Simonsky Theodore, a professor of temporary letters, was summoned by a senior officer of National Education, after waiting in vain for a condition or a replacement for more than six months. At wits end, Theodore Simonsky accepted a position at the College Verdi, known for his violence and abuse. But this is not to teach that sends him there: the mission entrusted to the National Education is to eliminate the principal of the college. If he succeeds, he will receive an appointment a college worthy of the name. Theodore Simonsky unhesitatingly chooses to sell his soul to the devil ...
*** This novel by Jean-Pierre Gattegno is without doubt one of the most amazing works I have ever read in recent months. Firstly because it pits the two genera, both styles of writing and storytelling: the thriller for the conduct and social satire for the shading, all orchestrated by a relentless humor, and beautifully honed acid . We smile at the incongruity of the mission of the teacher-hitman paid by the state, or at the attitude of these students a little violence imaginable, which seem straight out of a gangster movie ... But over the reading, deeply black humor of the story takes away all desire to laugh. For if the situations and contexts are exaggerated, it is the social misery of our time as the author traces here the fates doomed to destruction of an entire generation left behind, left to itself, in a world crossed by a barbaric violence.
Under the guise of an effective thriller with a fair dose of insanity is the social critique that remains etched in the mind, once the book is closed. The malaise that it emanates from elsewhere, is not without unlike that painted by Dostoevsky in "Crime and Punishment", in which the author uses without hiding (note the number of Russian names, some freely taken from the work of the writer).
It would be interesting to draw parallels between these two works, written over 150 years apart ... It may be premature and dared to compare the portrait of the misery of the Russian people in a pre-revolutionary, and that of the modern youth described by the author, but I retain as common idea, a climate noxious, suffocating, doomed to destruction.
***
my soul to the devil, Jean-Pierre Gattegno.
Editions Calmann-Levy
2010
Review undertaken as part of the literary season for Ulike.net
