Didier Eribon: Retour à Reims

After reading in Brigitte Salino's biography that Koltès appeared - though briefly - in Patrice Chéreau's L'homme blessé, I bought a DVD copy of the 1983 movie, one of the first mainstream films (it was shown at the Cannes Film Festval) crudely depicting a homosexual love story.

The DVD edition (2007, Studio Canal) features a second - 'bonus' - disk with several interviews. The most extraordinary piece is an interview of Hervé Guibert, who co-wrote L'homme blessé with Chéreau, in an unrelated TV show - Apostrophe - recorded in 1990, several months before his death from AIDS. It's a poignant document.

Blessé, or wounded, is how Didier Eribon, Foucault's biographer, appears in his latest book, a memoir: Retour à Reims (Fayard, 2009, 250p).

While his father is institutionalized with advanced Alzheimer disease, then dies, Eribon, who had broken with his parents many years earlier, reconnects with his mother and reflects on his growing up and his family history. It's a heart-rending story. The story of a progressive estrangement from his blue-collar family, his refusal to assume his very humble origins, while becoming the first member of his family to continue his studies beyond the legal age, and to attend university... In a very class-conscious France and era, he ends up being perceived by his parents as a class enemy. And simply stops seeing them and his brothers and sisters. This candid and lucid account forms the core of the book, and is worth reading.

[Avec] l'idée, en apparence évidente, que ma rupture totale avec ma famille pouvait s'expliquer par mon homosexualité, par l'homophobie foncière de mon père et celle du milieu dans lequel j'avais vécu, ne m'étais-je pas donné, en même temps - et aussi profondément vrai que cela ait pu être -, de nobles et incontestables raisons pour éviter de penser qu'il s'agissait tout autant d'une rupture de classe avec mon milieu d'origine?

The discovery and acceptance of his homosexuality is more briefly portrayed, mainly as an explanation of how he was able to transcend his origins: "Il se pourrait bien que, en ce qui me concerne, le ressort de ce 'miracle' ait été l'homosexualité." Pierre Bourdieu is extensively referred to. Raymond Aron is the object of three pages of a very basic and insulting criticism ("La prose sans relief et sans éclat de ce professeur sentencieux et superficiel", "Je n'ai rencontré ce personnage qu'une seule fois dans ma vie", "Sartre eut mille fois raison de l'insulter en Mai 68","Et il ne s'en aperçut pas? Même retrospectivement? Quel sociologue!").

Only the last few pages are dedicated to the years following his education, his meeting with Bourdieu, Foucault, Dumézil, how he became what he is known for. We would have liked to know more. Maybe in a future book?

2009.10.18