Four years after winning the Prix Goncourt for Their children after themthe French writer Nicolas Mathieu explores in Connemara the wounds of adolescence through the midlife crisis of a woman and a man who reunite in hopes of reenacting their youth. We reached him in France to talk to him about this highly anticipated third novel.
Posted yesterday at 1:00 p.m.
In a way, Nicolas Mathieu ensures with this social novel the continuity of the previous one, which told the story of a gang of teenagers in a small working-class town in the east of France, in the 1990s. principal of ConnemaraHélène, pursues through her academic success the quest for these young girls who grow up “in a small place and who dream of broader horizons”, he explains on the phone.
On the eve of her 40th birthday, Hélène is back in her native region, in the provinces, after having left Paris following a burnout. On paper, Hélène has everything to be happy: “studies, a good husband, a good job, two children, a superb house, a big car, etc. – this is an apparent success, ”he explains. But there is this “crack” that undermines her, this feeling of already feeling old and of not having seen the time pass.
“I wanted to dwell on a character who would have fulfilled the period specifications and then all the same, at 40, would say to himself: is that all? What’s the point ? “says Nicolas Mathieu.
Because this weariness he describes is all too universal. A lot of people get to 40, he says, and think, “Is this really what I wanted? Will I still be loved by other eyes? Am I going to be wanted by others? »
Men and women alike, these are concerns that one can have at this age. I hear that a lot around me: “I got what I wanted and then, finally, it leaves a feeling of dissatisfaction. Isn’t there more to life?”
Nicholas Matthew
The confrontation of two worlds
In a final attempt to make up for lost time, to “afford this extra adolescence”, writes the writer in the novel, Hélène finds Christophe, a former hockey player who turned the heads of all the girls in his school when she was a teenager – a period she thinks she missed, she, the studious girl who could only experience love in books. Unlike her, he didn’t further his education and never left his hometown – or his band of friends, for that matter – and is looking to reconnect with his former glory by rejoining the hockey team. local.
“Christophe is someone who refuses to grow up and until the end, he wants to replay the great moment of his life,” says Nicolas Mathieu.
Connemara is in a way the confrontation of their two opposite worlds, which comes to pose this existential question at the base of the novel, according to the writer: “What is a life that is worth it? All the more so when one becomes a captive of “these rotating existences”, he writes, where only “these weekly recreations, the expenses that canceled out the identical weeks, the balm of small useless purchases” come to make life more bearable…
“We are caught in a machine, in a device where we work to spend money and we spend money to reward ourselves for having worked; and the meaning, in there, we could look for for a long time. And then all that is bearable because we pay ourselves small gratuities and because we are under the illusion of a perpetual present. We have our nose in the handlebars and we are moving forward,” says Nicolas Mathieu.
Even if the conclusion seems harsh, Connemara is not meant to be a dark or pessimistic novel. “Life is made up of hard things, though – aging, work… So I try to show that too, to make books that aren’t just celebrations of existence. But it still seems like no matter what, joy is always possible – a family celebration, the joy of love, watching a child grow… More localized, more temporary things, which are redeeming intensities can – to be what is painful. »
Connemara
Nicholas Matthew
South Acts
400 pages