- January 25, 2023
Le voyage dans l'Est - Novel - Christine Angot - Flammarion, 2021
In this Prix Médicis-winning novel, Christine Angot recounts the incest she suffered at the hands of her father, whom she met for the first time at the age of thirteen. The incest continues for several years, as the author perfectly explains the impossibility for the little girl to be able to speak out, and then later to be recognized and protected as a victim. This powerful, unrelenting book, with its crude scenes, exposes the chilling mechanism of incest. It also underscores the strength of this little girl, then young woman, who tries in vain to maintain a sense of freedom and control in the face of her father's grip and gentle violence. Little by little, she finds herself trapped, while those around her, gradually alerted, look the other way, leaving her to face her aggressor alone. She tries various survival strategies to keep on living and growing, until the trauma overwhelms, paralyzes and devours her life as a young woman. The author has some very strong words to say about incest, which she describes as "slavery", "a denial of filiation that involves enslaving the child to the sexual satisfaction of the father, or of a powerful figure in the family". This novel, which is not a novel at all, is extremely powerful. Beautifully written with sobriety and precision, it reveals the extent to which incest, if committed by the father, is ultimately validated by all those close to him, who desert the victim, offered up to the incestor and stripped of all protection. Incest haunts Christine Angot's work, but in this novel she finally reverses the balance of power with the father. A great book.
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