{"id":513227,"date":"2022-10-25T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-25T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/?p=513227"},"modified":"2022-10-24T20:48:36","modified_gmt":"2022-10-24T18:48:36","slug":"alice-zeniter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/en\/literature\/alice-zeniter\/","title":{"rendered":"A manifesto for diversity in literature"},"content":{"rendered":"

It all starts with an existential crisis. How do you write when you're in doubt? When the future is uncertain? And when literature has been shaped within certain predefined molds? These are the questions Alice Zeniter asks herself in A whole half of the world<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u00abLet's just say it's a book and that's that.\u00bb With these words, Alice Zeniter ends the preface to her A whole half of the world<\/em>. If the book is surrounded by a \u00abFlammarion Litt\u00e9rature\u00bb banner and written by one of the latest winners of the Goncourt des Lyc\u00e9ens - for the brilliant The art of losing<\/em> in 2017 - it is not, however, a novel. Nor is it an essay. Rather, a reverie around fiction. A stroll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what are we talking about when we take these winding paths? Fiction. And the desire to rediscover and reinvent it. Because - let's not get carried away by polemical and often reductive language - the stories that surround us are largely sexist and conventional. Yet literature has a strength: in the same way that it has shaped our imaginations - sometimes to the detriment of certain groups - it also enables us to create others, with all the richness that promises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Desiring men<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Without calling into question what historical productions have taught her throughout her training, Alice Zeniter takes the liberty of questioning them. And to look to the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since we can't go back over all the points covered in this book, we've selected a few. First of all, the male gauze<\/em>the fact that the vast majority of stories take the point of view of a heterosexual man, and assume that their audience will also see things in this way, especially when it comes to female characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The author criticizes this reflex, while admitting that she herself has sometimes adopted it in her novels, without even realizing it: \u00abI was ashamed to realize that I'd never created a young, female character who wasn't beautiful, not desirable [...] I had to correct myself, I had to learn from the theory [feminism, especially coming from the feminist movement]. [...] I had to correct myself, I had to learn from [feminist] theory, particularly from King Kong Theory<\/em> by Virginie Despentes] consciously reshapes what was born of practice, which had been formed on truncated models...\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00ab[This male gauze<\/em>Another immediate corollary is that it limits the image of men, by never presenting them as possible objects of desire, never giving them to look at, never immobile, never languid - never dozing, never stopping on the doorstep for a lover to marvel at seeing them standing there, never making a gesture that isn't out of the catalog of approved masculine gestures.\u00bb<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Killing lions<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Hence the title of the book A whole half of the world<\/em>. You quickly realize which half of humanity we're talking about. \u00abIt sits there like a gaping hole. But Alice Zeniter, with her wealth of quotations and literary and sociological references, doesn't stop at criticizing patriarchy and what it means for women in the world of literature. She tries to identify the reflexes that lead to what she calls the \u00bbvirile parade\u00ab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is how she describes a sort of canvas. To be a writer, a real one, is to consume a lot of alcohol, to \u00abkill lions\u00bb (like Hemingway), to smoke, to go on adventures and often get into dangerous situations, only to be saved by a band of comrades-in-arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n