The Other Side of the Story

"By now they have no doubt burned all his books in an exorcizing fire. They understand the danger in words, all the words they cannot manage to domesticate and anesthetize. For words, put end to end, bring doubt and change...Those who, in defiance of the command, clutch uncontrolled words must be banished from a state in which they can do harm." - The Last Summer of Reason

If Fahrenheit 451 is the future without books, then The Last Summer of Reason is the prologue to Ray Bradbury's futuristic novel.

Written by Algerian journalist and writer, Tahar Djaout, The Last Summer of Reason describes the building anger towards books, writers, and even book sellers as a radically conservative Muslim group begins to take control. The story is told through the eyes of Boualem Yekker, a bookstore owner. The novel was published post-humously, as Tahar Djaout was assassinated by an Islamic fundamentalist group in 1993, the manuscript was found among his papers. His radical, Islamic countrymen were angered by his Raptures weekly, dedicated to breaking with Islamo-Baathist ideology. Djaout was also criticized for writing in French, the language of colonization instead of Arabic, but as Kabyle has no alphabet and Arabic is a foreign language to Algeria, the criticism is viewed as unreasonable. When reading The Last Summer of Reason, one can't help wondering if there are autobiographic elements to the story.

Djaout's story is a "must read" for a number of reasons. First, for the English reader, the author constructs with great vividness and emotion the fear, sadness, and personal questioning that occurs when political groups slowly invade human freedoms. It begins with restricting news and media, then books and creative expression, then you're own personal thoughts.

Second, this book provides important insight to the other side of the battle against militant Islam. Much of the world is locked in controversy over Islamicism. The Western world is on the defensive due to attacks and threats lodged by Islamists, but few understand or even think about the places in the world where Islamicism has taken hold and what that means to the people and the culture of that country. Djaout's novel walks the reader through the emotions of uncertainty, questioning, anger, and fear.

The Last Summer of Reason provides a larger scope for conflict between the West and Islamicism. The Western culture is not the only culture under attack - other cultures have been smothered under, where Islamicism has taken hold. If books are carriers of civilizations, then Tahar Djauout's novel carries the Western reader to a civilization struggling survive and to the other side of the conflict.

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