On Both Sides of the Tracks

Description

An analysis of social mobility in contemporary French literature that offers a new perspective on figures who move between social classes. Social climbers have often been the core characters of novels. Their position between traditional tiers in society makes them a touchstone for any political and literary moment, including our own. Morgane Cadieu’s study looks at a certain kind of contemporary social climber in French literature whom she calls the parvenant. Taken from the French term parvenu, which refers to one who is newly arrived, a parvenant is a character who shuttles between social groups. A parvenant may reach the level of another social class, but devises literary ways to come back, constantly undoing any fixed ideas of social affiliation.
Focusing on recent French novels and autobiographies, On Both Sides of the Tracks speaks powerfully to issues of emancipation and class. Cadieu offers a fresh, critical look at tales of upward mobility in the work of Annie Ernaux, Kaoutar Harchi, Michel Houellebecq, Édouard Louis, and Marie NDiaye, shedding fascinating light on social mobility today as a formal, literary problem. Morgane Cadieu is associate professor of French at Yale University. She is the author of one book in French, Marcher au hasard: clinamen et création dans la prose du XXe siècle, and her articles and essays have appeared in publications such as Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, Comparative Literature, The Balzac Review, Fabula, and French Forum, among others. Note on Citations
Introduction: The Parvenant
1 Rastignac Redux
2 The Muddy Parvenant, Then and Now
3 The Transient Body of the Transclass
4 Self-Maid? The Social Mobility of Literary and Cinematic Servants
5 A Foot in the Door: Passing on Social Mobility
6 Travel Class: From the Ladder to the Train
7 From Rastignac to Subutex: The Immobilization of the Fictional Character
Conclusion: A Demoted Canon
Acknowledgments
Notes
Works Cited
Index

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