“Waiting for Bojangles” by Olivier Bourdeaut

Nina Simone, Mr. Bojangles and all that jazz

I started the review with this song because even if you are not a jazz fan you absolutely have to listen to it before you read the book (and preferably while you are doing it and immediately after you’ve finished). Otherwise you won’t be able to fully appreciate the atmosphere. This tiny novel is simply jazz age reborn, and if you have ever read Fitzgerald you certainly have an idea of how it feels to read Bourdeaut.

Jazz music can be found in every corner of this story, the characters listen to it, dance to it, and live according to the ways of jazz age – drinking, having fun, enjoying their lives while they can, even though the world around them is breaking into pieces. This book is about escapism, about sacrificing reality to happiness and common sense to feelings.

When you open the first page, you immediately meet the narrator – a nameless boy of an uncertain age. What may seem indifference to the character in fact serves a particular purpose. On the one hand, the narrator adds some autobiographical traces (Bourdeaut himself confesses that as well as his narrator, he didn’t like going to school and preferred being on his own rather than joining loud companies), but doesn’t want to make it too obvious as it is not the most important factor for the novel. On the other hand, making the character so vague he lets the readers participate in the creation of the novel and imagine themselves on the boy’s place, practically to live inside the story.

The other primary characters, the boy’s parents, although granted with names, use them very rarely and therefore it is a good idea to think of them as types, images and not real people.

The family you are going to see if you start reading this novel leads a very extraordinary life. They pay no attention to the surrounding reality and don’t want either to correspond to any rules and conventions or to do what people expect from them. They don’t read letters keeping them unopened in a huge pile in the corridor, they don’t think it’s necessary to visit school regularly, they keep a huge bird (supposedly a crane) and live a never-ending-party of life. The centre of this moveable feast is the mother who believes that life is too short to do any boring things and tries to get all imaginable pleasures from every single day. Her eccentric behavior and stories she makes up about herself seem funny and strange to the people surrounding her. However, her husband and son got used to them so much that it takes them a lot of time to notice that at some point she begins to slip and starts believing her stories herself, that she no longer has any links to the real world and eccentricity turns into madness.

Apart from the general make-believe attitude of characters, the text itself has the atmosphere of surrealism. The characters exist within indefinite time and place, this is done on purpose to show that the real world means nothing to the main character as she exists in her own reality, moreover she cannot find herself and her own place in the world that’s why, for instance, she wants her husband to call her different names every day. The author himself says he wanted his novel to be unstable, uncertain to make the reader feel as the heroine does.

So, why Nina Simone and “Mr. Bojangles”? This song is very important to the narrator’s mother, she listens to it every day, makes everyone dance whenever they hear it and even has purchased a phonograph to listen to the original record. The choice of the song not only helps to communicate the essential mood to the reader but also describes the character in many ways. As well as Mr. Bojangles, she cannot find anything to cling to in her real life so she imagines a better reality for herself and when anything negative or difficult comes in the way she prefers to block it, push it out of her mind, forget it completely… and dance.

Olivier Bourdeaut states that he wanted his novel to be both light and hard, speaking about difficult situations in an easy-going, upbeat way and I admit he has achieved the desired effect. Escapism and mental conditions are not the most positive and understandable issues in the world, but this novel won’t put you under pressure or make you depressed. It just will make you think and feel.

Intertextuality

In the interviews the author has given, he mentions some authors that inspired his greatly and indeed you can feel their influence throughout the novel.

The first and the most obvious is F.S. Fitzgerald whose touch you can feel in general atmosphere. The style, the mood, the attitudes are very close to his. Most strongly this novel resembles “Tender is the Night” where a young doctor tries to put up with his wife’s mental problems, but generally all Fitzgerald’s characters tend to be unrealistic, to live within their own illusions and face a great disappointment when they finally crush against the reality.

The connection with Ernest Hemingway goes through his well-known novels “Moveable Feast” and “The Sun Also Rises” – the characters in both novels are also eager to escape the reality but in their case it is caused by the interbellum period and the general mood of misery and despair all around while the character in “Waiting for Bojangles” does it due to her mental state, the reality seems too boring and depressive for her to bear. In addition, both authors deal with inability to find your place in the world and show a passionate attachment to Spanish culture.

The influence of Truman Capote is also easy to notice– the main character is a variation of Holly Golightly – a little girl who doesn’t want to ever grow up or take any responsibilities, even for herself, life seems to her too short to waste it on work or routine, every day is indeed a moveable feast for her.

Motifs and symbolism

The main topic of “Waiting for Bojangles” seems to be what is traditionally called “the unbearable lightness of being”. (Look for Milan Kundera if you are not sure what I mean)

The theme of madness is very difficult topic to speak about but very appealing in literature as it lets the reader into the depth of human consciousness and provides a profound analysis of character plus reveals the insane and complicated arrangements of the modern world, which for many people seems to be too much to cope with. Strangely enough, this book is not about a mental condition, although the topic is very prominent here. It is more important for the author to show what stands behind it.

Ever since the beginning of the 20^th century, writers have been trying to express their concern about the fact that the modern world changes too fast and some people just cannot adapt to it. It is quite obvious that nowadays we need much more knowledge and skills to be successful than a hundred years ago, and although the development of science, technology and other spheres of life have solved many problems of the past, it has also prompted many new issues, new challenges and duties. Everything is excessive these days – too much pollutions, too many social problems, too much information. Isn’t it easier to hide away from some aspects of life and perceive only what you want to see, hear or feel? It certainly is and many people act this way.

When you begin to read the book, you are absolutely sure that something is wrong with the main character and she needs treatment and help. Nevertheless, by the end of the book the author makes you wonder if it is really so. Maybe the world itself is a mad place and our family are the only sane people in it? Everything depends on the perspective.

I’ve written so much about the topics but never mentioned another important issue – love, loyalty and acceptance. The story of this family, however strange it may seem, is full of overwhelming affection and the relations between the characters show us that if we love someone we accept him or her with all odds, problems and madnesses, be they little or enormous. Some situations may seem to you a little bit too much, but remember it’s not a biography or not even close to real life, they should be hyperbolized to receive emotional feedback from the reader. This novel appeals to emotions first of all and the author frankly admits it.

Now let’s deal with some symbols and inner meanings. The motif of dance plays a leading role here as well. The life of the family is a never-ending dance, sometimes passionate and quick, sometimes tender and slow. The dancing and the music create this feeling of synesthesia (combination and mingling of different senses), you can actually hear this book and watch it, the introduction of intermediality (connection to other types of art) adds to the emotionality of this work.

The crane which walks along the family’s flat may symbolize many things in different cultures, but the most suitable meanings for this story are love and sexual desire, loyalty, joy of life and dancing all of which have been mentioned above. It seems that our couple bought this bird during their honeymoon to bring all these things into their lives.

This is a story to love or hate, it seems to me, so read it when you are in a special mood, listen to some jazz, get some time to relax and while reading don’t focus on actions but on the sounds, colours and language, only then you will truly appreciate this work of art.