[LIVRES DE NOS MAISONS] Little Duck, by J. Laurent: The tragic game of love and chance

In the libraries of our family houses, drag neglected books. Their authors were famous, perhaps … their glory passed. This summer, BV invites you to discover some of these writers or these books.

When the writing of Boulevard Voltaire offered to contribute to the series of articles entitled ” Books of our houses », I remembered a novel that I had read in the 60s and that I ended up finding on the shelves of my library: The little duckby Jacques Laurent (1919-2000).

Rebellious to any label

Many of you know, no doubt, the author of Caroline Chériewritten under the pseudonym of Cecil Saint-Laurent, but also of novels like The quiet bodies (1948) or The stupidity (1971), crowned the same year by the Goncourt Prize. Jacques Laurent, despite the quality of his work, will not have, like an Annie Ernaux, the privilege of being studied in high school classes. It is true that he did not claim a political commitment to the left or militant feminism, preferring to celebrate femininity. It has often been attached to the hussar movement, described as “literary right, alongside the late Antoine Blondin, Roger Nimier or Michel Déon. “” This use of the word ” right ” annoyed me He will confide later. Jacques Laurent, admirer of Stendhal, was rebellious with any label and intellectual, non -conformist, essentially free standards. It was for that, no doubt, that my work I liked in my youth.

I admit to having a predilection for his controversial works, as Paul and Jean-Paulwhere he stretches Sartre, the guru of existentialism and the well-righteous left; or Mauriac under de Gaulle, where he violently attacks General de Gaulle – which earned him a resounding trial for ” Offense to the Head of State »; or Year 40: London – de Gaulle, Vichywhich reviews and corrects the conditions under which de Gaulle left for London and in which resistance was born. Take the Gaullian legend, what sacrilege! And yet … I am not insensitive, either, to the reports he published on the Algerian War, as a special envoy of Dawnnor in its positions in favor of French Algeria, which were not common in the intellectual environment of the time.

The fate of a young man of barely 18 years old, in 1939

Yes, Jacques Laurent was a free, independent, indomitable, readily provocative spirit. We find this freedom in his novel The little duckwhich recounts the fate of a young man of barely 18 years old, in 1939. An apparently banal story: Antoine, after adolescence, dreams of a prestigious future, knows his first love with Sophie. The conception of life is confronted with reality; He learns that Sophie deceived him with a Polish officer that is bolder than him. He then joined the Legion of French volunteers, fights in Russia and will be shot at Liberation.

The very structure of the book is designed as a tragedy: a first, longest part, entitled 1939-40where Antoine meets Sophie, without daring to admit her love to her; Clues already announce the outcome. A second, ironically called June 18, 1940reduced to a chapter, where Antoine learns the betrayal of Sophie. Finally, the third part, Night from June 24 to 25, 1945where his father, a reserve officer, speaks and celebrates his filial love. The last lines are both poignant and desperate: ” What does I have to do on earth? Nothing. And now I eat. I even wiped the apple, as if I was afraid that a microbe would introduce myself to me to shorten my existence. An apple ».

None will say that this novel is proof that Jacques Laurent was “on the right”, worse still, a collaborationist right. It is to understand nothing about man or the nature of the true novelist. In an interview with the newspaper Carrefourto the question ” Did you want to make a political novel? “, He replies:” If I have political opinions to express, I write an article or an essay. Besides, there is no political novel. […] A political novel is not a novel, it is a fable. A novel is an unforeseen adventure ». He confirms, a little further, the words of the journalist according to which ” [son] hero could just as well have fighting in the maquis and being condemned by the militia ». He underlines the role of chance, ” collaborator of any novel » : « If Antoine enters the LVF it is because a Polish officer kissed the one he loved ».

I recommend this book to you. You will undoubtedly feel a sincere emotion by reading this 148 -page little novel, which is not a committed novel, which is only a story, all all ordinary, transforming into a tragedy with the hazards of life. You will have some compassion for this little duck lost in a world where he loses all his illusions. You will have sympathy for Jacques Laurent, with a malicious look, who did not like honors (he refused the Legion of Honor which he believed not to deserve), knowing how to be irreverent (elected academician, he posed in the magazine Himdressed in his green coat, his sword in hand and in garter belts as a underwear); A man who hated the politically correct, liked to drink whiskey at the bar of Lutecia or at the Brasserie Lipp And had a huge writing talent, associated with the rare quality of being serious without taking oneself seriously.