Albert Camus – L’hôte – The Story Project

Algeria | Flag, Capital, Population, Map, & Language | Britannica — Algeria and its neighbours

L’hôte (The Guest) or … (The Host) by Camus

Strange and contradictory as the title sounds, it’s part of the brilliance of this story. Hang in there with me.

When I set out to read about Algeria, I got pulled into many fascinating aspects of the country. Choosing something to write about was the toughest part.

The history of the country was hard to pull away from, right from the Arab lineage, the indigenous Berber people, to the Ottoman reign, but like many other people, I knew only about Algeria’s french connection. I knew many Algerians spoke French, and I knew, of course, that most famous of Algerian-french writers, but not much beyond that, so a close reading of modern history emanating from a desire to understand this story better, filled all the gaps.

I turned first to Camus to find if he could shed light on Algeria’s history through his stories. L’Hôte came up, and once I had read it, that started a quest into the Algerian war of independence in the middle of the 20th century.

France had invaded Algeria and captured Algiers in 1830. Over the next few decades in its quest to colonize the nation hundreds of thousands of indigenous Arab people were killed. The conquest was complete by the early 1870_s. Many European immigrants, mainly the French from the mainland settled in Algeria during this period. France had complete administrative control over Algeria post 1871.

By the end of the second world war dissatisfaction amongst the local population was at its peak and a violent uprising in 1945 marked the beginning of what is now known as the Algerian war of independence. The local population of Algeria, like many a colonized people across the world, wanted greater political autonomy. More rights for the Arab and indigenous people.

The beginning of this period in Algeria from 1954 with the commencement of unrest amongst the locals is where L’hôte is set.

It’s a beautiful drawl of a story, almost languorous in its approach and writing. Lovingly descriptive of the arid and frigid yet beautiful landscape of the Algerian plateau leading to the highlands and the Saharan desert. The setting is almost a living protagonist in the story, very telling and silently narrative.

Algeria, Desert, Dune, landscape, mountain, nature, red, rock, HD wallpaper — Part of the Saharan Desert in Algeria

The main protagonist, Daru, an Algerian-born French school-teacher loves the land with all of its complexities.

“This is the way the region was, cruel to live in, even without men – who didn’t help matters either. But Daru had been born here. Everywhere else he felt exiled.“

As I delved deeper, these lines turned out to be more significant than I initially thought.

This exile and this love of the land in Daru is quite representative of Camus, a pied-noir¹(referring to French people born and settled in Algeria post the colonization of the African country). Albert Camus was born in Algeria to French parents who were extremely poor, in that sense, he did not belong to the privileged class, yet even the less-privileged French had much more representation and autonomy than the native Berber/Arab/Jewish population.

Daru is a pacifist in the story, so was Camus. When it came to the war of independence, he was neutral and refused to take sides, but he was ‘devastated’ and torn by the violence in his country even though he lived in Paris at the time the violent war began.

There are only two other acting protagonists in ‘L’hôte’ – Balducci, an old gendarme (policeman) and an Arab who had been taken prisoner by the French and had to be handed over to the French prison authorities on the charge of murder.
Balducci, much to Daru’s consternation, leaves the Arab with him at the school where Daru is the teacher and hands over the responsibility of turning him in.

Daru is quite squeamish to do this and almost wishes for the prisoner to escape, even though he detests the fact that the Arab has killed someone.

“That man’s stupid crime revolted him, but to hand him over was contrary to honor. Merely thinking of it made him smart with humiliation. And he cursed at one and the same time his own people who had sent him this Arab and the Arab too who had dared to kill and not managed to get away”.

The story ends with Daru heading out over the wasteland with the Arab, reflecting upon how the land was beloved to both the men.

“This is the way it was: bare rock covered three quarters of the region. (…) No one in this desert, neither he nor his guest, mattered. And yet, outside this desert, neither of them, Daru knew, could have really lived.”

Kabylie, Algeria, Africa, Landscape, Road

With that thought, Daru leaves the Arab to make his own choice, leaving him to decide whether he would hand himself over to the French authorities or go back to his own people. The Arab makes the intriguing choice of heading in the direction of the prison. Once Daru gets back to the school, he sees a scrawled note stating that he will pay the price for handing over the Arab.

The story is read fully when you know the backdrop of Camus’ own neutrality, opposition to violence, and his views on what was happening in Algeria through many of his writings. Most notable amongst these is his “Letter to an Algerian militant“. Perhaps even more than the story itself, it is a treat to read this ‘letter’ which was published in a newspaper founded by Camus’ Arab friend and which can be passed along for generations and amongst all regions where violence has become a way of life between strife-ridden communities.

The Algerian war of independence.

Camus compares his despair at the violent uprising in his country to “pain in his lungs” and says that he has “been on the edge of despair”, in considering the massacre taking place in Algeria. These events take place from 1954-1962 till Algeria gained independence from its colonizers. Camus didn’t live to see the end of the war, dying unfortunately in a car crash in 1960, having seen much of the bloodshed and massacre in Algeria that killed an estimated 500000 – 1.5million Algerians and thousands of French soldiers. One wonders what he would have made of the result of this in 1962 had he been alive, in flesh and blood, tied as he was to his place of birth.

He had been writing ‘Le premier homme‘ (The first man), an unfinished novel which was found in the wreckage of his crash, that was based on his childhood years in Algeria. I am intrigued and wonder if he would have been disappointed at the exodus of the pieds-noirs from his homeland at the fag end of the war and after a bloody massacre at Oran. It almost seemed like his letter and fervent plea for a cessation of violence on both sides had fallen on deaf ears. Would it have torn him apart to see the connection of his people to his beloved country come to such a bloody end?

This letter to his Arab friend Aziz Kessous is a study in itself on the fallacy and inefficacy of war and violent means. Although Camus remained a steadfast supporter of more political and social rights for Algeria’s Arab-Berber and Jewish population and frequently criticized the french for their excesses, he could never lay off his own claim to Algeria as his country. Something that we can see clearly reflected both in the story and in his beautiful letter as well.

“And yet you and I, who are so alike, who share the same culture and the same hopes, who have been brothers for so long, joined in the love we both feel for our country, know that we are not enemies. We know that we could live happily together on this land, which is our land— because it is ours, and because I can no more imagine it without you and your brothers than you can separate it from me and my kind.” (from ‘Letters to an Algerian militant‘)

Albert Camus | Albert Camus (November 7, 1913 – January 4, 1… | Flickr — Albert Camus (1913 – 1960)

“The French are attached to Algerian soil by roots too old and deep to think of tearing them up. But this does not give the French the right to cut the roots of Arab life and culture. All my life, I have defended the idea that our country stands in need of far-reaching reform (and as you well know, I paid the price in the form of exile).”

Reading this passage drove home Daru’s love for the arid plateau when the author says,

“But Daru had been born here. Everywhere else, he felt exiled.”

… much like Camus speaking for himself in the letter.

“… I paid the price in the form of exile.”

… speaking of his life in France away from Algeria.

Sometimes, the historical and personal context can bring a story alive as it did here. There is no separating the author from this story, much as there is no separating the story from its historical context.

One wonders whether the ‘guest’ and the ‘host’ as interchangeable in the french is also interchangeable here in the historical context of the Arabs and the French. Who was ultimately the guest and who was the host in the author’s mind?

Or, in their love for their country, weren’t both the same, one inextricable from the other (after decades of colonization and merging of histories) when Camus asks Kessous,

“I want to believe with all my heart that peace will dawn on our fields, our mountains, and our shores, and that Arabs and Frenchmen, reconciled in liberty and justice, will try hard to forget the bloodshed that divides them today. On that day, we who are together exiles in hatred and despair will together regain our native land.”

A timeless plea as passionate as this must not go unheard. It must be repeated through stories such as L’Hôte, and be read again and yet again.

Complement this reading with a story by Saadat Hasan Manto and his own heartbreaking struggle with the violent break-up of his country.

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