The Algerian Connection

A few observations on the last day of the month, the last day of the third quarter, the 273rd day of the year: September 30, 2007.

I have a little book called A Book of Days for the Literary Year, a gift some years ago from my younger sister Nancy. Among its notes for September 30 is this: 1937 Albert Camus notes: "It is in order to shine sooner that authors refuse to rewrite. Despicable. Begin again."

Camus was a fine writer, if somewhat crazy. The story goes that he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature at a relatively early age because the committee was aware that his lifestyle made it unlikely that he would live to be old. He was awarded the prize in 1957, just fifty years ago, and he died in 1960. According to my almanac, he was awarded the prize "for his important literary production, which with clearsighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times."

Camus was counted as a French author, and, of course, he wrote in French and was a French citizen. He was, however, as Alistair Horne puts it, a typical pied noir. This is an expression applied to the French and, quite often, Spanish, settlers of Algeria after the French took it in 1830. Generations of pied noirs lived and died in Algerie francaise. Camus most famous novels, La Peste (The Plague) and L'Etranger (The Stranger) are set in Algeria. They are very effective novels, and they evoke Algeria, at least French Algeria, very successfully. The Algerian sun is very nearly a character in L'Etranger. Having lived in Algiers (1979-80), I can testify that the sun is very much with one in Algeria.

I saw the line from Alistair Horne in his The Savage War of Peace, which I have just started reading. It was originally published in 1977, but there is a 2006 edition in trade paperback. It has a very good reputation, and the other works by Horne I've read (many years ago) were quite good. I'm looking forward to it. Horne has a number of references to a literary/historical conference held in Algiers in 1984, on the 30th anniversary of the revolution. I missed that one, but I was in Algiers for the 25th anniversary, at which celebration the U.S. was represented by Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's national security advisor. That was the week that our embassy in Teheran was captured, and the assistance of the Algerian government on that occasion led to their continuing involvement in the negotiations for the American hostages in Iran.

In later March and early April of this year I happened to read a memoir by Robert Gates, now Secretary of Defense. I was interested to note that Mr. Gates accompanied Dr. Brzezinski to Algiers. Gates' account mentions some circumstances that lead me to believe I may have met him, or, more probably, that we were both in the room at the Aurassi Hotel with Dr. Brzezinski at the same time. The trip to Algiers wasn't a big part of Mr. Gates' career, or his account of it. But I found it interesting that our career arcs, his steeply upward, mine much less regular, crossed at that out-of-the way point.

My opinions on the war in Iraq and how it has been handled have been influenced by my time in Algeria, and I wonder if Mr. Gates gained any insights into Arab life that have helped him deal with his current responsibilities.