Édouard Louis, “The Collapse” (Seuil) – Livres Hebdo

If not you… From Put an end to Eddy Bellegueule (Seuil, 2014, ten years already), Edward Louisborn in 1992, has established himself as one of the young masters of French-style autofiction, as a disciple ofAnnie Ernaux or from Didier Eribonits claimed masters. Like them, he is convinced that the poverty, decline, alcoholism and violence that plague certain working-class families, including his own, are the result of the pressure exerted by liberal capitalist society on its weakest links.

His story is also that of intellectual rise, an example of “republican meritocracy”, and a resounding success: Eddy Bellegueule, born into a lumpenproletariat family in Hauts-de-France, is the only one in his country to have obtained his baccalaureate , then he did Normale Supérieure, obtained the aggregation in philosophy. To become a writer, he left his family and their name, choosing a pseudonym that smacks of his bourgeoisie. Its overwhelming success aroused a certain unease, first among the Bellegueules, who hardly appreciated (euphemism) the image of them projected and popularized everywhere, in France and abroad.

Brother’s story

Especially since after his first book, Édouard Louis devoted several others to his father, violent, alcoholic, homophobic, and to his mother, both a victim of men and having transferred the system of family violence onto her son. Their relationships have evolved towards a kind of tenderness: see Fights and metamorphoses of a femme2021, et Monique escapespublished at the beginning of this year 2024 (at Seuil, like all the “fictions” of Édouard Louis). There is in the cursed son the desire to cut ties to get out of it, or even to disown his family, but as time passes, the relationship becomes more complex and buried feelings resurface.

We were impatiently waiting for this Collapsepostponed to October, asking us what the subject would be, and if Édouard Louis would open his inspiration to other universes. It won’t be this time again. The collapsethe story of the decline of his older brother, instead takes us back to the heart of this terrible, sordid family, traumatized by bereavement.

False hopes, odd jobs, illusions

The book opens at the time of the boy’s death, at age 38, consumed by alcohol. Of him, we won’t know his first name (just a ridiculous nickname, Momole, tagged on a bus shelter in their village), and not much else, basically, despite the 16 “facts” recounted by Louis, as many stages of an ordeal, his own and the one he puts his family through: mother, brothers and sisters, beloved women. They all recount the hell they experienced throughout the process: false hopes, odd jobs, illusions, then a return to alcohol, to violence, detoxification treatments, hospital stays… The cycle is well known, it has already been often described.

But what is striking in The collapsein addition to its construction alternating the “facts” in flashbacks, nourished by testimonies from loved ones, and the present events, after death, in all their harshness, this is the way in which the narrator intervenes. At no time does he express the slightest compassion for this brother whom he had not seen for almost ten years, at whose funeral he will refuse to participate financially (even though he alone has the means, his sister points out to him). elder), and which he will not attend.

A raw, ambiguous book

As for grief: “ Is felt nothing at the news of my brother’s death; neither sadness, nor despair, nor joy, nor pleasure “. A terrible sentence to read, and which must not have been easy to write. Eddy, apparently, has not forgiven the man who, in league with his father, was often his executioner. Of course, he seeks to understand, he analyzes this “case”, diagnosing a syndrome of rejection, of failure, the distortion between dreams that are far too high, poorly defined abilities, and self-destructive, suicidal instincts, which prevent us from stabilizing ourselves, professionally and emotionally – from living, simply.

His worst tragedy, it seems, was when his companion for a while, Géraldine, his great love, pregnant with his works, announced to him that she had had an abortion. He who dreamed so much of “normality”, bullied, humiliated his brother and called him “ faggot”, will never have been a father. Phew!

The collapse is a raw, ambiguous book, which will undoubtedly spark debate. We come away impressed by the virtuosity of the composition, the laying bare of the narrator, but also shaken in his personal comfort, uneasy. That’s the power of literature.