In the beginning was the verb. Then we muzzled it. This is how silence people people our family trees. However, we remain carriers of these silent lies, surrounded by mutual ghosts that will only speak if we wake them up. It is to shake up these specters and to reveal the buried mysteries that Taymour, the narrator of The sky is immenseis part of the program “Zhdi Menya”, the Russian equivalent of “lost sight”.
Because when he evokes his uncle Adel, pilot in the Iraqi air force and disappeared in 1974, he felt in his entourage. As if, beyond the charismatic hero officer of the six-day war, aviator of genius formed by the Soviets, a secret only asked to go out. To the devil the omerta maintained by his mother and his aunt, Taymour cracks the surface of the enigma with his grandmother.
Dizziness of azure
A family but also historical fresco begins, from panarabes to American invasion, including Soviet aid to the dictatorships of the Middle East. For the reader, the discovery will already be this dive into Iraqi society, where feelings import less than rank, where wars haunt memories, and where, as everywhere, the unsaid run under the skin. Finely built, the novel is investigated; Disseminated, poetry serves the perplexed introspection of the narrator; Gently written, the stories are integrated into the story; And this balance is a real reading pleasure.
We then discover that Adel, this disembodied uncle, had committed himself out of love, before finding in aviation a gigantic freedom: “Flying will not save anything, my son. It is only one more illusion, a hollow hope “said his mother to him. Adel replied: “It’s a way out. A way to escape the walls that have been drawn up in front of me. Up there, we will not be able to ignore me. »»
This mystic of freedom by the azure inhabits the novel, echoing the quest for truth-the same one that makes free-by Taymour: “The sky is immense, mom, too large. Will I get lost? »» These are the same doubts that assail Taymour, in search of this parent of which he ignores almost everything: what good is the contours of a disappeared forever unknown? “With each generation, everyone composes with what they receive and what they choose to appropriate. But is this freedom so great? Are we the real authors of our identity or linked by wires invisible to those who preceded us? »» These chains that would nail an airplane on the ground, should they be decided?
The sky is immenseFeurat Alani, JC Lattès, 272 pages, 20.90 euros.
