A libertine education

A libertine education, Jean-Baptiste del Amo, Paris, Gallimard, 2008

Between Perfume (1985) by Patrick Suskind and Nana (1882) by Émile Zola, between life and death, between survival and development of the population of Paris, from an earlier era, here is the literary basis, consciously or not the young French writer, a native of Montpellier, who wrote this novel. A picaresque story, part history, part of initiation, where the reader can find a universe in which he describes very well or know the way of the protagonist, Gaspard of the city of Quimper in Brittany.
Throughout the novel, we discover a succession of several secondary characters who accompany the protagonist in his life: Luke, the first friend Justin Billordo, a barber, Etienne de V. Conde and his first lover, and perhaps the only one, Emma, the prostitute with whom she started in the art of prostitution; Adeline d’Annovres and his father eventually be his wife and his father, Earl, another lover protagonist, and Baron Raynaud. With his experience, Gaspard finds various life situations and he can reach a higher level in his experience. All these characters are part of the novel and while most of the life stories of Gaspard.
Nous sommes, pourtant, à l’intérieur de la structure du prenons bildungsroman-si nous le mot allemand. Il ya une histoire de croissance, de supération personnelle, avec un jeune qui à la fin du roman, to cessé rapidement d’être jeune homme pour devenir un mur. La fin de l’histoire tragique est le point faible du roman. Une qui casse les inversemblable accélération expectatives du lecteur. Le point fort du texte est, sans doute, l’intrigue d’avoir situé au siècle XVIIème minutieuse français et la description des maisons et des habitudes bourgeoises et de la noblesse de l’époque.

We, therefore, within the structure of the bildungsroman, taking the German word. It is a story of growth, personal growth, a young man at the end of the novel, quickly left to be young to become a mature man. The tragic ending of the story is the weak point of the novel. An incredible breakthrough to the reader’s expectations. The highlight of the text is, without a doubt, have placed the story in the seventeenth century French and a detailed description of the houses and habits of the bourgeoisie and the nobility of the time. A curiosity: the symbolic use of the river, the Seine, to design the personality of Gaspard.

There are many descriptions of the desire for social ascent of the protagonist:
* “I wanted to see in the death of Martin Legrand a good omen. This man was not born bourgeois reason that there is no possibility of promotion. Gaspard found the emulation of his arrival in Paris, was a delicious feeling.” (P . 75)
And a dramatic reality in the end:
* “My tragedy is not having a vision of my whole life to make me understand.” (P. 349)
* “Gaspard turned back toward the river. Finally, he ruled.” (P. 423)
A good ending to a story that cannot fail to the reader.