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- Today, “Les Baskets et le costume” by Abdelilah Laloui was published on January 29, 2020 by Éditions JC Lattès.
Marceline Bodier, author and contributor to the reading group "20 Minutes Books", recommends Les Baskets et le costume de Abdelilah Laloui, published on January 29, 2020 by Éditions JC Lattès.
His favorite quote:
“… Passing a competition with the feeling of defying sociology and its destiny is something else. One among thousands is able to free themselves from their social environment to rise, but at what cost? Lots of resentment and shame. "
Why this book?
- Because Abdelilah Laloui is 20 years old, but he has already written his autobiography. A blow of editor? Let's see that: he is a student at Sciences Po, entered by a “priority education convention”, creator of an association, Tous curieux, which promotes culture for all in a very unacademic way, and for which we saw it on many TV sets last year. He was a parliamentary assistant, he is now a community manager at France Culture ... what would have been bizarre, it would have been that no publisher was interested in him!
- Because I love that someone loses the statistics! However, statistics on the “descendants of Maghreb immigrants”, INSEE has published… is it a population with fewer qualifications than “people with no migratory ancestry”? Abdelilah Laloui, he will be a graduate of Sciences Po. It is a population that occupies low-skilled jobs, and his father is a refrigeration specialist? He will be a senior manager. He makes the statistics lie, just like, before him, Pierre Bourdieu or Annie Ernaux. And like his illustrious predecessors, he describes the feeling of illegitimacy it arouses.
- Because the sociologist Philippe Coulangeon warned against the temptation to think that the upper classes would no longer exercise symbolic cultural domination, on the grounds that they have become eclectic: they are only because they have the means to discover popular culture, where the popular classes continue not to have the means to discover the dominant culture. However, with the association Tous curieux, "We wanted to seize this simple ability to say what affects us or not," writes Abdelilah Laloui.
- Because in writing this book, he takes the risk of being assigned to his origins. But I'm taking bets: if he does, it's because his book is also the story of the creation of the association Tous curieux with his friend Alia Ismail. And when he reads a passage from Terre des hommes to two schoolboys from the suburbs who had not chosen to meet him, he tells precisely how he leads them to understand that the text speaks of them. Because until then, “who told us that culture was us? Person ".
- Because it is also an extraordinary personality that tells its story. In the suburban high school he attended, he was "a bolosse". But for the bolosses of the Parisian high schools, he would have been a young person from the suburbs if they had known him… Finally, "the bolosses are those who are alone because they are different from the others": here is a sentence which will awaken echoes in all those whose difference is due to the origin, but not only ... The author adds moreover "I do not know precisely what constitutes my difference but in any case, it brutally excludes me".
- Because, as you have understood, Abdelilah Laloui avoids two pitfalls: hiding his personality and what makes his story an original story (no, it cannot be reduced to a social phenomenon); stick poles to become the official exception that would give us a good conscience (yes, behind him, hundreds of volunteers work for his association). The exercise was not easy, but it leaves a heady music in the head, which brings together, as did the life of the author, Sylvie Vartan, Cheb Mami and Jean-Sébastien Bach.
The essential in 2 minutes
The plot. Abdelilah Laloui grew up in sneakers: it was the uniform of the suburbs. He worked in costume: it was the uniform of the National Assembly. However, he is only twenty years old… and for his return to Sciences Po, what shoes should he wear? You can imagine: nothing to do with fashion…
Characters. Abdelilah has few friends, since he is "a bolosse". Only, on his way, there is Alia, the faithful friend, Rachid, the librarian, Christophe Bouillon, the deputy, a blonde ex-minister fallen from the sky in the corridors of the Assembly, Olivier Py, the director … And Rainer Maria Rilke.
Places. The Lille suburbs in the 2000s, the Paris suburbs in the 2010s, and, in summer, "an Algeria contained in a Peugeot 806 that crosses French roads". And then the heart of Paris in the 2020s: enough to powerfully renew the famous "to us two, now"!
The time. The author is 20 years old: his book is one of the first fully anchored in the 21st century. However, how can we not think of Pierre Bourdieu, a Norman and the son of peasants from Béarn, Annie Ernaux, the Renaudot Prize and the daughter of small Norman merchants… testimony of the 21st century, ancient parentage.
The author. Abdelilah Laloui is twenty years old. Given what he has already achieved with his association Tous curieux, we want to tell ourselves that this is the best age of life ... we wish him, however, that Nizan's sentence is true and that his life continues on the extraordinary momentum on which she started!
This book was read while listening to Bach's first cello suite.
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