“Like yesterday? », by Faïza Guène, Fayard, 270 p., 20.90 euros, digital 15 euros.
It is delivered with the valve direction and the rhythm of a foot number, Did you enjoy yesterday? It appears throughout the pages as a dialogue between an “I” and a “we.” The “I” is Doria. The teenager, raised by her mother in the suburbs of Paris, has changed a lot since Faïza Guène’s first novel, I love it, I love tomorrow (Hachette, 2004). At 35 years old, she is a hairdresser and is unemployed. Mother of 7-year-old Adam has just left his father, Darty salesman Steve Morel, a Jura man converted to Islam, obsessed with property and North African girls. Doria still lives in Seine-Saint-Denis, in Bondy. He enjoys his celibacy, but fears that his son will become sexist. He no longer recognizes his city, transformed by arrogant fools.
And if its collapse was combined with that of a certain idea of France, which emerged in 2005, when the Minister of the Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy, went to the Argenteuil slab (Val-d’Oise) to propose “Free the good people from the scum” ? The hypothesis allows Faïza Guène to intertwine the“serene examination of conscience” of its heroine with that of the Republic, intimate experience and collective memory. The writer masters this resource by placing it at the center of her fictions (including Millennium blueFayard, 2018, and DiscretionPlón, 2020).
Was it better before? When racist jokes shocked no one, when young people from disadvantaged neighborhoods were encouraged to choose paths with “points of sale”when the notion of consent did not exist? Did you enjoy yesterday? It is not only the irritating and stimulating reflection of a “survivor of the school system”. It is a complement to the national novel, which dissects a deadly environmental nostalgia.
From one “we” to another
Does the “we”, in Faïza Guène, designate women, daughters of immigrants? French Muslims, French born in the 1980s? The people who celebrated the World Cup one afternoon in July 1998? The novel does not decide. His narrator moves from one “we” to another flexibly, creating a feeling of belonging in his reader. In doing so, he observes the racism of his in-laws, the failure of the Republic school, the fear of Islam, the cult of success, the influence of social networks.
We listen to Doria because she is fun with her invitations to follow her on Instagram (“@dorialamalice. Don’t hesitate to subscribe, little ones »), because he doesn’t mind being in tune with the times, because he casts that affectionate and mocking look at Rita, his faithful Catholic neighbor in the televised mass, as well as at Hamoudi, his old friend turned conspirator. theorist. No matter how spicy they are, Doria’s anecdotes and jokes would not be enough for the success of Do you enjoy enjoying yesterday? Faïza Guène creates a complex heroine, who thinks and lives against all odds. For her, the novelist imagines a cathartic prose, whose color and speed vary according to the waves formed by her mood, her memories, her daily life, sometimes humorous, sometimes melancholic. How can you not end up neurotic when you carry such a heritage and all these little worlds? Faïza Guène seems to question both her heroine and her country. The novel outlines answers: preferring reality to a distorted vision of the past. Taking on all the parts of yourself. If it is painful, at least it will have appeared.
You have 1.37% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
