![]() A transformative friendship develops between Édouard and Elena. ![]() Classical music and art house filmsĪnd there are Elena and her mother Nadya, who introduce young Eddy to the world of the bourgeoisie for the first time. There is the theater manager Babeth who, impressed by his passion and his pleading eyes, offers him a job as a ticket puller in her house in Amiens. There are, for example, the two librarians Stéphanie Morel and Pascale Boulnois, with whom the shy and sensitive boy, who is called a fag everywhere in the village, becomes friends because the quiet of the library offers him a shelter. It is above all the formative encounters and relationships on this journey that the book tells about. At the end of it, Louis published his first novel, The End of Eddy. The story stretches from the painful childhood and youth in the northern French provinces to fleeing to Amiens, studying there and a temporary job in the theater, to moving to Paris and being admitted to the elite university Écolenorme supérieure. True to his declared motto of always wanting to tell the same story, the origin and social advancement of the author and first-person narrator once again form the basis of the story.Įddy Bellegueule is the gay son of a working-class family from northern France, who gradually turns into the middle-class intellectual Édouard Louis. After reflections on his father (“Who Killed My Father?”) and his mother (“A Woman's Freedom)”, Louis' new work can be read as a direct continuation of the auto-ethnographic narrative begun in “The End of Eddy”. ![]() And yet they exist: the French philosopher Chantal Jaquet describes all those who leave the social place assigned to them to switch to a new milieu as class transitioners.īut under what conditions does the improbable happen, what are the consequences of ascension for the class transitioners themselves - and how do they experience it? It is not the social sciences, but the literary genre of autosociobiography, which is particularly thriving in France, that has become a privileged place to discuss these questions in recent years.Įdouard LouisNext Annie Ernaux and Didier Eribon one of the literary stars of this genre is now presenting his new novel: “Instructions to become someone else”. Social advancement is the exception in our society. New York 2017: Author Édouard Louis and actress Hailey Gates Photo: Nina Westervelt/NYT/Redux/aif There is a universality to this story - the child's longing for acceptance contrasted with the mature son's painful journey to understand why his father behaved as he did.In “Instructions to Become Another”, Édouard Louis examines the contradictions in which characters become entangled in a world of social differences. My memories are of what didn't take place." "hen I look back on the past and our life together, what I remember most is what I didn't tell you. It is his father's denial of who his son is that tainted Louis' boyhood. Louis denies knowing his father, and yet the telling of his father's story belies that assertion. "I would always tell them I hated my father. As Louis reaches adulthood, having "fled" the village for Paris, he meets men in bars who ask how he gets along with his family. Louis elucidates his father's fears, his phobia of water, his desperate attempts to run away from his past, ultimately returning to the factory where his whole family worked before him. "Your manhood condemned you to poverty, to lack of money," Louis writes. Masculine pride proves to be father's downfall - from "constructing a masculine body," to resisting the school system and dropping out, foreclosing a possible future. He watches his father's eyes glisten at an opera on TV, and wonders how it feels, given that men aren't supposed to cry. He finds photos of father dressed as a woman, a cheerleader, "stuffed cotton wadding in a bra" and sees that father looks happy. Louis' clear-sighted awareness of this masculine insanity allows him to paint a sympathetic portrait. Louis' father was much happier after the man of the family disappeared - along with his violence - and his "masculine insanity." Louis' grandfather "drank a lot" and beat his grandmother, walking out when Louis' father was five. Father embraces Louis' half brother, the son from mother's former marriage - " There are no half brothers in this house, none of my kids is a half." Father defends Louis to the police, and when he's had too much to drink, tells Louis that no matter what, he loves him.įrom an adult point of view, Louis recounts his father's traumatic upbringing. And yet, even as a boy, Louis could acknowledge his father's humanity. Louis contrasts his early wish that father would be away when school was over, that his car would be gone.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |