I have wanted to read this book since the "salon du livre francophone de Beyrouth" took place.
I had many magical encounters during this year's salon du livre, the most marking one being that with Sorj Chalandon when interviewed about this book, his latest. The plot instantly struck me with its ingenuity: During the Lebanese civil war, Sam, a Jewish Greek revolutionary and theater lover living in France, decides to mount the play "Antigone" by Anouilh in the heart of tormented Beirut. And if that wasn't challenging enough for him, he wanted the actors to be from the different confessions that are at war. The idea seems crazy, but he sees in it a hope to unite the Lebanese people that are literally killing each other. To have the shooting cease for one or two hours, is Sam's life dream. Unfortunately, he falls ill and finds himself unable to leave the hospital bed so he entrusts the mission to his friend Georges.
With Sorj Chalandon at the salon du livre francophone de Beirut - 2013
The book naturally was a success and was awarded both the prix Goncourt le choix de l'Orient and the prix Goncourt le choix des lycéens. Altogether, everything made me want to read the book, but I didn't buy it for it was too expensive for me. Chit-chatting with my friends, I mentioned both the salon du livre and "Le quatrième mur". Few months later, my generous friend Mohammad, surprised me with the book for my birthday. So this review is for him.
To start, the title itself is extremely beautiful and successfully incorporated in the story (at least twice). The first time, the author explains that the quatrième mur is an imaginary wall that the actors draw between them and the audience, to stay in the play. The second time, is at the very end of the book and I can't spoil it for you but I can only say Bravo! I also thought of the title when they chose to mount the play in a bombarded theater that looked like a roman open air hippodrome because it has only 3 walls left.
The style of writing was very peculiar and consisted mostly of short sentences (some were really short!) mimicking to a great extent the way Sorj Chalandon naturally speaks in real life. It wasn't what I look for usually in books but it was very amusing.
What I loved in the book was that the author chose to mount Antigone by Anouilh not that of Sophocles for several reasons:
The first and least important, is that it would be more complicated to mount a play that includes Gods in a country killing for religion.
Second, the author and Sam think that Antigone of Anouilh is revolutionary and that Antigone of Sophocles is just fulfilling male indicted wills.
And last but not least, the fact that Antigone of Anouilh was mounted during Nazi occupation of Paris with the guards wearing Gestapo like clothes. How did the Nazis accept? Well they were happy because Antigone dies, thinking that the resistance dies and that they win so it's only normal for the guards who kill Antigone, the winning team to be Nazis. Then why did the French accept? Because they thought that the resistance triumphed through Antigone's death which lead to the death of the king's son and his wife's suicide leaving him alone with his guards waiting a death that was not far (all his glory was destroyed when he faced the resistance)
Now the fun part was how Sorj Chaldandon casted a Chirstian, a Palestinian girl, a Druze and a couple of Shiites and other Lebanese minorities to play Antigone, her fiancé, the king, the guards and other characters ... Can you guess which confession was playing which character? It was also very interesting to learn how each confession interpreted Antigone. I have always thought of Antigone the way the Phalangist character in the play did, meaning that her death could have been avoided and that her stubbornness killed her and that she didn't achieve anything. But after I learned about the Anouilh historical anecdote, I cannot but admit how mistaken I was and that I now totally agree on Antigone from the point of view of the Palestinian protagonist: Antigone is the resistance, and the resistance shall overcome and win.
The best part by far was the ending where the book became a play, in form and in content. (Enough said, read it).
However, there were parts that I hated in the book, mostly Georges. I didn't like him because of the violence he is involved in (Jussieu, where I went for university studies was however mentioned in some of those violent events so yaaaay??!!). I was also repulsed by what he did to the Phalangist because it didn't make sense at all to me, it was another one of those everybody in the war is a criminal but let's just punish the phalangists only.
On a personal deeper interpretation, I thought Gorges and Sorj (notice the name play) were very close, but that there was a part of Sam in Sorj too, the part that is more mature and most importantly more compassionate, and it made me happy.
Other little things that bothered me were that although Sorj was very familiar with Lebnon having covered up the war in 82), he missed a couple of things in the book: for example I am not sure the Druze wear the clothes he described. The name Nakad is never a first name in Lebanon because it means nagging (kind of), but it is a common druze Family name, so maybe it was used on purpose. The same goes for the name of the Shiite Imam, the name sounds Arabic, but it's not. I also noted some mistakes here and there: the tour name misspelled, a period missing etc. which is a shame for such a prestigious publishing house.
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