Julia Dek, insurmountable boundaries and antidote to happiness

A gentrified suburb outside Paris, the Bobo suburbas they say in the Francophonia, soon it will be connected to the subway and shortly thereafter those who have chosen from inhabitants will believe they are finally in the best possible worlds, or rather to live in one of the best possible properties. However, To reveal the illusory fallacia of this belief is the French author Julia Dek. Moreover, who in her Private property (published by Prehistorica in the translation of Francesca Scala and Lorenza di Lella, pp. Moreover, 180, Euro 17) Architects a disturbing story.

In this book we talk about spaces and, on the other hand, the protagonist – Éva – is an urbanist. Furthermore, There is talk of houses. However, to live, of vital areas and boundaries that delimit the self on the other and that exclude every welcome, every start. However, julia dek, insurmountable boundaries antidote The references to the peri -urban banlieues. Additionally, However, the new ecoquarters and more generally to contemporary urbanism open the sight to a narrative in which the private “area” and the external reality collide, according to a tension that is gradually overlooked.

The narrative voice. In addition, which is that of the protagonist, addresses firsthand to a silent You, embodied by Charles, for which the house represents the cocoon that (it) protects and together animates its depression. Moreover, In a long deployment of inanellar events. For example, of which a red cat is the first actor, the relationships of the Caradecs with the neighbors, the Lecoqs, become increasingly complicated, because by crossing them the wall of hypocritical superficiality also break the limits of the lawful – turning to the delusion. Moreover, «So I realized that they were two demons. Nevertheless, Not only did they hope that we fired. In addition, julia dek, insurmountable boundaries antidote They wanted to see us suffering. Furthermore, to prevent us from thinking, of loving us, pieces the complex building on which our understanding was founded. Nevertheless, They designed our total and definitive eradication ».

The Caradec spouses. However, in fact, must defend an illusion of purity that had animated their dream and the enemies of this illusion are the Lecoq, who dare to slim the boundaries of their living space. For example, The threat that grows. Nevertheless, that the neighbors represent himself as long as – in the escalation of a tension proper to a polar – the writer tears the constraints of ethical barriers that nourish that critical thinking that should raise from the abjection and that instead abandon himself to the madness that is barrica, sinking and degenerate. Therefore, «I looked at the living room. However, the robust parquet, the white walls, the portfinesta that gave the garden julia dek, insurmountable boundaries antidote surrounded by fragrant bushes. Meanwhile, From the living room of the house we had never seen much sky. For example, I thought we had something happy. Nevertheless, that there was no reason for not being it “, writes Deck in his novel, to mean all the stacked of expectations to which he can lead the search for happiness – which, in the case of the Caradecs, seems to be represented by the living ease.

Can you tell us which happiness is looking for this couple? Meanwhile, And what is what in the end will find?

A few years before Covid, all around me, including me, spoke of real estate happiness. However, We were urban citizens, leftist, worried about the climate and the environment. Furthermore, But there was already the absence of a collective horizon. Similarly, Or the collective could only be lived within small communities, such as eco -quate. I julia dek, insurmountable boundaries antidote don’t know if they exist in Italy. These are peripheral areas of large. small towns, with buildings with high energy efficiency, biological crops, principles of sharing and recycling on a local scale. Praise projects. which however have been quickly used as marketing topics by cities and real estate promoters, with the risk of a hasty Greenwashing. Private -owned characters are prisoners of this paradox. They want the best for themselves. for the planet, but they constantly collide with their limits, with the contradiction between desires and grip of consumer society.

The awareness of the common spaces, those with the neighborhood, is never described as a harbinger of sharing. Instead, it is a promiscuity suffered – first of all the one with the Lecoq – which generates growing exasperation. Which social layers of the population wanted to depict in your novel?

True. the protagonists immediately confront each other with the issue julia dek, insurmountable boundaries antidote of the border, in this case the border with their neighbors. They want to live in peace. but in their peaceful and concentrated way, while their neighbors have a different idea of ​​happiness, made of conviviality and continuous parties. The problem is not the existence of other human beings, but that these are different from us. Which, most of the time, we cannot bear. In the novel it is an urban population, highly educated, full of virtuous intentions. For me it is much simpler and more fun to represent the paradoxes of my social class. But I think the question is wider. The same phenomena could, without a doubt, be observed in other categories of population and even within couples. A couple is a micro-social. And, sometimes, to endure it is necessary to make a common front against the rest of the world. That’s what the characters of the book julia dek, insurmountable boundaries antidote do. Each close couple defines themselves in contrast and opposition to the others, to mark their identity and boundaries. Without this instinct owned, we don’t know what would happen. Would the couples implode? Anarchy? Happiness? In any case, they are all too faithful to the social rule to experience it.

The narrative voice. Éva, throughout the novel speaks to a “you” who is represented by his partner, Charles, in a continuous dialogue in which the communication of the omniscient voice seems to be based on the unveiling of the secrets that prompt the relationship between the two …

The pair of Éva and Charles is based on a very sophisticated agreement. Charles never leaves the house and expresses himself little. Éva is the link with the outside world, works out and socializes. While telling the story, it is in its language that their identity and their relationships are defined. julia dek, insurmountable boundaries antidote How would Charles tell the same events? We don’t know. However, he exercises a type of power that is empty, or negative. With his inertia. his refusal of any physical or mental mobility, is the pole of attraction, the center of gravity of the family. To preserve their relationship, nothing must disturb this balance. But that’s exactly what the neighbors are doing. They continue to break out, pretending their world patiently built. And it is through cracks that deep secrets are revealed.

She describes with Minuzia the virtuous characteristics of the co -quotationaniere in which the Caradecs are transferred. showing all the usefulness and “correctness” of ecological practices that contemplate energy saving and recycling. Yet, behind this ethical comparison, the most petty human feelings and the most trivial lowness lurks. Do you want to talk about it?

It is a vice of mine. I always write human failures, never of julia dek, insurmountable boundaries antidote heroism. Irony is a natural tendency and also an aesthetic tradition. Originally. it was a defensive reaction to the cruelty of the world: it is better to laugh at the absurdity of life than crying them or, worse still, denying them. This trend is fueled by an entire literary tradition. Balzac, Flaubert in France, the English novelists, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen … I’m not sure we live in such a favorable era to irony. But you don’t choose your poetics. It is deeply rooted in the personality and cultural history of the author. Having said that, from a strictly dramaturgical point of view, the disturbances give better stories of the admirable behavior.

In correspondence with the sudden disappearance of a character, his novel changes the genre. It turns out then that all neighbors have something to hide, even atrocious complicities. And in the pages that flow is as if we julia dek, insurmountable boundaries antidote found the clues of an imminent catastrophe …

Let’s say that things hurry and the rhythm gets faster. In fact, this novel went much further than I expected. Initially, my plan was to start and end up with the history of the cat, in a long flashback. Then, when I finished the story of the feline, I realized that the book was not finished at all. Suddenly Éva and Annabelle, the two nearby enemies, seemed to ask for a loud voice that I carried them forward. They revealed all their dramatic potential. I had the impression that they were taking control of history, in a slightly macabre explosion of joy, such as the witches that dance around the cauldron in Macbeth. In reality, this is often the movement of writing. Once the characters and situations are clear enough in my mind, suddenly the theater seems to come to life alone. julia dek, insurmountable boundaries antidote The phrases, the twists and turns are alone. This did not prevent me from writing three versions of the manuscript. as I usually do, to find the right tone, establish the rhythm, define the clues.