” Well-being “. By Nathan Hill.
Translated from the American by Nathalie Bru. Gallimard. 680 pages. €26.
All couples have a story they tell about themselves, a story that purrs beneath them like an engine and guides them, through the pitfalls, into the future. For Jack and Elizabeth, this story was love at first sight, two dreamers discovering their other half, two orphans finding a home.
+ The book of the day. Iain Levison: the art of undressing American justice
This love begins in the darkness of two apartments opposite each other. Neighbors next door, secretly seduced by each other, they observe each other without knowing each other until they meet in a trendy bar in Chicago in the 1990s. Jack is a photographer, Elizabeth a student in cognitive psychology. Both are on the outs, she with a lineage where ill-gotten wealth is passed down to each generation, he with a family of melancholic farmers from the Great Plains. In short, they carry in stereo an original guilt.
What did they do with their twenties?
Twenty years after their love at first sight, around a child raised according to the principles of positive education, Franck buried his dreams of “the most exciting young artist in Chicago” under an ordinary professorship, while Elizabeth works on the placebo effect at the Well-being clinic. At this crossroads, they buy an apartment off plan in a real estate project, a perfect reflection of the gentrification of their bohemian neighborhood and their gentrification. However, this decision, far from strengthening their relationship, reveals invisible flaws.
+ The book of the day. Freedwoman from Montmartre by Jean-Paul Delfino: Valadon, an insolent freedom
Marriage, child, status as owners, retirement savings account, Jack and Elizabeth, unfaithful to their ideals, allowed themselves to be overtaken by conformism. They weren’t solving their problems. They were just getting used to it
notes Nathan Hill. What did they do with their 20 years and their love? asks the writer. The virtuoso story translated by Nathalie Bru frees itself from the chronological line, sliding from one period to another without ever losing its coherence. Thus, the legacies of childhood, the obsession with well-being fueled by personal development, the power of algorithms and even the nuisance of social networks are embedded. When Jack fights (in vain) against the most absurd conspiracy theories published by his father on Facebook, it is worth irresistible pages.
From this delightful journey in the company of Jack and Elizabeth, we remember, in addition to the sumptuous passages on the Kansas prairie, that the American psyche bears a striking resemblance to ours. As insightful as it is mischievous, “Well-being” achieves the status of a literary classic.
Related News :