Des châteaux qui brûlent by Arno Bertina (review)

Frustrated workers in a chicken processing plant sequester the Prime Minister when he comes to talk to them. During his incarceration the minister becomes more radical than his captors. The novel flashes in short chapters from the strikers, to the minister, to outsiders and back, with the focus always on individuals. Throughout Des châteaux qui brûlent there are references to French workers' struggles for decent treatment over the last hundred years. The spirit of Don Quixote, in this instance an image of idealism smashing into reality, hovers over the story, and American free jazz assumes importance as the novel moves forward. For readers on the political left, this novel should be very satisfying, but it is not. The characters have a stereotypical quality, a woman struggling for justice in the workplace while she is being abused at home, a cynical union organizer turned government consultant whose frustration is with political reality as well as her unhappy love life, a union official more cautious and doctrinaire than the people he purports to lead, and a politician experiencing an existential crisis concerning his political and personal life. That the Prime Minister is named Pascal adds a dimension to the complexity of the issues he is attempting to resolve as he struggles to find some way out of the intellectual and moral labyrinth he has created for himself. The problems besetting the various characters follow a hierarchical structure reflecting their respective social classes. The working woman attempts to assert her dignity at the workplace and at home, the union official falls victim to the constraints of an organization claiming to liberate people like himself, a well-educated woman rebels against decisions she freely made, and Pascal provides his frustrations with a metaphysical dimension. One might of course argue that the passage from practical problems to questions more philosophical in nature is an obvious reflection of a movement from physical to intellectual labor. The workers are too fatigued to indulge Pascal's sort of insecurity. Yet this is the point: the novel does little more than reflect all too well-known, cliché situations. While the individual characterizations are well-done, they have often been done as well. That much said, there is one delightfully different moment in the text. By novel's end the sequestration has turned into a media event. Families gather before the factory and workers supply roasted chicken. A picnic ambiance prevails. A bus pulls up filled with majorettes from a local school. The CRS looks suspiciously on the new arrivals. Impromptu music starts (Pascal has turned a large can of industrial mayonnaise into a kettle drum). Forbidden to exit the bus, the girls climb onto the roof and dance. The CRS point their weapons at these Gallic Rockettes, but mostly they just stare at the swirling bodies with benumbed stupefaction.