Les insurrections singulières by Jeanne Benameur (review)

l’amour has no final epiphany about his vocation, and what he will do with his life remains an open question. So does the quest for love, set in dialogue with the economic theme—hence the lovely title. Economics comes into the book through a running critical commentary on this pseudo-science vs. “real” science, entertainingly readable despite the playfully-used occasional mathematical symbol. Giving shape to the narrative is an inventive form of courtship (I venture this à peu près for the untranslatable la drague because this hip young man is in many ways endearingly old-fashioned) via photographic messages to a woman who works in a photo shop but shows signs of being a student, possibly an aspiring writer. At the close, the narrator is on the verge of actually meeting her for a date—a Proustian ending after all, tipped towards a Stendhalian valorization of love. Another inventive twist: the one full-blown love scene in the novel concerns not this primary obsession but a brief encounter, sensitive, touchingly shy and slightly awkward, between the narrator and a sympathique American back-packer. The choice of an American for the scene fits well in a book saturated with American culture, from Britney Spears and an endless succession of films to a Harlequin novel set in New Orleans and a visit to Montreal. For American readers , the novel offers a window into the mind of a bright young Frenchman and his views of America, as well as into many aspects of French culture itself. Especially notable for university students are scenes at Paris-Nanterre and an insider’s view of the august École Polytechnique. Southeastern Louisiana University Katherine Kolb BENAMEUR, JEANNE. Les insurrections singulières. Arles: Actes Sud, 2011. ISBN 978-27427 -9530-7. Pp. 198. 18 a. According to its author, this novel emerged from an examination of the question of work in our times: the nature of labor, its value, and the value it gives to those who do it. Indeed, the narrative is built on a pre-history deeply rooted in class issues. Despite opportunities and encouragement to rise above his workingclass background, the main character, Antoine, stayed in his home town to work in the same factory that had sapped his father’s strength over many decades. Antoine claimed initially to want to avenge the “dos voûté” of his father, logically through his active engagement in the local union. At the least, the union would offer a tangible means to reaffirm the value of both work and workers. As though to bolster his political position, Antoine chooses as his lover a leftist academic, Karima, who is drawn to the image of proletarianism that she projects onto Antoine. But Antoine’s working-class fervor peters out. He has neither great esteem for the work he has learned to do nor much loyalty to working-class ethics, much less a commitment to the union’s agenda. When the factory management furloughs all its workers in anticipation of relocating to Brazil, Antoine proves to be incapable of and uninterested in any political action that might draw attention to the value of maintaining the integrity of a working community. As a consequence, Antoine gives up his job, (unintentionally) loses his “intello” girlfriend , and moves back in with his parents, effectively becoming a boomerang child pushing forty. This regression (in more than one sense of the word) is where the novel opens, and these early passages are among the best written of the book. Reviews 977 Benameur effectively shuttles between the events leading up to Antoine’s current circumstances and his reactions to them. In addition, she convincingly blends a potent cocktail of sentiments: Antoine’s adolescent dissatisfaction with his status as his parents’ “child,” his shame at not having made his way into the working man’s world, and a more troubling sense of existentialist void. The novel changes direction when Antoine decides to travel to Montlevade, Brazil, the factory’s relocation site. Motivation is two-fold: he wants to travel and see the Brazilian factory workers who are his counterparts. But this change in direction threatens to pull the story apart. Antoine becomes far more engaged in...