Fifty years of married life compressed into less than 100 pages. This is the tour de force that François Bégaudeau achieves in love, novel in the running for the Renaudot prize. Perhaps the name of the author means something to you? He is the author ofBetween the wallsthe story of a teacher in a problem middle school from the 20e district of Paris. The novel became a film that won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2008, in addition to representing France at the Oscars that same year.
We could summarize love saying that it is the story of an uneventful couple. We are in a small town in the west of France. Jacques and Jeanne are two young people from modest backgrounds: she does housework, he works with his father. Their meeting is not extraordinary, nor is their relationship. It’s a dull everyday life without much drama: a marriage, a child, days that follow one another and are similar, a few trips. A routine life like so many others. Is this good material for a novel? Surprisingly, yes. Bégaudeau, who was accused of condescension by a magazine critic Les Inrocksevokes the life of Jacques and Jeanne with tenderness and melancholy.
Yes, we are far from the novels about the couple after #metoo. We are far from all-consuming passion and complicated romantic relationships. We’re at grandpa and grandma’s and it smells like Old France. It could be very boring, but it’s quite moving. Like a sepia postcard that we would find in an old shoebox in our parents’ house.
love
Verticals
96 pages