'When people are forced to leave their home, in the new place they're often told to 'behave themselves' or be sent back, to to somewhere else. In jail or equivalent, they - everyone - may be let go early for 'good behaviour'. Behaving well is a condition for staying somewhere - even somewhere you don't want to be - and 'going back' may pose dilemmas even more problematic than behaving badly. You find yourself in a chain of ill-fortunes and tragedies - a nakba, a catastrophe as one aspect of it has been called. What other rules exist, except our efforts at 'behaving well'? But, you change, through life; you watch injustices you say you cannot remedy. And your behaviour changes, together with its driving principles. If you want history - you can't have good behaviour.Good BehaviourThe narrator, Alex, undocumented immigrant, is inspired, shadowed, by the adventures of Alexander, the Great. No one says Alexander behaved well - but he acted He transformed. He shaped the classical world, scattered Greeks all over, changed cultures, till his suicidal addictions finished him. In this tale, Alex starts precarious: is jailed, meets a real hero, Valerio, - joins the ex-prisoners and outcasts in a barren place.There, they improvise a polity - growing natural drugs, organising an army. Valerio is their inspiration, their guide. Alex teams up with Anicette, whose inspiration is the book 'On lying'. He spins out of control - but his behaviour is consistent. The world is made of imagination, and the real. Each sphere requires its own behaviours. People close to Alex behave in different ways, but all maintain their principles, Anicette as well. Anicette joins with a young ambitious woman, M lisande. After the death of Alex, we see all who are left have indeed behaved quite well - at least, consistently. Alex, though, has acted, and imagined: the others, they only react. Anicette concludes, instructing M lisande - the only judge of our behaviour is ourself. Misconduct: the theme of the book is behaviour. Does behaving well count for something? It doesn't seem to matter for success and failure, revelation or obscurity. In Misconduct, Matti, a political exile with aspirations of humanistic value, tries to make a life - maintaining principles, but surviving - the betrayal of his partner, unofficial enslavement. He wanders, has adventures - becomes a military strategist, travels to the steppes with a lady jockey - but his life is seeing others ride away, betray, or suffer punishments, promotions - which he's been unable to prevent or even understand. Ultimately, his organisation gives him the mission - to assassinate the Chief. To do so means his organisation will be expunged - a mass non-violent movement, non-violent, exposed. But for the other opposition, assassination means a civil war that they are bound to lose. Matti would betray his principles, his own morality - and probably involve all oppositions in disaster. But - loyalty, behaving well or badly - he has no choice. Many real circumstances involve the exiled militants in just this - perfidious - choice.CatastropheThe catastrophe is that everything happens, comes to an end - without a scrap of meaning, still less justice, truth, equity. In the context of 'Behaving Well' some people behave very poorly: Yannick who has 'saved' Hana and enslaved her, Pavel for others, the behaviour is just on the edge of awful. Dr Hoffman sees and can do nothing except register. Hana isn't eaten by the lions - but the herd of zebras is there to be eaten by lions: she finds a moment of peace among the palm trees, the distance earth-sky ... that is no use to her - she can't arise, can't hide in distance nor seek security... The catastrophe is there in the beginning, middle, end - On the whole, she behaves well. Should we all?
