In truth, the insurrection against my parents, against poverty, against my class, its racism, its violence, its habits, was only second. Because before to rebel against the world of my childhood, it is the world of my childhood which railed against me. Soon I was for my family and the other a source of shame and loathing. I have no other choice but to flee. This book is an attempt to understand.
Edouard Louis is 21 years old.
At 21, he sleeps in these autobiographical pages all drawn strength from the hardness of his past, and a decline that has (already) with respect to the childhood and adolescence spent in this different a poor village and isolated North from France.
A village where life is hard, made of financial difficulties, unemployment, machismo, verbal abuse and / or physical.
A poor and aimless middle, makes dominions of exacerbated virility, misplaced pride, frustration, permanent shortages, and where the future is all mapped = clogged.
Only window on the world that does not travel: the TV in the background Standing, fueling fears, outbursts of anger, resentment.
Bellegueule Eddy and his family so live in this poor village and sclerotic, a family that can not afford to heat or to light all the rooms of the house, hygiene and health neglected, counting every penny .. .
But Eddy does not suffer from that environment, he has only known this, though he suffers the same ... as it would blend into the décor, it would be like the others, and not to feel "different" freedom from violence and abuse just because it is mannered ...
Yet he feels very rapidly he prefers boys to girls, he strong fight against this attraction, against himself.
He uses words that go against what he feels to be loved, to not "ashamed", not "shame" ...
But its nature imposes its fierce determination.
And as his family and all his entourage are completely unable to understand because they do not have the basics / Tools / Environment, he will have no choice but to retire, find the strength to break, to finish with this image, create another / her identity ... kill Eddy Bellegueule to finally become himself.
Ending Bellegueule Eddy is a dive into a dark world with a low ceiling, which may seem cartoonish but there ...
Actually, this happens in the North of France but could just as well take place in the misery of another remote province or deep in Oklahoma.
It is the universal story of a suffering, a childhood marred by the rejection of difference, and the confession of a huge lack of positive attention and affection.
But in no case Edouard Louis arises victim. It could tender an accusing finger at his family or those who have abused, insulted, denied. But no.
He says (and he's annie ernaux in him), in a mighty pen, shocking, raw, realistic and still on edge, he says, without hatred, without arrogance or pathos, with great maturity.
He tries to understand (and forgive). It seeks to analyze sociologically stigma. On the move.
Show, too, that his "difference" allowed him to change the trajectory of his destiny all mapped out.
And (they) say it is okay.
It's hard, shocking, touching. Incredibly accuracy.
Edouard Louis offers here a book / testimony should be read by the greatest number, that some narrow minds hear the voice / the pain of those they criticize.
