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“A Man Among Men” in Algerian Paris: Modeling Motivation and Movement in Jake Lamar’s Rendezvous Eighteenth Main Menu Rendezvous Eighteenth Header Splash Page Jake Lamar and Rendezvous Eighteenth An introduction to Jake Lamar French Impressionism and Rendezvous Eighteenth Thesis Thesis Statement Morrison: Point of View Theoretical Framework Amine: Algerian Paris Keaton: Black American Paris Routes of Narration: Detective Fiction Routes of Narration: romance “A Man Among Men” in the Eighteenth "A Man Among Men": Valitsa "A Man Among Men": Fatima “Algerian Paris” Revisited "Algerian Paris" Revisited": Barbes "Algerian Paris" Revisited: Mairie of the Eighteenth "Algerian Paris" Revisited: La Goutte d'Or PDF

Past is Present in Public Sphere

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La Goutte d'Or and Rendezvous Eighteenth
The narrator’s depiction of la Goutt d’Or after the French-Algerian War in the 1950s and 60s represents the distinctive. The period that Smith depicts in his novel was in the late 1950s, where “there was nightly combat between the police, Arab militants, and rival Algerian immigrant factions” (Rendezvous Eighteenth --). The narrator shows that this area is still “war-ravaged” (--) and in some ways worse. The narrator describes la Goutte d’Or as a:
half-abandoned desolation of contemporary urban hell. There was raunchy rue Myrha, with its strung out bums, drug dealers, and prostitutes; the young hoodlums hanging out in the Square de Léon; blessed Saint Bernard de la Chapelle, which gave refuge to illegal African immigrants until the police violently raided the church in 1996. (260)
In this passage, there are three areas of la Goutte d’Or that suggest a level of lawlessness. What Lamar depicts here is an area that most tourist would not know or definitely would not choose to visit. These attributes that make la Goutte d’Or distinctive also reveals how the narrator distorts, privileges, and silences. The narrator suggests that “immigrants” have consistently formed communities within Paris; these communities are no longer “communities” of immigrants, but highly visible French citizens; and the perspectives of the people within communities have been to large degree silenced.

First, the narrator’s gaze is distorted, which is made evident by his assumptions. The narrator assumes that the suburbs in Paris “evoke the backyards and white picket fences of American suburbia” and clarifies that “Paris’s ‘inner city’ was, in fact, an ‘outer city.’ (--). He explains that the outskirts of “Paris’s twenty arrondissements were bleak impoverished neighborhoods, largely populated by the descendants of France’s colonial subjects” (--). This clarification is necessary because the narrator is guiding the reader into the “notorious” area of la Goutte d’Or, a “banlieue right inside Paris (--). More telling of the narrator’s gaze is his continued use of the symbolism of outside versus inside; this is accomplished through his historicizing over a hundred and fifty-years of immigration into this part of the city. He expresses that “since the time of France’s Algerian conquest in the 1830s, had been a beleaguered home to wave after wave of immigrants […]. But from the mid-nineteenth century until the waning days of the twentieth, la Goutte d’Or had been most famously inhabited by the peoples of Northern Africa” (--). The narrator is showing that la Goutte d’Or is a significant space where the transition from immigrants to French citizens occurs.

Second, there are two things that the narrator privileges in la Goutte d’Or—an American perspective and men. An American perspective portrayed when he narrator says that “rue de la Goutte d’Or [the street named after the area] itself, dominated by a fortress-like police station and rows of concrete slab apartment buildings. No other part of Paris reminded Ricky so much of America” (--). Though this latter part of the quote shows the narrator “sliding into” Ricky’s perspective, this perspective is also shared by the narrator, for the narrator introduces la Goutte d’Or with a comparison of the area to the American inner city—“Paris’s ‘inner city’ was, in fact, an ‘outer city.’ (--). Additionally, the narrator’s portrayal of la Goutte d’Or privileges the visibility of males. In the description of the city streets, there are no women present with the exception of Marva Dobbs, and Ricky is concerned for her safety (--). The men who are present are the four teenage boys who are standing in front of the building. The first reference to men is when Ricky goes into Chinyelu.

Lastly, the narrator silences the perspective of the people that are “visible” and live in la Goutte d’Or; while they are seen, they are not heard. The teenagers standing in front of the building give Ricky a “brazen but nonthreatening” look (--). This gaze changes “from curious to menacing when they spotted Marva coming their way” (--), and they later blush (--). The narrator does not mention Chineylu, the woman whose home Ricky and Marva enter, speaking in the text. What is given voice in la Goutte d’Or is “the French rap song” coming from the boom box.