Killing an Arab
By Rob Goodman
“US President George W. Bush quoted French existential writer Albert Camus to European leaders a year and a half ago, and now he’s read one of his most famous works: The Stranger. White House spokesman Tony Snow said Friday that Bush, here on his Texas ranch enjoying a 10-day vacation from Washington, had made quick work of the Algerian-born writer’s 1946 novel—in English.”
And that is how the hero Meursault kills an Arab, a crime for which he is eventually executed. Now, I’m not the first one to raise questions about this odd choice of summer reading; Slate’s John Dickerson does so here. But there are two things still undone.
First, no one has, to my knowledge, read the President’s choice of literature as a direct signal. But what else could it be? We know that there’s no such thing as private beach reading for a president—our public figures live lives as deliberately scripted as any Sun King. We also know that President Bush in particular has made a habit of advertising his reading list for political purposes. In this 2004 photo, Bush ostentatiously carries down the path to Marine One Bernard Goldberg’s Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News. Pro-war historian Victor Davis Hanson has also been invited to the White House on the strength of his book Carnage and Culture and his opinion writing for National Review.
Given this ongoing ideological Reading Rainbow, it would be a fair deduction that President Bush announces his reading when he has a distinct message to send. Indeed, the announcement alone should tip us off—in what other field besides politics is your private recreation anyone else’s business? (“…and Friday’s lunch will be fish sticks with corn and a fruit cup. Finally, Mr. Goodman would like you to know that he is reading 120 Days of Sodom. Have a super weekend.”)
So—what message? Well, I suppose President Bush could have been trying to make nice with the French and demonstrate a little intellectual heft. But for that, he could have chosen anyone from Rabelais to Houellebecq —we need a more specific explanation. And I can’t help wondering if there’s a certain identification between Camus’s protagonist and a leader connected to (I won’t use that agitprop word, “responsible”) the deaths of so many Arabs.
The second thing that no one’s done on this question is attempt a close reading of Camus’s key passage; let’s do that, and as we do, let’s imagine that the words are spoken by George Bush; that it’s our President, perhaps in swim trunks, standing on the crowded French beach as the heat from the sun bores into his head.
First, the physical setting. The existentialist hero is deeply out of place, even in so ordinary a setting as a beach on the weekend. “The whole beach, pulsing with heat, was pressing on my back”—the environs almost attack our speaker. “Beneath a veil of brine and tears my eyes were blinded”—the alien scene provokes a sympathetic reaction in his own body, tears of pain and frustration. He ceases to distinguish between the light from the sun and the direct threat of the light glinting from the Arab’s knife. And then, a cataclysm: “A fiery gust came from the sea, while the sky cracked in two, from end to end, and a great sheet of flame poured down through the rift”—and Meursault/Bush pulls the trigger. What we have is a picture of paranoia and alienation—of a man so ill at ease in his own skin that he could easily crawl out of it. And if we posit an analogy between the stage on which Meursault acts and the stage on which Bush acts, we sense a man, and a President, distinctly pained by his place in the world. Indeed—imagine that Bush’s world of press conferences, G-8 meetings, and campaign stops is analogous to Meursault’s beach, and we have a clear explanation for the President’s consummately awkward public behavior, from the frequent inability to successfully complete a sentence, to the gait that many dismiss as a cowboy’s strut, but which I see as the carriage of a man in chronic internal pain. Meursault chose a day at the beach; Bush chose to run for national office. But neither suspected that the fruit would turn to ashes in his mouth. In fact, it seems not to be hatred of the Arab, or impulsiveness, or anger, that makes Meursault/Bush pull the trigger, but rather the pain emanating from the environment itself, the existential trauma of being-in-the-world—
Second, the Arab. We note that he doesn’t speak a word, and we note that he is nameless. Is this how the Arab world looks to our President—inscrutable, teeming with unspoken menace? We also note that the Arab does very little to provoke the crime. He grins, or seems to grin, possibly bespeaking a hidden knowledge our speaker lacks. He brandishes a knife, but he doesn’t use it, or advance with it—rather it’s the glint of light from the knife, the intimation of being attacked, that provokes Meursault/Bush. Is it, then, a preemptive strike? We only see that the speaker is conscious of the nerves in his body, and his grip on the stock, and the jerk of the underbelly of the butt, and the whipcrack sound of the pistol’s report, and of more light from the sun, and even of the body he’s fired into, but never even really of the Arab that he’s murdered. The killed man doesn’t get a word or a thought? Is this how it feels to kill from a distance, with a button, by an order, from a room filled with maps? The Arab, the Arabs, only lies there, mute and victimized—
Third, the act. Finally, we find that the Arab isn’t even the victim at all. “I fired four shots more into the inert body, on which they left no visible trace.” We don’t even see the Arab die. Impervious in life, impervious in death. Instead, the very act of preemptive war rebounds most on the preemptor. The gunshot isn’t the act that ends the Arab’s life, or does anything to change the balance of power on the beach/world stage—rather the gunshot is “the loud, fateful rap on the door of my undoing.” Meursault/Bush does and un-does at the same time; it’s as if the thoughtless act of violence is an accidental suicide. And if being on the beach/being President was tough, it’s now instantly transmuted into nostalgia: “I knew I’d shattered the balance of the day, the spacious calm of this beach on which I had been happy.” The attentive reader replies—“What balance? What calm?" But the slow-dawning torment of this suicide-by-aggression is such that our speaker would gladly trade it back for the sting of the brine, and the glint of the silently threatening knife, and the sun beating down mercilessly—
So what does this all mean for George W. Bush? What is he pondering tonight in Crawford? Is it his delight in a hero who so thoroughly dehumanizes an Arab? Is it transference of his fears and his passions to a figure from literature? Is it identification with the tormented speaker and his unprovoked violence? Is he working out a secret guilt he can never speak? I can’t tell you; I wouldn’t presume to go any further.
But mark my words, George Bush read the book, and George Bush told us he read the book, and George Bush is trying to tell us something. That something can’t be said aloud, because it’s so often a leader of men has to speak in code to us. But at least we all see this: the pathos of a man who can never let go of his heart and speak to us true, but can only talk in signs, in signals, in passages scraped here and there from existentialist literature, in semaphores, in ciphers…
“US President George W. Bush quoted French existential writer Albert Camus to European leaders a year and a half ago, and now he’s read one of his most famous works: The Stranger. White House spokesman Tony Snow said Friday that Bush, here on his Texas ranch enjoying a 10-day vacation from Washington, had made quick work of the Algerian-born writer’s 1946 novel—in English.”
-AFP, August 11
It’s been seven years since I myself read L’Étranger, and in that time I’ve forgotten most everything about it, except that the climax had something to do with an Arab. I tracked down a copy yesterday at the local university library, and what I found refreshed my memory entirely; I hope you won’t mind if I quote at length (not least because more Camus and less Goodman is probably a good thing):
It’s been seven years since I myself read L’Étranger, and in that time I’ve forgotten most everything about it, except that the climax had something to do with an Arab. I tracked down a copy yesterday at the local university library, and what I found refreshed my memory entirely; I hope you won’t mind if I quote at length (not least because more Camus and less Goodman is probably a good thing):
It struck me that all I had to do was to turn, walk away, and think no more about it. But the whole beach, pulsing with heat, was pressing on my back. I took some steps toward the stream. The Arab didn’t move. Perhaps because of the shadow on his face, he seemed to be grinning at me. I waited….And then the Arab drew his knife and held it up toward me, athwart the sunlight. A shaft of light shot upward from the steel, and I felt as if a long, thin blade transfixed my forehead. At the same moment all the sweat that had accumulated in my eyebrows splashed down on my eyelids, covering them with a warm film of moisture. Beneath a veil of brine and tears my eyes were blinded; I was conscious only of the cymbals of the sun clashing on my skull, and, less directly, of the keen blade of light flashing up from the knife, scarring my eyelashes, and gouging into my eyeballs. Then everything began to reel before my eyes, a fiery gust came from the sea, while the sky cracked in two, from end to end, and a great sheet of flame poured down through the rift. Every nerve in my body was a steel spring, and my grip closed on the revolver. The trigger gave, and the smooth underbelly of the butt jogged my palm. And so, with that crisp, whipcrack sound, it all began. I shook off my sweat and the clinging veil of light. I knew I’d shattered the balance of the day, the spacious calm of this beach on which I had been happy. But I fired four shots more into the inert body, on which they left no visible trace. And each successive shot was another loud, fateful rap on the door of my undoing.
And that is how the hero Meursault kills an Arab, a crime for which he is eventually executed. Now, I’m not the first one to raise questions about this odd choice of summer reading; Slate’s John Dickerson does so here. But there are two things still undone.
First, no one has, to my knowledge, read the President’s choice of literature as a direct signal. But what else could it be? We know that there’s no such thing as private beach reading for a president—our public figures live lives as deliberately scripted as any Sun King. We also know that President Bush in particular has made a habit of advertising his reading list for political purposes. In this 2004 photo, Bush ostentatiously carries down the path to Marine One Bernard Goldberg’s Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News. Pro-war historian Victor Davis Hanson has also been invited to the White House on the strength of his book Carnage and Culture and his opinion writing for National Review.
Given this ongoing ideological Reading Rainbow, it would be a fair deduction that President Bush announces his reading when he has a distinct message to send. Indeed, the announcement alone should tip us off—in what other field besides politics is your private recreation anyone else’s business? (“…and Friday’s lunch will be fish sticks with corn and a fruit cup. Finally, Mr. Goodman would like you to know that he is reading 120 Days of Sodom. Have a super weekend.”)
So—what message? Well, I suppose President Bush could have been trying to make nice with the French and demonstrate a little intellectual heft. But for that, he could have chosen anyone from Rabelais to Houellebecq —we need a more specific explanation. And I can’t help wondering if there’s a certain identification between Camus’s protagonist and a leader connected to (I won’t use that agitprop word, “responsible”) the deaths of so many Arabs.
The second thing that no one’s done on this question is attempt a close reading of Camus’s key passage; let’s do that, and as we do, let’s imagine that the words are spoken by George Bush; that it’s our President, perhaps in swim trunks, standing on the crowded French beach as the heat from the sun bores into his head.
First, the physical setting. The existentialist hero is deeply out of place, even in so ordinary a setting as a beach on the weekend. “The whole beach, pulsing with heat, was pressing on my back”—the environs almost attack our speaker. “Beneath a veil of brine and tears my eyes were blinded”—the alien scene provokes a sympathetic reaction in his own body, tears of pain and frustration. He ceases to distinguish between the light from the sun and the direct threat of the light glinting from the Arab’s knife. And then, a cataclysm: “A fiery gust came from the sea, while the sky cracked in two, from end to end, and a great sheet of flame poured down through the rift”—and Meursault/Bush pulls the trigger. What we have is a picture of paranoia and alienation—of a man so ill at ease in his own skin that he could easily crawl out of it. And if we posit an analogy between the stage on which Meursault acts and the stage on which Bush acts, we sense a man, and a President, distinctly pained by his place in the world. Indeed—imagine that Bush’s world of press conferences, G-8 meetings, and campaign stops is analogous to Meursault’s beach, and we have a clear explanation for the President’s consummately awkward public behavior, from the frequent inability to successfully complete a sentence, to the gait that many dismiss as a cowboy’s strut, but which I see as the carriage of a man in chronic internal pain. Meursault chose a day at the beach; Bush chose to run for national office. But neither suspected that the fruit would turn to ashes in his mouth. In fact, it seems not to be hatred of the Arab, or impulsiveness, or anger, that makes Meursault/Bush pull the trigger, but rather the pain emanating from the environment itself, the existential trauma of being-in-the-world—
Second, the Arab. We note that he doesn’t speak a word, and we note that he is nameless. Is this how the Arab world looks to our President—inscrutable, teeming with unspoken menace? We also note that the Arab does very little to provoke the crime. He grins, or seems to grin, possibly bespeaking a hidden knowledge our speaker lacks. He brandishes a knife, but he doesn’t use it, or advance with it—rather it’s the glint of light from the knife, the intimation of being attacked, that provokes Meursault/Bush. Is it, then, a preemptive strike? We only see that the speaker is conscious of the nerves in his body, and his grip on the stock, and the jerk of the underbelly of the butt, and the whipcrack sound of the pistol’s report, and of more light from the sun, and even of the body he’s fired into, but never even really of the Arab that he’s murdered. The killed man doesn’t get a word or a thought? Is this how it feels to kill from a distance, with a button, by an order, from a room filled with maps? The Arab, the Arabs, only lies there, mute and victimized—
Third, the act. Finally, we find that the Arab isn’t even the victim at all. “I fired four shots more into the inert body, on which they left no visible trace.” We don’t even see the Arab die. Impervious in life, impervious in death. Instead, the very act of preemptive war rebounds most on the preemptor. The gunshot isn’t the act that ends the Arab’s life, or does anything to change the balance of power on the beach/world stage—rather the gunshot is “the loud, fateful rap on the door of my undoing.” Meursault/Bush does and un-does at the same time; it’s as if the thoughtless act of violence is an accidental suicide. And if being on the beach/being President was tough, it’s now instantly transmuted into nostalgia: “I knew I’d shattered the balance of the day, the spacious calm of this beach on which I had been happy.” The attentive reader replies—“What balance? What calm?" But the slow-dawning torment of this suicide-by-aggression is such that our speaker would gladly trade it back for the sting of the brine, and the glint of the silently threatening knife, and the sun beating down mercilessly—
So what does this all mean for George W. Bush? What is he pondering tonight in Crawford? Is it his delight in a hero who so thoroughly dehumanizes an Arab? Is it transference of his fears and his passions to a figure from literature? Is it identification with the tormented speaker and his unprovoked violence? Is he working out a secret guilt he can never speak? I can’t tell you; I wouldn’t presume to go any further.
But mark my words, George Bush read the book, and George Bush told us he read the book, and George Bush is trying to tell us something. That something can’t be said aloud, because it’s so often a leader of men has to speak in code to us. But at least we all see this: the pathos of a man who can never let go of his heart and speak to us true, but can only talk in signs, in signals, in passages scraped here and there from existentialist literature, in semaphores, in ciphers…
posted by Rob Goodman at 4:46 AM
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