident qui n'est idéal que dans les livres, ni enfin à la jeune nation en devenir qu'est cette Tunisie dont il se sent l'enfant et à laquelle il sait intuitivement qu'il ne pourra pas s'intégrer. [par Afifa Marzouki]
October 18, 2021
Memmi's book is so tragic to me that it was nearly unpalatable. His writing style is Dostoevsky-esque, if Dostoevsky solely wrote about his emotions. Memmi's narrator (which, let's face it, is basically Albert Memmi) is able to identify his emotions and the things going on in society but is unable to parse them, seemingly falling into a downward spiral without making any real forward progress in his life.
I felt embarrassed and ashamed for him, and I was terrified to recognize myself in him and his predicament.
"I saw clearly that my cutting myself off entirely from my own original background did not necessarily allow me to enter any other group. Just as I sat on the fence between two civilizations, so would I now find myself between two classes; and I realized that, in trying to sit on several chairs, one generally lands on the floor."
"I was cast out of the group by a movement like that of an amoeba ejecting a foreign body."
"The two parts of my being spoke two different languages and would never understand each other."
I felt embarrassed and ashamed for him, and I was terrified to recognize myself in him and his predicament.
"I saw clearly that my cutting myself off entirely from my own original background did not necessarily allow me to enter any other group. Just as I sat on the fence between two civilizations, so would I now find myself between two classes; and I realized that, in trying to sit on several chairs, one generally lands on the floor."
"I was cast out of the group by a movement like that of an amoeba ejecting a foreign body."
"The two parts of my being spoke two different languages and would never understand each other."
October 6, 2021
1.5? There are a lot of great points in this book to be discussed around facets of identity but all of them are overwhelmed (for me) by how little I enjoyed being in this pompous and condescending narrator's head (and occasional weird fever dream).
February 13, 2024
Great class read. A really interesting exploration of what makes up personal identity, and the respective roles of oneself and one’s surroundings in its formation
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February 13, 2024I read this book half in French and half in English, and I’m sure there’s a profound thought there somewhere, but I lost it between Google Translate & WordReference. Help.
February 10, 2025
first book down… we did it, Joe!
May 16, 2018
Very honest critique and an account of Mordekhai's turbulent life and murky waters that are his beliefs and his 'civilisation'. He laid himself bare for scrutiny and judgement. It read like a biography.
May 9, 2022
Excellent
August 20, 2019
ca. 1930-1950 Tunesien, Tunis
First published in 1953
This morning I got up before the alarm clock rang. I washed my face with cold water, bathed my smarting eyes in my cupped hands, and was out of the house before the first streetcars came by full of sleepy grocers on their way to the central market.
Aus dem Vorwort von Albert Camus:
"Here’s a French writer from Tunisia who is neither French nor Tunisian. He’s barely a Jew because, in a way, he doesn’t want to be one. The odd subject of this book is precisely the impossibility of being anything at all for a Tunisian Jew formed by French culture. The young man whose story is told here can define himself only by adding to the rejections of others his own rejections of the world."
Das Buch liest sich stellenweise mühsam, es ist nicht zu übersehen, dass Albert Memmi nicht nur Schriftsteller, sondern auch - oder gar: vor allem - Philosoph ist. Abgesehen von den Kapiteln über die frühe Kindheit ist vieles seltsam unemotional, verkopft und verkompliziert. Die beschriebenen Teenager- und Identifikationsprobleme wirken oft gar nicht so sehr kulturell spezifisch, sondern eigentlich generell typisch für Menschen, die zu viel denken und zu wenig leben und aus ihren Lebensumständen entfliehen möchten. Oft hatte ich das Gefühl, ich würde den jungen Mann gerne am Kragen packen und durchschütteln nach dem Motto: nun sei doch endlich mal stolz und glücklich über deine Fähigkeiten und alles, was du erreicht hast!!!
Positiv: Man bekommt einen sehr lebendigen Eindruck des Lebens in Tunis zur Zeit um den Zweiten Weltkrieg - voller Gegensätze durch Religionen, Armut und Reichtum, Kolonialismus und Rassismus, politische Überzeugungen, Bildung und Aberglaube...
First published in 1953
This morning I got up before the alarm clock rang. I washed my face with cold water, bathed my smarting eyes in my cupped hands, and was out of the house before the first streetcars came by full of sleepy grocers on their way to the central market.
Aus dem Vorwort von Albert Camus:
"Here’s a French writer from Tunisia who is neither French nor Tunisian. He’s barely a Jew because, in a way, he doesn’t want to be one. The odd subject of this book is precisely the impossibility of being anything at all for a Tunisian Jew formed by French culture. The young man whose story is told here can define himself only by adding to the rejections of others his own rejections of the world."
Das Buch liest sich stellenweise mühsam, es ist nicht zu übersehen, dass Albert Memmi nicht nur Schriftsteller, sondern auch - oder gar: vor allem - Philosoph ist. Abgesehen von den Kapiteln über die frühe Kindheit ist vieles seltsam unemotional, verkopft und verkompliziert. Die beschriebenen Teenager- und Identifikationsprobleme wirken oft gar nicht so sehr kulturell spezifisch, sondern eigentlich generell typisch für Menschen, die zu viel denken und zu wenig leben und aus ihren Lebensumständen entfliehen möchten. Oft hatte ich das Gefühl, ich würde den jungen Mann gerne am Kragen packen und durchschütteln nach dem Motto: nun sei doch endlich mal stolz und glücklich über deine Fähigkeiten und alles, was du erreicht hast!!!
Positiv: Man bekommt einen sehr lebendigen Eindruck des Lebens in Tunis zur Zeit um den Zweiten Weltkrieg - voller Gegensätze durch Religionen, Armut und Reichtum, Kolonialismus und Rassismus, politische Überzeugungen, Bildung und Aberglaube...
January 21, 2016
Le jeune homme dont l’histoire est contée ici ne parvient à se définir qu’en additionnant aux refus que les autres font de lui les refus que lui-même oppose au monde. Il est juif (de mère berbère, ce qui ne simplifie rien) et sujet tunisien, c’est-à-dire sujet du bey de Tunis. Cependant, il n’est pas réellement tunisien, le premier pogrome où les Arabes massacrent les juifs le lui démontre. Sa culture est française et, de toute sa classe, il est le seul à entendre Racine comme il faut. Cependant, la France de Vichy le livre aux Allemands et la France Libre, le jour où il veut se battre pour elle, lui demande de changer la consonance judaïque de son nom. Il ne lui resterait plus que d’être vraiment juif si, pour l’être, il ne fallait partager une foi qu’il n’a pas et des traditions qui lui paraissent ridicules.
Que sera-t-il donc pour finir ? On serait tenté de dire un écrivain. (Sartre).
Que sera-t-il donc pour finir ? On serait tenté de dire un écrivain. (Sartre).
September 25, 2017
Ce livre a changé ma vie.
Albert Memmi y décrit le Tunis des années d'avant l'indépendance. L'auteur raconte sa recherche de soi, son oscillation entre orient et occident, son choix, ses désillusions et finalement son départ. Toutes les communauté anciennement présentes en Tunisie y sont décrites: Les français, les italiens, les juifs, et les musulmans. A travers une histoire pleine de rebondissements, l'auteur décrit ce qu'était la vie de tous les jours à Tunis, sans folklorisation ni nostalgie. L'auteur exorcise son passé à travers un récit semi-biographique, et ne mâche pas ses mots pour fustiger tous ce qu'il haïssait.
Ce roman m'a permis de découvrir un Tunis différent du celui contemporain.L'ambiance de Hara disparue de nos jours, se rapproche de certains quartiers devenus ghettos et voués à une destruction imminente. L'histoire est un éternel recommencement.
Albert Memmi y décrit le Tunis des années d'avant l'indépendance. L'auteur raconte sa recherche de soi, son oscillation entre orient et occident, son choix, ses désillusions et finalement son départ. Toutes les communauté anciennement présentes en Tunisie y sont décrites: Les français, les italiens, les juifs, et les musulmans. A travers une histoire pleine de rebondissements, l'auteur décrit ce qu'était la vie de tous les jours à Tunis, sans folklorisation ni nostalgie. L'auteur exorcise son passé à travers un récit semi-biographique, et ne mâche pas ses mots pour fustiger tous ce qu'il haïssait.
Ce roman m'a permis de découvrir un Tunis différent du celui contemporain.L'ambiance de Hara disparue de nos jours, se rapproche de certains quartiers devenus ghettos et voués à une destruction imminente. L'histoire est un éternel recommencement.
August 23, 2010
The most uncomfortable coming of age story I've ever read, written in the early 1950s by Albert Memi,a Tunisian Arab Jew, about a working class kid called Alexandre Mordakhai Benillouche growing up in the no-man's land between the Jewish ghetto and the Jewish middle-class in Tunis. Pretty incredible,honest, disturbing, and has one of the most memorable (and hard to like/ impossible to hate) narrators I've ever come across. As a study of the sheer psychological weight of social mobility in a minority community, its better than ten soc classes. It's also a pretty grim portrayal of a city divided by religion, class, history and colonialism in the years leading up to WWII, when the Nazis occupied it. Definitely worth a read, though it feels a bit like having to take your medicine.
March 9, 2015
Gostei de ter uma perspectiva diferente da segunda guerra mundial, já que o cenário é a Tunísia. Também, mal comparando, é bem mais interessante que O Castelo Branco para mostrar o contraponto Oriente-Ocidente.
May 17, 2021
This is a semi-autobiographical novel set in Tunisia. It talks about growing up as a Jewish Tunisian living in the ghetto. Memmi works hard and gets a scholarship, paid by a Jewish pharmacist. The novel opens with him taking an exam and closes with this exam. It was this moment where he stops and changes his life. “This time the spring within me is quite broken; my strength and my will power fail me now….But I stopped in the examination room. It really is the end: I shall never be a professor”(333). Albert Camus writes an introduction in the French version which points out the contradictions in Jewish North Africans, as they are torn apart by the French domination.
This is a story of Memmi growing up. He has six siblings. His family is very poor. He voluntarily chooses to go to the work camps run by the Nazis as he is university age, feeling that he could give moral support to those there. The last about 50 pages of the novel are particularly strong in his reflections on his identity. He felt that he did not belong in Tunisia; however, he felt he also rejected the west. I was struck how he had so rejected his roots, that speaking in his head in his native dialect made him feel as if that part of himself was dead. “I’m African, not European. In the long run, I would always be forced to return to Alexandre Mordekhai Benillouche , a native in a colonial country, a Jew in an anti-Semitic universe, an African in a world dominated by Europe”(95-96).
He also notes how his identity is rejected. After fleeing from the camp as the war is ending, he later wants to enlist in the army. However, he as a Jew is not welcome in the army. He notes that “ As he makes up his mind to leave Tunisia for Argentina, he reflects that “I could only be a victim of this war; never would I be accepted as one of the victors”(320). “Would I not, sooner or later, have realized my mistake in choosing this path and trying to be what, within me, deep down within me, I was not? And if I had obstinately insisted on not realizing it others would have forced me. This refusal was a warning. It was my fate to be always breaking with something, but without ever being able to retrace my steps for my past always slammed the door in my face. If my nose had been too long that might have been fixed in a couple of weeks in a clinic, or a gangrenous arm could be amputated, but I had a heart that was defective. My misfortunes were never chance encounters, and I could not easily avoid them. The more I get to know myself, the more aware I become of this. To put an end to this state of affairs would mean putting an end to myself, to die or to go mad. My principal’s temporary appointment would end one day, but I would never find the solution to my problem because I am that problem”(329-330).
“Travel if you wish, taste strange dishes, gather experience in dangerous adventures, but see that your soul remains your own. Do not become a stranger to yourself, for you are lost from that day on; you will have no peace if there is not, somewhere within you, a corner of certainty, calm waters where you can take refuge in sleep”(316).
This is a story of Memmi growing up. He has six siblings. His family is very poor. He voluntarily chooses to go to the work camps run by the Nazis as he is university age, feeling that he could give moral support to those there. The last about 50 pages of the novel are particularly strong in his reflections on his identity. He felt that he did not belong in Tunisia; however, he felt he also rejected the west. I was struck how he had so rejected his roots, that speaking in his head in his native dialect made him feel as if that part of himself was dead. “I’m African, not European. In the long run, I would always be forced to return to Alexandre Mordekhai Benillouche , a native in a colonial country, a Jew in an anti-Semitic universe, an African in a world dominated by Europe”(95-96).
He also notes how his identity is rejected. After fleeing from the camp as the war is ending, he later wants to enlist in the army. However, he as a Jew is not welcome in the army. He notes that “ As he makes up his mind to leave Tunisia for Argentina, he reflects that “I could only be a victim of this war; never would I be accepted as one of the victors”(320). “Would I not, sooner or later, have realized my mistake in choosing this path and trying to be what, within me, deep down within me, I was not? And if I had obstinately insisted on not realizing it others would have forced me. This refusal was a warning. It was my fate to be always breaking with something, but without ever being able to retrace my steps for my past always slammed the door in my face. If my nose had been too long that might have been fixed in a couple of weeks in a clinic, or a gangrenous arm could be amputated, but I had a heart that was defective. My misfortunes were never chance encounters, and I could not easily avoid them. The more I get to know myself, the more aware I become of this. To put an end to this state of affairs would mean putting an end to myself, to die or to go mad. My principal’s temporary appointment would end one day, but I would never find the solution to my problem because I am that problem”(329-330).
“Travel if you wish, taste strange dishes, gather experience in dangerous adventures, but see that your soul remains your own. Do not become a stranger to yourself, for you are lost from that day on; you will have no peace if there is not, somewhere within you, a corner of certainty, calm waters where you can take refuge in sleep”(316).
October 2, 2018
Inspired in his own story, Memmi describes the character's childhood in poverty, his years at school, the academic achievements that led him to a privileged high school, and his struggle to become an intellectual and feel he belongs to western culture. Despite his efforts, the character find no place, neither in western, neither in his own culture, for his efforts to become a western intellectual led him too far from his roots.
It's a powerful piece about identity in the fastly changing world before WW2, exploring how the character's origin defines his whole life, no matter his attempts to become someone else.
I could relate with the character's struggles, for I myself have been trying to fit in a world far wider my birthplace, and I recommend this book to anyone dealing with identity crisis, specially expats.
"Travel if you wish, taste strange dishes, gather experience in dangerous adventures, but see that your soul remains your own. Do not become a stranger to yourself, for you are lost from that day on; you will have no peace if ther is not, somewhere within you, a corner of certainty, calm waters where you can take refuge in sleep".
It's a powerful piece about identity in the fastly changing world before WW2, exploring how the character's origin defines his whole life, no matter his attempts to become someone else.
I could relate with the character's struggles, for I myself have been trying to fit in a world far wider my birthplace, and I recommend this book to anyone dealing with identity crisis, specially expats.
"Travel if you wish, taste strange dishes, gather experience in dangerous adventures, but see that your soul remains your own. Do not become a stranger to yourself, for you are lost from that day on; you will have no peace if ther is not, somewhere within you, a corner of certainty, calm waters where you can take refuge in sleep".
August 31, 2020
4.5* My twin read this in one of their French lit classes and then gifted me the English translation because they thought that this would be exactly the kind of postcolonial Jewish literature I'd like--and they were right. This book read like postcolonial theory made flesh and blood, with a very real, aching heartbeat that felt intimately familiar. I often found myself savoring every sentence, though it did drag in places and Alexandre's naive arrogance was often frustrating. However, I couldn't really condemn Alexandre as a character any more than he already condemns himself. This book ended up reminding me--rather surprisingly--of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which is not a book I'm particularly fond of. Thematically, they're quite similar, though Memmi doesn't play quite so obnoxiously with form and language as Joyce. Their endings, however, are significantly different, mostly because by the end of Portrait, the protagonist is running straight into his naive arrogance, while in The Pillar of Salt, Alexandre is finally leaving his behind. Still, I think a comparative study of the two could be interesting. But maybe that's just my Comp Lit degree talking.
April 30, 2021
[IT.: "La statua di sale", Edizioni Costa & Nolan, 1991]
Più che un'istanza religiosa, l'ebraismo di Memmi è la ragione di un profondo dissesto identitario, condizione fallace in definizione e in determinazione. L'infanzia del protagonista è segnata dalla povertà e dalla necessità di rivalsa sul mondo povero della superstizione e dell'ebraismo liturgico, honteux, come dice spesso l'autore, che collima con la pesantezza di un'esistenza fuori da qualsiasi categoria stabile, come quella di una bestia, aggiunge.
Tuttavia, sono la Francia di Vichy, i nazisti e il campo di concentramento tunisino a dare forma al protagonista, la cui via d'uscita dalla realtà è l'abbandono:
"Il mio destino è la cesura perpetua. Senza mai poter tornare indietro, poiché il mio passato mi chiude la porta in faccia. Se avessi il naso troppo lungo, questo potrebbe essere sistemato dopo qualche settimana d'ospedale, se avessi il braccio in cancrena, potrei sbarazzarmene, ma è il cuore ad essere malformato. [...] Non sarò mai la soluzione al mio problema, poiché sono io il problema." (NdT)
Più che un'istanza religiosa, l'ebraismo di Memmi è la ragione di un profondo dissesto identitario, condizione fallace in definizione e in determinazione. L'infanzia del protagonista è segnata dalla povertà e dalla necessità di rivalsa sul mondo povero della superstizione e dell'ebraismo liturgico, honteux, come dice spesso l'autore, che collima con la pesantezza di un'esistenza fuori da qualsiasi categoria stabile, come quella di una bestia, aggiunge.
Tuttavia, sono la Francia di Vichy, i nazisti e il campo di concentramento tunisino a dare forma al protagonista, la cui via d'uscita dalla realtà è l'abbandono:
"Il mio destino è la cesura perpetua. Senza mai poter tornare indietro, poiché il mio passato mi chiude la porta in faccia. Se avessi il naso troppo lungo, questo potrebbe essere sistemato dopo qualche settimana d'ospedale, se avessi il braccio in cancrena, potrei sbarazzarmene, ma è il cuore ad essere malformato. [...] Non sarò mai la soluzione al mio problema, poiché sono io il problema." (NdT)
March 29, 2024
A good book, I was intrigued by the themes particularly the search/loss of identity and the portrayal of daily life.
“I am ill at ease in my own land and I know of no other. My culture is borrowed and I speak my mother tongue haltingly. I have neither religious beliefs nor tradition, and am ashamed of whatever particle of them has survived deep within me. To try to explain what I am, I would need an intelligent audience and much time: I am a Tunisian but of French culture. ("You know, the art of Racine, an art that is perfectly French, is accessible only to the French...") I am Tunisian, but Jewish, which means that I am politically and socially an outcast. I speak the language of the country with a particular accent and emotionally I have nothing in common with Moslems. I am a Jew who has broken with the Jewish religion and the ghetto, is ignorant of Jewish culture and detests the middle class because it is phony. I am poor but desperately anxious not to be poor, and at the same time, I refuse to take the necessary steps to avoid poverty.”
“I am ill at ease in my own land and I know of no other. My culture is borrowed and I speak my mother tongue haltingly. I have neither religious beliefs nor tradition, and am ashamed of whatever particle of them has survived deep within me. To try to explain what I am, I would need an intelligent audience and much time: I am a Tunisian but of French culture. ("You know, the art of Racine, an art that is perfectly French, is accessible only to the French...") I am Tunisian, but Jewish, which means that I am politically and socially an outcast. I speak the language of the country with a particular accent and emotionally I have nothing in common with Moslems. I am a Jew who has broken with the Jewish religion and the ghetto, is ignorant of Jewish culture and detests the middle class because it is phony. I am poor but desperately anxious not to be poor, and at the same time, I refuse to take the necessary steps to avoid poverty.”
October 21, 2025
What does it mean to be a stranger in one’s homeland? How does one reconcile with being unable to embrace their upbringing, but unable to find a compelling alternative in the rest of Tunisia or the West? Memmi answers these questions in a semi autobiographical novel about the childhood and young adulthood of Alexander Mordechai Benillouche as he navigates his family life and his increasing distance from his Jewish upbringing and embrace of a western secular view in the 1930s and 1940s (until he finds it a failure).
I enjoyed this book. The writing was engaging and thought provoking. I hope to revisit it in the near future. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in these questions or is just looking for a novel to read. Also appreciated the North African Jewish perspective on world war 2 which is seldomly discussed.
I enjoyed this book. The writing was engaging and thought provoking. I hope to revisit it in the near future. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in these questions or is just looking for a novel to read. Also appreciated the North African Jewish perspective on world war 2 which is seldomly discussed.
October 13, 2022
Que serais-je donc ? Qu'allais-je devenir ?
Il est interdit de se voir et j'ai fini de me connaitre. Puis-je encore vivre au-delà de mon regard ?
Lettura bellissima apprezzatissima consigliatissima. Per quanto l'esperienza di vita dell'autore sia estramamente distante dalla mia (e da quella, suppongo, di qualunque lettore europeo contemporaneo) mi sono ritrovata nelle sue parole, nelle sue paure, nelle sue riflessioni, sorprendenti (e a volte dolorose) per quanto calzanti.
Il est interdit de se voir et j'ai fini de me connaitre. Puis-je encore vivre au-delà de mon regard ?
Lettura bellissima apprezzatissima consigliatissima. Per quanto l'esperienza di vita dell'autore sia estramamente distante dalla mia (e da quella, suppongo, di qualunque lettore europeo contemporaneo) mi sono ritrovata nelle sue parole, nelle sue paure, nelle sue riflessioni, sorprendenti (e a volte dolorose) per quanto calzanti.
May 5, 2020
A wonderful book (semi-autobiographical) of a Jewish boy/young man growing up in Tunisia before and during the 2nd World War. Bennillouche is neither Moslem, or European, or middle class Jewish; a bright boy, he does not fit in with his classmates at school, or - increasingly - with his uneducated family. Fascinating. Learned a lot.
June 1, 2020
One of the most memorable books
To understand a confluence of issues - being Jewish in Tunisia in the early to mid-20th century; colonialism; racism; the particular horrors of the Vichy regime - there is no better book. It is written with elegant and pictorially vivid detail and is quite arresting, a book that makes you reflect profoundly and that moves forward compellingly.
To understand a confluence of issues - being Jewish in Tunisia in the early to mid-20th century; colonialism; racism; the particular horrors of the Vichy regime - there is no better book. It is written with elegant and pictorially vivid detail and is quite arresting, a book that makes you reflect profoundly and that moves forward compellingly.
September 2, 2024
“Yes, I suppose I am an incurable barbarian!”
This autobiography is an honest conversation between several facets of the same young man. Jew, African, Tunisian. He was granted a scholarship to study at the Lycée under a strict French curriculum.
To make matters worse, WWII reached Northern Africa, making him experience the horrors of war firsthand. After this traumatic event, the young man comes to realize that of all his identities, he himself is the one that matters the most: Alexander (Mordekhai) Benillouche.
To conclude, it’s a beautiful book about identity. However, I came to hate the main character from time to time. Sometimes he’s a pretentious SOB who likes to question anyone’s intelligence based on the most superficial things.
This autobiography is an honest conversation between several facets of the same young man. Jew, African, Tunisian. He was granted a scholarship to study at the Lycée under a strict French curriculum.
To make matters worse, WWII reached Northern Africa, making him experience the horrors of war firsthand. After this traumatic event, the young man comes to realize that of all his identities, he himself is the one that matters the most: Alexander (Mordekhai) Benillouche.
To conclude, it’s a beautiful book about identity. However, I came to hate the main character from time to time. Sometimes he’s a pretentious SOB who likes to question anyone’s intelligence based on the most superficial things.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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