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Magill’s Literary Annual 1979

Momo

by Mary Paschal

First published: 1975, in French as La Vie devant soi; English translation, 1978

Translated from the French by Ralph Manheim

Publisher: Doubleday & Company (Garden City, New York). 182 pp. $6.95

Type of work: Novel

Time of work: 1970

Locale: Paris

A sentimental story of a castoff Arab boy and a retired prostitute which won the Prix Goncourt

The story told in Momo, which has become familiar to American filmgoers from the movie Madame Rosa, is narrated in the first person by Momo (short for Mohammed). Momo has spent his life at Madame Rosa’s boarding house which she maintains for the children of prostitutes who are still working in the profession. Madame Rosa is Jewish, sixty-eight, weighs 220 pounds, and has survived a long professional career and a stay in a German concentration camp. Momo is ten, the son of an Arab prostitute and possibly an Arab father—“There’s always a mystery when a kid gets born because a woman who hustles for a living hasn’t been able to stop it in time with hygiene”—and he is Madame Rosa’s principal helper in taking care of the boarding children who sometimes number as many as ten. The children are Jewish, Arab, French, Vietnamese, Malian, Senegalese, and others; no distinction is made between the races.

Momo has been with Madame Rosa since he was three. Mothers of the other children come to visit them on Sundays and to take them to the country for holidays, but no one comes for Momo. He wants to know his mother but realizes that Madame Rosa is the only mother that he will ever know. He longs for an identity and for love. Madame Rosa relies on him, and when his father, Monsieur Kadir Youssef, does come to see him eleven years after leaving him with Madame Rosa, she is thrown into such a panic by the possibility of losing the child that she lies and insults the father, who dies of a heart seizure from the frustration of the scene. Momo remains with Madame Rosa, loving and caring for her until her death in her bizarre “country home.” As the story ends, it seems that a truly happy life with a family is about to begin for Momo.

Following the great success of the novel in France, Publisher’s Weekly succeeded in arranging an interview with the elusive author. Ajar talked of his first novel, Gros-Câlin, saying that it is “a book about loneliness, just as Momo is about loneliness. It should be important for critics because it contains my other two books.” In Gros-Câlin, the principal character dealt with his loneliness by sharing his home with a python. The third novel, Pseudo, is “a fanciful version of everything that happened to Ajar after the publication of Momo.“

In Momo, the principal characters are either lonely or isolated. Momo is certainly of the first group. The oldest and longest tenured of the boarders, he longs for friends of his own age and for motherly love. Monsieur Hamil, a retired Algerian carpet salesman, is his closest friend and teacher, since Momo does not attend school. Momo believes that Monsieur Hamil, being Moslem, must know something of his parents, but Monsieur Hamil says that he knows nothing. Another friend is Madame Lola, a thirty-five-year-old Senegalese transvestite and former boxer who works the Bois de Boulogne and desperately wants to adopt a child.

Perhaps Ajar’s greatest strength, at least as exemplified in Momo, is his talent as a portraitist and as a painter of the milieu in which the action of the novel takes place. The characters come to life, with their fears, doubts, loneliness, ambitions, joys, cruelties, and compassions. Madame Rosa is loving, jealous, forgiving—she is human. Madame Lola is kind, carnal, good-humored, and wretched. The carpet salesman, a procurer from Niger for whom Madame Rosa writes letters, is equally well drawn.

The quartier of Belleville and its inhabitants are created in an effective and believable manner. The seventh-floor walk-up apartment which is home to Madame Rosa and her charges is the logical place for her to be. The rent is less there since there is no elevator, and the difficulty of reaching it is further protection from the police and the dreaded Public Welfare which might take the children from her. Those who live in the apartment building are from varied origins: Madame Lola, the transvestite; a retired employee of the French Railways; the four Zaoum brothers who are movers; and others—all are aware of one another but do not intrude unnecessarily into one anothers’ lives. The tenants of this building and of several nearby are mostly black, with large groups of Jews and Arabs on adjoining streets. These people perform the most menial tasks, among which are street sweepers and street walkers.

Ajar demonstrates a very compassionate, tolerant understanding of prostitutes, their problems, and the socioeconomic groups from which large numbers of them come. It is a profession like any other, and those who practice it go through a routine existence involving the daily grind known well to other types of workers. The fear of having their children taken from them because they are illegitimate is pervasive. In their prime, satisfaction comes from numbers of clients, money earned, and thoughts of a secure retirement in family surroundings. In retirement, particularly for Madame Rosa, pleasure is derived from remembering that she was once desirable.

Certainly Momo is an appealing, lovable child whose understanding of Madame Rosa and of the other principal characters is extraordinary. His loyalty and his willingness to endure while trying to alleviate Madame Rosa’s discomfort, anxiety, and despair are admirable. He has the childlike qualities of curiosity and fantasy that make him credible. A problem arises, however, when Ajar begins putting philosophical statements into the mouth of Momo, who, despite his very rude introduction to life, could hardly have these mature, often cynical observations to make on the human condition. These remarks, frequently inserted, stretch the reader’s credulity, as seen in the following examples of ten-year-old Momo’s musings: “Banania. . . . Take it from me, that little son of a bitch was a case, four years old and still happy.” “I’m not going to write history all over again, but I can tell you that the black people have suffered an awful lot, and we should try and understand them when we can.” “I’ve often noticed that people end up believing what they say. They can’t live without it. I’m not saying that to sound like a philosopher, I really believe it.” The visibility of Ajar in Momo’s thoughts and words destroys a great deal of the pleasure that might come from this contemporary “tranche de vie.”

Sources for Further Study

1 

Library Journal. CIII, April 1, 1978, p. 773.

2 

New Republic. CLXXVIII, April 22, 1978, p. 34.

3 

New York Times Book Review. April 2, 1978, p. 15.

4 

New Yorker. LIV, April 10, 1978, p. 143.

5 

Saturday Review. V, March 4, 1978, p. 31.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Paschal, Mary. "Momo." Magill’s Literary Annual 1979, edited by Frank N. Magill, Salem Press, 1979. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=MLA1979_10990300305453.
APA 7th
Paschal, M. (1979). Momo. In F. N. Magill (Ed.), Magill’s Literary Annual 1979. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Paschal, Mary. "Momo." Edited by Frank N. Magill. Magill’s Literary Annual 1979. Hackensack: Salem Press, 1979. Accessed April 22, 2025. online.salempress.com.