Thoughts on Nina Bouraoui's "Avant les hommes"

In the months before my recent trip to France with students in FREN 297 I developed a long list of things I wanted to buy. Most were books that are hard to find in the U.S. Although Nina Bouraoui's Avant les hommes wasn't technically on it, I've read several of her other books and knew it would be worthwhile to have it.

As I noted the last time I was in France, it's fascinating how booksellers choose to organize their stores. I sought the francophone texts on my wishlist in two different stores without any luck. At the Institut du monde arabe I found them all, including Bouraoui's.

Avant les hommes in a slender novel of 80 some pages. I returned home from this trip determined to do a better job reading in my target language. Starting with what appeared to be the easiest book in the stack seemed wise.

After a few pages it was clear this would not be a text I would teach or write research on which was liberating because then I didn't feel compelled to underline or annotate. It was refreshing to simply read and read and simply enjoy it.

I use the word "enjoy" loosely here, because the book has some tedious qualities. The narrator is an angst-filled adolescent whose mind wanders from problem to problem without much cohesion. The two unifying threads were his lust for Sami, a boy he can't have, and his strained relationship with his mother. Perhaps Bouraoui meant to replicate the jumbled, random thoughts of a horny teenager and that’s why it was a repetitive, unfocused mess. 

I will say that I'm fascinated by Bouraoui's choice to write from the perspective of a gay male adolescent. That really calls into question the assumption that characters, especially narrators, are avatars of their authors. If the unfocused writing style is by design, which I assume it is since it contrasts sharply when some of her other novels, then I also commend her for taking this risk. 

By extension, I'm fascinated by her exploration of a young, gay, male adolescent's path to manhood. The narrator, Jérémie comments several times that he wants to be sexually intimate with men he would like to be himself. The distance, both physical and emotional, from his parents (unmarried, living in different parts of the country( gives him lots of room to explore his identity on his own. He keeps coming back to the physicality of men and his parents' absence, as if to suggest he is drawn to the tangibility of naked torsos because they can be seen and felt, unlike his parents. 

This was one of those books whose idea I like much better than the execution. I think I get Bouraoui's intent, but I found the writing style too unfocused to include in professional activities in the future. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. I started with this book because I wanted a relatively easy pathway back to regular reading in French and it was perfect for that.