What distinguishes a good book from a great novel? I have been asking myself this question for years, even though, long before I close a new book, I generally perceive when it is good or great.
However, I appreciate the subjectivity of such a judgment: a great novel for me can just as easily be judged only good by one of my contemporaries, or even mediocre or downright bad.
This is what makes, among other things, the beauty of French literature, but also the difficulty of the critic’s task when he tries to bring to readers his judgment as just, in any case honest, as possible.
That being said, and if you agree to show me your trust, let me tell you that I have just read a great book this holiday season which is due to be released on January 8, 2025.
I should write a GREAT novel.
A precipitate of raw humanity
This GREAT novel, signed Sarah Barukh, is published by Harper & Collins. Its title is: “Blue, white, red and stars” (1).
The key? A precipitate of raw humanity, darkness and pain, a sum of imaginary stories (but based on real facts) which closely follows the turbulent lives of women and men confronted with violence, anti-Semitism, terrorism, intolerance, Islamism, oppression and poverty.
By discovering Jeanne, a psychiatrist in a hospital, Mo her “almost” Algerian brother who has taken refuge in Thailand, Rima the little Pakistani martyr, Isaias the Eritrean “migrant”, Jin the oppressed Chinese, and all the others, we discover ourselves sisters and brothers in humanity, suffering in the wake of the Kouachi brothers’ attack-massacre at Charlie Hebdo, extreme violence from men. The consequences of this violence and oppression on the course of their lives.
Preceded by a post-October 7 personal note from Sarah Barukh and concluded by an afterword giving us the real keys to the terrible stories mentioned in the novel, the author gives us a powerful novel which made me think throughout the chapters (” We killed Charlie Hebdo”, “A Future of Modesty”, “The Imaginary Cross”,…) to a film by Claude Lelouch. Let me explain.
Other lives than ours
As with Lelouch, minus the comedy and romance, all the characters mentioned may not know each other and live thousands of kilometers from each other, from Paris to Peshawar, from Piraeus to Tel Aviv, via Nir Oz and Gaza, their human lives (Jews, Muslims, Christians, etc.) will intertwine.
I should say their suffering and their distress. Their objects too, like this flag stained with the blood of Rima which will end its life in the Paris region after having paraded in the monster demonstration post-Charlie, Montrouge and Hypercacher. I won’t say more out of a desire not to divulge too much…
No Manichaeism and even less overflowing sentimentalism in Sarah Barukh. The force of her words, one could say that of each of the tragic destinies she describes, is enough. It takes to the heart. It’s gut-wrenching.
At the center of the story, how can we not share the fears of the psychiatrist Jeanne, undoubtedly inspired by Sarah Barukh’s own existence? A Jeanne who bears the brunt of the pain and questions of a French Jewish woman, who lived through Israel and its wars, facing the horrors of the beginning of 21th century that the apocryphal thought of a great writer who became a minister had announced religious (or spiritual) at the risk of otherwise disappearing…
A writing…
I already knew Sarah Barukh before reading this GREAT novel. I had read a few of her books, including the first (“She just wanted to walk straight”) and “Fly with me” and “So that the sun still shines”). I knew the struggles of this “Womensch” (a subtle American-Yiddish portmanteau word invented to designate a handful of valiant Jewish women) against the violence against women, of which she herself had been a victim, and the women murdered by their spouses (who had produced a choral book “125 and after”, as well as the documentary “Vivante(s)” on Canal+). I finally had the great chance to interview her a few months ago for my podcast (“Happiness is The Others”) (2) before writing her portrait, as a fighter, for a magazine (Actualité Juive ). A strong feeling of sympathy arose from all this.
So I was leaving – why hide it? – with a favorable a priori, before launching into reading “Of blue, of white, of red and of stars”. However, I could have been disappointed by this book and not have much to say about it…
You have understood that this is not the case. How I loved this novel, its brilliant and sometimes painful writing, the author’s ability to immerse us in these tragic stories. To also send a mirror back to us, all of us who today know more or less the agonies of Jeanne in the face of intolerance and violence, lies, racism, terrorism. Especially with October 7, 2023… Especially after October 7, 2023.
Read “Of Blue, White, Red and Stars” in conclusion and share it with those around you. He deserves it. She deserves it.
© Gérard Kleczewski
