It's silly that I'm going to die in a small concert hall

The evening of November 13, 2015, began like any other in Paris, but ended with the bloodiest terrorist attack in recent French history. Nine Islamists killed 130 people and wounded more than 400. Three terrorists detonated explosive vests in front of the Stade de France, killing one person. The other trio drove through the 10th and 11th arrondissements of the city, stopping at three intersections to shoot at the terraces of cafes and restaurants, killing 39 people. A third group of three suicide bombers attacked the Bataclan concert hall, where the American band Eagles of Death Metal was playing to a full house of about 1.500 people, killing 90 of them. All the attackers died, while the tenth Salah Abdeslam was arrested later.

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THE TRIAL LAST NINE MONTHS

V13 (Vendrede – Friday in French) was the code name for the long-awaited trial of the attackers. The process lasted nine months, from September 2021 to June 2022, and involved 14 defendants, 2.400 injured parties, 350 lawyers for injured parties and at least two lawyers for the accused, and the file had more than a million pages and was 53 meters long. .

The popular French writer and journalist Emmanuel Carrère (Emmanuel Carrère, 1957) was one of the few who attended almost every hearing, from the first day to the last. His weekly reports from the courtroom for the French magazine "Nouvel Observateur" have now been made into a book and translated here, under the title V13. Chronicle of the trial of terrorists (Academic book, translated by Svetlana Stojanović).

Carrer's works have been published in more than twenty languages, and he is best known for his documentary prose. His most translated books are: Empire, for which he received the award for literature from the newspapers "Monde" and "Point" and the cult biographical work Limonov, for which he received the "Renodo" award. But we should also mention the books: Protivnik, Russian Novel, Other People's Lives, Class in the Snow and the penultimate Yoga, which touches on Carrera's personal breakdown, as well as the massacre in the "Charlie Hebdo" editorial office. Several of his works have been adapted for film (the work was shown at the recently concluded Author's Film Festival Limonova Kirill Serebrenikov based on the book of the same name), and Carrer himself directed the film adaptation of his novella The Mustache.

EMPATHY, ATTEMPT TO UNDERSTAND AND INTROSPECTION

V13 is the touching work of a man full of empathy for the victims and their families, but also someone who is constantly trying to find understanding for the motives of terrorists, although it is clear that he is by no means neutral. "You really have to force yourself to take an interest in them as individuals," the author says at one point. Carrera's motivation to follow the trial is multi-layered. In addition to justice, he is interested in religion and its "pathological mutations", and his fascination with legal processes has long been the focus of his work. Opponent (2001), the book that made him famous in France, deals with the case of the murderer Jean-Claude Roman, who led a double life for 18 years and then killed his wife and children.

Fans of Carrera's writing style know that he will cover any topic in an effective and sophisticated manner, and this is also the case with V13. His notes are not only an objective account of the trial, but also an insight into his own inner dilemmas, which he tends to do in each of his works. Carrer borrows a striking idea from the terrorist Abdeslam himself: that "everything you say about us jihadists is like reading the last page of a book." Instead, if you want to understand them, you should "read the book from the beginning". Carrera's attendance at the trial is his attempt to do so. He invites the reader directly into the courtroom, leading him into a tense atmosphere in which the painful testimonies of the survivors, the horror and feeling of helplessness of the victims' families, as well as the stories of the accused were heard.

At the beginning of the book, Karer describes the first day of the trial:

"We greet the gendarmes with 'good day', and there is every chance that we will often greet them that way. Lawyers with badges on black ribbons, journalists with orange ribbons, victims with green and red ribbons, will become familiar faces. Some of us will become friends - groups of people will form with whom we will cross the same road, exchange notes and impressions, if the day gets too long, we will gather late in the evening and go for a drink in a pub De Pale when it becomes unbearable".

STORIES OF SURVIVORS AND RELATIVES OF THE VICTIMS

Karer carefully guides us through the trial and tells us everything that happened before the attack, during the act itself, but also what happened after the tragedy.

In the review of the book, the British "Telegraph" writes that the stories of the victims, told through the testimonies of survivors and relatives of the murdered, are the most emotional and best parts of the book. V13.

"In his narration, Carrer takes a backseat, allowing the events to unfold through pages of direct quotes from those testimonies: it's a powerful approach that brings the reader directly into the horror of that night. We meet Lamia, who is murdered on a date in a restaurant White epoch, to Clarissa, who saved herself and about fifty other people by hiding in the false ceiling in Bataclan and Guillaume, who faced one of the attackers, looked him in the eyes and somehow, for some reason, was spared", writes "Telegraph".

It is known that it is Bataclan was the central site of the terrorist attack and from there come the most terrifying confessions of the survivors that Carrer has recorded. Among them is the above-mentioned girl Clarissa, who was 24 years old at the time of the massacre at the concert and who recalled her train of thought at the trial when the horror began:

"It is silly that I will die in a small concert hall, where I came to listen to a group of Californians rednex, nice, but not particularly good. The ticket cost me 30 euros, with which I paid for my death. We push each other, we step over each other, we shout, the shooting does not stop. Someone turned on the spotlights in the hall, now everything is happening under a white, blinding light, worse than darkness".

Clarissa saved herself by reaching the "rotten" ceiling of the old lodge in the hall, where she stayed for four hours hiding.

"Clarissa is next to a man who is the same age as her father, his name is Patrick, and she asks him to hold her in his arms if they come. If he has to die, he better die in someone's arms. Patrick promises. The shooting continues. In bursts, then shot by shot. People can be heard wailing, moaning and dying. The phones are ringing. But it is far away, muffled, they hid like children", Karer records Clarisse's poignant recollection.

HUMANITY VERSUS EVIL

Among the families of the victims were those who tried to understand the jihadists. Nadja Mondeger, the Egyptian woman who lost her daughter Lamia, ended her poignant testimony by addressing the defense lawyers: "Do your job. Do it right, I mean it honestly." Georges Salin advocated so-called restorative justice, which seeks dialogue between victims and perpetrators. His daughter Lola died in Bataclan, but found the strength to co-author a book (which shocked some of the victims' families) with Azdin Aminur, the father of Sami Aminur, the suicide bomber. Others, such as the young widower Antoine Leris, the author of the book You will not have my hatred (Vous n'aurez pas ma haine), he refused to seek revenge for his wife who was killed at the concert, wanting only a "fair trial".

The "Guardian" critic praises the book V13, but also finds objections, especially when it comes to the author's attempt to understand the motives of terrorists. He believes that the problem is in the format itself, because weekly columns are not "an ideal medium for deep insights".

"As an account of what it was like to sit in a courtroom, 'a unique experience of horror, compassion, closeness and presence,' Carrer's book is absolutely fascinating... In the end, justice is done, verdicts are handed down, and at least some of the prosecutors and victims' families find peace." . Yet despite Carrera's attempt to imagine a space filled with hashish smoke in Let's begin, a cafe in Molenbeek (municipality in Brussels, ed.) where the attackers gathered to watch gruesome videos of beheadings and burnings from the Islamic State on the laptop of Brahim Abdeslam (one of the killed terrorists, ed.), he did not manages to penetrate into them, nor into the fatal decisions they made in any really deep way", believes the "Guardian" critic.

Despite certain criticisms, V13. Chronicle of the trial of terrorists is nevertheless a fascinating work by one of today's greatest authors. Emanuel Carrer is undoubtedly a cult author and someone whose books are eagerly awaited every time. His fans will enjoy this time as well, although it may be bizarre to say so, because it is a story about a terrible tragedy, evil and suffering. But also about human kindness, which is also present in this work.