Blick, Toulousian son of a Simca car dealer and a proof-reader, organises the story of his life, told in the first person, in a simple and effective way: the chapters are named after the Presidents of the Fifth Republic, starting with Charles de Gaulle and ending with Chirac II (each term of office merits its own chapter), via Pompidou, Giscard d’Estaing and Mitterrand I & II.
Significantly, the story starts on Sunday 28th September 1958, the day the French voted by referendum to adopt the Constitution of the Fifth Republic. Paul Blick is eight years old; his brother Vincent, 10, dies suddenly, plunging mother and father into lifelong grief. The book continues to juxtapose Historical events and those of Paul’s private life in ways that are by turn dramatic, funny and just plain bizarre. Childhood and adolescence in a drab, penny-pinching France under the presidency of a general considered bombastic, paternalistic and unpleasant; but also early sexual experiences, in Toulouse and London, described in irresistibly funny scenes. Then May 68 and the feeling of intense freedom that came with it: the years that follow are carefree, bubbling over with left-wing political optimism and a wide range of musical, emotional and sexual experiences … until the day harsh reality takes hold once more, forcing Paul into finding work that will make him a living. The Giscard years, during which he becomes a sports journalist, and falls in love with and marries his boss’s daughter, the beautiful Anna Villandreux. Ideologically however they are worlds apart – a fervent Adam Smith fan and supporter of untrammelled free enterprise, she becomes a hard-line businesswoman concerned primarily with turnover, employee power struggles, and the social standing that comes with success. Paul is delighted to become a house husband, bringing up his two children Vincent and Marie and continuing to lead an intense and secretive sex life.
The Mitterrand years herald a major change in Paul’s life. His talent as an amateur photographer is remarked upon and he gets commissioned by a well-known Parisian publishing house to produce two photography books, Trees of France and Trees of the World, which are a sensational success and give him his 15 minutes of fame while making him rich. Some of the most beautiful passages in the book depict the photographic process, which renders Paul somehow outside time and at odds with the vanities of the contemporary rat race. Taking photos of trees allows Paul to move beyond life’s disappointments to refocus on himself and discover once more the sense of utopia and wonder that was at the heart of 68. However, this further emphasises his marginality in relation to the ‘real world’ lived in by Anna and her like.
The Chirac years record the tensions and misunderstandings accumulating in Paul’s private life, while presenting contemporary France as dim and fading. It seems that on every level things are crumbling and falling apart. Anna dies a horrible death, the family falls into financial ruin, Marie suffers a nervous breakdown, and Paul’s mother is slowly retreating towards the grave … only Vincent brings any light into this gloomy scene, with the birth of his son. Paul once again finds a balance of sorts thanks to the plant world – at the end of the novel, he is happily working as a gardener.
Une Vie française is a worthwhile heir to Balzac’s Scènes de la vie de province: it is an observation of forty years of French life, from the perspective of Toulouse rather than Paris, through a series of vibrant, meaningful portraits that depict a powerful, familiar picture of contemporary France. It is also a novel about lost illusion that uses the highly endearing character of Paul to describe the end of the utopic ideas that blossomed in 68, and the existential and political vacuum that they left. Finally and simply, it is a book whose inventiveness, unfailing humour and richness of tone, character etc will captivate the reader from the first page to the last.
UK rights sold to Hamish Hamilton
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