Rather, it is a man's literature

In Les Tontons Flingueurs in 1963, Lino Ventura, aka Mr. Fernand, enacts during the famous scene from the kitchen: "Should still admit it: this is rather a mans drink. "Knowing that Ventura will play the same three years later, the main character of Second Wind in the adaptation by Jean-Pierre Melville, envy is great to say about this novel by José Giovanni (1923-2004) that it comes rather dune" mans literature "and that political correctness go be sodomized by gender studies: there is a mans literature, rather than manly men, celebrating the values ​​of its own, and no feminist study ny change anything.

The literary tastes of Gustave Minda, one trying to have it in a nice Second Wind mobster career dailleurs are strong evidence of this existence, "Gu did not read detective novels; his own life was plenty for him. He loved Steinbeck, Hemingway, and rough characters and simple that they depicted. Joseph Kessel also and Fortune Square that never grow old. "Further, Manouche, Gu Lamante, lattend dun and grabbed his books:" She closed her from the house and slept with a dHemingway book, The Old Man and the Sea Gu had told him.. A bare history, with a boat, a fish and a man. "A story that goes to the main thing, in short, without unnecessary psychological detours.

Furthermore, at the beginning of the novel, and this is not the first time I found this type of attack in a pleasant French novel of fifty or sixty years, this is Françoise Sagan is scratched by the narrator, like that, in passing, as to signify to the reader: Here, this is for lanti-Sagan; this is written and this is no frills. Almost sixty years later, it comes almost to read a novel by José Giovanni as a final last stand of honor, with those from Gary and cuff among others, before the reign of psychologism outrageous and stylistics molasses.

The error would be to consider yet Second Wind as a novel to the big guns to turbinant gorillas, with big engines and big buckets and even a novel celebrating the so-called gorillas. Viewpoint weapons, this is reasonable: Gu sattache a Colt that is due him, that's all; Car standpoint, that the local, 203 and 403 head; Alcohol perspective, a few glasses of wine or brandy by the way, nothing to sing or have a headache. Seriously, masculinity does not mean boorishness, either side of the characters or the side of the author: the former are delightful quaint dune gallantry, the second leaves the ladies some important roles, including that of Manouche, head just a woman in love Ugly looking dun dun Second Wind. Overall, the few women in this novel cross are dedicated to women without their man to be mere figureheads, or postérisables icons: they have character but Nont not want to burn their bras or read Simone de Beauvoir.

The Ugly quaime Manouche, this is so Gustave Minda, the first chapter sees sévader prison, he, one of the ancient school nenvisage not end his days behind bars after robbing a beautiful golden quantity. While it flew, but not without a certain moral: "There's always been people who live without doing anything and will always be. And the dough, they will seek it where it is strong or not strong cops. Tell yourself it From prison, they stuck up men, the more we could not. If jattaque a bank tomorrow, it will go with the rest on the same slate. "This moral, anti-social, is not celebrated by Giovanni, who himself has done time in jail: it is just shown, under high influence of American thriller without forgetting humor to irony borders, no squeaky (The intervention of the Commissioner Blot after a shooting in a restaurant is a tongue-in-cheek style), humor similar to that of a Audiard, Dialogue among others Tontons Flingueurs (you come back): "He has all my friendship, and he knows well [] He will dEpargne the Caisse, your friendship. "

From the point of view of style, the influence of the black American novel (and dHemingway) is also present: dry, no frills, no great peroration; a style that suits the hard men but not devoid of feelings, starting with one of the richest (the richest?) friendship. This style saccompagne of a moderate use of slang and justified the medium, which is today obsolete but is still understandable, and spelling drifts that echo Queneau Research a spelling corresponding to the word; thus a tendency a "watch-apinsse".

All this makes the Second Wind fabulous roman noir in French, very far from contemporary crime novel but just feels more lon in the way, hard, dappréhender human realities even Giovanni is he aware dévoquer a medium whose code Internal dhonneur ailing slowly but surely in this post-war where the Gestapo methods have left traces in some interrogations ... A last stand of honor for Gustave Minda, a last stand of honor for a medium that has not yet yielded to the villainy, a last stand of honor for a virile literature, this is all that at once, Second Wind.