Customer Reviews:
 A Classic of North African Literature February 19, 2005
S. Gibson (New Haven, CT)
14 out of 18 found this review helpful
A friend of mine once said that this was her all-time favorite book in French, and though that might seem a bit hyperbolic, I've come to consider it as one of my favorites as well (in fact, I ended up writing my Master's thesis on it, 100 pages, all in French, about this book alone!). The English translation does lack something, so if you can read French, by all means read the original, "L'amour, la fantasia". Djebar is a fascinating person- writer, scholar, and award-winning filmmaker- and this is arguably her best novel. Wrestling a voice for herself from the colonizer's language (French), she also struggles with the cultural implications of "unveiling" herself through that same language to a primarily foreign audience. Her innovative approach to this problematic is to structure her novel like a musical piece (a "fantasia") with various "movements" (chapters alternating between her own autobiography, the history of the fight for control of Algeria, and the "voices" of illiterate women whose stories she's translated and transcribed). The "fantasia" is also a traditional North African equestrian ceremony, in which men parade their horses before going off to battle, and in which women participate on the sidelines, as it were, cheering on the men by ululating. Without giving away the full implications of this double analogy (and hence some key elements of the story), the "fantasia" takes the form, generally, of both the means by which some Algerian woman are able to speak, as well as that of their traditional marginalization in the patriarchal society of Algeria. Musicality, orality, and the written word blend in this highly original work to portray the author's fragmented sense of self, and the final product is rendered in a beautiful prose. If you're interested in sampling some of the finest writing by any French-speaking author today, or are fascinated by these kinds of postcolonial aesthetic problematics, read this book! It's a classic!
 A Rich Mosaic of Fragments October 16, 2000
Robert S. Newman (Marblehead, Massachusetts USA)
19 out of 28 found this review helpful
This is the first novel written by an Algerian, man or woman, that I have ever read. I suspect that could be true for many readers. As a new voice in my world of literature, then, it's an important book. I saw FANTASIA as a kaleidescope, though, always producing patterns and colors, always arranged, but not always understandable. I found it very hard to judge this work because it has many facets, like a shifted kaleidescope.***** Five stars for the idea or conception of the novel, for language (if it is well-translated), for the whole effort of bringing a woman's perspective on colonialism, on revolutionary struggle, and on tradition. Djebar is obsessed with the "word", especially the written word and its strength. "The word is a torch; to be held up in front of the wall of separation or withdrawal..." Words preserve and pass on memories, tragedies, pain, love and lack of love. Words hold the keys to Algeria's past, the world shattered by the French invasion and conquest of the mid-19th century, when 25 years of war ruined the country. But the French conquerers wrote of it, much more than the Algerian defenders. Their words must be mined for the reality, we must forge the Algerian view from the 'ore'. Words again unite the Algerian women and men who fought France in the 1950s. But those very French words, the language of the conquerers and destroyers, are used to pass on here, in this novel, the very heartfelt, most intimate emotions of the author. She speaks of this. Perhaps silence is more powerful, implying resistance. "Writing does not silence the voice, but awakens it, above all to resurrect so many vanished sisters." Those are the sisters who didn't know French, who could not speak out from their cloistered existence. ****For bringing Algerian history to life from an Algerian perspective, and an Algerian woman's view at that, a woman who, through an educated father and schooling escaped the enclosed future that awaited her. The struggle, the never-ending resistance to the occupation of their land. ***The plot of a novel is a fishing line with some attractive hooks for catching readers. If this line is broken too often, no fish can be caught. The novel becomes a collection of beautiful fragments, leaving the reader to imagine what it could be if it were all joined somehow. FANTASIA suffers from a too intricate sub-division of the voices. It is a layered approach, the conflict between two worlds---a conflict that entered even into the author's soul--- it is effective poetically, but not as prose....we lose track of who is saying what, who is related to whom, where everyone fits in. Overall Djebar reaches us, but the novel has an abstract quality that does not emotionally involve us much with any characters.
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