Stunned
PRIX DU LIVRE INTER 2005
Available material: Finished copy
N° of pages: 144 p.
Retail price in euros: 14 €
A slaughterhouse by an industrial zone and an airport. That’s where he lives, with his grandmother, in a ramshackle old house. Here at least, he has a job, like everybody else. With his friend Bortch, he goes to the slaughterhouse every day. Bleeding pigs isn’t really his thing. But he has to kill to live. He has to admit there are good sides to it, too. If he’s careful, and sly, he can steal prime-quality cuts of meat for his grandmother. And it was at the slaughterhouse that he fell in love. That’s where he met the teacher who used to come with her students every week. He didn’t know what to say to her, and she never knew, but he remembers. It was the good old days. And even if he’s not the same any more, he still has his dream. Sometimes he talks about them with his friend Bortch. For instance, he’d like to leave. He’d like to see what it’s like elsewhere. But how to go about it? How do you get out of here? And when you get right down to it, are we really so sure that there is an elsewhere? An irresistible humour, illuminated by a true sense of poetry, gives this circular novel its charm. Readers will recognise the offbeat world of Joël Egloff, and his view of the world: we’re in trouble now! But it is written with delicacy, and you can’t help but laugh at our fate. A novel full of humour and poetry about our world turned into one huge slaughterhouse.
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