{"id":60903,"date":"2022-01-14T16:31:32","date_gmt":"2022-01-14T16:31:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/villa-albertine.org\/magazine\/nicolas-mathieu-plus-est-dans-le-detail-plus-accede-luniversel\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T14:25:34","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T14:25:34","slug":"nicolas-mathieu-plus-est-dans-le-detail-plus-accede-luniversel","status":"publish","type":"app_magazine_article","link":"https:\/\/villa-albertine.org\/va\/magazine\/nicolas-mathieu-plus-est-dans-le-detail-plus-accede-luniversel\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicolas Mathieu: \u201cThe deeper you go \u2026 the more you reach some form of universality\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

When your novel came out in France, critics wrote at length of its very French quality, not only because it takes place in rural eastern France, but also because it is a return to the literary tradition of social realism. Would you say that its English translation and release in the United States have further reinforced this Frenchness?
\nNicolas Mathieu: <\/strong>Yes, it\u2019s a very French book, for many reasons. For one, it is part of a naturalist tradition\u2014more Flaubert than Zola, for that matter. My writing style takes in a huge amount of facts, details, brands, and references that probably seem rather exotic to non-French readers. From that point of view, it\u2019s very French. But I also envisioned this novel as belonging to the same school as the writers of the American Deep South. The story is set in the stifling valley heat, no doubt because I was thinking about authors like Faulkner, Larry Brown, and Steinbeck. I would even say that American writers have had a greater influence on my work than French realism. I\u2019ve read those authors\u2014noir fiction, especially\u2014more so than Maupassant or Zola, and I think that this can be felt in the novel. There\u2019s also that rather strange phenomenon whereby the more you focus on some tiny location, the deeper you go and, ultimately, the more you reach some form of universality. This is something that should never be considered during the writing process, but it can be achieved if you\u2019re lucky. I invented a little valley called Vall\u00e9e de la Henne, which would likely be located in the Moselle region, where the names of place end in \u201c-ange.\u201d For me, it\u2019s just like Faulkner\u2019s county\u2014a place that is altogether recognizable, both historically and geographically, but a purely fictional location within the realm of novels and narratives.<\/p>\n

Indeed. Any French reader who has followed the news in recent years is transported back by this reality and history to headlines from the past. They might recall the declining steel industry and the closure of the blast furnaces in Hayange, which turned into a hot political issue.
\nNM: <\/strong>Right, but American readers may also identify similarities with Philipp Mayer\u2019s American Rust<\/em> or Michael Cimino\u2019s The Deer Hunter<\/em>, whose entire first half is set in a little valley steel town. My work was also informed by these imagined worlds. <\/strong>And then there\u2019s that very American expression, \u201cRust Belt,\u2019 which could be applied to any formerly industrial region, whether it\u2019s in Eastern Germany, in Italy, in Poland, or in the UK. Everywhere that my book has been translated, I\u2019ve met people who have told me how they lived through such things in their childhood: moribund, economically declining places, and teenage years full of boredom and longing.<\/p>\n

Turning to you, William Rodarmor, what is your reaction to Nicolas Mathieu\u2019s comments, and how did you, as a translator, deal with the novel\u2019s very French feel?
\nWilliam Rodarmor: <\/strong>Having just re-read the first few pages, I realize that the \u201cFrenchness\u201d problem crops up almost immediately. One of the main characters, Anthony, is described as a boy who can eat an entire baguette with La Vache qui rit cheese. Right away, the translator is faced with the question of whether or not to translate that literally, as \u201cThe Laughing Cow.\u201d There are so many specifically French brand names in the book that it would be a genuine shame and betrayal to leave them out. But Nicolas is absolutely right. Aside from those details that are so valuable for bringing in that somewhat quick and easy exotic flair, he touches upon something universal in the way he replicates an atmosphere of hopelessness. I have seen some of this in Pennsylvania, for example. It\u2019s full of valleys just like this one, a phantom of industrialization with similar sociological ramifications. It\u2019s a French novel that resonates at a universal level.<\/p>\n

The biggest challenge lay in translating Nicolas\u2019 highly studied expressions, turns of phrase, stock sentences, and idioms. Because, in such cases, it\u2019s not the signified that is the most important, but the idea or signifier conveyed. When a character utters a certain set phrase, they haven\u2019t thought about their words; rather, they are expressing a situation or a feeling. So then you have to choose between trying to find an equivalent phrase in American English and translating the sentence literally. But whatever option the translator goes for, they will always face criticism, as I myself have experienced plenty of times. To translate is to betray, as I\u2019m sure you are well aware. You can never win, whether you distance yourself from the author or stay close to them.<\/p>\n

This question of style is, of course, particularly important in your work, Nicolas Mathieu. You\u2019ve spoken about how you really sought to find a voice in this book, namely that of 1990s teenagers who had their own specific manner of speaking and phrasing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

NM: <\/strong>First of all came the task of bringing out my own literary style. There are a few things I try to do when writing dialogue, one of which is to steer clear of expository speech. I must make sure my characters sound like real people. In life, we don\u2019t speak simply to explain how a story unfolds, so there are no long paragraphs that exist just to set out the narrative. Dialogue helps me define the characters, allow their voices to be heard, and offer a sense of authenticity. There\u2019s another issue when it comes to writing teenage characters. I remember being able to hold endless conversations at that age using only the words \u2018cool,\u2019 \u2018totally,\u2019 and \u2018sure.\u2019 This three-word vocabulary made up around 90% of everything we said, and the dialogue in this novel has tried to demonstrate that to some extent.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t always write in a highly deliberate manner, only becoming aware of my choices when reading over the text later. What we end up with, then, is a hybrid vernacular that oscillates between different levels of language, just like I find myself caught between different worlds. I don\u2019t know how this comes across, but there\u2019s a sort of intermingling between a more scholarly register, more prosaic passages, the set phrases that caused William such grief, and certain vocabulary that would usually fly under the radar. One example that actually threw off all the translators was the use of words that only exist in a very localized context, such as reuleuleuh<\/em>, a dialect term for \u2018loser\u2019 or \u2018deadbeat.\u2019 Even in Paris, they don\u2019t know what a reuleuleuh<\/em> is, for example.<\/p>\n

WR<\/strong>: That’s precisely what\u2019s so interesting. It wouldn\u2019t be if there weren\u2019t any challenge. I\u2019m curious to know, however, whether you managed to find that manner of speech you were looking for. Did you hear your own childhood echoing in your ears as you wrote?<\/p>\n

NM: <\/strong>Well, that\u2019s what I attempted to do in any case, but that vocabulary has been tainted by more recent expressions. I didn\u2019t notice this at the time and it was only later on that readers pointed it out to me. It\u2019s not exactly an archaeological reconstitution of the way people spoke in the 1990s. I also spent a lot of time on public transport in Paris, listening to how people speak nowadays.<\/p>\n

You mentioned feeling caught between worlds, a topic that has been explored in both literature and the social sciences in recent years, from Annie Ernaux to Edouard Louis, to Didier Eribon. This phenomenon of social climbing, which is subjected to powerful determining factors, has been theorized under the term \u201ctransclasses.\u201d \u00a0How did you come to be interested in this subject?
\nNM: <\/strong>I don\u2019t think we choose our subjects; rather, they choose us. This notion of switching classes was pioneered by Annie Ernaux. I remember reading her books when I was 25, and finding that her ideas really rang true. It has really helped me to find the words to express this reality, which is my own reality, even if it has become something of a clich\u00e9 or stereotype in modern literature. The reason I spoke of this is because this experience has had a profound impact on who I am both as a person and as an author, since it has defined my place in relation to others. I know that I will never reach the upper echelons. I remain between two steps on the ladder, playing the voyeur or spectator as opposed to the agent. So this wasn\u2019t a choice. It\u2019s the way that I exist in the world.<\/p>\n

Even after winning the Prix Goncourt?
\nNM: <\/strong>Honestly, yes. The world I came from will never be mine again, for many reasons. I no longer identify with a whole host of values, lifestyles, and habits of eating, dressing, understanding the world, spending money, and so forth. But to be bourgeois, you have to be born into the bourgeoisie, so I will never be part of that world either. An interviewer recently referenced the categories coined by British sociologist David Goodhart when speaking of my work, saying that I wrote for the \u201cSomewheres\u201d as opposed to the internationalized middle class described as the \u201cAnywheres.\u201d I myself feel like I\u2019m hanging in the state of \u201cNowhere,\u201d and that\u2019s where my outlook comes from. I\u2019m not saying you need to be a Nowhere to be able to write, but that\u2019s the position I\u2019m operating from. I\u2019m not a Somewhere. Although my books are set in the same geographical space, it\u2019s not like I\u2019m promoting those locations; I\u2019m in no way a regional writer. At the same time, in no way do I belong to the group that feels at home anywhere, speaks several languages, etc. That\u2019s not my world either.<\/p>\n

William Rodarmor, how easily did the author\u2019s particular outlook, class-based approach and \u2018in-between\u2019 position as a writer come across to an American readership?
\nWR<\/strong>: As you\u2019re well aware, there\u2019s no such thing as class in the United States, since we\u2019re a perfectly equal nation! All joking aside, social classes are obviously divided by wealth here, even more so than in France, where other elements come into play. And in Nicolas\u2019 book, the characters know exactly which stratum they belong to, as does the reader. So although there aren\u2019t exact matches between France and the States, the groups are easy to identify simply by their level of education and dialect. In fact, I took a great deal of care when translating dialects. I see translators as being kind of like ventriloquists, slipping a sock over one hand and making the puppet talk with one accent or another. And the task is actually two-fold, because we must re-create the author\u2019s voice and<\/em> let their characters speak. I make a real effort to let the person on the page be heard, so that the reader doesn\u2019t feel like they\u2019re being lectured to by some overeducated California know-it-all. Therein lies the challenge\u2013and the fun of the task. I often say that what\u2019s great about translation is that translators get all the joy of writing without ever having to suffer from writer\u2019s block. I step into my office in the morning and the book has already been written by someone else! It\u2019s amazing; I\u2019m so lucky!<\/p>\n

Nicolas Mathieu, let\u2019s talk briefly about the choice to set your novel in the 1990s and punctuate it with songs that marked the period, starting with Nirvana\u2019s \u201cSmells Like Teen Spirit.\u201d This was the era of grunge, with all its individualism and disillusionment. What was going on for you at the time?
\nNM: <\/strong>To be perfectly honest, my main reason for choosing the 1990s was to make my job easier. I wanted to do a coming-of-age novel, so I naturally drew upon my own teenage years. Along the way, I realized the value of focusing on the 1990s and ultimately writing a novel that could be described as generational, which was not at all what I had planned from the onset. That period felt like the end of the world. The end of industrial France coincided with the end of the conflict between the Eastern and Western Blocs. I lived out my teenage years during this recess period, which felt like the end of an era. We believed that liberal democracy had won, which left us feeling disenchanted. We didn\u2019t have to get our hands dirty anymore, so the only thing we could do was despair and make noise. I remember those years being pretty bleak. There was no longer any political enthusiasm to speak of, and people felt that the revolution would never come. There\u2019s this long rant in that film by \u00c9ric Rochant, Love Without Pity,<\/em> that sums it up, where the protagonist says something like, \u201cThere\u2019s never going to be any revolution or brighter tomorrow. All we\u2019re left with is the Common Market, and falling in love like idiots.\u201d This is a neat summary of the mood at the time.<\/p>\n

It was also a decade marked by teen movies, stories that sometimes reeked of hopelessness, such as those of Larry Clark. Did these also influence you?
\nNM: <\/strong>Well, <\/strong>those that have stuck with me from those years are Tarantino movies and Mathieu Kassovitz\u2019s La Haine<\/em>. But this novel did take inspiration from a few other films, namely those of Jeff Nichols, such as Shotgun Stories<\/em> <\/em>and Mud<\/em>. That was a key reference for the start of the novel. The first scene of that film shows two kids crossing the Mississippi to get to an island. Then we see the sun coming up. I vividly remember my first time watching that and thinking, \u201cThat\u2019s the kind of feeling I want to get across.\u201d What it means to feel young and invincible. That\u2019s how the novel starts out. My characters are sitting on a beach, and they want to go to another beach where there might be something interesting to see.<\/p>\n

In the novel, there\u2019s a certain teenage intimacy, with a more political dimension. You have sometimes been labeled as a politically engaged writer. Would you define yourself as such?
\nNM: <\/strong>\u201cEngaged\u201d is a pretty strong word. Because, again, I feel like I\u2019m more of a voyeur or spectator than an active agent. Having said that, no writing is ever completely innocuous. Flaubert said in his letters to George Sand that to write is to take revenge. There\u2019s something political about the very exercise of describing something. The world is always presented to us as being opaque, so describing it involves making choices and revealing its inner structures and workings. Personally, I tend to think everything is political. There\u2019s something political going on from the moment you depict two characters talking with each other. Describing human relationships is never something neutral or ethereal. I was also strongly influenced by Annie Ernaux, especially The Years<\/em>. I wanted to follow in her footsteps, seek precision in details and intimate, lived experiences, all while offering a broader viewpoint that could paint out a whole panorama. We also get some of this in the work Flaubert, which moves between taffeta frocks and grand historical events. This shift of focus is another way to be political.<\/p>\n

William Rodarmor, how did you deal with this political dimension of Nicolas Mathieu\u2019s novel?
\nWR<\/strong>: It was a little tricky, because politics\u2013especially French politics\u2013strikes me as completely incomprehensible. A parallel can be drawn between the French National Front and the rise of Trump in the US some years later. Among the working class, you find that same hatred of the self-righteous establishment. There\u2019s a thin slice of our democracy that acts in an irrational, dangerous manner. I recall there was one word in the book that gave me a lot of trouble, which was \u2018charter.\u2019 After some searching, I learned that it referred to airplanes being chartered by the French government to deport undocumented immigrants, a subject that stirred up a lot of political debate at the time. I immediately thought of \u201cDeportees,\u201d which is an incredible song written by Woodie Guthrie and popularized by Pete Seeger. It\u2019s about Mexican immigrant farm workers who get shipped back to their country once the harvest is over, as they are no longer wanted, and end up dying in a plane crash. That was written just after WWII, so it\u2019s hardly a new or original concept.<\/p>\n

In France, particularly after the Yellow Vest protests, there\u2019s been a lot of talk about semi-rural life and those \u201cliving in a countryside in decline,\u201d to use the subtitle of an essay by sociologist Beno\u00eet Coquard. Rassemblement National voters in France and Trump voters in the USA are often portrayed in quite an unflattering light. Nicolas Mathieu, how did you approach them in your writing?
\nNM: <\/strong>For me, being political meant writing about such people without ever spilling over into vilification. I\u2019ve often said this, but it remains true: I approach my characters with a moral code akin to that of Jean Renoir in The Rules of the Game<\/em>, which says, \u201cThe terrible thing about life is that everybody has their reasons.\u201d Writing involves making a move toward becoming someone else. I\u2019m not at all interested in using my privileged position to chastise people, or explain why they\u2019re wrong. That\u2019s not how I want to write; I want to replicate life. So I never set out with ideological, sociological or philosophical principles, and I\u2019m mistrustful of preachy thesis novels with no life in them. Nevertheless, I\u2019m aware that my choice of the characters and places I depict isn\u2019t purely coincidental either, since I wanted to bring to light those underrepresented worlds. In spite of myself, I have been cast as a spokesman (or rather megaphone!), but it\u2019s a role I\u2019m reluctant to take on. I don\u2019t want to be the writer of the Yellow Vest movement, to put it bluntly. Novel writing shouldn\u2019t ever enter into that area.<\/p>\n

Among the inspirations that you drew upon from the United States, there has been little mention of the noir novel, despite its crucial importance. You chose this genre for your first novel, Aux animaux la guerre<\/em>, but not here. Why is that?
\nNM: <\/strong>Actually, throughout the writing process, I was convinced that I had written a noir novel, where the plot served as a pretext for dealing with other topics such as people\u2019s lives, describing the valley, or setting up the coming-of-age story. The opening section with the theft of the motorcycle, and the gun, relied on the codes of the noir novel. For a long time, I used to write boring pieces that no one wanted to publish. Then I found a way to get readers hooked when I discovered this genre, particularly in the books and articles of Jean-Patrick Manchette. By pulling on the strings of drama and using devices such as suspense, I can get people on board with the narrative. This then lets me do what I set out to do, which is to talk about the world as it is, really get stuck into the writing, bring characters to life, and express specific percepts. What does it mean to feel the summer heat at sixteen years old? Or to see a girl in a bathing suit when you\u2019re fourteen and squirming with pent-up frustration? Taking perceptions and fixing them in place so that they can outlive those who first experienced them\u2013that\u2019s the true purpose of literature. But I have done the work of enticing the reader and bringing them pleasure. There is also a slightly more political idea whereby I tell myself that the more appealing the text is, the more people will be able to access my message. My great fantasy is to write like classic 1950s cinema, which encompassed everyone and reached a billion viewers per week worldwide, while simultaneously offering incredibly harsh life lessons. I want to be the John Ford of literature.<\/p>\n

Nicolas Mathieur received the Prix Goncourt in 2018 for <\/em>Leurs enfants apr\u00e8s eux (ed. Actes Sud, 2018). William Rodarmor’s English translation <\/em>And Their Children After Them (ed. Other Press, 2020) was awarded the Prix Albertine 2021.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Albertine Prize, co-presented by Van Cleef & Arpels and the French Embassy, recognizes the favorite French-language fiction title by American readers that has recently been translated into English. It aims to highlight the works of authors from the many countries where French is spoken, reminding us that language and literature transcend borders. The selection committee is made up of two honorary co-chairs of the Albertine Prize, American writers Daniel Mendelsohn and Rachel Kushner, as well as staff from the Albertine bookstore and the French Embassy’s book department.<\/em>
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