Au revoir là-haut par Pierre Lemaitre (review)

Reviews 271 massacrer par son propre frère, les conflits œdipiens ont toujours la cote auprès de l’académie” (40). Completely powerless to tell his family and doctor that it is his brother who raped him, he becomes increasingly frustrated as his girlfriend first reads a children’s story to him and then the headlines from the daily newspaper where he learns that he is described as the victim of a heinous and gratuitous crime. Once again, the reader’s unease becomes one with the victim’s pain. These short stories are not for the faint of heart. Yet, one would be hard pressed to find another author who is able to enter so adeptly into the mindset of the victims of perverse crimes. Canisius College (NY) Eileen M. Angelini Lemaitre, Pierre. Au revoir là-haut. Paris: Albin Michel, 2013. ISBN 978-2-22624967 -8. Pp. 567. 22,50 a. After four years of war, the promise of armistice is in the air. But for the soldiers of the Great War, their officers continue to push them against the enemy in trench warfare. As a professional warrior, Lieutenant Pradelle loves warfare and leads his infantry into yet more confrontations with the Boches while he reigns over his men with cruel insouciance. Meanwhile Albert Maillard is a grunt in the trenches who would rather wait for the armistice as he reflects upon being reunited with his beloved Cécile. Suddenly he is buried alive by a mortar barrage and saved by his enlisted peer Édouard Péricourt who was severely wounded simultaneously. The mud and grisly details of infantry warfare mark the contrast of tactical warfare by grunts to the strategic ideals of officers like Pradelle.Albert’s debt to Édouard continues into civilian life where Édouard’s disfigurement and addiction to morphine combine to affect Albert’s postwar survival as a poilu in Paris whose politics and daily life contradict each other regarding attitudes toward veterans. Name-changing is an available way for the veterans to survive as the anonymous soldier’s remains were buried on the battlefield and his papers accessible for substitution. The mis-identification of bodies is rampant and provides almost comic situations and opportunities of economic advancement for those in the funereal and commemorative markets. Thus Pradelle becomes a successful bourgeois adopting his aristocratic birth name of D’AulnayPradelle after his commercial management of the re-internment of those who died on the battlefield and were initially buried nearby. His greed knows no bounds as he profits from downsizing caskets so all the veteran bodies fit no matter their size. A government inquiry produces interesting results worthy of reading as the reader constantly waits for justice for the returning veterans caught in unexpected civilian ambushes. Édouard’s fate, for example, is continually ramped up as his addiction to morphine evolves into a heroin habit. And the stakes of his friendship with Albert become increasingly complex once the former’s identity is changed. The author’s style indirect libre is a masterful use of irony and skepticism toward the social classes and working conditions in the aftermath of the Great War. He introduces populist formulas into thoughtful reactions to the poilu’s reintroduction into Parisian civilian life. The Belle Époque had fostered the gender domination of men over women. As marriageable French men became rare after the War, Lemaitre’s women learn to play the mating game in order to obtain results from the men who think they have the upper hand.At play in the narrative is the cultural phenomenon of leaving for the French Colonies during this period. Such an odyssey was both desirable for those making a quick profit unscrupulously and also horrific for vulnerable public servants (fonctionnaires) threatened just prior to their retirements with alternatives to dutiful careers. All of these issues make this novel a page-turner and thus seem lighter than its hefty size. Once again we have a worthy recipient of the Prix Goncourt. Trinity University (TX) Roland A. Champagne Lucbert,Sandra. Mobiles.Paris: Flammarion,2013.ISBN 978-2-0813-1048-3.Pp.277. 18 a. Ce premier roman décrit la société contemporaine sans complaisance mais...