Denis Tillinac: Caractériel (2018)

Denis Tillinac was born in Paris, although his heart is in the département of Corrèze, more particularly in the small (pop. about 200) village of Auriac ('Terilhac' in the novel) about forty-five miles from Brive, a major town in Corrèze. He lives in Auriac and writes his books from here, several of which are set in Corrèze, such as his first novel, Spleen en Corrèze (1979) and La Corrèze et le Zambèze (1990) – Africa, like Haiti and its paintings, he is also very interested in.

In this autobiographical novel – in which the Corrèze is heaven and Paris (apart from, for instance, the area where the métro in Bel Air emerges from the underground to join daylight) is hell. The narrator lives for the summer holidays, when he can leave Paris (where his father works as a dentist) and go to Auriac. There, he has friends he can relate more to, where he can use localisms without feeling clumsy, and where he can be in tune with the wildlife, the birds and the flowers.

The title, Caractériel, relates to the narrator being considered disturbed, or névrosé (neurotic) by psychiatrists and psychologists he's sent to. He's considered a cancre ('dunce') at school, which he hates, and will seek any reasonable (well, sometimes his thinking is very unreasonable) means of escaping, including running away, or even putting a knife through the bicycle tyre of a teacher who quite sympathises with him. The other pole of his paradise is 'Bercilly', where his maternal grandparents live.

Tillinac hated school because of its discipline, and describes himself as 'transgressive', which may seem contradictory for a politically conservative person. But there's a distinct revolt against growing up here, which called my mind such writers as Alexandre Vialatte and Amélie Nothomb.