«Eternal September» seeks special May

Tuesday books - Jonas Follonier

Does it take us on a journey of self-discovery through the outskirts of the city, following a French bookseller who no longer understands his times, against a backdrop of popular uprisings? It’s a successful endeavor—and a nostalgic look at Paris—with Eternal September, a novel by a man on the left who—as we sense through the narrative—has chosen to no longer be on the left precisely because he is on the left and the left is no longer truly what it used to be.

The Left Is No Longer Left-Wing. That’s how one might summarize the new novel by Julien Sansonnens, a former Vaud deputy from the Workers’ and People’s Party (POP) and winner of the 2019 Edouard-Rod Prize, who is now on his sixth novel. But this book isn’t just about politics. It is, above all, a story of time and place. Set in the France of yesteryear—the France before rampant urbanization—, Eternal September unfolds nostalgia like an endless Michel Sardou concert. The novelist’s prose is as straight as an “i,” with just the right amount of pathos and detachment, though perhaps lacking the fluidity that might have crowned the whole thing.

Read also | The Tragedy of the Order of the Solar Temple, Adapted into a Novel by Julien Sansonnens

It all begins with the death of an old man on a bench in eastern France. A personal and tragic event that sparks a series of collective and dramatic events—those of a simmering revolt in rural areas. These people—with whom Marc Calmet, the main character and narrator, identifies—are small-scale artisans, village laborers, and the marginalized on the outskirts of society. In short, they are «the forgotten ones» by Gauvain Sers. Their demands? Higher pensions for seniors, more safeguards against deindustrialization. More attention. In short, there’s a whiff of the «Yellow Vests» movement here, minus the ideological and physical excesses—which would be a serious flaw in a political essay, but here it serves a narrative that’s already substantial enough, one that seeks plausibility rather than complexity.

Against the backdrop of this uprising—which the author likes to portray as a certain France’s reflection on itself—Marc Calmet is a bookseller nearing the end of his career who travels through the provinces to sign one last contract in the capital: the sale of his business. Curiously, the emotion lies not so much in the act of parting with his business—a project that was far more than just an economic venture—but precisely in the fact that he is not saddened by this sale. The protagonist is saddened by his own cynicism. Or rather, his weariness. The man has replaced civic-mindedness with selfishness, no longer able to bear what society has become—namely, a “non-nation” made up of isolated tribes, mirrors of the individuals themselves:

«The Americanization of everything—the transformation of a society based on the collective and the family into one characterized by ever-increasing individualism—had resulted in the fragmentation of society into a multitude of communities seeking recognition, ethnic, religious, and national communities, as well as sexual minorities—which were themselves destined to split into endless subgroups, until everyone was left utterly alone. In a reversal of meaning typical of the era, the word «community» had come to signify separation—the confrontation of individuals who hated one another and devised a thousand strategies to avoid having to encounter one another.»

This celebration of the collective—rooted in a country’s solidarity and, therefore, in its distinct identity—is undoubtedly one of the great strengths of this book, which does not hesitate to use descriptions and flashbacks—even at the risk of boring the reader—in order to better engage the reader during the more decisive moments of the present. In this fictional present, we take pleasure in following the gradual charm exerted on the bookseller by a fellow traveler and her somewhat clumsy, very human flirtation. The figures of the redneck and the artist intertwine in this tableau filled with landscapes and villages, punchlines, and laid-back humor.

«The long, narrow main street looked like a movie set: for reasons I couldn’t quite explain, this row of old buildings reminded me of northern towns—Dinard, Deauville, or Le Touquet—those seaside resorts that had gone out of style, evoking images of boaters, baggy swimsuits, and beach huts. You’d expect to see the sea at the end of the street, but it was just a figment of my imagination—and besides, I’d never actually been to Dinard, Deauville, or Le Touquet.»

Along the Loire, from town to town, from motel to unspoken words, the reader experiences alongside the antihero what remains of these regions, set against the backdrop of an Eddy Mitchell song, with a touch of Charles Trenet. Our divorced protagonist, who—as a result of his breakup—suffers from adding mediocrity to the betrayals he identifies—«It’s the left that’s changed, not me!» —is a conservative who links security to public services, ecology to respect for the past and beauty, and who laments the rise of ’inclusivity.« But he’s not just a simple reactionary either: there’s heart and positivity in this quest for who knows what (a woman? a purpose in life? memory?), carried by prose that straddles the line between literary stroll and socially conscious novel.

It is no coincidence that Michel Sardou appears regularly in this book, serving as a marker of time, portrayed through the lens of a story of friendship. The man who will forever be seen as the «right-wing» singer—rightly or wrongly—but a right wing that defies categorization, is a perfect match for this “left-wing” book—but a left wing that also defies categorization—in their shared DNA: collective destiny. When Julien Sansonnens writes toward the end of the novel, “For fifty years, the country has steadily lost the geopolitical, cultural, economic, and spiritual significance it once held,” the author of this article couldn’t help but think of a song he recently discovered thanks to a friend:

Write to the author: [email protected]

Julien Sansonnens
Eternal September
Editions de l’Aire
373 pages
2021

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Jonas Follonier will be in conversation with Julien Sansonnens this Saturday, August 28, at 4:00 p.m. at the Writers’ Corner as part of the Saint-Pierre-de-Clages Book Festival (Valais).