The "Elle" readers' prize

The "Elle" readers' prize for 2019, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, was awarded to Adeline Dieudonné and Jesmyn Ward, respectively published by L'Iconoclaste and Belfond.

Two women tied for the 50th Elle Women's Grand Prix. At the award ceremony, June 3 in Paris, Adeline Dieudonné and Jesmyn Ward were distinguished in the category "novel" respectively for "La vraie vie" (The Iconoclast) and  "Le chant des revenants" at Belfond .

Winner of the Fnac novel awards, First Pen, Filigranes and Renaudot of high school students 2018, Adeline Dieudonné portrayed in her first novel, "La vraie vie", the lugubrious and boring daily life of a young girl. Her father, passionate about hunting, exposes his stuffed animals and his elephant defense in one of the rooms of the house. Her mother is transparent, non-existent. So, with her brother Gilles, she plays in the car carcasses of the casse while waiting for the arrival of the ice truck. Until today when a serious accident disturbs the daily life of his family.

For her part, Jesmyn Ward captivated readers of the women's magazine with the song of the ghosts, the story of Jojo, 13 years old. The boy takes care of the farm and takes care of his little sister and grandmother. When his father gets out of prison, he rehases his questions about what a man is. Known as "William Faulkner Contemporary" by Lee Daniels, Jesmyn Ward has twice won the National Book Award for her novel "Bois sauvage" in 2011 and "Le chant des revenants" in 2017, translated into French by Charles Recoursé.

Tian'anmen

Tian'anmen
(04/06/1989 - 04/06/2019)

Thirty years ago, Tian'anmen protests ended in a bloodbath, commonly known as the Tian'anmen Square Massacre. The movement of students, intellectuals and Chinese workers demanded more democracy and denounced a society corrupted by corruption. To understand the steps that have led China to practice such a radical repression of protest movements and to lock the society, we advise you to read the novel of Paul Greveillac, "MAITRES ET ESCLAVES", finalist of the price Goncourt and laureate of the price Jean Giono 2018.

In this novel, conceived as an ambitious and richly documented historical fresco, Paul Greveillac interweaves small and great history through Kewein's fate. Born in 1950 in a peasant family at the foot of the Himalayas, Kewei escaped agricultural labor and permanent re-education by leaving to study at Beijing Fine Arts, leaving behind his mother, his young wife, their son and a village whose ancestral traditions are disappearing under the blows of the Revolution.

In the big city, Kewei rubs shoulders with the masters of the new China. He gets the Party card. Become a painter of the regime, he knows an ascent without limit. But history will soon catch up with him.

Have you read Paul Greveillac's novel?

"L’HIVER DU MECONTENTEMENT", THOMAS B. REVERDY

The book is a historical and moral novel. Her action is located in London in the winter of 1978-1979. When the winter of the United Kingdom strikes Poland, the "sick man of Europe" is experiencing mass strikes and the ubiquitous crisis.

There are two types of narratives in the novel: the third and first-person narratives. The first person speaks to twenty-year-old Candice, who runs a notebook with notes to prepare her to play the role of Richard III in Shakespeare's play of the same title.

Although Candice most often appears on the pages of the novel, I would not call her the main character. It's not Margaret Thatcher or musician, John Jones. The theme of the novel is the title Shakespeare's "winter of dissatisfaction." The author presents problems with which the British had to face in the winter of 1978-79: general strike, problems with commuting, poor supply of shops, constantly growing number of unemployed, and the ruling party trying to calm down the population, unable to admit defeat. "Crisis? What crisis? ", The prime minister replies to the journalists' question. This lapsus is used by the Thatcher party, which starts an aggressive campaign built on the dissatisfaction of the population. The conservative party uses the slogan "make Britain great again", a slogan that will soon be used by Reagan applying for the office of the President of the United States, and who is us - people living in 2018 - also well known.

It is also a story about youth, its insecurities and fears. The book makes us aware of the "generation of millennials" that young adults in Britain in the late 1970s had similar concerns about the future as we did. Candice from time to time remembers the sad saying of local youth: "no future".

The novel has been divided into many very short chapters (usually 5-6 pages). Each of them is like a snapshot of the gray everyday life of the country in a crisis. I think that their shortness also reflects the nervousness and uncertainty of those times. The chapters have been titled in an unusual way, because with the rock titles of English songs from this period, which very well reflect the spirit of the era. They are like a rock history lesson. It seems to me that you can read a book while listening to songs, because the length of the song should correspond to the reading length of the chapter (but I did not succeed because the music distracted me too much). For me, however, such short families were a big downside, because I was easily distracted by them, and each chapter concerned a slightly different thread.

The book is interesting, but not exceptional. The cover description actually reveals everything that will happen in the novel. I missed a thread that would catch me in the book, because (as I wrote above) it is primarily a collection of snapshots of Britain's everyday life in crisis and a brief debate on power (fragments of Richard the III and Margaret Thatcher).

"Quatre-vingt-dix secondes" Daniel Picouly

It is difficult to say unequivocally what type of novel is Quatre-vingt-dix secondes. Certainly, this is a historical novel, because the action takes place in 1902 in Martinique, which from 1635 is the French domain. To say that a given year happens is not enough, because all the described events take place on a single day. However, we know the context and the older history of the heroes thanks to the stories of the peculiar narrator, which is the Pelée volcano. He is (or rather she, because he is called not a volcano, but the mountain) a fully conscious and omniscient being that has personality and preferences. It is him who introduces us to the space of Saint-Pierre, not only about his geography, but also about the people who inhabit it. At the end of the first chapter, he also introduces an important detail that affects the entire subsequent reading: announces his eruption and the death of 30,000 inhabitants of Paris, the Caribbean (as it was called Saint-Pierre).

The main heroes of blood and bones can be called Othello and Louise, young lovers, whose love seems tragic because of the girl's destiny to one of the richest people on the island. We also meet other characters who are struggling with more or less everyday problems. The importance of their life struggles, however, escapes the reader due to the upcoming catastrophe. The problems of slavery and its repercussions are also woven into the narrative, and the great politics into the background. These issues are, however, poorly marked and as if taken out of context. If it were not for the reader to be buried in the back of the reader's head, it would be difficult to find the theme of the novel.

Nature, whose representative is the Pelée volcano is not consistent. The volcano, and the old Indian goddess Pele himself, expresses his destructive tastes and explains the bloodlust. It seems not to worry about the fate of the people whose suffering she has announced, and yet directly affects the fate of Othello, saving him from death. Personification of the volcano is not the only fantastic thread in the book, because some characters, as it turns out, also have some mystical knowledge.

Finally, let me mention that the events described (or at least the basic facts) actually took place.

Generally, the book is quite well written, but in my opinion it is incoherent. It seems to me that the author wanted to move too many vagaries in too small a space, which he limited himself.

Tobie Nathan, "L’évangile selon Youri"

    This is a book telling the story of a boy named Youri. We meet him through the eyes of a retired psychotherapist, to whom the child knows why he keeps coming back. After an unexplained incident that took place in the nursing home where Youri was staying, he is rejected by his colleagues. He is suspected of sorcery and so he goes to the psychotherapy center where Elie works. By reading we find out that the boy is a Romanian emigrant who came to France with his mother. There would be nothing unusual about it except for the fact that Youri knows everything and has supernormal abilities. 

    He changes the lives of everyone he meets. His dying mother wants Elie to take care of her son after her death. At the beginning, the skeptical idea of ​​the idea becomes attached to the boy who begins to heal the sick in a nearby clothing store, which Eli is a regular visitor to. Heals souls. Thanks to the boy, Elie is recognized as the savior of the President of the Republic, who has been kidnapped by terrorists because of the interference of a boy, whom no one ever notices, or at least does not connect with him the successful end of events. While reading, we attach to the boy as if we knew him personally.

    The reading encourages reflection on whether we can actually rationally explain everything, or we know the answers to all the questions. The author addresses many issues, ranging from emigration, terrorist activities and issues related to faith. Not only does he immerse us in history, he also shares his thoughts with us. 

From the very beginning, we want to know the whole story.

„L’ERE DES SUSPECTS” GILLES MARTIN – CHAUFFIER

The latest novel by G. Martin - Chauffier is, it seems, to be called a political novel about a cultural background, which at first glance could be mistakenly labeled a crime novel. For it is not the investigation of the guilty about the death of an Arab teenager that turns out to be a key topic. The unmasking of all connections in the structures of power comes to the fore.

In the depths of the structures, the narrators introduce the first-person to the reader. Narrators, because there are many of them - each chapter is a different narrator, and in total there are ten of them. Applying such a procedure, the author allows the reader to assess the situation from different points of view, from the mouths of people involved in various state structures. Among the narrators, we find three policemen (Giquel, Mehut, Duval), a stationist from the police station (Bouyx), director of the ministry's office (de Savay), two lawyers (Meyssan and Desdieux), editor-in-chief of a popular magazine (Vincourt), delegate of the Mercenary (Saidi), and finally the mother of the dead boy (Aslass).

It should now be explained to what all the above narrators refer to. Well, the subject of their actions and reflections is the situation that happens one day in today's Versières (time: year 2016, place: Versières, France). The day after the police patrol, in which a young apprentice is assisted by policeman Giquel, the body of an Arab teenager is found in the Versières district called Cité Noire. The relationship with police patrol is that the patrolling couple was photographed the day before by a teenager, as a result of Giquel's challenge. Does his intervention have anything to do with the boy's death? Where is the truth?

This outline seems to foretell an immersive criminal novel whose main topic will be the investigation. Nothing could be more wrong, because it's not about the investigation, it's not in its classic dimension anyway. Only at the end of the novel, as if by accident the reader learns who was at fault. And all this to obliterate the reader from illusions, stereotypes, representations. Demascation occurs in every chapter, the attitude to investigation, or rather the desire to avoid it, increases.

The novel draws in as soon as the reader dips his nose in the novel. Probably it is related to a simple language (much less poetic than in the case of "Maitres et esclaves") used by all narrators. Interestingly, the French language in the narrative of the Arabian hero is the same, or there are very small differences, like the language of the French narrators. So there are some common areas for both nations.

LEURS ENFANTS APRES EUX Nicolas Mathieu

    Nicolas Mathieu's second book is a moral novel, which takes place in a small town in the eastern part of France. The events take place over a period of 6 years - each chapter is a fragment of another year, in succession 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998. Each one of them also has the title of a song, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" or "I Will Survive".

    "Leurs enfants apres eux" is a story about a few teenagers (in 1992, the main character - Anthony - is 14 years old). They all come from poor families who are still struggling with financial problems; some are immigrant children. The characters enter into adolescence and all this turbulent process is described in detail. Teenagers are experimenting with drugs and alcohol. They experience the first love of elation, for some it is a time of sexual initiation. The book is about the collision of fantasies and dreams of young people with reality. The world presented by Matthieu is very brutal, vulgar. The language of the heroes is often primitive, rich in potocyzmy. However, the third person narrator draws events and space very accurately. He also describes the emotional states of the heroes, not limiting himself to Anthony's world. We observe changes in the lives of heroes, their transformation into adults.

    The first scene - when Anthony and her cousin steal a motor boat to meet the girls on the other side of the lake - shows what kind of events will be presented. We are witnessing many meetings of young people, parties and pub visits.

   In addition to the relationship between teenagers, the teenager-parent relationship is also extensively described. These young people often grew up in pathological environments, with alcohol addicted fathers, aggressive ones. Nevertheless, the author does not show them in a completely bad light, he also writes about good times (for example, when Anthony's mother wants to help him, save him from his father's wrath). It seems to me that the title of the novel refers to these relations. The characters, in a sense, follow their parents' footsteps, you can certainly talk about social determinism here. 

    This book, despite the fact that her language is very lively and full of humor, is not easy to read. The descriptions are dense, there are a lot of difficult words, but also potocisms that I did not know before (even drug-related nomenclature). The author uses the passe simple time, with which I have practically never encountered before. I must admit that - because of the time pressure and just the length of the book - I could not read it as accurately as I would like. Certainly I would like to return to this position for some time and devote enough time to it.