Sigmund Fellag

In page 49 Wanda reaches Paris coming from Sarajevo. Wanda fall in the ground of the train-station and her bag is opened and the air is taking her books, papers, clothes, and a photo album, among other things, away. Farid, the French of Algerian origins, had never seen such beautiful and sad green eyes. He run to help her.

In page 175 Wanda and Farid are sleeping together in the same bed with a baby named: Ladmilla-Samira-Francoise. Page 175 ends with the following lines:

“Thousands of swans fly carrying him on their back to put him in the arms of Morpheus. Just before the god of dreams, the son of the Night and sleep, has closed the door of his kingdom, Wanda turned and asked with a husky voice:

- Love…

- Yes, my love…, Farid could articulate those words

- Do I love you enough?

- You love me like a crazy”.

I dreamt before few days that I was flying. Such a repetitive common dream. A happy one indeed. In my dream I was flying in a high altitude above Bou Saada. I landed just outside Bou Saada in one of the mountains that is surrounding it. Bou Saada was encircled by a barbed wire fence.   Ann old came from behind me and he started a friendly conversation with me. Men started to gather. We were all outside the fence. When we become about 10 in number, all men as I suppose, the old man went near the fence and found a rusty iron rectangular sheet of metal and held it up in a difficult move. We started going in. I headed to a primary school and directly to its library. All the books were uninteresting for me. The librarian was interesting. She was a beautiful serious woman. I saw a thick book and hesitated about borrowing it but finally I decided that I have many books to read and this is a thick one, and it was about history. I woke up.

“Rue des petites duarades” is a novel by Fellag. It is about an imaginary neighbourhood where Farid, Wands, Sergui, Akli, Andre, Mourad, George, Mr. X, and many many others live. Some were always here and few of them are racist. Some had come sometime to this place and stayed in it. You can find the Moroccan, the Algerian, the Serbian, the Ukrainian, and so. The type of food and the type of music mix with each other. A funny novel indeed. Thank you Fellag.

Freud doesn’t mention great thing about flying dreams in “The Interpretation of Dreams”. He twice (p 165-66 and p 255-56) repeats the same paragraph word by word. He declares that he himself didn’t dream such a dream. He thinks that it is linked to the childhood games when somebody older than us (an uncle for example) was holding us high and makes us move like we are flying. So the dream is just a souvenir of that happy moment when we were a child. He mentioned that there is a scientist had linked it to erection. An alluring link to erotism is also present. To add a Freudian flavor.

Freud says something good at the beginning after all. He said that even if we regard the flying dream as a “common” dream. But this does not mean that it cannot be “personal” or “subjective” or “special” I forgot the exact word.

In my case, in my dream, I would put the following explanation:

I am happy that I am going visit my parents, with whom I shared a happy childhood. Flying in my dream can concretely linked to the way I saw Alger the capital approaching the window of the airplane of Eygptair I was inside, or can linked, more complexly, to when my parents were holding me up into their arms and sometimes make me feel like I am flying.

Bou Saada and its fence, and the ten men? I would say it means the difficulties of traveling from one country to another, the police and their way of treating people, the non-respect of individuals, the absence of smile from the faces, the grimace, the tone of the voice, etc..

The rusty door didn’t open to me only because I am an individual. We gathered. We waited till we become about ten, then we proceed. We respect the rusty door too much. Our society give importance to groups, not to individuals.

The library? Why do I love books this strongly? What is the emotion that is sublimated strongly? And finally the librarian, the beautiful librarian. Well, I don’t know.

Anyway, I don’t regret the time I spent reading and translating Fellag nor seeking and the advice of uncle Freud, (uncle?). I had great time and I had learned many things.