Monde à peu près

by Jean Rouaud

The World More or Less completes Jean Rouaud's celebrated autobiographical trilogy about his family and his journey toward becoming a writer - a trilogy that began with Fields of Glory (winner of the Goncourt Prize), followed by Of Illustrious Men. The novel tells the story of a young man caught between adolescent self-pity and adult self-acceptance. For him the world is both hostile and enticing; he is at a crossroads. Awkward, dreamy, lonely, longing, still grieving for the deaths of his father, grandfather, and aunt, he is also very nearsighted. This gives him a sort of double vision: putting on his glasses brings the world into focus, taking them off blurs it. Our view of him, too, is double, one of proximity and distance, for it is formed by the young man's searing self-scrutiny and the writer-to-be's maturer judgment. Sharing this more-or-less world are Theo and Gyf, lover and friend, one whose life is a mystery, the other who wants to capture life's mystery on film.