The novels of the American quadra Freida McFadden sell like hotcakes. Even French readers are tempted, deplores our contributor.
We learn on France info that the novels of a certain Freida McFadden sell like hotcakes: “With its domestic thrillers, the American novelist is the new global phenomenon of popular literature[1] ». Instead, see: in France, two million copies for The cleaning lady (2022); This novel, which appears at the top of sales in eight countries, already has three suites: The secrets of the cleaning lady, The cleaning lady sees everything et The cleaning lady gets married. Isn’t that, that makes you dream? … At the reign of quantity, we only look at the figure, hardly the quality- in literature as well as the results of the bac.
Junk food
The New Obsa copiously subsidized newspaper (he published on July 22 an exciting article on “The meeting between a hare and a writer who amazed Angelina Jolie[2] ), Has recognized the lipstick a certain effectiveness of the work – of the product, rather, the nuance is important. For Libérationmore treacherous, The cleaning lady“It devours as a fast food”: Macdo, therefore.
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The article of France Info – of great outfit, decidedly -, after having highlighted to enhance it the “slew of twists and turns” of The cleaning ladyoffers some relevant analyzes, by speakers worth our literary criticisms of the last century (G. Lanson). Virginie, for example, Tiktok columnist: “We think we understand at the beginning where she takes us, but her specialty is to add information in the epilogue that makes everything switch to everything. »» From the MacDo, I said: recipes that would make vomit if they were not crammed with sugar. And the publishers to throw themselves like dogs on these disgusting burgers to devour them, before digesting them, ignorly.
Girl power
Let the novelist speak: “I wanted these two books to be stories of girl power, where women triumph over a man who has power over them ”. A declaration that is both courageous and deep; It looks like baudelaire defending the Evil flowers. Freida McFadden writes the point: let’s hope a master senard capable of quoting the bossuet in the text to the prosecutors, when she passes to the court of the company Facho-Patriarcale – Unless it is the Court of Art and Good Taste, for crime against literature.
The worst is to come. The journalist from France Info, very happy, specifies that Freida McFadden “manages to convert a new audience, usually far from reading. And to quote Sylvie’s testimony: “lack of training” and by “lack of concentration”, she read “very little”, before discovering the cleaning lady. The conclusion will make their hair stand on their heads on more than one, and first of all to those who still want to believe in initiation in art, the artisanal value of the work, to those for whom “it is a job to make a book, like making a pendulum” (La Bruyère): “” It is so easy to read that we say that we could write it ourselves “, considers the sexagenarian with satisfaction. »»
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But it is because it is poor, madam, that it is so easy to read: why gargare? … What is a “easy-to-read” literature, by the way? Literature that is no longer thinking? A literature that does not mobilize any cultural notion? … When you have taste, when you have requirement, you fight ease – in the name of intelligence.
Hello level
Reclaiming comments from the article from France Info at random, I come across this: “Books of cleaning women for cleaning women. »Proudly! Admittedly, the Republic has long abandoned the hope of raising the level of cleaning women: it rather fell to the rank of stupidity and poverty: it must be equality in French in 2025, deeply abusive for the downgrades of cultural capital, and which participates in great worship in mediocrity – in the name of hatred of elitism.
What if, instead of the steep and consumer commercial stew (polluting, moreover), we read the works of esthetes, the treaties of the masters? It would be a bit aristocratic … anti-modern … hardly egalitarian … but with a good taste that we were envied for centuries, and much more subversive than all this literature of false rebels, which only enriches the sellers of paper.
[1] https://www.franceinfo.fr/culture/livres/la-femme-de-menage-la-prof-la-psy-pourquoi-les-romans-de-freida-mcfadden-que-vous-allez-peut-etre-devorer-pendant-vos-vacances-font-ils-un-carton-en-librairie_7392136.html
[2] https://www.nouvelobs.com/bibliobs/20250722.OBS106108/ce-que-ton-regard-promet-la-rencontre-entre-un-lievre-et-une-ecrivaine-qui-a-emerveille-angelina-jolie.html
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