" The cities are not protected by the walls but rather by the love of its peoples "
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When Abdelouahab Aissaoui writes, history shuts its curtains!
The start of the diving experiment will be in the reservoirs of the Spartan Diwan, a sentence he said through the tongue of one of his characters: “These people are united by curiosity and dispersed by the truth.” However, in this narration, we were drawn to it by curiosity and collected by the untold truth regarding the crimes that France committed against the Algerians to the point that it was sending The bones of the dead Algerians to France to be crushed and used as a sugar bleaching substance, the author also spoke about the remnants of the Ottoman presence in Algeria.
"Some of the conversations don't need to be lengthened," said one of the characters from the novel. "Everyone retains his point of view." But here I will not preserve my point of view, because the text is a historical epic that we cannot pass by. Without a doubt, this text will bring about a literary revolution from my point of view, because it is the first Algerian novel that painted history with letters that are almost links and symbols that leads us to the truth about Algeria, which mimics its current reality by dealing with history through five narrative voices that carry a lot to tell us among the folds of this 384-page Spartan Diwan.
Beginning with Debon, who was hoping to raise the banner of Christ in the pirate's hill, as he calls the pirates, it became clear to him later that killing, destruction, and settlement was the aim of the French campaign from the start, and he sympathized with the Algerians.
As for Caviar, the architect of the campaign and its leader, he carries all the hatred on the land that enslaved him in the past, so he decided to enter it as an invader to revenge himself. The third character, Ibn Mayar, who was supportive of the Ottomans and wanted to be there, defending them, as for Hamaa El-Saraaoui , he represents the voice of the magnanimous Algerian who loves and defends Algeria from every Ottoman or French domination. And lastly, Doudja who represents the female voice whose honour has been lost, but she has never lost the honour of her homeland. It also represents the lover that seeks an optimal life and a love on the scale of her dreams. There is no doubt that she played an important role in the novel.
It was these five characters who controlled the text and made it revolve in a historical form linking the present of El Mahroussa, which recounts in such a way that the other looks at history as if he was watching the Mona Lisa, which whenever you look at it, it looks at you the same because it brought Algeria's past to its present in an amazing way. The Spartan Court is a narration of the past that tells the present. Each reader will understand it according to his knowledge, and he will discover things he did not know before. At the same time, he enjoys it because it wouldn’t be fair for the novel if we linked it to history alone, its characters are from the writer’s imagination, but history was their fertile ground, in which they revolve around. Aissaoui wrote history from its wide doors when he touched on the famous Battle of Waterloo in which the English defeated Napoleon, but it was written from an Algerian point of view! This novel shows his diligence and his work on his text, to give us this unique creative momentum. As for the title Spartan Diwan, it needs to be studied alone. In my opinion, it is the best historical Algerian novel, (I wrote that as it was published in 2018). Being acquainted with fictional experiences that used history but did not succeed because they used heroes are historically ready, there is no difference between their novels and history books. We do not only read history, we also read historical novels that amaze us. The language in which Abdelouahab Aissaoui
writes is simple, in which you do not bother and concave in proportion to the historical era in which he spoke.
The reader notices that its words carry the weight of history, you cannot exceed the number of pages without Googling something to understand.
Even the information that he gleaned from the books were not only put because he wanted to write about historical events, but he also used it brilliantly in his narrative text. In my opinion, Abdelouahab Aissaoui
writes in a flashcard way, drawing a complete blueprint of his head, then identifying the characters, writing the scenes separately, when he finishes tying them together, he modifies all that according to the work requirements like a chess game.
It is impossible to write a historical work the size of the Spartan Diwan with this connection and mastery without making a clear outline for it in advance. He reminded me of Naguib Mahfouz who used to make blueprints for his novels.
I think that everyone that had scientific orientations would write such a novel better, as the Algerian novelist Rachid Boujdra says: “Writing is like mathematics.”
In the field of historical novels today which I adore, I consider Abdelouahab Aissaoui one of the best novelists among the young writers followed by Rabie Jaber, and of course reading is a personal taste after all, but we may agree on one thing: that who reads a lot of books, will inevitably enhance his critical skills and would not read randomly. Abdelouahab maintained the same level in most of his novels, and he who begins great beginnings would only write immortal novels.