and their children after them (nicolas mathieu, tr william rodarmor)

There’s a moment in the book when one of the characters, Steph, starts to study literature. She gets into Robbe-Grillet, but can’t handle Proust and “the whole business of the slightest oscillation of the heart…. give me a break.” If there’s a division in French literature between Flaubert, with his pared back, precise prose, and Proust, with his art-nouveau twirls, Mathieu would appear to be coming down firmly on the side of Flaubert. This is an almost utilitarian novel about ‘ordinary people’ in an ordinary town leading ordinary lives, which allows itself precious few flourishes. At the same time, it is very much a novel which is steeped in the ‘oscillations of the heart’. So perhaps there is a bit of both worlds at play here.

The novel recounts the lives of Anthony and Hacine over the course of six years and four chapters, taking place in the 90s, with the last chapter constructed around the day of the semi-final of the 98 World Cup when France beat Croatia. The two characters are boys at the start of the novel and young men by the end. Their paths will cross over the years, with far more in common than they realise, in spite of the racial divide. Hacine’s parents are Moroccan immigrants and Hacine himself oscillates between the two countries, seeking an identity he never quite seems to locate. However, the same can be said of Anthony, whose life is shaped by the failure of his parent’s marriage and his infatuation for Steph, a girl who will always be out of his league. Mathieu describes a post-modern listlessness that only ever seems to find a release in the traditional escapes of alcohol, drugs, violence and sex. The ennui is palpable, the idea of self-determination and escape thwarted whenever either seeks to break out. Anthony joins the army to escape their hometown, but is invalided out after a football injury ruins his knee. Hacine has dreams of becoming a high-end drug dealer which only lead to domestic frustration.

The novel is beautifully constructed, resolutely readable. It teeters on the edge of the banal without ever quite tipping over the edge. It does the job it sets out to do, which is to document the hopes and disappointments of small town French/ European/ modern life. Mathieu’s unadulterated naturalism, redacted with a sparse aesthetic formalism, desperately resists any genuflection towards the transcendent.