How Karine Tuil was inspired by real events for her novel "Human things"

"Human Things" is a film by Yvan Attal soon in theaters.

This feature film is an adaptation of the eponymous book by Karine Tuil.

Guest of "It feels good" Tuesday, the novelist tells how she drew on reality to invent her plot of sex scandal in the French intellectual bourgeoisie.

INTERVIEW

Culture and uncertainty still rhyme in these times of coronavirus, but the film

Human things

 should be released in theaters at the end of 2021. This feature film by Yvan Attal is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Karine Tuil, 2019 Goncourt high school student prize. the story of a sexual scandal in a family of the Parisian intellectual bourgeoisie is more relevant than ever.

Tuesday, in the show

It

feels

good

, Karine Tuil tells how she was inspired by real events.

>> Find all of Anne Roumanoff's shows in replay and podcast here

His main inspiration is American.

Karine Tuil was marked by the rape case at Stanford University.

"I was shocked by the reaction of the father of the young man found guilty, who said 'We are not going to destroy the life of my son, implied by my son who has succeeded brilliantly so far, for 20 minutes of action '. And these words, '20 minutes of action', tell me something about our society, ”she says.

"That is, the contrast between the way victims experience sexual assault and the way those who commit the act also experience it."

Sexual and social class violence

We therefore find this imbalance of perception in his novel.

"In my book, the father is convinced that his son has done nothing and that it is ultimately only a small affair, that the daughter has allowed herself to be done. Because for him, it is nothing. Whereas for this girl, who additionally comes from a practicing Jewish background, sex is important. "

The plot of

Human Things

takes place in France but Karine Tuil has also taken from the Stanford rape case the idea of ​​the contrast of the backgrounds of origin between the rapist and the victim.

"She, she is paralyzed at first by the audience. She comes from a simple background, did not do brilliant studies. She does indeed have difficulty expressing herself. And he has the codes", she explains.

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"The confrontation of universes is something that I find very interesting. Me, I am the daughter of immigrants and it is true that when I arrived in the publishing world, an environment nevertheless quite close to the political environment, I discovered a universe that I did not know, with particular codes. "

The recent Olivier Duhamel affair unfortunately gave her the feeling that her fiction was meeting reality, without this surprising her.

"There is also something that Camille Kouchner tells in her book and that interested me, it is the contrast that there is sometimes between the ideals that you advocate and the way you live your own life" , explains Karine Tuil, taking for example these policies which extol the merits of the public school and the social mix, while putting their children in the Alsatian school.

"It's a frequent thing. It's not a cliché," she observes.

"The role of the writer is not to pass judgment"

But the hypocrisy that inspired her the most is that of the relationship to sexuality.

"On the one hand, this free sexuality claimed. On the other, there is a way of experiencing one's sexuality which can lead to confusion, and slippages. We have seen this in particular with the DSK affair", indicates the novelist.

Jean Farel, his main character, has his wife, who is 27 years his junior.

He cheats on her with another, Françoise, before having an even younger mistress.

And, during this time, he participates in fine parts without anyone knowing anything about it.

"This character is a mixture of many men that I have been able to meet or observe", confides the novelist.

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But it is not for Karine Tuil to pass judgment.

"I think that it is not the role of the writer, it is up to the reader to have his own reading grid", she theorizes.

"Moreover, in the book, Jean Farel considers it correct vis-à-vis women. He always says 'I want them to be consenting. I try not to slip'."

The writer adds: "What interests me is to tell the story of our society."

Yvan Attal's film should be released at the end of 2021, starring Yvan Attal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Benjamin Lavernhe and Judith Chemla.