Since the autumn of books in France began a few weeks ago with lots of articles, programs, the first shortlists for the big prizes, that is, the usual business noise, almost all conversations have revolved around one woman: the writer Virginie Despentes.

Virginie, the punk of the French literary scene, the outsider from "Les Pentes" in Lyon, who appeared out of nowhere almost thirty years ago with "Baise Moi", "Fick mich" and is now considered the "Balzac of our time", who in sat on the jury of the prestigious Prix Goncourt, earned very well with her novels, but has never lost her anger at the system and regularly verbally attacks the rich and powerful from the heart of power.

So Virginie Despentes, who is publishing a new novel this fall, seven years after the last volume in the "Vernon-Subutex" series, with the gaudy title "Cher connard", "Dear Asshole".

For two weeks it has been number one on the bestseller lists in France, and a hundred thousand copies are said to have already been sold.

When her book was already haunted on some Instagram profiles in the summer, one still thought Despentes would want to provoke a scandal again.

It was assumed that some, after reading it, would proclaim the end of literature, of men, of flirting, of sex, just the end of everything;

others would yell that you're just reactionary, and so at least rekindle the debate.

The anger and the power

Depending on where you stand ideologically, you were looking forward to this "dear asshole" - or just sighed hard because you suspected, and that was also obvious, that this book was a kind of long version of Despentes' legendary "On se lève et on se casse” (“We get up. We go”), the article in which she criticized the awarding of the César Prize to director Roman Polanski in winter 2020 and wrote, among other things:

"You are an unfortunate bunch of idiots.

The world you have created to rule in your shabbiness is unbearable.

That's it!

we get up

We go.

we get loud

You can do us!”

Only "Cher connard" is very different from this comment, in tone, attitude, sharpness.

And so are the reactions to it.

It starts with the fact that the author not only tells the story from the perspective of the victims, but also from the perspective of the perpetrator.

Her novel, written in the form of a letter, lets three characters have their say: Oscar, a successful author who has buried himself in self-pity since his MeToo shitstorm (it's about sexual harassment, pushing, insistent looks, late-night calls);

Rebecca, an actress struggling with her age and weight, and Zoe, a young feminist who blasts said author with her accusations on her feminist blog.

It's about MeToo, but also about addiction problems, social advancement, aging, the pandemic, bullying on the Internet and other very contemporary topics that Despentes, a critic recently wrote, is now better able to describe than Michel Houellebecq.

The way Despentes deals with all of this in a single novel is indeed admirable.

Hard on the outside, soft on the inside

One could say that the book appears hard and combative on the outside, but is rather soft, even forgiving, on the inside.

So forgiving that the writer and literary critic Frédéric Beigbeder announced on a radio show in early September that the title had put him off at first, but it was actually a “love letter to men”: “If the radical feminists could read it to the end it will lead to the hatchet being buried.”

And indeed, as far as this novel is concerned, almost everyone agrees.

Even those who don't want to be.

Everyone somehow feels recognized and understood, everyone believes they have won the rebel Despentes over to their side.

People who previously found her exhausting, too loud, too aggressive, too feminist are now happy that she's found her way to Nuance.

They say she's really "subtle," doesn't just paint everything black and white, shows empathy for the poor man, and they suspect it's a faint critique of the "crazed" neo-feminists.

In turn, these feminists, who have been calling Virginie Despentes “la cheffe” or “la patronne” since at least her essay “King Kong Theory”, shrug – like Lauren Bastide – in the face of this new fan base in boredom and say that the admirers have the book just not understood.

After all, this is clearly about abuse of power, after all, after many pages and long conversations, it finally dawned on the man that he was not the victim of malicious slander, but the perpetrator, and he then took responsibility.

How Virginie Despentes herself stands on this new consensus about her work is not yet clear.

Should it be taken as an indication that two years ago she gave a lecture at the Center Pompidou in which she said: “We need a gentleness revolution”?