Le crépuscule d’un monde par Yves Tubergue (review)

Reviews 271 plus complexes qu’il ne pourrait y paraître. La ligne de mire qui fait évoluer Tesson de la simple observation jusqu’aux confins de la fiction constitue ce que l’on appellera le nerf le plus emberlificoté de ces récits. Si Tesson choisit le format de la nouvelle pour livrer à son lecteur une panoplie de portraits les plus divers, c’est peut-être bien parce qu’il aimerait démontrer qu’il est souvent préférable de choisir l’aventure, quelle qu’elle soit, quitte à y laisser des plumes. Western Kentucky University Karin Egloff Tubergue,Yves. Le crépuscule d’un monde. Paris: Plon, 2013. ISBN 978-2-259-219228 . Pp. 445. 21,50 a. This ambitious novel pays homage to Zola’s works, spanning several decades of French sociopolitical history as it impacts a family of manual laborers. Turbergue, himself the son of a factory worker and grandson of an artisan, fictionalizes a family history in order to trace the twentieth-century rise and fall of the working class. Sweeping scenes of unionized protests alternate with monologues recapping the failures of political agendas and a more intimate narrative of the trials and tribulations of David Martin, his uncles and aunts, grandparents and mother. David, unable to look to the future or live in the present, blames his feelings of despondency on the accidental shooting death of his father during the failed revolution of May 1968. His father’s two surviving brothers, their parents and grandparents, represent world views that David could choose to embrace. Union activist Alain, despite his coworkers’ reluctance to protest and the repeated denials of a work bonus or promotion, retains his faith in the power of the masses. In contrast, Uncle René has removed himself from the world of organized labor and the Martins’ northern community, having moved to Marseille where he has grown independently wealthy through shady financial transactions. David’s great-grandfather, veteran of the golden age of the factory worker and witness to the strikes of 1936,and David’s grandfather,an aging artisan who finds it increasingly difficult to make a living, try to inculcate their pride for their work into their offspring. The Martin women, before those of David’s generation, are self-effacing pillars of fidelity who suffer from their husbands’ strokes of bad luck because of their financial dependence. As David meanders from person to person seeking answers, he meets Isabelle, who can help him look to the future rather than the past. Their painful relationship begins the night of Mitterrand’s presidential victory in May 1981, the grand soir de la gauche. Over the years David repeatedly sabotages this relationship with his obsession for the past.Le crépuscule d’un monde is a long novel,whose narrative structure repeats itself rather than progresses. Readers may find the characters’ incapacity for evolution frustrating. The text, despite moments of narrative appeal, is weighted with moralistic tirades that only reiterate the narrative’s message. The novel’s strength lies in its poetic panoramic descriptions, such as the industrial valley and the topography of Marseille, or the ocean and river waterscapes.Additionally, the plight of the factory workers and manual laborers, victims of mechanization and outsourcing, is significant in contemporary Western history. The pagan cathedral that is the workshop is crumbling (79) and Turbergue shows that its collapse represents the failure of society as well as the failure of individual lives, not only in past generations but in the present. Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania Nathalie G. Cornelius Vasseur, Flore. En bande organisée. Paris: Équateurs, 2013. ISBN 978-2-84990-2301 . Pp. 318. 19 a. Presumably, many citizens of the Western world—if they have escaped the fate of vaporized credit and its direst consequences—have experienced the subprime debacle, insider trading, too-big-too-fail-ism, and 1% status as a serial flash of headlines emanating from an appalling but distant oligarchy. Vasseur puts this questionable history of our civilization front and center of her third novel. In the opening gambit of the story, public relations expert Sébastien is summoned to New York by his boss, the CEO of Folman Pachs. En route...