Jelloun's 'Leaving Tangier' Weakened by Lead Character

Weaving a web of stories across the strait of Gibraltar, Tahar Ben Jelloun's "Leaving Tangier" exposes the hardship of emigration and the political corruption of the countries around the strait. Ben Jelloun is a celebrated Francophone Moroccan author who penned the gender-obsessed "The Sand Child" in 1985, and the recent English translation of "Leaving Tangier" does not flirt around issues of sexuality, prostitution and sexual slavery. But despite the glitz of its surrounding buzz words and phrases, the novel struggles to rein in its dreamer main character, Azel.

Ben Jelloun is no stranger to a surreal landscape in his novels, but Azel's constant dreaming reads as too aloof. As he dreams of escaping Tangier for the freedom of Spain, as he jots down poetic letters to his country, as he becomes disenchanted with Spain and slums with undesirables, the reader can only empathize so much. The author is no novice-he knows how to develop his characters-but his protagonist Azel eludes not only the other characters but also the reader. Ben Jelloun's mistake is allowing Azel to get caught up in fantasies and disillusions that don't translate across the page, as he is always distant.

Azel, like much of Morocco, finds promise in Spain and not much else in the disintegrating town of Tangier. Jelloun's world of characters is unknown to most American readers, yet he is not one to exoticize the East. He reveals the underbelly of Arab culture, often heavily criticizing the ineffectual Moroccan government and underlining the racism perpetuated against and within the Arab world. The story of Malika, a minor character, becomes the most poignant in the tableaux vivant of Moroccan and immigrant narratives. She, too, wants nothing more than to cross the strait and escape Tangier yet she remains stuck in a factory job shelling shrimp for a pittance.

The novel picks up, not surprisingly, as it explores life on the other side of the sea. Spain is no longer a dream but a country of necessary prostitution. Ben Jelloun does not ignore the colonialist implications of Arabs serving Spanish sexual needs as he reminds the reader of Spain's long power struggle with los moros. Azel serves Spaniard Miguel for a legitimate passage to Spain and a shelter, but he soon sucks Miguel dry with favors, starting with a marriage to his sister, Kenza, to help her immigrate. As a heterosexual man, he struggles with having to act as Miguel's latest catch. In this conflict of money versus sexual freedom, Azel can win the reader's interest and emotional investment.

Nonetheless, the author does not pit the Spaniards against Arabs or suggest that one side is more pitiable than the other. Both governments have police forces easily paid off, crackdowns on drugs to promote a false public image and an understood acceptance of homosexual prostitution under necessity. Spain is not the dream Azel imagines, and there is no easy way out for those trapped between home and a new promise.

Fortunately, the novel spends its 40 short chapters following a variety of characters. Azel's narrative becomes exasperating as his rebellion and angst take over his naive dreams, but "Leaving Tangier" still offers engaging stories for its other characters. Even self-made Miguel turns out to be more than a foreign rich man with a taste for young men. The novel succeeds in exploring deeper themes, such as the aftermath of colonialism and the current nature of immigration, that enrapt the reader even when the protagonist does not.