Imagine a world where young men must, as teenagers, wear a bra and wait patiently at the ball for a young girl to look down on them. A world where boys who dream of becoming sailors have to stay ashore to raise their children.
This world is Egalia, a country that Norwegian author Gerd Brantenberg invented in 1977 in her cult novel The daughters of Egaliefinally translated into French by Éditions Zulma.
In this matriarchal world, women dominate, even in language. Brantenberg has indeed skilfully played on the language to reverse all the cases where the masculine prevails, as in “Once upon a time”, for example. The process has, better than any other, the effect of flushing out all the inequalities conveyed in a society born of traditional patriarchy. And they are many.
But the novelist went further. In her book, she systematically put women in positions of power, not as an oddity, but rather as a given, as was the case for generations of men before us. It translates for example the exclamation “God! with “Goddess!” “.
Young Petronius
This is how we meet the young Pétronius, who is about to enter the world at the debutante ball and who dreams of freeing himself “from his condition as a man-object” and becoming a marine. -fisherwoman. It is not acquired. He has to fight for a wetsuit, even though it typically lacks a rod bra. “There are so many professions a young man can embrace these days. What about the hairstyle? There’s so much going on in the beard department, whether it’s waves or perms,” says one character in the book. In revolt against his condition, Petronius writes a masculinist book, entitled The Sons of Democracy, where he again reverses the balance of power…
Language as a motor of thought
The work, which represents considerable translation challenges, was wonderfully adapted from Norwegian by Jean-Baptiste Coursaud, who found in the French language the resources to deliver its juice. Once the new codes have been accepted, that is, those where the feminine systematically prevails, we understand to what extent language is both a reflection and a driving force of thought, and its impact on society.
Freed from the linguistic dogmas inherited from past generations, Gerd Brantenberg plays with stereotypes, with humor and intelligence. And, even 45 years after its first publication in Norwegian, The daughters of Egaliecomes at the right time in our time where the binary mode of identity is questioned.
Its rigorous treatment shows the extent to which linguistic springs paralyze or free us, depending on the use we make of them. It also demonstrates the work of awareness that we still have to do to humanize (“fumanize”, as Gerd Brantenberg would write) our relationships beyond domination, whether feminine or masculine. Brilliant and jubilant.