'SMILE'
by PAUL SMAIL
'The only way to get by in this life is to play a role.
People don't want to know who you really are.'
This is an extraordinary novel self-concerned with a young Arab man living in Paris. Weaving a touching narrative around love, life, death and racism, Paul Smail is a pseudonym for the author, and it's natural to presume that 'Smile' is - to a large extent - autobiographical and based on the experiences of the author, whatever his real name maybe; all we are told is that he 'now lives in Morocco.'
While the style of writing is reminiscent of Sophie Marceau's in her 'Telling Lies' novel (that's also, coincidentally, 'set' in Paris), this novel is far from self-centred, painfully coping with both the loss of the narrator's father Yacine and then brother Daniel, all the while his family are being picked on to extents because they look different.
'The slightest act of human kindness can move us deeply.'
The author's writing style is engaging, as 'Smile' inventively moves back and forth in tense as the narrator's childhood, adolescence and twenties are brought to light - not necessarily in any chronological fashion, and it's as if some passages have been written as though the author's a fan of spontaneous prose: free-flowing and honestly penned like he felt there might not have been a tomorrow given the colour of his skin.
'Smile' is also placed firmly into an historical context, setting some of the scenes against racist revolts that actually happened in the city (which is not so much 'a city of romance' once violence erupts, is it?) that were targetted at French Muslims from Algeria.
With such racism in mind, there's little wonder why the world at large is in the state it's in. If Arab people are put down and made to feel worthless by racist minorities, something is quite obviously going to give eventually and the author prophetically acknowledges this. Bear in mind that this novel was first published in 1997, and then read on� 'If you're continually suspicious of us, aren't we going to take offence? If you talk down to us, isn't that going to annoy us? If you ask us for our papers for the slightest thing, aren't we going to become exasperated? If you treat us like wogs, ragheads and Arabs, isn't that humiliating for us? If you beat the shit out of us in police stations, doesn't this hurt us? If you kick us and break our fingers when you take us into custody, if you spit - quite literally - in our faces, if you piss on us - quite literally� And if you refuse to give us jobs that you'll give to others less qualified but less swarthy, too, won't we finally rise up in revolt? Doesn't an Arab have feelings, emotions and passions? If we're like you in every other way, we'll be like you in this, too: We'll get our revenge.'
And at this point my spine chilled to ground zero. That paragraph really says it all, surely. The people to blame for such atrocities as September 11th, fundamentally, are those people who have for so long exploited Arab nations and treated them with glaring contempt. Sure, Arabs maybe hi-jacked the planes and set their course for the World Trade Centres. But when you dig down to the root causes, you do honestly begin to wonder who really is to blame�
To partially deflect the pain of the racism against himself, his family and the many other Arabs who were living in Paris, the narrator turned to literature. 'It's all in literature. It's all been said. In some book or other you'll always find an allusion to what's happening, the proof that others have suffered what you're suffering, that you're not alone in the world. In some book or other you'll always find something like consolation.' Which is, perhaps, why the author of 'Smile' felt so compelled to turn his talents to writing in order to make other people that have had to or will have to - in the future - endure the same as him might feel a little better in knowing that racism isn't personal. It's universal.
'All I can remember now is the opening gambit: Smile. But I didn't get much farther than the first line. With that one word I'd said it all.'
While 'Smile' is a hugely personal portrait of a man living and learning in Paris, it also cleverly puts the narrator's place into the context of the bigger picture. And some of the revelations within are constantly thought provoking to attitude-attuning extents�
(Steve Rudd)
ISBN 1-85242-630-6