Poor Frederic Beigbeder! Rich, recognized, appreciated. A house by the sea. A loving wife and beautiful children…
We would thank life for less than that. But the French writer finds a way to complain.
Certainly: it is not because we have everything that we are happy. Beigbeder suffered like everyone else. But from there to posing as a victim as he does in Confessions of a Slightly Overwhelmed Heterosexualthere is a margin.
This new book (his 16e) begins with a scene of desolation. Overnight, her home was tagged by angry feminists. We blame him for having signed a petition against the penalization of the clients of prostitutes. This attack serves as the starting point for a long plea for the defense of the 60-year-old white male – which he is – a “species” that is not very popular today.
Beigbeder is an intelligent, sensitive, shrewd man. His essay is not a masculinist manifesto in the strict sense. He denounces Harvey Weinstein, regrets his friendship with the pedophile Gabriel Matzneff, says he is fundamentally in solidarity with the #metoo movement. But he refuses to take the blame for the mistakes of others. Refuses to apologize for his age. For his skin color. For his normative sexual orientation. And, ultimately, for all the privileges that come with it.
His point of view is defended. He knows he is “slightly overwhelmed” and accepts it. This confession allows him to reflect on his place in the world.
But his approach is less convincing.
A chapter is devoted to his detox. Beigbeder was known as a coked reveler. He settled down, good for him. We are more perplexed when he recounts his quasi-initiation stays in a monastery and in an infantry regiment. Is it in the army and the Church, two historically colonialist institutions, that Frédéric Beigbeder seeks to update himself?
The last part, devoted to male desire, is the drop (of sperm) too many. It is time, according to him, to put an end to the ambient “heterophobic” discourse, which he equates to a form of neo-feminist racism. He admits the straight white male only thinks about ass. He apologizes. But what do you want, it’s not his fault! This “frightening desire” is a fatality with which men and women unfortunately have to deal, for better or for worse…
We know Beigbeder’s talent for provocation. If the book wanted to be ironic at the 14e degree, our apologies.
Otherwise, we are skeptical. Partly consisting of previously published texts, Confessions… hollow on the surface. The author admits his discrepancy with the current world, but does not seem in a hurry to remedy it, claiming instead his Catholic conservatism and his well-established shortcomings. “I was a young jerk, I’m an old jerk”, he repeats ad nauseam.
Will this “confession” help him save his soul? We can understand, in any case, why it raises the ire of feminists in France. Signing sessions were disrupted by protests. We preferred his gloss Dam against the Atlantic published last year, a real literary success.
Confessions of a Slightly Overwhelmed Heterosexual
Albin Michael
176 pages