"Their Children Will Be the Same": The Fate of Young People in a Decaying World

The book "Their Children Are the Same" delves into the cruel fate of a generation of young people finding their way in life in a dying world.

Inheriting the legacy of social novels by writers Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Balzac, So Are Their Children by Nicolas Mathieu describes a France in the 90s that was crumbling due to consecutive economic crises.

The rapid growth to restore the country after the war (50s-60s) created inflationary expectation bubbles for people.

Then everything fell apart in the 70s - a period when factories closed, unemployment rates rose, and factories that once operated at full capacity were now just scrap yards.

Cover of the book "Their descendants are the same" (Photo: Nha Nam).

In the preface of the book, Nicolas Mathieu quotes: "There are people who are no longer remembered, they pass away as if they never existed, they are born as if they were never born, and their children and grandchildren are the same!" as a prediction of the fate of the characters in the work.

Their descendants also recreate scenes full of nostalgia and deep resonance with an entire generation growing up in the 90s of the last century.

Through the story of small lives in the town of Heillange, Nicolas Mathieu not only wrote a novel about a valley, a romantic youth, but also about a country, a period and a class of young people searching for a path for their lives in a dying world.

The book opens on a sultry summer afternoon in 1992, in a remote valley in eastern France.

By the calm lake, 14-year-old Anthony and his cousin decided to steal a kayak to paddle to the other side where there was a famous nude beach.

Here, the teenager first fell in love with the daughter of a mayoral candidate. From this unrequited love, Anthony's tumultuous youth began.

Writer Nicolas Mathieu (Photo: Roses Nicolas).

The very structure of the novel, divided into four parts of uneven size, helps create the funnel effect:

Part 1 (1992 - Smells Like Teen Spirit): 13 chapters.

Part Two (1994 - You Could Be Mine): 11 chapters.

Part Three (1996 - La Fièvre): 8 chapters.

Part Four (1998 - I Will Survive): 5 chapters.

Little by little, time and space are shrinking. The vast and slow time of youth has plunged straight into the vortex of real life, unshakeable.

The teenagers Anthony, Hacine, Steph and Clem in Their Offspring are similarly sucked into the social funnel.

Influenced by Marcel Proust, Gustave Flaubert and Annie Ernaux, writer Nicolas Mathieu saw the novel as an effective way to dissect social mechanisms, making them visible and understandable.

The daily newspaper Libération commented that the book, which won the Goncourt Prize in 2018, is "a beautifully written book that sheds light on the changes in the world we are witnessing today".

The book is a surprising, brutally beautiful story about the efforts to transform life into something different, stronger and better, so that it does not become ordinary, barren and monotonous.

Phuong Hoa (according to dantri.com.vn)

Source: https://baovinhphuc.com.vn/Multimedia/Images/Id/105206/