Le rire des autres

by Emma Tholozan

Anna est découragée lorsque sa conseillère Pôle Emploi lui annonce qu'elle n'a aucune compétence. Elle renonce à ses études de philosophie, sa passion pour Heidegger et ses ambitions. Elle trouve du réconfort auprès de son compagnon Lulu.

Un jour, ce dernier se met à vomir des billets de banque. La jeune femme s'interroge si elle doit s'alarmer pour la santé de Lulu ou en profiter.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Contemporary

176 pages, Paperback

Published January 3, 2024

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I wanted to be priceless, but I kept putting a number on myself.”

Self-Worth by Emma Tholozan is sharp, strange, and just a little bit unhinged in the best way. We follow a narrator who is completely consumed by money, image, and what it means to be worth something in a world that constantly assigns value to women like a price tag. It’s obsessive, uncomfortable, and honestly? Kind of hypnotic.

I felt like I was being pulled deeper and deeper into her mindset the more I read, watching that line between control and chaos blur in a way that’s both fascinating and a bit disturbing. It has that offbeat, almost surreal tone where you’re not always sure whether to laugh or wince, so naturally I did both.

Also, can we talk about the cover? Because it’s doing A LOT and somehow perfectly captures the vibe of the book. Glossy, provocative, a little confronting. Exactly what’s inside.

It’s not a “plot heavy, everything neatly tied up” kind of read. It’s more of a vibe, a character study, a slow spiral into obsession and self perception. If you like books a little weird, a little biting, and very introspective, this one will absolutely get under your skin. Unsettling, clever, and oddly addictive. Perfect for this weird book loving girl.

I Highly Recommend.

4.5

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

We had been sold the concept of the philosopher king, a prominent place in society, but Plato had it all wrong. You can explain the nuance between justice and equity? That’s great, but we need someone to stop the shelves, so that won’t help. Next!

Self Worth (2026) is translated by Emma Ramadan from the original Le rire des autres (2024) by Emma Tholozan.

It is the latest book from the ever-stimulating Asymptote Book Club "dedicated to world literature in translation that partners with top independent publishers on both sides of the Atlantic" - this book from Scribe Publications, a rather larger indy that those often featured.

This is a very quick read - a deliberately over-the-top indictment of consumer capitalism - but perhaps also (although I'm less sure this was the intent) of academic-elite overproduction.

Our narrator Anna graduates with a Masters in Philisophy, only to realise that the next stage for her and her classmates is not a PhD, but a trip to the job centre, where, after an interview the careers counselor asked me if I had any specific skills. I was a specialist in contemporary ontology, my 150 page thesis as proof. Also, I knew by heart the first 10 axioms of Spinoza's Ethics. Slightly embarrassed, Marjorie checked the box for 'no special skills'.

She ends up working on a TV show as the warm-up, prompting the live audience to cheer, laugh or boo. But her luck transforms when she meets her boyfriend Charles-Lucien who she decides she will call Lulu (like Beckett's prostitute? he replies). 'Lulu' is a repairman for all appliances, and when he moves in to her cramped Parisian flat brings two love birds which they inevitably name Vladimir and Estragon.

But their economic fortunes are transformed when Lulu literally starts to vomit cash. For him it's an affliction, both physically and emotionally (he'd rather repair an old appliance than buy a new one) but Anna embraces their new-found fortune, shopping for designer goods and arranging a holiday to Tahiti, where Lulu wants to understand the impacts of colonialism while she stays on the beach.

And it's there, inevitably, that Lulu's personal cash-machine starts to dry up - but as their economic status mean-reverts, Anna resorts to desperate means to extract what cash might remain.

A bit too on-the-nose and simplistic for my taste - 2.5 stars rounded to 2.

Scribe

Scribe has been operating as a wholly independent trade-publishing house for more than 40 years. What started off in 1976 as a desire on publisher Henry Rosenbloom’s part to publish ‘serious nonfiction’ as a one-man band has turned into a multi-award-winning company with more than 25 staff members in two locations — Melbourne, Australia and London, England — as well as a scout in New York, and a dedicated publicity and marketing team on the ground in the US.

[Zhou]

I'm thinking of unsubscribing to Asymptote book club. This is awful :(

[Marcus Hobson · Rating 3 out of 5]

My childhood was full of fables about good behaviour and bad, like shoes that would pinch if you didn’t do your chores. Emma Tholozan’s new novel is a fable for a generation without such ideals. What happens when money is more important than people?
The book opens with Anna, newly qualified in Paris with a masters in philosophy, waiting at the unemployment office. She is graded as having ‘no special skills’. That night she meets Charles-Lucien at a party, spews on his shoes, and by the next chapter they are a couple. She christens him Lulu, “Like Beckett’s prostitute?” he quips.
Life quickly settles into conventionalism for Anna and Lulu. She works at a film studio, prompting the audience to laugh or boo for the minimum wage, while he repairs electrical goods for the neighbours at thirty euros a time. They survive on very little but love.

Their change in fortune comes as Lulu begins to feel ill and then starts to spew up twenty-euro notes. Anna dries out a note and takes it to the shop on the corner, where the owner can spot any fake. Turns out they are real. By the end of the day there are at least fifty. And so begins their change of destiny. They eat in a posh restaurant for the first time, but when they try to buy an apartment with nothing but a bag of cash and no obvious income, they realise that they can never quite live a normal life. Luckily Anna works with an ex-drug smuggler and celebrity bodyguard who knows how to launder.

The epigraph at the start of Self-Worth is a quote from Georges Perec’s mid-sixties novel Things: a Story of the Sixties. Also set in Paris, this was the inspiration for the recent International Booker nominated novel Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico. All three books centre on young couples trying to make their way in contemporary society. Perec’s original says about his couple “Money stood like a barrier between them.” In ‘Self-Worth’ Anna makes an abrupt change, from the frugal shopper, searching the lowest supermarket shelves for the cheapest products, into someone who is a compulsive and extravagant shopper. At one point she buys new electrical goods to replace the ones Lulu is attempting to repair. She thinks this will give him a break. From his response ‘But Anna, this is my work. I need to do it’ you know that things between them will eventually reach breaking point.

There is plenty of humour in ‘Self-Worth’, beyond Lulu’s obvious metamorphosis into an ATM. Anna’s friend Sophie is still studying philosophy and keeps texting her for advice. Cue lots of philosophy jokes, as well as this wonderful observation about Sophie:

At first, I felt sorry for her, but now, it was beginning to get on my nerves. It was always the same story, she never had anything new to say; her life revolved around dead intellectuals that normal people had no desire to hear about. Most of them were already bad company while they were alive…

Anna’s 150 page thesis, that she takes to the unemployment office, concerns ‘contemporary ontology’; the study of being and reality. We are asked to suspend our understanding of reality to allow the twenty-euro notes to keep coming. Quickly followed by moral education about greed and opulence. When the banknotes stop being spewed forth, but instead start to grow just below Lulu’s skin, they transform into hundred-euro notes. With each extraction comes pain and blood. The reader is left asking the question of whether the story had been pushed too far, as Anna is reduced to clawing at a man’s flesh to extract the bank notes beneath to pay her rent and feed her newly acquired shopping addictions.

[Lizzies.Little.Library · Rating 3 out of 5]

🤑Self Worth by Emma Tholozan, translated by Emma Ramadan🤑

Well wasn’t this a weird little book 🙈

The premise of this book immediately hooked me, and I loved how bizarre and unsettling the story became. For such a small book there is a lot to unpack, especially around how easily financial stability can reshape identity and individual priorities. The writing has this detached, almost clinical humour that really suits the absurdity of the story. And I do mean absurd! 😳 IYKYK.

It did lose momentum a little for me in the middle, and I found myself wanting stronger emotional resonance and a little more character development from Anna. However, this novel really captures that post-university existential dread so well (something I still feel like I’m navigating daily) 🫠🤣

This book is a clever and timely commentary on a generation caught between ideals and survival. It is sharp, strange, and thought-provoking. Definitely worth picking up if you enjoy literary satire with a surreal edge.

Thank you so much to @scribepub and the author for sending me a copy to review 🙏🏼

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this funny, timely exploration of the tension between capitalism, anti-intellectualism, and the devaluing of the humanities, the reader follows Anna, a recent graduate with a masters in philosophy. She's jaded—scrounging up minimum-wage work through her university's career center, unhappy and unmotivated. That is, until her boyfriend inexplicably starts throwing up money. Filled with bile-covered Euros, French cynicism, and philosophers-named birds, this book is everything a person with a humanities degree could want. Other than a well-paying job, I guess.

[Leanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5🌟 rounded up)

This book was a humourous caricature of the cycles of class, wealth, and morals, told through a couple that gains sudden access to unprecedented wealth when the boyfriend starts throwing up cash.

It's an easy and quick read with a thought-provoking question; what are you willing to destroy to get to the top?

The story is set in Paris, amongst a group of recent philosophy graduates who are entering the job market while holding onto anti-capitalist and anti-establishment views. When Anna and Lulu (our main characters) meet, Anna is drawn to Lulu's sturdiness and charm, noticing things like his calloused hands and lack of philosophical knowledge. They begin a whirlwind romance which is quickly thrown off balance when Lulu starts throwing up cash faster than they can spend it. Anna finds herself being drawn towards the world of luxury with their new cashflow and soon reinvents herself to fit in with the upper-class.

Tholozan does a great job of making Anna quite unlikeable, yet absolutely human. She captures that feeling that lives in most of us; the desire to be free of the shackles of living paycheck to paycheck, of having to worry about things like rent, bills, feeding yourself, and all the other wonderful worries that come with not being affluent. So, when Anna gets the chance to reinvent herself, you can't help but empathize with her, while still being shocked by the way she sabotages her relationships and her own morality to keep that wealth.

There are tons of layers in this story as well; everything she writes about can be paralleled to society's workings, like the rich profiting off the pain and hardships of those under them in the economic ladder. All in all, I think Tholozan is putting out a great book that really encourages you to pause and consider not only what you would do to stay rich, but what others would too (and what they likely already do).

[Alanna Inserra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’d be interested to know Emma Tholozan’s background. Philosopher? I enjoyed this rapid, visceral, magical-surrealist story, where Anna’s new boyfriend begins to throw up cash and their new affluence changes who she is. Psychotic break? The dangers of pursuing wealth and status? I felt her desire for upward social mobility in my bones. 3.5 stars rounded up.

[Chanel Chapters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love him or spend him

4.5

Thanks to Scribe for sending me a copy

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun and cynical and thought-provoking satire about capitalism and social capital today. The absurdity just makes sense.

[Alex-Mot-à-Mots · Rating 3 out of 5]

J’ai aimé Anna, au début, jeune femme tout juste sortie de sa fac de philo et qui se retrouve chez Pôle Emploi.

J’ai aimé le regard qu’elle porte sur la société, toutes les citations de philosophes et les concepts qu’elle utilise, sans que cela lui serve à grand chose.

J’ai aimé que son premier job consiste à faire des signes au public d’un show télé, comme si le public avait besoin qu’on lui dise comment réagir.

J’ai moins aimé ma lecture à partir du moment où son petit ami crache des billets : Anna devient alors complètement matérialiste, trop. Et elle m’a énervée.

J’ai eu de la peine pour son amie qui prépare le CAPES et qui l’appelle à n’importe quelle heure du jour et de la nuit pour lui demander des éclaircissements sur le Dasein ou La Phénoménologie de l’Esprit.

En refermant ce roman, je dois dire que j’ai aimé ce qu’il dit de l’Amour et de notre société moderne.

L’image que je retiendrai :

Celle du gimmick du père d’Anna qui lui fait des crêpes quoi qu’il se passe (bonheur ou chagrin).

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting if not novel idea for a story—and I do mean novel in both senses. The familiar “money corrupts”, “greed is bad” aphorisms are a bit trite for a book with a philosophical tilt, though when combined with body horror they’re entertaining enough. Would be better as a short story, especially considering the main intrigue, the horrific transformation that has overcome the boyfriend, takes a backseat to a rather insipid rags-to-riches. Ultimately I think the intriguing aspects of the story don’t have the chance to shine, and the narration is toothless though mildly amusing.

[Manon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un premier roman à l'humour décapant, dans lequel les situations déjantées et loufoques s'enchaînent pour pointer du doigt une société de consommation de plus en plus présente, capable de nous retourner la tête en moins de deux.
Conte philosophique ou satire, il y a dans ce roman un peu des influences de Boris Vian dans l'absurdité poétique de cette histoire. C'est court, comique mais vrai, percutant, j'ai adoré.