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

Routes of Narration: Detective Fiction

I examine the guide in Rendezvous Eighteenth to reveal two routes of Lamar’s narration—detective fiction and romance. The route of detective fiction, which is the route that many reviewers of the novel note, has limitations in the novel. In his frequently cited article “The Hard-Boiled Detective,” George Grella lists and describes five features of the hard-boiled tradition—private eye, moral code, urban chaos, chivalric romance, and religious quack. Three of these features are apparent in Rendezvous Eighteenth: they are moral code, urban chaos, and chivalric romance. For instance, the narrator establishes the moral code that is often used in detective fiction. Ricky is positioned as a good guy, and Cash is Ricky’s antagonist. Cash has sex with Ricky’s fiancée the day of his wedding. However, Ricky’s moral code causes him to feel revulsion when Cash’s wife makes Ricky a sexual advance saying, “Don’t you wanna fuck Cash’s woman?” […] “He’d fuck yours. He already fucked one of yours” (228). Though Ricky finds Serena attractive and detests his cousin Cash. He cannot bring himself to get involved with Serena. As such, Grella writes that “the moral code often exacts severe personal sacrifice. The detective generally finds that the beautiful and available girl is also the source of guilt” (109). Ricky consistently maintains his integrity in the novel; his integrity situates the moral code in the novel.
Also, the novel’s setting in the Eighteenth Arrondissement is demonstrative of urban chaos. The Eighteenth is described as “a city within a city; eccentric, hard-bitten, robustly alive” (4). Lamar portrays four distinct neighborhoods—Pigalle, an area known for its sex shops and prostitutes; Montmartre, the bohemian and artist section of the arrondissement; Barbès, the Arab and African hub of the city with a large, thriving market; and La Goutte d’Or, a crime laden residential neighborhood. However, a seedier side of Paris emerges once Ricky begins his “detective case.” To illustrate, even the most beautiful intersection of the Eighteenth is turned to a crime scene with two dead bodies and a blown up vineyard. Like Los Angeles, which is the setting of much hard-boiled detective fiction, “the golden land [is] raped of tis fecundity and beauty” (Grella 113). The urban chaos of the Eighteenth is significant since it is the setting where Ricky lives, works, and encounters Serena. In addition, the third feature of hardboiled detective fiction is chivalric romance; this is evident in Ricky’s quest to protect Serena and Fatima. Ricky seeks to protect Serena from Cash after Cash threatens to kill her (126). He tells Serena, “I’ll do whatever I can to help you” (125). More importantly, he protects Fatima, his pregnant girlfriend, twice from gun shots (207, 306). His actions are more chivalric considering they are initiated by Cash’s violent business connections. The novel’s ending epitomizes chivalric romance as the last words in Rendezvous Eighteenth are Ricky asking Fatima “Will you marry me?” and a description of the silence that follows as he waits for an answer (311). Though the novel has major characteristics of the hard-boiled detective genre, a major feature of the detective tradition is missing.
Rendezvous Eighteenth undermines an important feature of the detective fiction genre—the private eye. Ricky is hired to “detect” Serena’s whereabouts, but he does not achieve this. To demonstrate, twice when Ricky encounters Serena, it is not because he finds her. In the first encounter, she finds him at the crêperie where he works, and then she disappears from her “safe house.” The second time she calls him and invites him to her friend’s home, and then he is unable to find her again. Also, after she is missing for nearly a week, Marva finds Serena in la Goutte d’Or, and Marva brings Ricky to Serena. Not only does he not find Serena, more significantly, Ricky does not keep the thousand dollars Cash pays him to find her. Ricky is not a detective. Serena and Cash reunite in spite of him. Ricky’s actions are motivated by his love for his girlfriend Fatima.
 

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