You, who are reading this section as Christmas approaches, would like a remarkable but accessible essay recommendation whose universal themes can reach everyone?
You are well off.
We have found on the shelves for several weeks a very small essay whose formidable power is twofold: it makes you think… and laugh.
This essay is the full transcription of Adib Alkhalidey’s most recent show: Quebecois tabarnak.
I had not seen this show which attracted a chorus of praise as soon as it was presented to the public last year.
But I quickly understood, by immersing myself in this luminous text, why so many good things had been said about it.
It was the writer Kim Thúy who convinced the comedian to publish his text to “make his words accessible at all times” and “share their beauty”, we read in the preface to the work. We thank her! Adib Alkhalidey addresses a series of fundamental issues in a way that is as enlightening as it is sensitive. And he also finds, as I told you, a way to make us laugh.
It’s admirable.
What kind of issues? Warning: it flies high. It ranges from identity to racism, addiction, teleworking, love and marriage (and the importance of spelling), as well as democracy and tyranny.
Bad program for a humorous text!
And yet, it is very successful.
It starts off with a bang as he recounts his dismay when he was called a “Taliban face” by his father-in-law, because he let his beard grow.
“We go outside, I look at my wife: ‘Baby, man! What will I have to accomplish to be treated like a Quebecois, tabarnak? Yo! I won some Gemini, man! How many Taliban do you know who won Geminis? Zero Taliban. I checked the site, there isn’t one.” »
We then accompany him on a completely crazy trip where we will see him, for example, praising plumbers (in the manner of Michel Houellebecq in The map and the territory), tell us about his “biscuit addiction”, his citizenship ceremony and his introduction to fox hunting.
All this seasoned with a story of foreskin which we will not tell you more about here.
It’s hilarious.
It is also, at times, downright touching. Particularly when the comedian pushes us to reflect on the ups and downs of our existence.
“I realized that for me to do what I’m doing right now, society must be stable and democracy must be functional,” he says. […] Laughing is the consequence… of the celebration… of the miracle… of democracy, which ensures that a stupid idiot can sacrifice his entire life to be a stupid idiot, 24/7. »
His thoughts on tyranny and immigration, fueled by the courage of his father who fled Iraq in the 1970s, are equally eloquent. And funny!
The kind of humor whose “discreet light, as Milan Kundera once wrote, spreads over the entire vast landscape of life.”
We close this little book and we feel both happier and wiser. Because at the end of the day, Quebecois tabarnakit’s a great lesson in humanity.
Extract
“Just to explain to you a little how a tyrannical regime works, the first thing it does is attack artists and intellectuals. Not because artists and intellectuals are better than others, I told you earlier, everyone is essential, from the plumber to the poet. The reason why the regime attacks artists and intellectuals is because, as a general rule, the artist and the intellectual, their working tool is the word. Speech is what allows you to transmit knowledge, knowledge is what allows you to develop your skills, your skills, when you accumulate them, it is what allows you to reach your potential and it’s what allows you to dream. »
Who is Adib Alkhalidey?
- Born in Morocco in 1988
- Graduated from the National School of Humor in 2010
- Quebecois tabarnak was his fourth solo show. Whores and thievesscheduled for 2024, will be its fifth.
- He also released two albums, the most recent of which, released in 2022, is entitled To kill time.
Quebecois tabarnak
Stanké
84 pages