Two worlds come together, two different ways of seeing life and reality, two lives to research, an unhappy woman, Julie, who has left a family of good society in which they feel uncomfortable and she feels she can no longer belongs, a man, Arab, an illegal immigrant with a degree in economics who calls himself Abdul, whose real name is Jbrahim ibn Musa. Nadine Gordimer explores the plight of people forced to immigrate, " In my experience, and I think also that of many other writers, what is taken for inspiration is a slow process of observation, imagination, filling the gaps what is observed in life with your imagination. " 's so that he does live in his novel Julie and Abdu "Hook" ed. Feltrinelli.
Abdu was born in a Muslim country, where it dominates the desert, very poor. He works in black, under an assumed name, in a machine shop. It is not the first time he tries to cross the borders of a state, has already been rejected by more than one European country.
The stated intent of Gordimer, in this novel, is to subtract the protagonist of invisibility: to tell his story, in fact, means giving him a face, a name, an identity. "We must ask ourselves who is an illegal immigrant, - says the writer in an 'interview - one that does not have permission to stay in a country. It' s a person with no future, because it has no identity to claim. Become a presence illegal, unlawful. And 'here, but at the same time is not here. He lives on a threshold. It 's a "non person". Giving the body, voice, name, even in fiction, it means not to accept the existence of "non-persons", and this certainly is a political act. Or at least I hope it is. "
Abdu knows the look of the preconception that weighs on him: " are a drug dealer, he says, one that makes the white slave trade, which is to kidnap the girls, I will be a burden to the state, steal someone's work, I will accept less pay for a local. " " If you met Abdu sitting on a plane next to us, it probably would look askance " this Gordimer's comment to the person who invented it. "It 's an Arab, a Muslim, maybe a terrorist. We would not have the time, some perhaps not even the desire to know who he really is." says Julia Kristeva in "a stranger to oneself" " root in himself, the stranger did not own. Just a safe empty, worthless. I do what you want from me, but that is not "me" - "me" is elsewhere, "me" does not belong to anybody, "me" does not belong to "me ",... "Me" exists? "
Julie is immediately attracted to this man, he to her, and soon become lovers.
Julie belongs to a world, Abdu to another. Talk, touch, become central in the life of each other, yet remain each other intangibles, in some unknown way.
You will discover when you decide to return with him to his country. He really sees only then when returning an identity in itself can be seen that of Julie, which has since become his wife. Even Julie, you might say, Abdu discover for the first time, when, arrived at his birthplace, takes safety actions, a complete mastery of himself, and when no longer perceived as the host non desiderato. Ora è lei a essere completamente spiazzata dalla nuova realtà, a essere guardata con diffidenza, giudicata. È lei adesso quella che deve capire modi di vita, usanze e tradizioni talora inconcepibili per una donna occidentale.
Abdu non riesce a fidarsi pienamente della donna che pur ama: teme che un giorno lo lascerà, per tornare ai suoi privilegi. “Julie fa parte dei padroni del mondo, di quelli che possono comprare un biglietto, mostrare un passaporto e farsi riaccogliere in qualsiasi momento nel proprio mondo. "
Julie, paradossalmente, pur sentendosi estranea, ritroverà giorno dopo giorno qualcosa di sé che non conosceva proprio because they come into contact with what in her whole life she had missed: the world of women. He will find himself to conduct a large part of daily life with them, share with their domestic spaces and family care. In the family of it all revolves around the mother, just the figure that she is no more: she will establish the successful integration of Julie, when will allow you to be near her in the kitchen and teach you how to prepare his wise recipes. Explore, in short, something of himself that had been buried.
But even now that Julie seems to fit into that world so far from his fear that one day Jbrahim leave, to return to their privileges. Sooner or later it will happen, and therefore better not count on that love. Better to raise the dice and try once again a chance for redemption, of escape from a place that now he can not longer suffice. The story will not have a defined end, but "What matters - Nadine Gordimer concluded - is that the trajectories of their lives were, unexpectedly, encountered, and both have decided to get involved in the world, accepting the displacement given by gaze. " In this book, then, two strangers meet, they love and at the same time will never be able to join at all. And we'll find out Kristeva says that " Strangely, the foreigner lives within us: the hidden face of our identity, the space that wrecks our abode, the time sink of the understanding and sympathy. Recognizing it in us to save us dislike him. Symptom that just makes the "we" problematic, perhaps impossible, the foreigner begins when there is the consciousness of my difference and ends when we recognize all foreign rebel ties and communities. "
Each of the characters in the book starts, they go to an "other" place, but also take leave of themselves, than they were before, will never be the same, inhabit an alien who is in them. In another book "No one at my side," the Gordimer asks "... who is part of the same coming back? Some changes in the mutual understanding can be achieved only when one is alone, far from what is contained in the form outlined in another. And these changes can not be shared, it was always alone with them. The pictures are postcards sent from countries that only exist in the personality of the subject, and nothing will ever visit. "
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