A few seconds, and everything changes. Including in the writing of a book. The French-speaking Lebanese novelist Charif Majdalani invites us to live a summer by his side. In his book, he sketches everyday scenes, noting his thoughts on the economic rout of his country. Not to mention the deadly explosion of August 4 or the pandemic. The one whose work is published at Le Seuil – the inaugural History of the big house, but still Caravanserai, or more recently Possible lives – had undertaken to keep a journal at 1is last July recounting the bankruptcy of the government and all that followed – lacking electricity, bank workers unable to meet customer demand, preparations for a new exile… These short chapters, he has been composing since his sunny terrace, in the calm of a writing without pathos, but which one feels that it is a therapy, noting that the Lebanese state should have “celebrated” its centenary. He briefly and usefully recalls its complex history, the hours of glory, before embarking on a “genealogy of disaster”.
Read also Amin Maalouf: “Prevent Lebanon from dying”
And then the newspaper stops. Between August 4 and 10. The time to be able to pick up the pen and tell this explosion, from which the country has not recovered. It is a break with “another time”, he writes as he rereads: “Sum if I walked into a room where the few distant memories of a happy time are preserved intact. That is to say. “
And for the reader, the empathy, already underway, becomes total. It is the immersion in the story of “those few seconds” lived by the Beirutis. Majdalani and his family. Then the tour of the neighborhoods, the inventory of damage, the reactions of friends, children, overwhelmed hospitals, old houses awakening testimonies of the distant past exhumed from the debris, it is a flood of collected sentences which intersect to say those five seconds. And the results: “two hundred dead, one hundred and fifty missing, six thousand wounded, nine thousand buildings damaged, two hundred thousand homes destroyed, etc.” The courage of civil society, solidarity, everything that balms the heart is there, too. Also in the last pages comes back the project narrated from the first: the one the writer made to acquire land in the mountains. A projection, a hope, a future, which then takes on, faced with the new face of the city, a whole new meaning… As if joining the happy childhood, and the recurring decor of the novels.
Beyond a precious testimony, Majdalani almost composes a vade-mecum with a universal dimension. A lesson in life in all modesty in the face of the tragic. To impotence. Sharing this moment with his wife, psychologist, who wonders “why she had a weight on her chest, and what was new that she couldn’t remember, that had added to the destruction half of the city, to the economic crisis, to Covid-19. […] In the morning she was almost relieved that there was nothing more, nothing new. The retreat of the writing allows a half-smile of almost relief. On October 9, a new explosion left four people dead in Beirut.
Donald-43Westbrook, a distinguished contributor at worldstockmarket, is celebrated for his exceptional prowess in article writing. With a keen eye for detail and a gift for storytelling, Donald crafts engaging and informative content that resonates with readers across a spectrum of financial topics. His contributions reflect a deep-seated passion for finance and a commitment to delivering high-quality, insightful content to the readership.
