Book Around the Corner

Zaï Zaï Zaï Zaï. A roadmovie. by Fabcaro (2015) Not available in English

At the Bron Literary Festival I attended the interview of Fabrice Caro (Fabcaro is his nom de plume as a BD author) and laughed so much when I saw excerpts of his BD album Zaï Zaï Zaï Zaï that I rushed to buy it. I kept giggling, laughing, chuckling all along this short little gem.

A man –Fabcaro’s doppelgangler—is at the checkout in a supermarket when the cashier requests his loyalty card. He doesn’t have it. He tries to explain that he left it in his other pants but he’s taken by security as if he were a thief. He bolts out of the store and is now on the run. The reader sees both his travels and how society responds to this news.

We see him hitchhike, call home to tell his wife and daughters where he is…He decides to go and hide in Lozère because he imagines that it’s so isolated that they don’t have TV or radio. It’s a reference to American road movies and it become ridiculous in France because we don’t have the American wilderness as a dramatic effect. No. We only have country roads and small villages.

In parallel to the man’s run, we see the circus in the country and how society is carried away by such a tiny event. Perfectly coiffed reporters are sent on location and have nothing to report to their news channel and still talk endlessly. The authorities have to deploy police forces or they’d be considered as inefficient. Artists have their say and create a temporary group to write and sing a charity single. TV channels organize talk shows to discuss the pros and cons of having one’s loyalty card.

We also see the reaction of the man in the street: hasty condemnations in what we call “conversation de bistrot”, which would probably be “bar talk” in English. Mothers who won’t let their kid go out because a criminal is on the run…People who want to deport this BD author to where he belongs…Brussels.

The root of the whole thing is absurd and the absurdity of it all is hilarious. Of course, in real life, forgetting one’s loyalty card doesn’t engender all these extreme reactions. Fabcaro said it was an image for identity papers. It’s a way to show the life of a clandestine and how easy a regular person can become one. See what happened in the UK in the last two years with migrants from the 1950s who were in the Empire at the time and didn’t need papers, who settled in Britain, never knew they needed papers and were suddenly denied a passport and swept away in all kinds of administrative nightmares.

Choosing a loyalty card is also spot on because our Western societies try to make us believe that we are what we consume and that if we are not a consumer, we do not exist. Loyalty cards are your ID as a consumer. And identity papers define you and prove your existence.

This is why Zaï Zaï Zaï Zaï is the perfect illustration of the saying Many a true word is said in jest.

The absurd and hilarious ending explains the title of the album. Zaï Zaï Zaï is a gimmick in the popular oldy song Siffler sur la colline by Joe Dassin. It’s available on Youtube for curious readers. It’s also the lyrics told by Jean-Pierre Bacri in the film On connaît la chanson.

Now, I can’t wait to read Caro’s novel, Le discours. I’ve heard it’s a lot of fun too.