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Today, “The Son of Man” by Jean-Baptiste Del Amo, published on August 19, 2021 by Editions Gallimard and winner of the Fnac 2021 novel prize.
Vanessa Paunovic, contributor to the
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reading group
, recommends
The Son of Man
by Jean-Baptiste Del Amo, published on August 19, 2021 by Éditions Gallimard and winner of the Fnac 2021 novel prize.
Her favorite quote:
"Where was he?" he asks in a low voice. The mother draws on her cigarette, turns her head to blow her smoke away from the child's face. There he is, she said. That's what matters right now, right? "
Why this book?
Because it is a masterful novel that is both
myth and tragedy, a universal and timeless story on the transmission of violence from father to son, from generation to generation, where "there is no worse than a wounded man ”. The author deciphers the mechanisms of the reproduction of violence through a story that begins with a quote from the Seneca tragedy,
Thyeste
. The tone and the omen are set and then begins a story that goes back to the dawn of time, that of hunter-gatherers, opening the novel as a prelude to that of the father's return to the home.
Because Jean-Baptiste Del Amo calls himself cyclothymic
in his writing work. He publishes relatively little, which probably allows him to observe, analyze the world around him and thus produce novels that include such precision in the description of movement in the airs of a royal kite. only the gestures of its characters. It is a writing of the real, a work of goldsmith that captures by the sense of almost scientific detail where the author explores the bodies, the sensations of the characters and their physical relationship with nature and animals.
Because it is a new fusional life punctuated by a father
, a man who imposes himself on a woman and her child.
It is about the slow process which leads to the madness of a man consumed by pain, of the unwavering and fragile motherly love and of the gaze of a child on the disturbing strangeness of adults.
Because throughout history, from the origins to our contemporary era,
from clans to mononuclear families, gestures and destinies are inevitably repeated, making the sons “the arms of the vengeance of the fathers”.
The essentials in 2 minutes
The plot.
It is the story of a man's return to the home of his partner and his son.
They have no name and are called "the father", "the mother", "the son".
The father leads them to a place lost in the mountains, Les Roches, an old isolated house where he himself grew up with a demonic man.
Characters.
The father, the mother, the son.
Places.
Les Roches, an isolated house in the mountain where the father grew up.
The time.
Yesterday Today Tomorrow.
The author.
Jean-Baptiste Del Amo previously wrote
Animal Kingdom
(2016),
Pornographia
(2013),
Le sel
(2010) and
Une education libertine
(2008), Goncourt of the first novel.
This book was read with
the same devouring passion as the previous novels of Jean-Baptiste Del Amo because it explores themes that challenge me, question me, touch me: filiation, transmission, the relationship to nature and to animals.
Buy this book at Fnac
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