Pierre Merot
Author of Mammals
About the Author
Works by Pierre Merot
Mammiferes 1 copy
Mamífers 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1959-12-16
- Gender
- male
- Birthplace
- Paris, France
Members
Reviews
Awards
Statistics
- Works
- 13
- Members
- 138
- Popularity
- #148,171
- Rating
- 3.1
- Reviews
- 5
- ISBNs
- 24
- Languages
- 6
- Favorited
- 2
The Mammal covers ground much beloved by several modern French writers: the loser; or perhaps, the failure. In a world where success is everything and the heroic is what everybody is supposed to aspire toward writers like Merot, Houllebecq and Toussaint courageously address the lives of the majority of us - the lives of those who fail. Merot’s central character in The Mammals is the Uncle: a drinker, a bachelor, twice divorced and an uncle. Here is man who has failed to find the spark in his work or his love life. It is not that he has not tried. It is just that he has failed at most things: just as most of us do. He does not fail heroically: there is nothing heroic about him at all unless it is his capacity for alcohol though once more he is no heroic drinker.
The Mammals of the title are his parents and most specifically his overbearing mother and his family is just another of the things he has failed at. They have failed him too and now in his forties he lives at home. His failures are the failures of a 21st century Everyman and are therefore important to all of us.
At least he had a novel written about him and so I suppose he is not a complete failure or a real loser.… (more)