Une belle histoire d’amour qui finit bien by Xavier Deutsch (review)

cauchemars, tisse autour de l’enfant sa toile gluante jusque dans ses cellules grises momifiées “comme des mouches crevées” (60). Lua est inconsolable mais personne ne semble mesurer l’étendue du désastre; Markku s’éclipse, acceptant un travail en Océanie, tandis que Kerrie s’enferme de plus en plus dans son bovarysme infantile en suçant du chocolat noir et relisant en boucle Lord of the Flies. Après avoir perdu confiance en la protection familiale, Lua perd aussi sa foi en Dieu et son fils “le Barbu”. Où est donc le catcher in the rye pour sauver les enfants au bord de la falaise? Rien ne sera jamais plus comme avant. Eddy meurt sans fanfare . Freak prend la poudre d’escampette avec sa Dame Blanche, la drogue. Puis on a seize ans. L’âge de raison passe en catimini et les rêves se fondent dans les gargouilles des cauchemars. À la fin de l’inquiétant roman de David Grubb The Night of the Hunter, Rachel dit “Children abide and they endure”. C’est le concept de résilience selon Boris Cyrulnik. Lua parviendra-t-elle à s’échapper de la toile maléfique? La Grande Araignée deviendra-t-elle “araignée au plafond”? Au terme du récit, Lua déclare: “Je m’appelle Lua et je déteste le chocolat noir” (108). Le lecteur comprendra. University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh Yvette A. Young DEUTSCH, XAVIER. Une belle histoire d’amour qui finit bien. Paris: Laffont, 2010. ISBN 278-2-221-11683-8. Pp. 173. 16 a. This charming story consistently holds the reader’s attention but is light in substance. It is the tale of three friends who have known each other since their lycée years. There is Paul the architect, who is the narrator, Achille, an unemployed practical joker who lives off inherited wealth until he has spent it all, and Zoë, a photographer’s model. Paul recounts their adventures from a distance of about fourteen years. He is in his early forties at the time of his narration but the protagonists are in their late twenties at the time of most of the action. The first third of the novel is taken up by Zoë’s unhappy marriage to Charles, a prominent judge in Nanterre. Charles is older than Zoë. He is also a pervert who forces her to perform bizarre sexual acts. He blackmails her into staying with him by threatening to post online nude photographs he took of her both before and after they got married. He is also very possessive, and the only times she and her two friends can meet is on Thursday evening, when she is supposedly consulting her psychiatrist, and Saturday evening, when she is allowed to go to church. On Thursdays they meet at a favorite café; on Saturdays they really do attend Mass together and with genuine religious piety. The remainder of the novel recounts the story of Paul’s relationship with a wealthy young aristocrat named Sigrid. The latter presents herself to the young man as something of a damsel in distress who is in desperate need of his moral support. He sincerely falls in love with her, at her encouragement, and she rather elusively gives him the impression that she reciprocates his feelings. Paul later discovers that he is the victim of a cruel hoax, orchestrated by Sigrid and her friends for their perverse entertainment. The reader is reminded of the sadistic tricks played on Don Quijote and Sancho Panza by the Duke and Duchess during their stay at the aristocrats’ castle in the second half of Cervantes’s novel. This time, however, the victim gets a spectacular revenge. Achille comes to Paul’s rescue the way he did years before when as a child Paul was bullied in the schoolyard. 586 FRENCH REVIEW 85.3 Utilizing his prodigious talents and lifetime experience as a prankster, Achille devises a clever scheme both to teach Sigrid a lesson and release Zoë from the bonds of a marriage she wants to escape. The plot succeeds brilliantly. The denouement becomes a modern illustration of the medieval proverb of à trompeur trompeur et demi. The novel...