Hoarding Memory: Covering the Wounds of the Algerian War by Amy L. Hubbell

Abstract

Reviewed by: Hoarding Memory: Covering the Wounds of the Algerian War by Amy L. Hubbell Mary E. McCullough Hubbell, Amy L. Hoarding Memory: Covering the Wounds of the Algerian War. U of Nebraska P, 2020. Pp. vii- 165. ISBN 978-1-4962-1402-7. $50 (hardcover). This engaging and eminently readable book on historical, literary, artistic, and personal memory examines representations of the complex, ongoing, and multilayered relationship between Algeria, France, and the Algerian War (1954-1962). This six-chapter study (including chapters of introduction and conclusion) begins by explaining psychological approaches to hoarding objects and transfers these theories to the analysis of memories and post-memories, and concludes by the acknowledging the difficulties of honoring the dead, "codify[ing] loss" (132), and how the two are inextricably linked with issues of "excessive trauma or excessive loss" (132). Chapter One, "Too Much Memory and the Algerian War," explains that "French Algeria is a lost colony whose debris is still carted around by the many people displaced at the end of the Algerian War for Independence and during the Algerian Civil War of the 1990s" (25). This chapter frames the study in stating that it "looks across texts and tableaux to show how memory proliferates in both the individual and the collective histories of the Algerian War, and how memory might be obscured and forgotten under the layers of artefacts put on display" (26). In chapters One and Two, Hubbell uses theoretical concepts from Agnès Varda's film The Gleaners and I (2000) as a lens through which to examine literary texts. Through the metaphorical act of gleaning in the fields, the chapter titled "Marie Cardinal, Gleaning, Collecting, and Hoarding the Lost Homeland" investigates how pied-noir author Cardinal's "obsessive recreation of Algeria" (27) in her first two novels Écoutez la Mer (1962) and La Mule de corbillard (1963) contributes to literary memorial remains of Algeria that are heavy, obsessive, and impossible to sort through. Chapter Three, "Leïla Sebbar: Churning Memory Debris," considers Sebbar's "identity [as] one of negotiations that can only be summed up [End Page 180] by exile" (55), focusing on the multiple and almost excessive autobiographical weavings that are central to, and at the same time, surround Sebbar's works. Moving to chapter Four, "Benjamin Stora: Gangrene and the Memory of the Algerian War," Hubbell examines how Stora's massive corpus of works on the Algerian war started out as historic and historiographic yet has recently become more personal. "Despite his wishes, Stora is continually drawn back in to sift through piles of personal memory." In chapter Five, "Hoarding Visual Debris from the War," Hubbell transitions from studying fictional, autobiographical, and historical texts to examining works by three contemporary visual artists: Nicole Guiraud, Patrick Altes, and Zineb Sedira. All three artists retain "personal and collective memory trauma from the Algerian War," which is reflected in their art. Hubbell's meticulous, thoughtful, and mindful analysis of the layers that compose each work of art (whether it be installations, mixed-media paintings, works that use "borrowed and recycled images" (115) such as postcards and/or photographs, or video installations) analyzes the complicated transmission of memory, especially as the artists "explore new ways for France and Algeria to move beyond historical trauma and to understand each other today" (127). In investigating how different genres and media investigate the lasting and intertwined representation of memory, history, and trauma, Hubbell's intimate, careful, scholarly work creates a captivating, convincing, and multifaceted study of the ways in which the texts of individual authors and artists honor and contribute to the ever-evolving complexities of the relationship between Algeria and France, while acknowledging and emphasizing its traumatic past. This engrossing book opens nuanced questions about the haunting relationship between former colonized and colonizer, between personal recollections, memory, history, and collected narratives, and how intertwined they are when writers and artists engage in their production. Hoarding Memory is a must-read for scholars of Algeria; students and specialists of history, memory, literature, art, and postcolonial studies will find it of interest, and will no doubt want to explore further the works analyzed within. Mary E. McCullough Samford University Copyright © 2021 Women in...