En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule
2020
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Edouard Louis
More infos
Summary
An autobiographical novel about growing up gay in a working-class town in Picardy.
“Every morning in the bathroom I would repeat the same phrase to myself over and over again . . . Today I’m really gonna be a tough guy. ” Growing up in a poor village in northern France, all Eddy Bellegueule wanted was to be a man in the eyes of his family and neighbors. But from childhood, he was different―“girlish,” intellectually precocious, and attracted to other men.
Already translated into twenty languages, The End of Eddy captures the violence and desperation of life in a French factory town. It is also a sensitive, universal portrait of boyhood and sexual awakening. Like Karl Ove Knausgaard or Edmund White, Édouard Louis writes from his own undisguised experience, but he writes with an openness and a compassionate intelligence that are all his own. The result―a critical and popular triumph―has made him the most celebrated French writer of his generation.
Reviews and Comments
11 reviews
Livre très touchant on est à fleur de peau durant tout le récit: poignant !
Livre conseillé par Clem Begu’s J’ai vraiment adoré ce livre : touchant, réfléchi, intelligent, très bien écrit. On y suit la jeunesse d’Eddy Bellegueule, la découverte de son homosexualité, sa honte, son envie de la refouler, mais aussi le mépris pour ceux de sa classe sociale qui veulent étudier, la relation conflictuelle avec ses parents. Les passages sur les crachats quasi quotidiens des deux élèves me restera en mémoire. Un livre qui ne ressemble à aucun des autres livres que j’ai lu, et qui m’a d’autant plus plu qu’il est autobiographique.
