#Finalist Prix Renaudot Sorj Chalandon

• Author: Sorj Chalandon (1952)
  
• Title: L’Énragé  (416 pg)  2023
• Genre: Historical fiction
  
• Finalist: Prix Renaudot 2023
  

Bad news:

1. The “hook” is terrible
2. … having read the book in French, second language.
   
3. I had no idea what was going on!
4. The author is not the problem
5. …it’s my lack of  “reform school” vocabulary.
6. The first 2 chapters are so difficult to get through.
7. Setting: boys penal institution on the French island Belle-Ile-en-Mer
8. ..beatings, fights, and a street gang members.
   
9. I had too look up so many unsavory words.
10. I hope this book improves….soon!

Bad news:

1. I’m still reading pages and pages of fights, brawls, cursing at the guards
2. and days in solitary confinement.
3. There’s not much of a story here yet.
4. After 50% …I finally land onto chapters 11-12, more plot is unfolding
5. …French politics and the work of journalists
6. …in 1930s who want to  expose the abuse taking
7. …place in the boy’s penatentry. (historical fact)
8. At his point I think of all the books I’ve read
9. ..by Sorj Chalandon (5) this is the
10. the least likable.
11. Subject matter is brutal…depressing.

Good news:

1. Sorj Chandalon is a journalist  and his books are always interesting.
2. He places his work within historical backrounds.
3. He writes about The 1982 Lebanon War (The quatrième mur),
4. The Toubles in  No. Ireland (Retour à Killybegs)
5. a mining disaster in Liévin France 1974 (Le jour d’avant)
6. The post WW II trauma about his
7. father who fought for the Germans (Enfant du salaud) and
8. … how his father wanted his son Émile (Sorj Chalandon) help him
9. …carry out a plot to kill De Gaulle (Profession du père)

Last thoughts:

1. I struggled to get through this book.
2. There were so many words I had to look up
3. about fishing, boats, sardines 1930s French politics
4. …and of course the brutal
5. …life in a young boys reform school/penetentary.
6. 56 boys escape during a prison uprising in 1934 and escape.
7. All were recaptured except one: Jules Bonneau.
8. Chalandon grabs on to this fact…and runs away with it
9. …creating a believable character who evolves from street troublemaker
10. …to a young man with an ambition for good.
11. I can understand why this book did NOT win the Prix Renaudot
12. …it is an acquired taste.