Tahar Ben Jelloun’s novel is a systematically organized piece of work. There are 40 chapters. Most of them are named after a featured character. It’s like Van Gogh painting a canvas. There’s that brilliant yellow again and, at another place, cinnabar green. Then you step back and look at the whole canvas: wheat field, mother with child, sunflowers…whatever.
Most of those characters just want to get out. I can’t say how accurate the picture we get of Morocco is in this story. But there are societies all over the world that have been shut down by their own corruption; reducing options for the majority of the population who are imprisioned inside.
We’ll focus on Azel who is trapped in Tangier. He’s a local boy who has made good: done all the right things. He has a law degree now, but no job. There are no prospects of one either.
He’s a handsome guy, a ten, popular as hell with women. But he just screws around a lot. You can’t settle down if you can’t afford to…but maybe he doesn’t want to.
It’s hard to figure out what Azel wants. Maybe he doesn’t know. He wants to walk away from it all.
He gets his chance with Miguel, a wealthy, gay Spaniard. Miguel is Azel’s first class ticket to Barcelona. Azel tells himself that being gay, for Miguel, is just a job.
So Azel gets to Spain by playing Miguel’s bitch. We might even be happy that he got to a better place if we could forget about that part. But Tahar Ben Jelloun (winner of both the Prix Goncourt and the International IMPACT Dublin Literary Award) doesn’t let us forget it. Miguel holds a party and Azel is asked to make a dramatic entrance in drag. He despises the idea but does it anyway. It’s like watching a stampeding cow hurtling off a cliff.
Azel’s sister, Kenza, also ends up in Spain thanks to Miguel. Having more sense than her brother, she tries to establish her economic independence as soon as possible. But there’s a great little scene where flipping open a guy’s wallet upends her romantic fantasies about living abroad.
Stay-at-homes fair worst in Leaving Tangier. Malika, one of Azel’s neighbors, is told by her father that, at fourteen, she has had enough education. I guess there’s nothing more chilling than having opportunity’s door slammed shut in your face by your own parents. She is sent to work at the local shrimp factory where her fingers are rendered invisible by the brutal labor.
I used to carry a charm against the evil eye in my wallet. It was from a friend who brought it back from Istanbul. But when I got a new wallet, I lost track of it. I hope that doesn’t make me vulnerable.
The evil eye is an old Greek/Turkish superstition: that someone can lay an evil wish on you. The charm is supposed to dispel the bad karma that’s heading in your direction.
That’s the old world explanation provided for the bad fortune that so many characters experience in Leaving Tangier. It’s the envy…the jealousy…visited upon anyone who is bright or shows promise.
But it’s the leaving that’s the real assault…it’s exile…sometimes exile from oneself. Pulling up roots is a difficult thing. But you have to have roots to pull up in order to truly leave.
-DH
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