A tortured soul
Set over a few days during the brutal Algerian War of 1957, this novella is elevated above the stasis of a single storyline not by its striking set pieces, its philosophical musing on the merits and failings of torture as a tool of battle, nor even the skill and elegance of its flashbacks and time leaps, but by its true worth, the ruthlessly exposed natures and interactions of three very different men.
Capitaine Degorce has survived ‘interrogation’ by both the Nazis and the Viet Minh. Now, assisted by the admiring Lieutenant Andreani, his comrade and fellow captive in Vietnam, he is holding the implements of torture.
Degorce’s task is to capture and break Tahar, one of the senior figures in the Algerian National Liberation Army.
But when Tahar is found, Degorce, seeing similarities with the life he himself has endured, finds an odd, uneasy kinship with his enemy, even a kind of empathy.
The writing has an assured and artful style, which has been faithfully preserved by a fine translation.
The atmosphere is thoroughly absorbing, the feel of North Africa insinuating every page and suggesting comparison with Albert Camus’s The Stranger and J.M.G. Le Clezio’s Desert.
Both Andreani, who seems to revel in his duty, and the crumbling Degorce, who recognises and loathes the horrors of his actions, take turns at narrating the story, and the divergent voices, coupled with the technical aspects of the storytelling, the flashbacks and confessionals, expose human nature in all its frailty.
Jerome Ferrari’s latest work won this year’s Prix Goncourt, France’s most prestigious literary prize, but this short novel, which has garnered several honours across the French-speaking world, is the first of his books to find an English language audience. It is not an easy read, but no treatise of the monstrosity of torture should be easy.
This is not Hollywood; every incision is felt and has the effect of truth. From ancient times, through the Spanish Inquisition, Auschwitz, and on through to Abu Ghraib and Guantanemo Bay, torture has always been a terrible part of the psyche in times of war.
The Algerian War is fixed in time and place, but the author mines it at a microcosmic level and exposes universalities.
In taking us to the very heart of the matters of duty, loyalty, right and wrong, and the evil that men do in the name of patriotism, Ferrari has created a work of enduring art, one with a resonance that, in these troubled times, cannot be overstated.
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