It’s so unfair, he’s a leftist, thinks retired university professor Jean Roscoff, as a shitstorm from the woke community, which also calls itself left-wing, hits him via social media. The wonderfully cynical and insightful novel “The Seer of Étampes” by the Frenchman Abel Quentin describes how this came about.
“I was not a man of order. I was a leftist who always kept his doors open to new winds,” says the sad antihero, who in retirement wanted to make a fresh start with a book about a forgotten black poet and jazz trumpeter. The unsuccessful historian only mentioned in passing that he was a black man. Skin color and origin were not important to him, which was the “old white man’s” downfall. Based on the accusation of cultural appropriation, a media hysteria developed, which soon brought the old leftist unwelcome applause from the right.
The 39-year-old French author – a lawyer by profession – cleverly breaks down the current identity debate, cancel culture and wokeness into the generational conflict between the harmless university professor and his peace-loving, lesbian daughter and her politically correct friend. It is a thoroughly loving, if uncomprehending, relationship: “I had to overcome my hasty skepticism about this Illuminati jargon,” the father sets out to do, trying to “redirect the conversation to my favorite terrain: me.”
In addition to the father-daughter duo, an affected editor, a boastful media lawyer, a shy small publisher and other staff also populate this entertaining and subtle social novel full of sharp-tongued dialogues and clever observations. If you are reminded of the life of the US writer James Baldwin, who is mentioned in the book and also lived in France, you might not be entirely wrong.
