Choc is inspired by the life of a French mercenary. It could be to the world of mercenary what The Bureau of Legends is to that of Intelligence. Dana Ziyasheva deals with the possibility of evil in man. How far?… How?… With whom? … And why ? … Confusing !
Shock is inspired by a true story. That of François Lefebvre, 28 years old when he committed suicide after a run around the world; he was a talented Latinist coupled with a fervent Catholic before being a cadet in the elite commandos of the DGSE, then a mercenary in the post-Cold War gray zones, and finally indicted for “homicide and cannibalism. » But who really was François Lefebvre?
From novel to investigation
This book is not just a novel. Rather an investigation requiring a thousand attentions. The text is saturated with information relating to a monumental work of research surrounding a man who is expected to be a real psychopath; far from it, François Lefebvre is certainly addict with soldierly dopamine, he is nevertheless not the monster that we imagine before discovering his life which – like that of everyone – is at a tipping point, that is to say a moment from which things will be different, with no possibility of going back. This is precisely what Dana Ziyasheva’s work revolves around, when the machine sets in motion to change our destiny forever.
Our hero will try to find ordinary paths again. Without success. The reality of war… of combat… of attack… coupled with the inexorable rise of violence, this truth will definitively take precedence over all others, fascinating in what it offers at its darkest. We think of the soldiers returning from Vietnam or Afghanistan and how they were prevented from forgetting the many war situations they faced. What happened there never left them. Never. Starting with the vague circumstances of certain operations, kept in secret by high commands and politics.
The part of things
Shock brings together two types of stories that are rarely combined: on the one hand, post-traumatic war fiction, of which American literature and cinema overwhelm us with examples; on the other, the thriller noir, guided by some contemporary forms of fatality which are the unexpected determinants, what we call “the human factor”. These elements almost mythologists report here the landscape of a masculinity at half mast where fathers are lacking… where brothers go astray… and where sons, like François, wander alone, trying in vain to “become a family” with a deleterious entourage. What remains then is the nourishing disillusionment of one of the most additive drugs: warrior adrenaline.
After the tipping point mentioned above, the second axis of the book reveals the inability to return to civilian life. Men returning from the front often experience great difficulty regaining a foothold in their “yesterday’s world”. Divorces are increasing… Family abandonment… Returning to work is complicated… So some return to the path of war: some take their place in the regular army, while others become mercenaries. Dana Ziyasheva succeeds in making the essential distinction between debauchery and morality… between depravity and spiritual redemption… between obscenity and decency… A gripping, terrifying narration, especially when we know that the horrors (of) written are indeed very real.
Real shock!
The absolute commitment of François Lefebvre fascinates. The strength of the story leads the reader to want to understand the unforgivable; way of apprehending the unspeakable by filling the empty space with what is usually erased from official speeches. Because books must also – and perhaps above all – be the search for a format for expressing what cannot be formulated orally: the author’s work is to fight against the obstacles to expressing the impossibility of reality. when it is not conceivable. Telling stories requires at least an honest effort. Dana Ziyasheva participates in the exercise of this honesty.
Jérôme ENEZ-VRIAD
© April 2024 – Bretagne Actuelle & JE-V. Publishing
Shock, a book by Dana Ziyasheva – 502 pages – €13.70
