A French Novel

The term autofiction is debatable at the best of times, doubly so in a book which starts with the possibly fictional narrator, a TV presenter and novelist called "Frédéric Beigbeder", being arrested for an unwise (real?) attempt to recreate a famous (fictional??) scene from another celebrated work of autofiction, Lunar Park, by sniffing coke in the street from the bonnet of a parked car. Autofiction becomes auto fiction?

Anyway, he takes advantage of the opportunity of a couple of sleepless nights in the cells where there's nothing else to do but plan out a new book in his head, and starts work on a memoir of his childhood and early life. He's always maintained that he remembers little or nothing about his childhood, but once he starts show more chipping away at the one or two clear recollections he has, more emerges and he begins to build up a coherent picture. But he does point out several times along the way that he's a novelist, and that's what novelists do - we shouldn't necessarily take it all literally.

In parallel, we get a rueful, self-mocking account of his detention and processing by the legal machine. On the whole, he's quite sympathetic to the police who arrest him and conduct the initial interviews - he is there because he did something stupid, and they are doing their jobs seriously and professionally. But he does start getting rather bitter and sarcastic when his detention is extended to a second day because the public prosecutor insists on handling all dossiers of "well-known people" personally, and when he's transferred to the antiquated dungeons of the Dépôt on the Ile de la Cité for this purpose.

Beigbeder's account of his family background is witty and interesting, for the most part, and sometimes it almost reads like a privileged bourgeois counterpart to Annie Ernaux's Les Années (a book he refers to a couple of times). She writes about French history since the fifties in the light of her middle-class guilt at being pulled away from the working-class culture of her parents through education and career; Beigbeder is telling us the same story, but from the point of view of a wealthy, patrician family whose values are made increasingly irrelevant by post-war social changes. And, whilst she remembers the songs and the films and the consumer products, he remembers meeting the people who made them at his father's parties.

But there's also a strong element of narcissistic self-pity, rather like the mixture of celebrity boasting and poor-little-genius self-abasement that makes reading Stephen Fry so irritating. Beigbeder is a step ahead of Fry in that he's aware that we're not likely to have much sympathy for his situation as a child of divorced parents when he describes the exotic holidays he was taken on by both his father and his stepfather, the cocktail parties with models and record producers, and all the rest of it. Not to mention his own subsequent career as an absentee father and serial divorcee. He admits to some of his own vulnerabilities, but knowing that he cries readily in front of the TV doesn't really give us any reason to think less badly of him. His one real redeeming feature, as far as we can see from the book, is that he's a witty and sophisticated writer. Sometimes that isn't enough. show less

El 28 de enero de 2008, Frédéric Beigbeder era detenido a las puertas de una discoteca parisina por consumo de cocaína en la vía pública y pasaba cuarenta y ocho horas bajo detención preventiva. Irónicamente, tan sólo unos días más tarde, su hermano, el empresario Charles Beigbeder, recibía la Legión de Honor de manos del presidente francés. De este suceso real nacería poco tiempo después Una novela francesa.

Desde su celda, Beigbeder echa la vista atrás y, con auténtico espíritu de arqueólogo, reconstruye su infancia olvidada. Con su habitual trazo impenitente dibuja el retrato de sus dos familias: los Chasteigner, aristócratas de rancio abolengo, y los Beigbeder, burgueses acomodados venidos a menos. Rememora los show more deliciosos veranos transcurridos en la casa familiar de Guéthary, pescando camarones con su abuelo o viviendo acomplejado bajo la sombra de su hermano mayor. Repasa también el trauma que supuso el divorcio paterno y la dulce anarquía que lo siguió.

En un constante ir y venir del pasado al presente, Beigbeder pasa de la melancolía del recuerdo al relato de su detención, del papel de sus abuelos en las dos guerras mundiales a los tiernos momentos pasados junto a su hija Chloe. Y todo ello aderezado, como no podía ser de otro modo, con feroces críticas a las dependencias penitenciarias de París y al mismísimo fiscal de la ciudad, Jean-Claude Marin, soflamas contra el sistema y una defensa acérrima del consumo de drogas. En definitiva, Beigbeder entreteje una suerte de memorias que son en realidad un auténtico recorrido sentimental por la Francia de las cuatro últimas décadas. show less

Diary (or docu-fiction) of a 40 year-old adolescent who imagines he can imitate Proust without effort or style. Poor little rich boy. Turns out that he loves his mother and daughter, admires his father (and his coterie of influential friends and young lovers) and is in awe of his older brother, his parents divorce was hard for him and he took to hedonism. The final pseudo-literary conceit goes plop into an empty pan. Or to put it another way this is a humourless bourgeois Brigitte Jones in drag doing Paris. Despite attaining degree zero of writing its saving grace is that it's a quick and not unpleasant read

Prix Renaudot 2009

Ce roman - autobiographie? biographie fictive? ou réellement souvenirs d'enfance? c'est difficile à dire avec Beigbeder - est une réflexion sur l'enfance, sur le devenir, mais aussi sur le rôle de l'écriture comme exploration de soi et comme autorité finale en matière d'histoire (en d'autres mots, si c'est écrit, c'est une vérité historique!). On peut ainsi à sa guise s'inventer ou se réinventer, ce que ne néglige pas de faire Beigbeder.
Ses souvenirs sont racontés avec un recul humouristique mais le plus souvent avec intensité où se mêlent angoisse, déception et tendresse - c'est cette gamme d'émotions qui font qu'ils sont tous sincères et qu'ils touchent le lecteur qui, à son tour, ne manquera pas de se rappeler sa show more propre jeunesse, ses propres délires, rêves, déceptions.
La fin est particulièrement poignante. Après une réalité affiligeante, on découvre la promesse d'un renouveau et d'une réconciliation.
Hormis les énervantes et constantes références aux titres et aux « peoples », ce livre vaut la peine d'être lu : il donne un espoir inattendu. show less

El 28 de enero de 2008, el autor era detenido por consumo de cocaína en la vía pública y pasaba cuarenta y ocho horas bajo detención preventiva. Irónicamente, unos días más tarde, su hermano, el empresario Charles Beigbeder, recibía la Legión de Honor de manos del presidente francés. De este suceso real nacería poco tiempo después Una novela francesa. Desde su celda, Beigbeder reconstruye su infancia olvidada. Piensa en sus dos familias: los Chasteigner, aristócratas de rancio abolengo, y los Beigbeder, burgueses acomodados venidos a menos. Rememora los deliciosos veranos o repasa el trauma que supuso el divorcio paterno. Transita de la melancolía del recuerdo al relato de su detención. Y todo ello aderezado con feroces show more críticas a las dependencias penitenciarias de París, soflamas contra el sistema y una defensa acérrima del consumo de drogas. Una suerte de memorias, un auténtico recorrido sentimental por la Francia de las cuatro últimas décadas, con prólogo de Michel Houellebecq. show less

Cela pourrait commencer ainsi : 'Je venais d'apprendre que mon frère était promu chevalier de la Légion d'honneur, quand ma garde à vue commença'. Ou ainsi : 'Je ne me souviens pas de mon enfance'. Mais en fait ce serait le même livre : celui de la mémoire et de l'enfance retrouvée dans l'été inachevé de la côte basque où les parents de Frédéric se rencontrèrent, mais aussi le passage à l'âge d'homme, la mue d'un gamin immature en adulte pacifié. Le 28 janvier 2008, Frédéric l'écrivain média-choc, le personnage public, le noceur, est interpellé pour usage de stupéfiants sur un capot de Chrysler noire, dans la rue ; il aggrave son cas en fuyant la patrouille de police ! En garde à vue, dans une cellule puante de show more deux mètres carrés, on a le temps de réfléchir. Qui est-on ? Qu'a-t-on pu faire entre 0 et 13 ans ? De qui suis-je né ? Pourquoi suis-je amnésique ? show less