Les Petits Enfants Du Siecle (Modern World Literature Series)

by Christiane Rochefort

Book Overview

poche. broché. Jo de Bagnolet est née des allocations et d'un jour férié dont la matinée s'étirait, bien heureuse. Dix enfants vont suivre, apportant en prime à leurs parents la machine à laver, le... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• ISBN: 0245536841
• ISBN13: 9780245536847
• Release Date: May 1992
• Publisher: Harrap
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 1.11 lbs.

Customer Reviews

like it is

The sarcasm and the scorn ooze from every paragraph. Rochefort had a playwright's ear for language and had understood the lessons of Céline: slang is borne from hatred. Her narrator, Josyane, doesn't like children, doesn't like women, and for the most part doesn't care much for men either. It's only a small number of people and things that make life worth living at all in this tableau of 1950's working-class housing projects around Paris. The natalist policy of the postwar government rewards parents for having more children, whether they'll take care of them or not: "This isn't a living space, it's a breeding pen" remarks Josyane. When her mother, pregnant for the tenth time, complains that there won't be enough beds, Josyane reassures her: "Oh, maybe this'll be a miscarriage like the last one. No point in worrying about it until it's here." In Josyane, Rochefort created one of the most memorable and ultimately likeable characters in postwar French fiction.