Not my thing, and I felt that all the more because I was coming to this from the fascinating Compass, and knew that Enard's other Englished novel is a five-hundred page sentence. All of that suggests a fascination with form and ideas. This book is... this book is Dickens, written by a Frenchman. The book gives us a perfectly linear narrative, with a few vaguely connected events, and much of it, frankly, is silly: how much can you read about one man's ogling before you cease to care?

I can justify this in two ways. First, Enard was just trying something different, but different for him happened to be a solid realistic novel. If that's the case, well, I guess he pulled it off. There's plenty of characters and melo-dear-god-did-we-really-need-to-throw-cancer-in-with-the-terrorism?-drama here. Second, Enard is slyly mocking the self-righteousness of many contemporary readers (including myself), who will be miffed by the idea that a Moroccan man might actually find the freedoms of Europe enticing. And I was miffed, and then convinced that I was being a dullard, and that of course, there are many, many things about the west that are deeply desirable. I'm just not convinced that that main one is sexual promiscuity.

Alternatively, I guess, this is just straight nihilism: Europe is morally decayed, North Africa is morally decayed, we're all morally decayed. That seems about right. ( )

The narrator of Rue des Voleurs, Lakhdar, is a young Moroccan, disowned by his parents and trying to make his own way in the world, who finds himself on the fringes of the Arab Spring and the anti-austerity protests of the Spanish Indignados Movement. By accident of what he could buy cheaply in Tangier, he has acquired a passion for old French Polars, by preference Série noire titles by Manchette or Izzo. But he's also taught himself to appreciate Classical Arabic prose and poetry. In an ideal world, he would become one of the author's students when he gets to Barcelona; as it is, with capitalism apparently crumbling around him and Islam going mad, he finds himself living as an illegal migrant in the aptly-named Carrer Robadors, between drug-dealers and prostitutes.

Énard has fun with a complicated web of allusions to French, Spanish and American crime-stories, Ibn Battuta, Casanova, the Koran, the poems of Nizar Qabbani, the novels of Mohamed Choukri, and a great deal more — the Algeciras section seems to have some strong Joseph Conrad vibes, for instance. Énard may have a rather dark vision of the world we are living in, and it's clear from the start that it's going to end in disaster of some sort, but Lakhdar's ironic detective-story voice is always a joy to listen to, so it can't really be called a depressing book. Highly recommended. ( )

It was impossible to guess if he had been hurt by my suspicions or if his own fate saddened him, like an incurable disease.

This is a necessary, timely novel. I admit to a hesitation, a shame about confronting the world around me. Much like my inability to pursue Derrida on Hospitality I needed to look away. There's a part of me that I don't care admire at times. Quoting the poet Dylan: I used to care, but things have changed.

Creeping in to Enard's novel, I was initially tempted to toss it aside as the narrative opens on almost Orientalist terms: a Moroccan spends his time ogling Western girls and lusts after his cousin. Was Portnoy's Complaint a racist tract? The protagonist is soon kicked out of his house and returns from homeless to the folds of an Islamic Center. This is distant time of the Arab Spring and despite his employer, the protagonist simply wants drink beer and read hard-boiled novels. That isn't too much, is it? Matters both coalesce and drag in the heavy middle of the novel. The satire is heady and piercing.

The unity of the Arab world existed only in Europe.

There is w wonderful scene towards the end where a group immigrants are watching Barcelona FC on tv in a pub and noting the proliferation of girls, wearing the colors and drinking beer. One of them muses that it is this element: female beer drinking which makes Barca and Spain the kings of football. If only such occurred across North Africa the balance of soccer supremacy might tilt. One often needs to dream. Highly Recommended.
( )

> "Chronique d’un monde à feu et à sang, Rue des voleurs est un modèle de reportage : incarné, renseigné, engagé. Mathias Énard y invente un genre littéraire nouveau : le conte journalistique, traquant la magie noire de la réalité."
—Marine Landrot (Télérama)

A complex and dark novel about a young Moroccan whose life ends up in dead end streets all the time. But whereas he always finds a way of being more or less content, living somewhat apart from society, as a book lover, he sees how his youth friend loses track and becomes involved in religious terrorist attacks. Then he acts upon this in what probably is and will be the only one truly moral and humanistic deed of his life. The author connects the story of the protagonist with the one of 14th century traveller Ibn Battuta, also from Tangiers, and with some sura's.
Reminiscent of The Stranger of Camus. Great writer. ( )