“The autobiographical part of L’enfant rouge is more important than in my previous novels”. Jean Védrines readily affirms it, evoking “the very precise plan of Montluçon” in his mind, with his father’s office at the headquarters of the Communist Party.
Not a historical novel
But, by situating his novel in the 1960s of his childhood, he “didn’t want to or couldn’t” make a historical novel. Matter still existed. And what matter: grandson of the aviator hero of the First World War Jules Védrines, son of the communist deputy Henri Védrines, the author chose to dismiss the analysis of adult “to” find the child “that ‘it was.
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Which was not the easy way out, given a historical reading of family life. “I had to make a violent effort for that”, explains Jean Védrines, who adds that this approach led him “to write in a state of reverie, of daydreaming”. State which is perceptible throughout the reading, marked by a certain oneirism. Convinced that “we keep the dazzle of our first experiences from childhood”, Jean Védrines does not however idealize this period of life.
Childhood is always shared. Great joys do not prevent shadows, which are also constitutive of wonders.
“Overwhelming and exhilarating”
This ambivalence of feelings nourishes L’enfant rouge, just as it built the personality of the writer. “I knew that my father was part of the great History; it was both overwhelming and exhilarating,” explains Jean Védrines. He thus remembers a happy and privileged childhood, tinged however “with pain and sorrow” for his father’s unhappy childhood. Because, if grandfather Jules accumulated aeronautical exploits, his death in a plane crash made Henri an orphan, and plunged the family into great poverty.
Looking back on his childhood, Jean Védrines, with L’enfant rouge, “famous [son] father, who was extremely discreet and extremely modest”.
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How to grow when everything makes you feel very small? Starting with genealogy. An aviation pioneer grandfather and hero of the First World War, a militant father and deputy, who rubbed shoulders with the great names of communism… Like all children, the narrator of L’enfant rouge makes his universe the center of the world. Like all children, he imagines stories with his best friend. History, the great one, is moreover very often at the heart of these games. Even if he sometimes lets himself be overcome by a form of sadness, he is happy. In addition to a stroll through the Montluçon of yesteryear that you may have known, this novel is a beautiful detour into the childhood imagination that we have all explored.
The red child by Jean Védrines is published by Fayard; 312 pages; €21.50.
Pascale Fauriaux
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