“A Man Among Men” in Algerian Paris: Modeling Motivation and Movement in Jake Lamar’s Rendezvous Eighteenth

“A Man Among Men” in the Eighteenth

This love affair between Ricky and Fatima tells us more than how the novel adheres to and departs from genre conventions; it also tells us how the novel departs from earlier expatriate fiction. Unlike expatriate fiction by Wright, Baldwin, and Gardner that feature two sides of Paris: one side portraying interracial relationships that are set on the Left Bank and the other depicting the relationships with North Africans on the Right Bank, Rendezvous Eighteenth integrates interracial romance and Algerian Paris. Collectively, the novel departs from Black American migration narratives of inclusion. As noted previously, I map two departures from this two sided Paris in Rendezvous Eighteenth. The first departure is that Ricky’s interracial and intercultural romantic relationships are in the Eighteenth Arrondissement (North Paris), and Ricky’s experiences in the Eighteenth align him to some degree with a post-colonial experience in Paris or what Amine calls Algerian Paris.

Amine’s article is a comparative analysis of Wright’s “Island,” Baldwin’s “This Morning,” and Smith’s The Stone Face. She shows how their works contrast racism and Jim Crow in the U.S.A. with the freedoms of Paris, namely interracial romance. She also shows that Algerian Paris challenges Paris as a liberatory and colorblind space. Amine explains that Wright’s “Island” demonstrates that interracial romance and brotherhood are an illusion in Paris. After escaping racism in U.S.A., Wright’s protagonist Fishbelly is conned by two Parisians who promise him interracial sex upon arriving in Paris. Also, in Pigalle, Fishbelly is deceived by an African-American spy who pimps an “English-speaking prostitute” to gather political intelligence about her johns. For, Fishbelly, Paris “is a space of unbelonging, where treachery prevents friendship and the only things the city has to offer are for sale: “‘cunt, cognac, and communism’” (747). In “Island,” interracial romance fails in Paris. In her examination of Baldwin’s “This Morning,” Amine illustrates that interracial romance on the Left Bank gives the African American man (particularly the unnamed protagonist) the experience of being “a man like other men” (753).  Though Algerian Paris foils the injustices the protagonist experiences in the U.S.A., the protagonist does not align himself against the injustices of his host country. He seeks to ignore the injustices he witnesses. Likewise, Amine shows that in The Stone Face Smith also examines Algerian Paris in order to examine the U.S.A., and he parallels Algerian Paris with black America. However, the protagonist Simeon must choose between an interracial romance with Maria, a holocaust survivor (a relationship that is also based on mutual recognition of oppression), and brotherhood with Ahmed, his Algerian friend. Simeon chooses fraternity with Ahmed, protests against injustices in Paris, and goes home to participate in the Civil Rights Movement. Amine’s analysis reveals two sides of Paris, examining how the city functions as a space of interracial love and sex and as a space of post-colonial revolution.

Whereas interracial Paris and Algerian Paris are a duality in the lives of the protagonists in Baldwin’s “This Morning” and Smith’s The Stone Face, Lamar’s Rendezvous Eighteenth does not bifurcate Paris. First, unlike the predecessor African American texts, in Rendezvous Eighteenth Ricky’s arrival in Paris is not predicated on racism in the U.S.A., which is a common requisite to the proliferation of a colorblind Paris. However, Ricky feels at home in Paris because he does not have pressure to achieve and be successful by U.S.A. standards. The text states:

Ricky would cheerfully explain that he was a pretty mediocre piano player and that he harbored no aspirations of greatness. He could see the shock in the faces of his fellow Americans when he spoke of his mediocrity and lack of ambition. In America, Ricky Jenks would be considered a loser. In France, he was simply himself. 7-8

So in this way, Paris is still set up in opposition to the U.S.A. It is a place where Ricky can be involved with women sexually without the ambition and money that he thinks is necessary to attract women in the U.S.A. The texts states:

It didn’t take long for Ricky to realize that this was the life he should be leading. Not the life of American professional propriety or alienated outsiderness. His life in Paris defied the categorizations he was accustomed to. Questions of acceptance or rejection were beside the point. And, perhaps best of all, Ricky was getting laid. A lot. With women from all over the world. 74 emphasis mine

In some way, like Baldwin’s protagonist in “This Morning,” Ricky is “a man among men” in Paris; specifically, in order to be desirable to women, Ricky does not have to measure up to the financial success of his cousin, who is fittingly nicknamed Cash. Paris levels the material conditions in terms of his access to women. Though escaping U.S.A. racism is not the same as escaping U.S.A. competition, in each fictional work Paris is a place where the African-American male protagonist has access to women who are denied him in the U.S.A.

           

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