In The Red Ring, the writer returns us to the methods of the standard French realist school, in a detective style that is not devoid of suspense, and invites us to reconsider our political affiliations and alignments, regardless of their differences, and to scrutinize their origin and motives. He also asks us again the big questions about the issues of war, death, patriotism, and loyalty. Through a story that took place shortly after World War II in the French region of Berry, where a heroic veteran is arrested. He was detained in a cell that was a military barracks, and an emaciated dog barked at the door day and night.
Not far from her, a young woman lives the peasant life she was not made for, hoping to wait.
A young aristocratic judge investigates the detainee's case, after the war stripped him of his ideals and values.
Linking these characters is a dog that holds the keys to the story.
What is war without the shouts of demonstrators, the roar of warplanes, and the screams of detainees in torture rooms? How do beings and actions appear without their sounds? What is the need for a doorbell? What is the sound of food cooked in a pot? How can a deaf child-young person digest such a silent, muffled world?
These are some of the questions raised by the book “The Deaf Aspirant,” which describes the image of the world after deleting its audio file, and tells the diaries of a father who raised his deaf son alone.
Relying on various narrative methods, Reber Youssef sheds light on the complex aspects of the fatherhood-childhood duality, including complex feelings, such as: love, hate, fear, and the desire to be free from the burden of this bond between the two, or to defend and strengthen it. It is a book about a father who voluntarily abandons the sounds of the world if they do not reach his son’s ears, and about a son who rediscovers himself to bury his deafness and fear forever.
ها قد انتهى الزمن الطويل، وحان الوقت المنتظر. البشر بين لهو ولعب، وفتن كقطع الليل المظلم. الأرض تزيَّنت وتهيَّأت، وصعدت الشياطين على كل المنابر. فلا تدري أين تضع روحك، وكيف تقبض على دينك. ضباب الحق غطَّى سواد الباطل، وعين قلبك وحدها التي ترى. ثم حان وقت خروجنا.. وتهيَّأ البشر للفتنة الأخيرة؛ فتنة النهاية.
