41: Just Like Tomorrow by Faïza Guène

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41: Just Like Tomorrow by Faïza Guène
Edit: The original title is Kiffe Kiffe Demain, and I believe this book is sold as Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow in some English-language markets. I have no idea if Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow is the same translation as the one I read./end edit

Did you ever read a book that was translated from another language and spend the whole time you were reading it thinking "wow, I wish I was reading this in the original" even though the translation was about as good as it could be? That was how I felt reading this YA novel, which was apparently a huge seller in France. I can't help suspecting that one of the major reasons why it was such a big success had to do with the language used -- there's a translator's note that goes into some detail about the Parisian/Arab slang the main character speaks in -- and needless to say, that doesn't come across all that well in English. It's frustrating, because I think I probably could understand the original -- I think my French is just about good enough (though I'd need a dictionary and a dip or two into WordReference for the slang). It looks like the original was deeply colloquial, slangy, very of-the-now in its depiction of a teenage Parisian daughter of Moroccan parents living in a dead-end estate; and some of that just can't be translated into English. The translator makes a valiant effort, but there's only so much that can be done.

Even setting that aside, the novel is slow and very low on plot; not much happens, and when something does happen it most often happens off-page and is told to Doria (the narrator) at second hand. This feeling of plotlessness is only made stronger by the fact that it's quite short, and it's split up into chapters that are mostly three or four pages of not much happening. So the attraction chiefly lies in Doria's narration, particularly her tendency to daydream and go off on weird tangents in her own head. There's a rather clever layering of what she says and what we can gather from the way she says it; to me she comes across as having a pretty serious case of situational depression, but she would never put it that way. She's not an entirely reliable narrator, and yet it's not that she's dishonest so much as unwilling to face her own feelings.

Where Guène is at her strongest is in shining a spotlight on telling little details of Doria's life, most of which are moments of struggle or humiliation. (Doria's pretty passive, so her trumphs tend to be vividly imagined rather than real.) There are several "ouch"-worthy scenes, and on the whole the combination of Doria's emotional state and her circumstances is vividly evoked and interesting enough to keep me reading. By the end, I did kind of get that "...and?" feeling -- I wasn't sure that it amounted to much. It was an interesting journey, even if it didn't end up at a particularly special destination.

(tags: a: guène faïza, french)