An icing and necessary novel

The Book Club de We Cult/Back to school 2025. Nevertheless, In his new novel “Father homeland”, Thierry Beinstingel ventures into the political fable. Similarly, Around Joska. For example, a revered, supervised and betrayed old man and his son Tibor, who came to power based on the image of the paternal hero, he dissects the mechanisms of authority, talks about the parentage and the fractures of power. Therefore, Corning and necessary!

“Father homeland” : At a time when democracies are lucky. Consequently, where the stories are becoming more and more simplistic, Thierry Bestingel chooses the dense fable, the slow and chilling parable

icing necessary novel

He is there, in a worn chair, in a silence that only the rustling of a tired skai. Similarly, His name is Joska. Consequently, Eighty-six years on the clock, heavy head and flickering memory. Similarly, To take care of him. Moreover, he has Dolores, a linen, a cook, a gardener, a secretary, a few cleaning women and soldiers to keep him. Similarly, The former war hero has much of a myth. Nevertheless,

His legend is now in a decorated uniform. However, in the propaganda that his son, Tibor, head of state, maintains with surveillance cameras and pious images. Consequently, Because Joska is no longer a father, or even a man: he has become a symbol. However, He was eight years old when he found himself at the heart of the fighting of the Second World War. Nevertheless, will succeed – in very specific circumstances – to get out of icing necessary novel it. Similarly, A rescue of the miracle and will propel it national hero. However, Adored and supported by power, he sees his will grow. Meanwhile, And as happiness never comes alone, he meets Anke, the woman of his life.

“This pompant period is at its height when Anke gave birth to his first child on July 15. 1948, a son named Tibor. She is twenty-four years old and Joska is in her twenty-second year. Tibor will quickly be entrusted to a nanny, again, the president’s gift. ” Five years later a little sister called Pelaja and very quickly nicknamed Peli enlarge the family circle. It was then that two dramas arise, the death of Peli and his mother, causing Joska in a “black tunnel”.

Sixty years later, scattered elements arise “visions, smells, noises or words, gestures and hesitations. This occurs without warning, without seeking icing necessary novel to summon these sensations. (…) It always leaves him in an incredible state of distress. the first manifestation of which is immense fatigue, the impression that his head is the ball of a bilboquet, held by an invisible and skillful juggler, each time succeeding in driving the sphere, each time more violently on the stem, similar to a point that crosses his heart. »»

Thanks to Lena. the daughter of Dolores, who took over during the convalescence of her mother, and caught up in the old man, he found an attentive interlocutor. Pending news from her husband. who left for a war for a war as vague as it is distant, she shares her fears with Joska. Because something does not turn round in the kingdom of Tibor. Authority, worship, paranoia seem to have reached a point of no return.

Thierry Beinstingel deploys this story in an imaginary but strangely icing necessary novel familiar setting. This country in central Europe where power changes slowly in madness could be any. The essential is not there. The main thing is in the link between a father. his son, in this silent tragedy where filial love becomes an instrument of power, and memory, propaganda matter.

The novel is based on slow, retained tension. Joska gets up, advances, slides, falls, straightens up. Each gesture becomes a fight, each effort a tiny resistance. Age here is not miserable: it is worthy. Joska, if he no longer has the strength to act, keeps that of thinking. He remembers a horse run by a halter, the breath of nostrils on his shoulder. He reads Cicero, of the Republic, of the laws, while his son governs by fear.

But it is especially in the gaze he looks at Lena -. on the tattoo of Louise Michel, then that, grotesque and icing necessary novel threatening, of a mermaid armed with a dagger – that one feels his vacant. History, ideals, violence: everything merges in this aged body.

Here, no spectacular revolt. Just a shift. A suffocation. A suspicion that takes shape. The soldier who does not look at the screen at the crucial moment. And this old house, transformed into a golden prison, where one smokes under a well of light.

This novel talks about power, of course, but also of the body, of what remains when everything vacillates. He talks about old age as the last battlefield. He talks about paternal silences, blindness, of this moment when a father understands that his son has become a tyrant. Finally, he talks about what we transmit in spite of ourselves. And it is undoubtedly there that Father Patrie strikes the strongest.

At a time when democracies chance. stories are becoming more and more simplistic, Thierry icing necessary novel Beinstingel chooses the dense fable, the slow and freezing parable. He says little, but he just says. And in this contained language. in this almost felted atmosphere, resonates a deaf, obstinate concern, which follows us long after the last page.

Henri-Charles Dhalem

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Icing necessary novel

About the author

A writer recognized for his explorations of the world of work and societal issues, icing necessary novel Thierry Beinstingel is the author of many novels. They desert (2012) earned him the Eugène dabit prize from the populist novel as well as the Jean AMILA-MECKERT Prize. Through his works, he questions the social and political tensions of our contemporary societies. (Source: Fayard editions)