The Scents of Marie-Claire: A Modern Arabic Novel (Modern Arabic Literature) Review

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The Scents of Marie-Claire: A Modern Arabic Novel (Modern Arabic Literature) ReviewTunisian author Habib Selmi believes that "the novel should be a novel of the self as it intersects with its surroundings," and this novel deals almost exclusively with the thoughts of one of the lovers in a relationship. Mahfouth, who has a doctorate in Arabic literature, is living with Marie-Claire and is a devoted but somewhat more free-wheeling partner who loved college but now works at the post office. Everything we learn of Marie-Claire, we discover through Mahfouth's point of view, and when, after the initial bloom of love wears off, he becomes annoyed with her for doing or saying something he does not like, readers will have no problem understanding why she becomes annoyed with him, in turn.
Though the book blurb stresses that this is a "collision of cultures," it seems far less a collision of cultures than a collision of two individual lovers, one of whom is arrogant, selfish, jealous, unable to apologize, and always seeking to blame his partner. He is immature and unwilling to bend, and he behaves more like a spoiled child than a thinking and feeling adult of any specific culture. Gradually, their childhoods unfold--he, the son of a peasant from a small Tunisian village, has grown up tormenting scorpions, roasting small birds, burning ants, and abusing donkeys--and this is the first time he has ever been in love. Marie-Claire, from the French countryside, is warm and caring. So jealous that he even resents Ladislaus, a boy Marie-Claire once kissed years ago when she was a teenager, Mahfouth tries to provoke her when she ignores his boorishness. If she responds in anger, then he feels he does not need to apologize for his own behavior. Though she has released his sexual inhibitions, his understanding of love is limited by his lack of experience of love on the emotional level, and he responds to problems with an even greater need to control.
Readers know from the outset that the relationship lasts for several years before Marie-Claire finally leaves, but it is the slow deterioration of the relationship from Mahfouth's point of view that becomes the fascination here. Chronically unable to bear any responsibility for the failure of any aspect of the relationship, Mahfouth has learned little from the years during which Marie-Claire has tried to show him the meaning of love.

Those interested in a love story which reveals every nuance of a complex relationship will find this a fascinating novel, and the relationship's slow deterioration becomes hypnotically suspenseful in its own right. This intimate novel reveals everything Mahfouth thinks and feels and, through his point of view, everything that Marie-Claire is thinking and feeling. How and why he is unable to trust, share, and really love is a question for the reader to decide. Mary WhippleThe Scents of Marie-Claire: A Modern Arabic Novel (Modern Arabic Literature) OverviewThis novel from one of Tunisia's leading writers, the first of his works to be translated into English, narrates a love story in all its stages, in all its glorious and inglorious details. Moment by moment we become acquainted with the morning rituals, the desires of the flesh, the turbulence of the spirit, and even a few unattractive personal habits. It is a journey that takes us inside the nuances of what passes between two lovers, from the first glances of attraction to the final words of anger. It is a journey filled with all the hallmarks of the complex relationship between one man and one woman - the mystery and the ambiguity, the intricacy and the confusion - which, in the end, serve to expose its fragility. This is an intimate tale that manages to tell not only the story of two individuals, but also that of the collision of two cultures.

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