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The Son of Man
After several years of absence, a man reappears in the life of a woman and their young son. Intent on being a family again, he drives them to Les Roches, a dilapidated house in the mountains, where the man grew up with his own ruthless father. While the mother watches the passing days with apprehension, the son discovers the enchantment of nature, savage and bewitching. As the father’s hold over them intensifies, the return to their previous life and home seems increasingly impossible. Haunted by his past and consumed with jealousy, the man slowly sinks into madness and his son has no choice but to challenge his father in an attempt to save something of their humanity. Written in flawless, cinematic prose and brilliantly translated by Frank Wynne, The Son of Man is an exceptional novel of nature and wildness that traces how violence is inherited from one generation to the next, and a blistering examination of how families fold together and break apart under duress.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2021
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4629 people want to read
About the author
Jean-Baptiste Del Amo
18 books160 followersJean-Baptiste Del Amo, né le 25 novembre 1981 à Toulouse, est un écrivain français.
En 2006, il reçoit le Prix du jeune écrivain de langue française pour sa nouvelle Ne rien faire, écrite à partir de son expérience de quelques mois au sein d'une association de lutte contre le VIH en Afrique. Ce texte court, qui se déroule en Afrique le jour de la mort d'un nourrisson, est une fiction autour du silence, du non-dit et de l’apparente inaction.
Fin août 2008, son premier roman, Une éducation libertine, paraît dans la collection blanche des éditions Gallimard. Il est favorablement accueilli par la critique1 et reçoit le Prix Laurent-Bonelli Virgin-Lire, fin septembre 2008.
Finaliste du Goncourt des Lycéens, il fait également partie de la dernière sélection du prix Goncourt 2008 (aux côtés de Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès : Là où les tigres sont chez eux (Zulma) qui recevra le Prix Médicis 2008, de Michel Le Bris : La Beauté du monde (Grasset) et d'Atiq Rahimi : Syngué Sabour. Pierre de patience (POL) à qui sera attribué le Goncourt.)
En mars 2009, Jean-Baptiste Del Amo se voit finalement attribuer le prix Goncourt du Premier Roman, à l'unanimité dès le premier tour de scrutin.
Le 25 juin 2009, c'est au tour de l'Académie française de lui décerner le prix François Mauriac.
Il est également récompensé par le prix Fénéon des Universités de Paris.
Une éducation libertine est publié en poche (Folio) au mois de mars 2010.
Il publie en 2010 un deuxième roman, Le Sel, texte contemporain situé dans le port de Sète, qui relate une journée de la vie d'une famille, au terme de laquelle un dîner doit en réunir tous les membres. Au gré de ses souvenirs, chacun se remémore l'histoire familiale et la figure d'un père disparu. Le livre est fortement soutenu par les libraires et paraît en format poche (Folio) en 2012.
Les thèmes récurrents de l’œuvre de Jean-Baptiste Del Amo incluent la mort, la quête identitaire, le corps et la sexualité. En 2010-2011, Jean-Baptiste Del Amo est pensionnaire de la Villa Médicis.
En 2006, il reçoit le Prix du jeune écrivain de langue française pour sa nouvelle Ne rien faire, écrite à partir de son expérience de quelques mois au sein d'une association de lutte contre le VIH en Afrique. Ce texte court, qui se déroule en Afrique le jour de la mort d'un nourrisson, est une fiction autour du silence, du non-dit et de l’apparente inaction.
Fin août 2008, son premier roman, Une éducation libertine, paraît dans la collection blanche des éditions Gallimard. Il est favorablement accueilli par la critique1 et reçoit le Prix Laurent-Bonelli Virgin-Lire, fin septembre 2008.
Finaliste du Goncourt des Lycéens, il fait également partie de la dernière sélection du prix Goncourt 2008 (aux côtés de Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès : Là où les tigres sont chez eux (Zulma) qui recevra le Prix Médicis 2008, de Michel Le Bris : La Beauté du monde (Grasset) et d'Atiq Rahimi : Syngué Sabour. Pierre de patience (POL) à qui sera attribué le Goncourt.)
En mars 2009, Jean-Baptiste Del Amo se voit finalement attribuer le prix Goncourt du Premier Roman, à l'unanimité dès le premier tour de scrutin.
Le 25 juin 2009, c'est au tour de l'Académie française de lui décerner le prix François Mauriac.
Il est également récompensé par le prix Fénéon des Universités de Paris.
Une éducation libertine est publié en poche (Folio) au mois de mars 2010.
Il publie en 2010 un deuxième roman, Le Sel, texte contemporain situé dans le port de Sète, qui relate une journée de la vie d'une famille, au terme de laquelle un dîner doit en réunir tous les membres. Au gré de ses souvenirs, chacun se remémore l'histoire familiale et la figure d'un père disparu. Le livre est fortement soutenu par les libraires et paraît en format poche (Folio) en 2012.
Les thèmes récurrents de l’œuvre de Jean-Baptiste Del Amo incluent la mort, la quête identitaire, le corps et la sexualité. En 2010-2011, Jean-Baptiste Del Amo est pensionnaire de la Villa Médicis.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 186 reviews
November 25, 2025
I received this from the publisher. I am not sure if it was sent by mistake or it was a review copy. My subscription ended six month before and I did not renew it because I had too many unread books from them. Fitzcarraldo is probably my favorite publisher, but I still cannot keep the pace with the releases. I was considering buying The Son of Man even before receiving it, but reading it became a priority when I opened my mail. However, it still took a few months until I managed to start it. I knew of the quality of the author since his other novel, Animalia, won a few awards. However, I could not even consider reading that one since it is set in a slaughter house (or something) and I cannot read about the subject.
What can I say, I am so happy this book got to me. The writing and Frank Wynne’s translation was superb. Also, as I wrote in a status, I did not expect a page turner from a novel where not much happens.
The novel is the story of young boy who lives with his mother. She got him when she was 17 and the father left them for 6 years. One day, he suddenly returns and is determined to force them to live as a family again. They move in the mountains to his father unfinished cottage. The novel moves back and forth in time. From the past, we learn more about the characters. In the present we follow the Father’s battle with nature and the harsh conditions they move in. Both the mother and son find it hard to adapt to the new lifestyle and to the return of the unnamed father.
There is a building tension and unease on the page, I knew something bad will happen, I was expecting something to snap and I could not stop reading. At around mid-point I knew exactly how the novel was going to end (I was right), but I did not care. The writing really draws the reader in and does not let go. Everything from the detailed descriptions and the characterisation show a masterful use of language. The novel starts with a chapter about human’s struggle for survival in prehistoric times. After reading the whole book I got the meaning of that insert, even though I could not grasp it in the beginning. At its core, the novel is an exploration of generational violence, which has its roots in the beginning of humans, as hunters-gatherers.
What can I say, I am so happy this book got to me. The writing and Frank Wynne’s translation was superb. Also, as I wrote in a status, I did not expect a page turner from a novel where not much happens.
The novel is the story of young boy who lives with his mother. She got him when she was 17 and the father left them for 6 years. One day, he suddenly returns and is determined to force them to live as a family again. They move in the mountains to his father unfinished cottage. The novel moves back and forth in time. From the past, we learn more about the characters. In the present we follow the Father’s battle with nature and the harsh conditions they move in. Both the mother and son find it hard to adapt to the new lifestyle and to the return of the unnamed father.
There is a building tension and unease on the page, I knew something bad will happen, I was expecting something to snap and I could not stop reading. At around mid-point I knew exactly how the novel was going to end (I was right), but I did not care. The writing really draws the reader in and does not let go. Everything from the detailed descriptions and the characterisation show a masterful use of language. The novel starts with a chapter about human’s struggle for survival in prehistoric times. After reading the whole book I got the meaning of that insert, even though I could not grasp it in the beginning. At its core, the novel is an exploration of generational violence, which has its roots in the beginning of humans, as hunters-gatherers.
November 30, 2024
Ah ah ah... Şahane bir romanla karşınızdayım! Fransız yazar, Jean-Baptiste Del Amo'nun Türkçeye ilk çevrilen eseri olan 'Hayvan Hükümranlığı' geçtiğimiz senenin en iyi okumalarından biriydi benim için. Büyülenmiştim. Yeni bir eserini okumak için gün sayıyordum, 'Adamın Oğlu' yetişti arzuma ve yine unutulmaz bir okuma sundu. Bir önceki kitap gibi yine Can Yayınları tarafından yayımlanan kitabın çevirmen koltuğunda Canan Özatalay yer alıyor.
Bu roman şiddetin aktarıldığı bir aile trajedisi.
Babaların kaderlerini oğullarına aktardığı sert bir arketip anlatısı.
Eril tahakkümün, erkek egemen dünyanın ürettiği sonu gelmez şiddetin bir örneği.
İnsan doğasının karanlığını deşen bir hikaye. Muhteşem bir anneden kopma-babaya yakınlaşma yani kastrasyon öyküsü.
Del Amo, edebiyatında "baba" meselesine, hasarlı yerlerinden yaklaşmayı seviyor. Şiddetin şiddeti doğurduğu, insanın doğa ve hayvanlar karşısında güç zehirlenmesi yaşarken, etrafında olan her şeyi kangren ettiğini ve sonunda her şeye rağmen bir yenilgi yaşadığını genelde babalar üzerinden gösteriyor. Bu geleneğine burda da devam ediyor, babayı bir hakim otorite figürü olarak merkeze koyuyor, kavramların o merkez etrafında çöküşüne epik(!) anlatısıyla ortak ediyor bizi.
Roman arkaik bir giriş bölümü ile açılıyor ve burada göçmen avcı-toplayıcı bir kabilenin şiddetle yüklü gündelik akışını aktarıyor. Avlanma, korunma, kan, şiddet, erkek hakimiyeti…
Sonrasında ise hikayemize geçiyor. Bir süredir devam eden yokluğunu sonlandırıp, terk ettiği karısı ve oğlunun hayatına yeniden dahil olan 'baba' ile açılıyor roman. Onun yokluğunda annesiyle hayatı öğrenmiş 'oğul', baba ile yeniden bir araya geliyor gelmesine ama onun yokluğunda değişen dinamiklerle yüzleşme süreci de başlıyor. Tüm karmaşa, 'Baba'nın kendi babası ile çatışmasının temelini oluşturan Roches isimli, yabandaki bir eve taşınmalarıyla son buluyor. Buradaki hayat pastoralmiş gibi resmediliyor ilkin fakat sonrasında işin pek öyle olmadığını anlıyoruz. Zira pastorale dahil olmayı engelleyen bir hesaplaşmalarla örülü çatışmalar evreni ortaya çıkıyor. Oğul bir yandan babanın erkeksi varlığı ile tanışıp, genel yetişiminden çok farklı, sert bir olgunlaşma sürecine tabi tutulurken bir yandan da annenin bu erk zehirlenmesi sonucu nevrozun eşiğinde olan babanın gölgesinde gün be gün solmasına tanık oluyor. İşler öyle bir noktaya evriliyor ki kitap şiddetin anlatımını trajedilerde görmeye alışık olduğumuz bir sona devşiriyor.
Çocukta geç yaşanan bir psikoseksüel edim olarak bir kastrasyon korkusunun peyda olması sonucu babaya yakınlaştığına tanık oluyoruz. Korkuyla örülü bu yakınlaşmada, çocuk zevk de alıyor gibidir. Bu süreç doğallıktan uzak bir itki ile anneyi dışarda tutarak gerçekleştiriliyor baba tarafından. Baba yokluğunda kaybettiği mesafeyi hızla kat etmek istiyor gibidir. Bir yandan kendi babasıyla olduramadığı ilişkiyi, şimdi oğluyla oldurmak istiyor gibidir. Fakat bu erkeklik gösterisi sırasında onu kör eden bir eril tahakküm altına girer. Savaşabilen, doğaya hükmeden, avlanabilen erkeğin karşısına, pasif edilgen kadın varlığını koyar. Aile yeniden bir araya gelmiş olsa bile sürekli olarak kadının endişesinin arttığı, korkunun hükmü ele geçirdiği; babanın nüfuzunu dayattığı ve kurallarını dikte ettiği bir dehşet imparatorluğuna dönüşür. Diğer yandan babada ortaya çıkan bu diktatör tavrın, ona babasından miras kaldığını da anlarız yan öylülerle. Erkekliğin tüm kırılgan noktaları bu noktalarda çatlaklarından tonla kan kaybeder. Kitabın en vurucu kısımlarının babanın, kendi babasıyla ilgili anlattığı kısımlar olduğunu düşünüyorum hatta.
Del Amo, çok iyi kitap yazıyor. Hayvan Hükümranlığı muhteşemdi, Adamın Oğlu da hiç hafife alınacak bir kitap değil. Hadi yeni bir Del Amo çevrilmesin mi hemen?
Bu roman şiddetin aktarıldığı bir aile trajedisi.
Babaların kaderlerini oğullarına aktardığı sert bir arketip anlatısı.
Eril tahakkümün, erkek egemen dünyanın ürettiği sonu gelmez şiddetin bir örneği.
İnsan doğasının karanlığını deşen bir hikaye. Muhteşem bir anneden kopma-babaya yakınlaşma yani kastrasyon öyküsü.
Del Amo, edebiyatında "baba" meselesine, hasarlı yerlerinden yaklaşmayı seviyor. Şiddetin şiddeti doğurduğu, insanın doğa ve hayvanlar karşısında güç zehirlenmesi yaşarken, etrafında olan her şeyi kangren ettiğini ve sonunda her şeye rağmen bir yenilgi yaşadığını genelde babalar üzerinden gösteriyor. Bu geleneğine burda da devam ediyor, babayı bir hakim otorite figürü olarak merkeze koyuyor, kavramların o merkez etrafında çöküşüne epik(!) anlatısıyla ortak ediyor bizi.
Roman arkaik bir giriş bölümü ile açılıyor ve burada göçmen avcı-toplayıcı bir kabilenin şiddetle yüklü gündelik akışını aktarıyor. Avlanma, korunma, kan, şiddet, erkek hakimiyeti…
Sonrasında ise hikayemize geçiyor. Bir süredir devam eden yokluğunu sonlandırıp, terk ettiği karısı ve oğlunun hayatına yeniden dahil olan 'baba' ile açılıyor roman. Onun yokluğunda annesiyle hayatı öğrenmiş 'oğul', baba ile yeniden bir araya geliyor gelmesine ama onun yokluğunda değişen dinamiklerle yüzleşme süreci de başlıyor. Tüm karmaşa, 'Baba'nın kendi babası ile çatışmasının temelini oluşturan Roches isimli, yabandaki bir eve taşınmalarıyla son buluyor. Buradaki hayat pastoralmiş gibi resmediliyor ilkin fakat sonrasında işin pek öyle olmadığını anlıyoruz. Zira pastorale dahil olmayı engelleyen bir hesaplaşmalarla örülü çatışmalar evreni ortaya çıkıyor. Oğul bir yandan babanın erkeksi varlığı ile tanışıp, genel yetişiminden çok farklı, sert bir olgunlaşma sürecine tabi tutulurken bir yandan da annenin bu erk zehirlenmesi sonucu nevrozun eşiğinde olan babanın gölgesinde gün be gün solmasına tanık oluyor. İşler öyle bir noktaya evriliyor ki kitap şiddetin anlatımını trajedilerde görmeye alışık olduğumuz bir sona devşiriyor.
Çocukta geç yaşanan bir psikoseksüel edim olarak bir kastrasyon korkusunun peyda olması sonucu babaya yakınlaştığına tanık oluyoruz. Korkuyla örülü bu yakınlaşmada, çocuk zevk de alıyor gibidir. Bu süreç doğallıktan uzak bir itki ile anneyi dışarda tutarak gerçekleştiriliyor baba tarafından. Baba yokluğunda kaybettiği mesafeyi hızla kat etmek istiyor gibidir. Bir yandan kendi babasıyla olduramadığı ilişkiyi, şimdi oğluyla oldurmak istiyor gibidir. Fakat bu erkeklik gösterisi sırasında onu kör eden bir eril tahakküm altına girer. Savaşabilen, doğaya hükmeden, avlanabilen erkeğin karşısına, pasif edilgen kadın varlığını koyar. Aile yeniden bir araya gelmiş olsa bile sürekli olarak kadının endişesinin arttığı, korkunun hükmü ele geçirdiği; babanın nüfuzunu dayattığı ve kurallarını dikte ettiği bir dehşet imparatorluğuna dönüşür. Diğer yandan babada ortaya çıkan bu diktatör tavrın, ona babasından miras kaldığını da anlarız yan öylülerle. Erkekliğin tüm kırılgan noktaları bu noktalarda çatlaklarından tonla kan kaybeder. Kitabın en vurucu kısımlarının babanın, kendi babasıyla ilgili anlattığı kısımlar olduğunu düşünüyorum hatta.
Del Amo, çok iyi kitap yazıyor. Hayvan Hükümranlığı muhteşemdi, Adamın Oğlu da hiç hafife alınacak bir kitap değil. Hadi yeni bir Del Amo çevrilmesin mi hemen?
April 11, 2024
What he really wanted was to live dangerously, says the mother, there was nothing he liked better than to tempt fate. It was his idea of freedom, his idea of independence; in the end, maybe he wanted to wage war on life itself – the town had only been a backdrop and collateral damage for his revenge – to make up for the time he felt he had lost up in the mountains, under the strict, suffocating authority of his progenitor.
The Son of Man is from the dream-team behind the Republic of Consciousness Prize winning Animalia - publisher Fitzcarraldo Editions, translator Frank @terribleman Wynne and French author Jean-Baptiste Del Amo. Fitzcarraldo's success means they've outgrown the 'small' criteria for the Republic of Consciousness Prize, which they won twice, but this surely has to be a strong contender for the 2025 International Booker Prize.
The novel is largely narrated from the perspective of a young boy who lives with his mother, who had him when she was 17, in a cramped property in a small provincial town. His father disappeared when he was very young - his memories of him more dependent on comments from his mother and two photographs she has kept - and they've had no contact with him, until he suddenly reappears one day.
The father is fiercely determined to force them to become a family again, and drives the boy and his mother up in to the mountains, where they then undertake an arduous hike to a crude, ruined, inaccessible and isolated building Les Roches where he himself lived as a boy with his own father, which he attempts, rather hopelessly, to turn into a family home.
He seems to have decided to do battle with this plot of land whose obstructiveness is an affront, to remove anything and everything that would thwart his plan, or to give free rein, with every swing of the pickaxe, to a blind fury for reasons the child cannot fathom.
The novel starts with an italicized prequel of a pre-historic coming-of-age in a tribe of hunters, which sets the tone for what follows. The main narration alternates between the story of the three of them, alone, in Les Roches, almost set up as a survivalist shelter with months of preserved food supplies, and that of the man's return to the town, and to his wife and son, where we learn of his own back story, allowing us to understand the blind fury.
The man's own father, who was also originally from the town, had suffered two tragedies when the man was himself a young boy. Firstly the loss of his wife, the man's mother, after a two-year painful illness, and then an industrial accident that left him with one ruined arm. Driven by anger at his fate, he bought the dilapidated property at Les Roches and move their with the man, his young son, to live a hermit-like existence with almost no contact with the outside world. As the man became of age he fled back to the town below, never seeing his father again, but as he acknowledges the legacy of his father's bitterness remains within him:
Something of the old man had seeped into me, his pain, his madness had insidiously, surreptitiously infected me. That’s where the people in the town were partly but not completely wrong in believing that the old man had fashioned me into the right arm of his vengeance, because when I resolved to turn my back on him, long after I discovered the mutilated birch trees, when I decided to leave Les Roches, never to come back while he was still alive, I had no thought of avenging him, but already, without knowing it, I was carrying inside me the deep-rooted seed of his hatred and his bitterness.
The man himself, aged 15 on his first return to the town where he was born, threw himself into the social life of the town, becoming the leader of a gang of teenagers, with another youth Tony as his lieutenant, who progress from joy-riding to trafficking stolen cars over the mountains into Spain (and we realise the father's disappearance was connected to this, likely a prison sentence):
It was as though the father had come down from the mountain with the sole intention of waging war on the town, and had found in Tony – or thought he had found –an alter ego, a mirror image, or at least a partner in crime for the drinking binges, the village dances that beat like a secret heart in the night, for settling scores in the smudged light of streetlamps or drunken dawns, for reckless drives behind the wheel of a Peugeot 405 GTI, a Polo G40 (sometimes a stolen Audi Quattro or a Toyota MR2) along steeply winding roads and mountain passes, headlights casting a harsh glare, by turns on the sheer rockface and the vertiginous blocks of darkness.
To add to the father's bitterness and the dramatic tension of the novel, the boy's mother is, on his father's return, already pregnant, with Tony's child. And as her due date draws nearer, the father refuses her entreaties that she really needs medical assistance, turning what starts as something of a slow-paced rural idyll into a tense horror story as the latent violence erupts to the surface:
As she draws nearer, they see her defeated face, her anguished eyes looking from father to son, from son to father, while around them all is still, but for a slow, languorous vibration that might be called epidermal, since it seems to disturb only the surface of the grass, the trees, the observable reality, while the heart of the forest and the stony depths of the mountain remain frozen in hieratic indifference, and the sight of the mother painfully struggling up the steep meadow towards them, moving through this landscape transfigured by the sun, reminds the son of the reproduction of the painting by Andrew Wyeth pasted to a sheet of cardboard, hanging in a clipframe on the bedroom wall of the cramped house in the town.
This a reference to Christina's World, a painting the boy's mother saw in a magazine in a doctor's waiting room, which she surreptitiously pocketed and framed.
As with Animalia, Wynne's rendition of Del Amo's prose is vivid, visceral and poetic at the same time, with luscious prose:
Spring arrives, sharp as a blade.
One morning, they find the mountain ablaze with shimmering light. The air smells of claggy soil, of clover and grass thick with sap. Rocks glitter beneath a white-hot sun set into a sky of deep blue that it liquefies.
From everywhere comes the song of birds, the chirrup of insects, the cry of unseen animals that lurk in what little shadow remains, in the hollows of roots, under the leaves of evergreens, at the entrance to labyrinthine burrows – patiently dug or bitterly won – hidden by a bent twig.
Sent coursing through the branches of the trees, the sap causes myriad buds to open, their tiny perules silently falling away to reveal the blue-green leaves that unfurl and constellate the boughs with vibrant green.
The forest, hostile and barren only the day before, adorns itself with vaporous whorls, dappled shadows that make it seem less fearsome. Over the grasslands, flowers in their myriad variation open their petals; foraging insects feverishly buzz from bloom to bloom, drunk on nectar. The wind rustles through the branches of the pines, raising clouds of yellow pollen that fill the sky and are dispersed by the breeze.
In the dark chambers of the rotting trunks, pupae prepare their metamorphosis; all around, an army of tiny creatures mobilizes – teeming, crawling, industrious swarms – and begin the mysterious enterprise that occupies them night and day.
As he becomes more familiar with his surroundings, the son ventures further and further. He no longer fears the marauding bear. He no longer feels the piercing eye of the forest trained on him. The mountain appears to have accepted his presence, and now contemplates him with an equable attentiveness.
And there are a couple of nice nods to Animalia. The 'genetrix' term makes a welcome reappearance - this the boy's grandmother, who didn't approve of her daughter's marriage to the leader of the local gang:
The crabbed flesh of her genetrix was always forced into severe skirts that never came above her knee, blouses buttoned at the throat and the wrists, her legs sheathed in opaque tights of sempiternal beige, such that she looks like a bourgeois lady from the provinces whose family fortune was squandered and whose only inheritance was an austere, outmoded or anachronistic wardrobe best suited to a governess or a stern post-war schoolmistress.
And, in Animalia, there is a deliberately jarring scene where Éléonore sees an aeroplane in the sky, reminding us this is the 20th not the 19th century. Here a similar scene in the remote Les Roches reminds them that there is a society they've left behind:
His muddy hands still clutch the handle of the pickaxe resting on his chest. Swathes of mist dissolve against the sky, revealing soaring heights of chalcedony blue across which the streamlined shape of a plane is slowly moving. Though no sound reaches their ears, the very sight of the plane is an unprecedented irruption of a parallel reality, the remanence of the world they left when they came to Les Roches and which no longer seemed to exist. They follow the path of the shimmering, surreal, tubular form of the fuselage as it appears and disappears, cleaving the cumulus clouds before disappearing behind the mountain ridge, leaving only a trail of condensation in its wake that quickly fades into azure.
Stunning.
The Son of Man is from the dream-team behind the Republic of Consciousness Prize winning Animalia - publisher Fitzcarraldo Editions, translator Frank @terribleman Wynne and French author Jean-Baptiste Del Amo. Fitzcarraldo's success means they've outgrown the 'small' criteria for the Republic of Consciousness Prize, which they won twice, but this surely has to be a strong contender for the 2025 International Booker Prize.
The novel is largely narrated from the perspective of a young boy who lives with his mother, who had him when she was 17, in a cramped property in a small provincial town. His father disappeared when he was very young - his memories of him more dependent on comments from his mother and two photographs she has kept - and they've had no contact with him, until he suddenly reappears one day.
The father is fiercely determined to force them to become a family again, and drives the boy and his mother up in to the mountains, where they then undertake an arduous hike to a crude, ruined, inaccessible and isolated building Les Roches where he himself lived as a boy with his own father, which he attempts, rather hopelessly, to turn into a family home.
He seems to have decided to do battle with this plot of land whose obstructiveness is an affront, to remove anything and everything that would thwart his plan, or to give free rein, with every swing of the pickaxe, to a blind fury for reasons the child cannot fathom.
The novel starts with an italicized prequel of a pre-historic coming-of-age in a tribe of hunters, which sets the tone for what follows. The main narration alternates between the story of the three of them, alone, in Les Roches, almost set up as a survivalist shelter with months of preserved food supplies, and that of the man's return to the town, and to his wife and son, where we learn of his own back story, allowing us to understand the blind fury.
The man's own father, who was also originally from the town, had suffered two tragedies when the man was himself a young boy. Firstly the loss of his wife, the man's mother, after a two-year painful illness, and then an industrial accident that left him with one ruined arm. Driven by anger at his fate, he bought the dilapidated property at Les Roches and move their with the man, his young son, to live a hermit-like existence with almost no contact with the outside world. As the man became of age he fled back to the town below, never seeing his father again, but as he acknowledges the legacy of his father's bitterness remains within him:
Something of the old man had seeped into me, his pain, his madness had insidiously, surreptitiously infected me. That’s where the people in the town were partly but not completely wrong in believing that the old man had fashioned me into the right arm of his vengeance, because when I resolved to turn my back on him, long after I discovered the mutilated birch trees, when I decided to leave Les Roches, never to come back while he was still alive, I had no thought of avenging him, but already, without knowing it, I was carrying inside me the deep-rooted seed of his hatred and his bitterness.
The man himself, aged 15 on his first return to the town where he was born, threw himself into the social life of the town, becoming the leader of a gang of teenagers, with another youth Tony as his lieutenant, who progress from joy-riding to trafficking stolen cars over the mountains into Spain (and we realise the father's disappearance was connected to this, likely a prison sentence):
It was as though the father had come down from the mountain with the sole intention of waging war on the town, and had found in Tony – or thought he had found –an alter ego, a mirror image, or at least a partner in crime for the drinking binges, the village dances that beat like a secret heart in the night, for settling scores in the smudged light of streetlamps or drunken dawns, for reckless drives behind the wheel of a Peugeot 405 GTI, a Polo G40 (sometimes a stolen Audi Quattro or a Toyota MR2) along steeply winding roads and mountain passes, headlights casting a harsh glare, by turns on the sheer rockface and the vertiginous blocks of darkness.
To add to the father's bitterness and the dramatic tension of the novel, the boy's mother is, on his father's return, already pregnant, with Tony's child. And as her due date draws nearer, the father refuses her entreaties that she really needs medical assistance, turning what starts as something of a slow-paced rural idyll into a tense horror story as the latent violence erupts to the surface:
As she draws nearer, they see her defeated face, her anguished eyes looking from father to son, from son to father, while around them all is still, but for a slow, languorous vibration that might be called epidermal, since it seems to disturb only the surface of the grass, the trees, the observable reality, while the heart of the forest and the stony depths of the mountain remain frozen in hieratic indifference, and the sight of the mother painfully struggling up the steep meadow towards them, moving through this landscape transfigured by the sun, reminds the son of the reproduction of the painting by Andrew Wyeth pasted to a sheet of cardboard, hanging in a clipframe on the bedroom wall of the cramped house in the town.
This a reference to Christina's World, a painting the boy's mother saw in a magazine in a doctor's waiting room, which she surreptitiously pocketed and framed.
As with Animalia, Wynne's rendition of Del Amo's prose is vivid, visceral and poetic at the same time, with luscious prose:
Spring arrives, sharp as a blade.
One morning, they find the mountain ablaze with shimmering light. The air smells of claggy soil, of clover and grass thick with sap. Rocks glitter beneath a white-hot sun set into a sky of deep blue that it liquefies.
From everywhere comes the song of birds, the chirrup of insects, the cry of unseen animals that lurk in what little shadow remains, in the hollows of roots, under the leaves of evergreens, at the entrance to labyrinthine burrows – patiently dug or bitterly won – hidden by a bent twig.
Sent coursing through the branches of the trees, the sap causes myriad buds to open, their tiny perules silently falling away to reveal the blue-green leaves that unfurl and constellate the boughs with vibrant green.
The forest, hostile and barren only the day before, adorns itself with vaporous whorls, dappled shadows that make it seem less fearsome. Over the grasslands, flowers in their myriad variation open their petals; foraging insects feverishly buzz from bloom to bloom, drunk on nectar. The wind rustles through the branches of the pines, raising clouds of yellow pollen that fill the sky and are dispersed by the breeze.
In the dark chambers of the rotting trunks, pupae prepare their metamorphosis; all around, an army of tiny creatures mobilizes – teeming, crawling, industrious swarms – and begin the mysterious enterprise that occupies them night and day.
As he becomes more familiar with his surroundings, the son ventures further and further. He no longer fears the marauding bear. He no longer feels the piercing eye of the forest trained on him. The mountain appears to have accepted his presence, and now contemplates him with an equable attentiveness.
And there are a couple of nice nods to Animalia. The 'genetrix' term makes a welcome reappearance - this the boy's grandmother, who didn't approve of her daughter's marriage to the leader of the local gang:
The crabbed flesh of her genetrix was always forced into severe skirts that never came above her knee, blouses buttoned at the throat and the wrists, her legs sheathed in opaque tights of sempiternal beige, such that she looks like a bourgeois lady from the provinces whose family fortune was squandered and whose only inheritance was an austere, outmoded or anachronistic wardrobe best suited to a governess or a stern post-war schoolmistress.
And, in Animalia, there is a deliberately jarring scene where Éléonore sees an aeroplane in the sky, reminding us this is the 20th not the 19th century. Here a similar scene in the remote Les Roches reminds them that there is a society they've left behind:
His muddy hands still clutch the handle of the pickaxe resting on his chest. Swathes of mist dissolve against the sky, revealing soaring heights of chalcedony blue across which the streamlined shape of a plane is slowly moving. Though no sound reaches their ears, the very sight of the plane is an unprecedented irruption of a parallel reality, the remanence of the world they left when they came to Les Roches and which no longer seemed to exist. They follow the path of the shimmering, surreal, tubular form of the fuselage as it appears and disappears, cleaving the cumulus clouds before disappearing behind the mountain ridge, leaving only a trail of condensation in its wake that quickly fades into azure.
Stunning.
November 22, 2024
4.5/5
Bir önceki kitabı Hayvan Hükümranlığı’nı çok sevdiğim JB Del Amo, Adamın Oğlu’nda da her şeyiyle kaldığı yerden devam ediyor. Şiddet ve aile yine başrolde. Şiddetin kuşaklar arası aktarımına odaklanıyor yazar. Bunu da çok güzel anlatmayı başarıyor. Neden-sonuç ilişkileri kafamızda güzelce yerine oturuyor. Böylece hiçbir şeyin tesadüf olmadığını anlıyoruz. Bir yandan garip bir roman Adamın Oğlu. Herhangi bir karaktere bağlanmak neredeyse imkansız. Buz gibi bir evreni var ancak ne olacağını da merak ederek okuyorsunuz. Sonunun nereye varacağı da belli bir yerden sonra az çok anlaşılıyor ama gerilim bir an olsun bile düşmüyor. Uzun zamandır hiçbir şeyi bu kadar diken üstünde okumamıştım. Atmosferiyle akılda kalacak karanlık, soğuk bir metin. Okurken kasvet basıyor ancak zaten yazarın anlattığı mesele de böyle anlatılacak türden. Hayvan Hükümranlığı’na kıyasla biraz daha fazla sevdim sanki.
Bir önceki kitabı Hayvan Hükümranlığı’nı çok sevdiğim JB Del Amo, Adamın Oğlu’nda da her şeyiyle kaldığı yerden devam ediyor. Şiddet ve aile yine başrolde. Şiddetin kuşaklar arası aktarımına odaklanıyor yazar. Bunu da çok güzel anlatmayı başarıyor. Neden-sonuç ilişkileri kafamızda güzelce yerine oturuyor. Böylece hiçbir şeyin tesadüf olmadığını anlıyoruz. Bir yandan garip bir roman Adamın Oğlu. Herhangi bir karaktere bağlanmak neredeyse imkansız. Buz gibi bir evreni var ancak ne olacağını da merak ederek okuyorsunuz. Sonunun nereye varacağı da belli bir yerden sonra az çok anlaşılıyor ama gerilim bir an olsun bile düşmüyor. Uzun zamandır hiçbir şeyi bu kadar diken üstünde okumamıştım. Atmosferiyle akılda kalacak karanlık, soğuk bir metin. Okurken kasvet basıyor ancak zaten yazarın anlattığı mesele de böyle anlatılacak türden. Hayvan Hükümranlığı’na kıyasla biraz daha fazla sevdim sanki.
March 16, 2024
A pretty bleak tale, I fear, but such good writing.
A son and a mother live happily together until, after years of absence, the father comes back, intending not only to stay, but to build up a new life in an isolated, half-finished house in the mountains.
The first half of the book gave me such negative feelings that I considered giving up. The father is just horrible. But curiosity won and I raced through the second half when it almost becomes a thriller, with the alternating chapters between backstory and the present day horror of the mountains.
I hadn't heard of this author but I suspect a lot of readers will appreciate the evocative writing.
A son and a mother live happily together until, after years of absence, the father comes back, intending not only to stay, but to build up a new life in an isolated, half-finished house in the mountains.
The first half of the book gave me such negative feelings that I considered giving up. The father is just horrible. But curiosity won and I raced through the second half when it almost becomes a thriller, with the alternating chapters between backstory and the present day horror of the mountains.
I hadn't heard of this author but I suspect a lot of readers will appreciate the evocative writing.
November 24, 2025
I finished this book days ago and I really don't know if I can really explain how this book affected me properly. So many memories of my childhood were brought to the forefront that at times, I wanted to put the book down and forget it -- I didn't want to relive the past. Amo's prose pulled me back in though. I tend to go for books that exude emotion, but not in an overly-dramatic way. This book is beautiful and violent while also being descriptive and mysterious. I must give the translator Frank Wynne his due though. I don't know if another translator could've done this any better.
As I've read his previous book Animalia (also translated by Frank Wynne into English) and only remember a small bit of it, I may go back to experience the pain and cruelty since that is the world I inhabit most of my days.
This is my favorite read of 2025.
As I've read his previous book Animalia (also translated by Frank Wynne into English) and only remember a small bit of it, I may go back to experience the pain and cruelty since that is the world I inhabit most of my days.
This is my favorite read of 2025.
November 20, 2021
Combien de fois constatons-nous que, après avoir terminé la lecture d'un livre, nous croyons que l'auteur a créé quelque chose d'exceptionnel ? Et ce sentiment reste avec nous pendant longtemps. C'est justement ce qui m'est arrivé lorsque j'ai lu son roman Règne animal il y a deux ans. La prose exquisément construite, comme des coups de pinceau sur une toile, a transformé la lecture en un acte d'admiration continue. Chaque image a été parfaitement décrite avec le juste nombre de mots et chaque mot choisi pour son poids sémantique. Et bien que l'intrigue était centrée sur une entreprise familiale d'élevage de porcs, la prose brillait par des descriptions nettes et détaillées et une rime presque parfaite dans sa construction.
Je me rends compte maintenant que cette sensation m'a accompagnée tout au long de ma lecture du Fils de l'homme, qui, à mon avis, est un peu éclipsé par le roman précédent. Il est impossible d'oublier la grandeur que l'on a connue auparavant et qui, ici, souffre peut-être d'un excès de style narratif. Cela ne veut pas dire que ce livre est un mauvais roman. Loin de là. Jean-Baptiste Del Amo réussit à peindre un tableau de désolation et de doute, dans l'histoire d'un homme qui revient chez lui après une longue absence et surprend la mère et le fils, qui acceptent le nouvel ordre sans se plaindre.
Abandonnant leur vie antérieure, ils partent tous les trois vivre dans les montagnes, un nouveau départ qui tourne pourtant à la tragédie. Les descriptions réapparaissent, précises et claires, avec cette maîtrise de la langue qui semble être la marque indiscutable de l'auteur. Je reconnais à Del Amo ce besoin de pousser le langage, l'amenant à chercher de nouvelles frontières à transgresser. Quelque chose de franchement inhabituel chez un écrivain français d'à peine 39 ans, qui porte sur ses épaules toute la tradition narrative de deux siècles de création littéraire, dont il est désormais une partie fondamentale.
Je me rends compte maintenant que cette sensation m'a accompagnée tout au long de ma lecture du Fils de l'homme, qui, à mon avis, est un peu éclipsé par le roman précédent. Il est impossible d'oublier la grandeur que l'on a connue auparavant et qui, ici, souffre peut-être d'un excès de style narratif. Cela ne veut pas dire que ce livre est un mauvais roman. Loin de là. Jean-Baptiste Del Amo réussit à peindre un tableau de désolation et de doute, dans l'histoire d'un homme qui revient chez lui après une longue absence et surprend la mère et le fils, qui acceptent le nouvel ordre sans se plaindre.
Car les hommes, plus qu’aucune autre bête peuplant cette foutue terre, naissent avec ce vide en eux, ce vide vertigineux qu’ils n’ont de cesse de vouloir désespérément combler, le temps que durera leur bref, leur insignifiant, leur pathétique passage en ce monde, tétanisés qu’ils sont par leur propre fugacité, leur propre absurdité, leur propre vanité, et quelque chose semble leur avoir fourré dans le crâne l’idée saugrenue qu’ils pourraient trouver dans l’un de leurs semblables de quoi remplir ce vide, ce manque qui préexiste en eux.
Abandonnant leur vie antérieure, ils partent tous les trois vivre dans les montagnes, un nouveau départ qui tourne pourtant à la tragédie. Les descriptions réapparaissent, précises et claires, avec cette maîtrise de la langue qui semble être la marque indiscutable de l'auteur. Je reconnais à Del Amo ce besoin de pousser le langage, l'amenant à chercher de nouvelles frontières à transgresser. Quelque chose de franchement inhabituel chez un écrivain français d'à peine 39 ans, qui porte sur ses épaules toute la tradition narrative de deux siècles de création littéraire, dont il est désormais une partie fondamentale.
March 10, 2024
Something inside the boy crumbles, a hesitancy, a fear, and he surrenders to the car’s movements, surreptitiously seeks to make contact with the father, to touch him through the leather jacket in a tentative, clumsy attempt to convey his affection — or what he considers the affection expected of a son for his father, of a child for this man, this stranger who, out of the blue, has been designated his father.
I read The Son of Man in a new English translation (the French original was released in 2021), and while author Jean-Baptiste Del Amo has much to say about the universal human condition (and in particular, the relationships between fathers and sons going back to the dawn of man), I found there was something slightly lost in translation between this story set in recentish (it seems before cell phones and internet) rural France and where I find myself today. Still: I found myself very invested in the modern day timeline (whose heart wouldn’t go out to a nine year old boy meeting his dangerous father for the first time?), and while I didn’t find the plot to be exactly surprising, I thought that the storytelling was very compelling and flowed logically to prove the point that Del Amo appeared to be making about what fathers can’t help but pass down to their sons. This touched me, heart and mind, and I can’t ask for more. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages might not be in their final forms.)
The leader stops, looks up at the sky and, for an instant, the black disc of his pupil aligns with the white disc of the sun, the star sears the retina and the creature crawling through the matricial mud turns away to contemplate the valley through which he is trudging with others of his kind: a landscape whipped by winds, sparse undergrowth dotted here and there with shrubs that have a mournful air; over this bleak terrain floats the negative afterimage of the day star, a black moon suspended on the horizon.
This opening paragraph — and the scene that follows, with a group of primitive hunters (including a father and adolescent son with “eyes that are deeply sunken in sockets chiselled beneath the prominent brow ridge”) on a deer hunt — made me think, “Whoa, I didn’t know I was reading a book set in prehistory.” But after a deer is taken, the narrative goes from “The young hunter bends down and picks up his spear” and shifts, within a paragraph, to: “In the backseat of the battered old estate car, the son is dozing.” Del Amo plays with the timeline throughout — we first meet this family (father, mother, and son) as they drive towards some unnamed destination, and then rewind to the father suddenly (creepily) inserting himself into the mother and son’s happy lives — and it takes the entire novel of shifting around in the timeline to answer all of the questions that this setup presents. This format was really well done.
As it turns out, this reunited family is making their way towards the incredibly remote mountain property named Les Roches (which sounds impressive but it’s a dilapidated barn conversion) where the father was raised by his own possessive, grief-ridden, paranoid single father; and as the trio tramps up the mountain at night, overburdened with the backpacks the man has assigned to them, the questions keep coming, and Del Amo eventually answers them all. This is, at heart, a story of a nearly feral, antisocial man who suddenly decides to assert parental rights over a sensitive boy who had been raised by a very young, well-meaning, loving single mother; and not only does Del Amo demonstrate how the father’s worst traits were learned from his own father, but situations between the father and son chime right back to the dawn of man (including the solar eclipse described in that last passage.) The theme is impressively supported by the plot.
A note on the translation: there was a weird formality to some of the language that sometimes made me wonder if the translator (Frank Wynne) was really capturing the sense, instead of the literal translation, of Del Amo’s writing; would a reader of the original have needed to look up definitions as they encountered that original primitive band of people described as a “tatterdemalion herd”, or when “the tarpaulin inflates and crumples with the rustle of an elytron”, or perhaps most egregiously, “The crabbed flesh of her genetrix was always forced into severe skirts that never came above her knee.” (That last can almost be forgiven because, as Del Amo never gives formal names to his characters, there are only so many ways to say “the woman” or “the mother”, but an English writer would never use “genetrix”.) I found it distracting.
There are other stars, he says, other planets, some so dark that no sun ever reaches them, and beyond that, there are other galaxies, thousands of them, and each galaxy contains billions of suns, billions of planets, and beyond everything that is visible, he says, there are hundreds of billions of galaxies.
“Are there other earths like ours?”
“I hope not,” says the father after a prolonged silence. “I hope there’s nothing. Nothing but rock, silence, ice and fire.”
There’s a lot of pain and drama in this story, but it doesn’t come from nowhere; Del Amo held my attention throughout and totally nailed the landing. Recommended!
June 23, 2024
64th book of 2024.
I knew I was in for a good ride when Del Amo starts his book about an abusive father and son in a contemporary setting with a chapter about early humans struggling to survive. His writing is incredibly vivid and, dare I say, almost cinematic. Once you get to the father, mother and son story, I suppose it is essentially 'plotless' in that they go to a dilapidated property, Les Roches, and we watch the slow spiralling of the father. He carries what Del Amo seems to diagnose as hereditary madness, violence, etc. It's also a fantastic look (through the boy) of man and nature, man vs nature. These are some of my favourite books to read, Butcher's Crossing, , The Old Man and the Sea, etc. [1]. Throughout the novel I was wondering what that first chapter about the pack of early humans had to do with the novel, other than, perhaps, aiding the semantics, and I'll leave it unsaid how/if Del Amo returns to it or addresses it again. In the end, it reminded me of other great books about son's struggling under the confusing wrath of their fathers. Most recently Knausgaard's descriptions of his father as tyrant. Then add natural descriptions such as these . . .
. . . And you've got something special.
______________________
[1] As a side point, does anyone have any recommendations for women & nature / women vs nature? Of course the literary history is often man vs nature, but I'd be intrigued to discover some books about women in nature. The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is Groff's newest underwhelming novel The Vaster Wilds.
I knew I was in for a good ride when Del Amo starts his book about an abusive father and son in a contemporary setting with a chapter about early humans struggling to survive. His writing is incredibly vivid and, dare I say, almost cinematic. Once you get to the father, mother and son story, I suppose it is essentially 'plotless' in that they go to a dilapidated property, Les Roches, and we watch the slow spiralling of the father. He carries what Del Amo seems to diagnose as hereditary madness, violence, etc. It's also a fantastic look (through the boy) of man and nature, man vs nature. These are some of my favourite books to read, Butcher's Crossing, , The Old Man and the Sea, etc. [1]. Throughout the novel I was wondering what that first chapter about the pack of early humans had to do with the novel, other than, perhaps, aiding the semantics, and I'll leave it unsaid how/if Del Amo returns to it or addresses it again. In the end, it reminded me of other great books about son's struggling under the confusing wrath of their fathers. Most recently Knausgaard's descriptions of his father as tyrant. Then add natural descriptions such as these . . .
He becomes aware of the smell of the mountain, a pungent scent composed of rotting vegetation, barks, bracket fungi and mosses swollen with rainwater, of the invertebrate creatures that stealthily crawl beneath the ancient trunks and the powdery rocks of the riverbed.
Driving winds and floodwaters have deposited enough alluvium within the heart of these ruins for wild roses and elderflowers to take root, and even hazel and locust trees. Their trunks have cut a path through the rubble. They rise through the yawning roof, spreading their branches above, such that the village barns and the village itself look as though once, in a far-off time, they were inhabited by fantastical creatures who deliberately built these structures so that they would blend into the vegetation.
. . . And you've got something special.
______________________
[1] As a side point, does anyone have any recommendations for women & nature / women vs nature? Of course the literary history is often man vs nature, but I'd be intrigued to discover some books about women in nature. The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is Groff's newest underwhelming novel The Vaster Wilds.
April 25, 2025
4.5* rounded up. Surprised this wasn’t on the International Booker Prize list.
Look forward to seeing the author speak at AWF in a few weeks time.
Look forward to seeing the author speak at AWF in a few weeks time.
April 30, 2024
A very slow burn novel that follows the relationship between sons and fathers. The story follows the lives of a son and his mother after the reappearance of his absent father. The father, in turn, tells the story of his difficult relationship with his own father.
The novel is split into two timelines - the first involves the family's relocation to the father's mountain home at Les Roches; the second deals with the father's reappearance in the mother's life after many years absence.
As time goes on it becomes clear that the boy's father is just as inept at home building as his own father and all the feelings of fear that he will be abandoned serve only to make the father more domineering and paranoid. His erratic behaviour mirrors that of his own father whose body was discovered at Les Roches years before - almost naked and emaciated.
The novel is cleverly constructed giving away the family's history slowly and building by increments until the explosive finish. You are fully aware of the father's incipient madness and the consequences it may have but the mother is there as a counterweight and tips the balance back when things seem to spiral. You know something bad could happen at any point but you simply don't know what, when or why.
Highly recommended.
Thankyou to Netgalley and Fitzcarraldo Editions for the advance review copy. Most appreciated.
The novel is split into two timelines - the first involves the family's relocation to the father's mountain home at Les Roches; the second deals with the father's reappearance in the mother's life after many years absence.
As time goes on it becomes clear that the boy's father is just as inept at home building as his own father and all the feelings of fear that he will be abandoned serve only to make the father more domineering and paranoid. His erratic behaviour mirrors that of his own father whose body was discovered at Les Roches years before - almost naked and emaciated.
The novel is cleverly constructed giving away the family's history slowly and building by increments until the explosive finish. You are fully aware of the father's incipient madness and the consequences it may have but the mother is there as a counterweight and tips the balance back when things seem to spiral. You know something bad could happen at any point but you simply don't know what, when or why.
Highly recommended.
Thankyou to Netgalley and Fitzcarraldo Editions for the advance review copy. Most appreciated.
May 7, 2024
jean-baptiste del amo: sin čovječji
s francuskog prevela željka somun
oceanmore, 2024., 213 str.
ne pamtim kad sam posljednji put toliko izguštala tekst. uzeo me od prve stranice i nije puštao do posljednje. del amo piše na frekvenciji koja mi posve odgovara. nešto je arhaično u načinu kako bira riječi i slaže rečenice; vokabular je raskošan (tome svakako doprinosi i nadahnuti prijevod željke somun), svaka misao dobro promišljena i izvagana, svaka rečenica kružnica je za sebe - jasno je to od samog početka. sukladno tome, očekivala sam priču iz nekih drugih vremena, ali -makar počinje s prethistorijskom crticom za koju ti, kroz knjigu, nije posve jasno kako se uklapa, ne brini, na posljednjim stranicama bit će razriješeno- snašla me suvremena priča o raspadu dvije generacije obitelji i posljedicama mentalne nebrige za sebe.
"predvodnik se zaustavi, podigne lice prema nebu, crna točka njegove zjenice načas se poravna s bijelom kružnicom Sunca, nebesko tijelo ošine mu retinu pa to biće što od iskona gmiže blatom odvrati pogled i svrne ga prema dolini u koju se zaputio sa svojima: to je pustopoljina šibana vjetrom, s niskim raslinjem, s gdjekojim kržljavim grmom; sumoran predio nad kojim u negativu lebdi slika dnevne zvijezde, crnog Mjeseca nalegla na obzor."
najež...
s francuskog prevela željka somun
oceanmore, 2024., 213 str.
ne pamtim kad sam posljednji put toliko izguštala tekst. uzeo me od prve stranice i nije puštao do posljednje. del amo piše na frekvenciji koja mi posve odgovara. nešto je arhaično u načinu kako bira riječi i slaže rečenice; vokabular je raskošan (tome svakako doprinosi i nadahnuti prijevod željke somun), svaka misao dobro promišljena i izvagana, svaka rečenica kružnica je za sebe - jasno je to od samog početka. sukladno tome, očekivala sam priču iz nekih drugih vremena, ali -makar počinje s prethistorijskom crticom za koju ti, kroz knjigu, nije posve jasno kako se uklapa, ne brini, na posljednjim stranicama bit će razriješeno- snašla me suvremena priča o raspadu dvije generacije obitelji i posljedicama mentalne nebrige za sebe.
"predvodnik se zaustavi, podigne lice prema nebu, crna točka njegove zjenice načas se poravna s bijelom kružnicom Sunca, nebesko tijelo ošine mu retinu pa to biće što od iskona gmiže blatom odvrati pogled i svrne ga prema dolini u koju se zaputio sa svojima: to je pustopoljina šibana vjetrom, s niskim raslinjem, s gdjekojim kržljavim grmom; sumoran predio nad kojim u negativu lebdi slika dnevne zvijezde, crnog Mjeseca nalegla na obzor."
najež...
December 1, 2024
Hayvan Hükümranlığı romanını okuduğum Del Amo'nun dilimize çevrilen ikinci romanında baba ve oğul arasındaki o gergin ilişkiye bakıyoruz. Yazar insanoğlunun hayvani, şiddete eğilimli, hırslı ve sağlıksız yönleriyle epey ilgili. Hayvan Hükümranlığı'nı okurken psikolojik olarak çok zorlanmıştım, bu kitap da keyifle okunan bir kitap değil onu söyleyerek başlayabilirim. Yıllardır -Shakespeare de sağ olsun- edebiyata ve sinemaya konu olan sağlıksız baba-oğul ilişkisi burada da karşımıza çıkıyor. İsimleri olmayan yalnızca anne, baba ve çocuk olarak bahsedilen karakterlerimiz etrafında gelişen olayları izliyoruz. Kitabın ikinci yarısı diyebileceğim son 100 sayfası oldukça sinir bozucu. Del Amo yarattığı karakterle asla empati yapmanıza izin vermiyor. İlk romanında da kimseyle bağ kuramamıştım. Keza bu romanda da aynı şey oldu. Belki biraz anne karakteriyle o da biraz...
Özetlemek gerekirse sizi rahatsız eden, geren okumalar yapmak istemediğiniz bir dönemdeyseniz başka bir zamana saklamanızı öneririm. Del Amo'nun sert ve tavizsiz edebiyatını sevenler için ise tanıdık sular diyebilirim. Son olarak doğa tasvirlerini en iyi yapan yazarlardan biri kesinlikle.
Özetlemek gerekirse sizi rahatsız eden, geren okumalar yapmak istemediğiniz bir dönemdeyseniz başka bir zamana saklamanızı öneririm. Del Amo'nun sert ve tavizsiz edebiyatını sevenler için ise tanıdık sular diyebilirim. Son olarak doğa tasvirlerini en iyi yapan yazarlardan biri kesinlikle.
February 22, 2025
She said "As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think"
& how I want to shout this to all men who consider gender based violence as part of their lifestyle, a right they are born with
A father when revisits his wife & child after spending years in prison, is overwhelmed by the loss of power & status after his return
To reclaim that power he drives the family to an isolated survival house 'Les Roches'. This house which was built by father's father to find solace in midst of personal losses
The story begins from father's quest to regain that status & further showcases where it leads him, his wife, his son & an unborn child
The story travels into the past & present, where once the father was the son & now when he has a son
A potent story which firmly wraps the theme & the story to lead to a penultimate climax
Questions being raised are
Are we really the mirror images of our parents
Do we unwillingly transform into the dark shadows which our parents sought to achieve & we had tried to escape from
"Of these moments, he will retain the memory of an epiphany, of being struck by the true nature of things, which no language, no words can communicate; but what lingers will be little more than the trace of a dream"
Highly cinematic in its vision, the book showcases creative tactics by introducing the theme through an early age hunting scene in its Epigraph. Leaving it on audience to deduce how the dots connect
"The forest, hostile and barren only the day before, adorns itself with vaporous whorls, dappled shadows that make it seem less fearsome. Over the grasslands, flowers in their myriad variation open their petals; foraging insects feverishly buzz from bloom to bloom, drunk on nectar"
Much like author's 1st translated work 𝘈𝘯𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘢, The Son of Man is untamed, fierce, brusque in its approach. While Animalia traversed generations of a peasant family to depict hardships faced by those forced to participate in war, The Son of Man is more focused in its approach
Translation by 'Frank Wyne' is so powerful that at no point it feels like one
Read it coz mere words can't articulate the blueprint of this fantastic literary piece
& how I want to shout this to all men who consider gender based violence as part of their lifestyle, a right they are born with
A father when revisits his wife & child after spending years in prison, is overwhelmed by the loss of power & status after his return
To reclaim that power he drives the family to an isolated survival house 'Les Roches'. This house which was built by father's father to find solace in midst of personal losses
The story begins from father's quest to regain that status & further showcases where it leads him, his wife, his son & an unborn child
The story travels into the past & present, where once the father was the son & now when he has a son
A potent story which firmly wraps the theme & the story to lead to a penultimate climax
Questions being raised are
Are we really the mirror images of our parents
Do we unwillingly transform into the dark shadows which our parents sought to achieve & we had tried to escape from
"Of these moments, he will retain the memory of an epiphany, of being struck by the true nature of things, which no language, no words can communicate; but what lingers will be little more than the trace of a dream"
Highly cinematic in its vision, the book showcases creative tactics by introducing the theme through an early age hunting scene in its Epigraph. Leaving it on audience to deduce how the dots connect
"The forest, hostile and barren only the day before, adorns itself with vaporous whorls, dappled shadows that make it seem less fearsome. Over the grasslands, flowers in their myriad variation open their petals; foraging insects feverishly buzz from bloom to bloom, drunk on nectar"
Much like author's 1st translated work 𝘈𝘯𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘢, The Son of Man is untamed, fierce, brusque in its approach. While Animalia traversed generations of a peasant family to depict hardships faced by those forced to participate in war, The Son of Man is more focused in its approach
Translation by 'Frank Wyne' is so powerful that at no point it feels like one
Read it coz mere words can't articulate the blueprint of this fantastic literary piece
December 16, 2024
Wow. Thank god I picked this back up. The central premise here is a man returning after seven years away and taking the mother of his child and his 9 year old son away to the derelict mountain cabin half erected by his own father. It’s clear that something is off from the start.
Del Amo sets the mood for the book by opening with an elongated scene that follows a tribe of hunter-gatherers and a man who helps his son take down his first deer. This is what I struggled to get into at first and why I put the book down for months, but now I see it as an excellent foreshadowing and introduction to the animalistic, the primal aura, that surrounds this story.
When the publisher described this as cinematic, they meant it. The details Del Amo gives, scene by scene, make the setting and story come to life. Using just words, he awakens the reader’s senses, making it easy not just to picture this ramshackle hideaway that the unnamed father has stolen his family away to, but to smell the detritus rotting on the paths, and to hear the sound of the birds as they are spooked out of their perch in the shrubs. The nature writing alone is something else.
At the heart of it, this story is about our lack of free will, of the destinies that are shaped for us without our consent, of the ways in which we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of our parents, and their parents. It’s a reminder that the cycle of violence isn’t so easily broken.
Del Amo sets the mood for the book by opening with an elongated scene that follows a tribe of hunter-gatherers and a man who helps his son take down his first deer. This is what I struggled to get into at first and why I put the book down for months, but now I see it as an excellent foreshadowing and introduction to the animalistic, the primal aura, that surrounds this story.
When the publisher described this as cinematic, they meant it. The details Del Amo gives, scene by scene, make the setting and story come to life. Using just words, he awakens the reader’s senses, making it easy not just to picture this ramshackle hideaway that the unnamed father has stolen his family away to, but to smell the detritus rotting on the paths, and to hear the sound of the birds as they are spooked out of their perch in the shrubs. The nature writing alone is something else.
At the heart of it, this story is about our lack of free will, of the destinies that are shaped for us without our consent, of the ways in which we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of our parents, and their parents. It’s a reminder that the cycle of violence isn’t so easily broken.
June 12, 2024
Frank Wynne’s translation of Jean-Baptiste Del Amo is brilliant. For some unfathomable reason Fitzcarraldo Editions stubbornly refuses to list the translator on the front cover with the author so I will give Mr Wynne top billing here.
Having only read Wynne’s translations of Del Amo I can only guess that Del Amo is one of the best living writers, or perhaps Frank Wynne makes Del Amo better, but I’ll give Del Amo equal credit.
For most of this novel not a lot happens; the father, newly returned to his wife and nine year old son, hoping to recreate a family bond, takes them to his isolated, crumbling home in the mountains, the home where the father lived as a child with his own father who lost his mind to grief and pain. The mother, familiar with the father’s seething undercurrent of rage, is unsure of spending the summer so isolated, but both fear of his anger and hopes for a successful reunion agrees to his plans, and the father shows himself to be solicitous and caring towards his wife and son.
The boy, curious about his father is eager to please him and the father takes a genuine interest in his son. Yet, still, a sense of unease grows. How Del Amo uses what might be foreshadowing to create this tension without any acts of violence or even threats is one of the impressive aspects of this novel.
The father throws himself fully into restoring the house and growing a garden, it’s in his absolute refusal to be defeated by the rocks, mud, and hard dirt that we, and the boy, begin to see the father unraveling.
This is an exploration of generational violence and male anger so the story builds to a climax which made the last quarter of the book hard to put down.
Del Amo/Wynne write beautiful sentences and descriptions of nature without using flowery adjectives or sappy metaphor. He is an intense, powerful writer and I recommend this book. Then I recommend reading the, in my opinion, even better Animalia. Both books will stay with you.
Having only read Wynne’s translations of Del Amo I can only guess that Del Amo is one of the best living writers, or perhaps Frank Wynne makes Del Amo better, but I’ll give Del Amo equal credit.
For most of this novel not a lot happens; the father, newly returned to his wife and nine year old son, hoping to recreate a family bond, takes them to his isolated, crumbling home in the mountains, the home where the father lived as a child with his own father who lost his mind to grief and pain. The mother, familiar with the father’s seething undercurrent of rage, is unsure of spending the summer so isolated, but both fear of his anger and hopes for a successful reunion agrees to his plans, and the father shows himself to be solicitous and caring towards his wife and son.
The boy, curious about his father is eager to please him and the father takes a genuine interest in his son. Yet, still, a sense of unease grows. How Del Amo uses what might be foreshadowing to create this tension without any acts of violence or even threats is one of the impressive aspects of this novel.
The father throws himself fully into restoring the house and growing a garden, it’s in his absolute refusal to be defeated by the rocks, mud, and hard dirt that we, and the boy, begin to see the father unraveling.
This is an exploration of generational violence and male anger so the story builds to a climax which made the last quarter of the book hard to put down.
Del Amo/Wynne write beautiful sentences and descriptions of nature without using flowery adjectives or sappy metaphor. He is an intense, powerful writer and I recommend this book. Then I recommend reading the, in my opinion, even better Animalia. Both books will stay with you.
December 18, 2025
First and foremost, before the power of the story, before the characterization, there are the beauty of the prose and of the narration and the stunning descriptions of Nature. These are all features unto themselves in this novel.
The epigraph and the preamble set the tone for the story. The novel opens with an epigraph taken from Seneca: “And the Fathers’ rage will live again in the sons in each generation,” and the 20 page preamble follows what appears to be a Neanderthal family group in its endless cycle of seasonal wandering as they search for food.
The characters we are following are the old man, who was once the leader of the group, the father who is its present leader and the child who is now old enough to be taught to hunt, and who will also one day lead the group. The hunters as well as their prey are completely at one with nature as it is beautifully described. The women remain on the edges of the story as they grieve for their dead children left behind on the trail.
The Son of Man is the story of a seemingly inevitable inheritance of grief, violence and death that comes down from father to son. The three main characters are simply referred to as the mother, the father and the son. The father who returns after a long and unexplained absence practically forces the mother and the son to retreat with him from the city to a cabin in the mountains built by the grandfather. It is there, in the cold and claustrophobic atmosphere of that ruined cabin in the mountains that their individual stories will play out.
As were the Neanderthals of the preamble, so the father and son are almost naturally absorbed into their surroundings while the mother remains detached, a caged bird aware of the imminent danger as the tension continuously mounts taking us to the climatic ending.
The prose, the narrative technique, the wondrous descriptions of nature and the tense build up are exceptionally well rendered.
The epigraph and the preamble set the tone for the story. The novel opens with an epigraph taken from Seneca: “And the Fathers’ rage will live again in the sons in each generation,” and the 20 page preamble follows what appears to be a Neanderthal family group in its endless cycle of seasonal wandering as they search for food.
The characters we are following are the old man, who was once the leader of the group, the father who is its present leader and the child who is now old enough to be taught to hunt, and who will also one day lead the group. The hunters as well as their prey are completely at one with nature as it is beautifully described. The women remain on the edges of the story as they grieve for their dead children left behind on the trail.
The Son of Man is the story of a seemingly inevitable inheritance of grief, violence and death that comes down from father to son. The three main characters are simply referred to as the mother, the father and the son. The father who returns after a long and unexplained absence practically forces the mother and the son to retreat with him from the city to a cabin in the mountains built by the grandfather. It is there, in the cold and claustrophobic atmosphere of that ruined cabin in the mountains that their individual stories will play out.
As were the Neanderthals of the preamble, so the father and son are almost naturally absorbed into their surroundings while the mother remains detached, a caged bird aware of the imminent danger as the tension continuously mounts taking us to the climatic ending.
The prose, the narrative technique, the wondrous descriptions of nature and the tense build up are exceptionally well rendered.
November 16, 2024
"Fiul omului" este un roman cu o atmosferă tensionată și apăsătoare, care explorează teme dure și profunde precum: moștenirea traumelor și a violenței de la o generație la alta, relația omului cu natura sălbatică, dezumanizarea și chiar alienarea.
Povestea ne prezintă, la început, o familie disfuncțională formată din mamă și fiu, aflat la vârsta școlară. După mulți ani de absență voită, tatăl își face apariția în viața celor doi ca și cum nimic nu s-ar fi întâmplat și hotărăște să-i ducă la Roches, o casă veche și izolată aflată în munți, unde el însuși crescuse alături de un tată violent și abuziv. Bântuit de fantomele propriului trecut, de traumele nerezolvate, cât și de gelozie, bărbatul ajunge să le dicteze viețile după reguli stricte și să le refuze întoarcerea la civilizație, deși condițiile le pot pune în pericol viețile. Ușor, ușor, ajunge să cadă în alienare, iar lucrurile iau o turnură cu totul neașteptată ...
Nu ne sunt date nume, însă personajul principal al romanului este chiar fiul, din perspectiva căruia ne și este prezentată povestea: la Roches și înainte de venirea la Roches. Fiul este prins la mijloc între teama pe care o simte față de tatăl abuziv și iubirea față de mama submisivă. Totodată, relația sa cu natura sălbatică înconjurătoare îl va ajuta în dezvoltarea lui emoțională și în descoperirea identității.
O carte care mi-a oferit o adevărată experiență și pe care o recomand cu drag mai departe!
Povestea ne prezintă, la început, o familie disfuncțională formată din mamă și fiu, aflat la vârsta școlară. După mulți ani de absență voită, tatăl își face apariția în viața celor doi ca și cum nimic nu s-ar fi întâmplat și hotărăște să-i ducă la Roches, o casă veche și izolată aflată în munți, unde el însuși crescuse alături de un tată violent și abuziv. Bântuit de fantomele propriului trecut, de traumele nerezolvate, cât și de gelozie, bărbatul ajunge să le dicteze viețile după reguli stricte și să le refuze întoarcerea la civilizație, deși condițiile le pot pune în pericol viețile. Ușor, ușor, ajunge să cadă în alienare, iar lucrurile iau o turnură cu totul neașteptată ...
Nu ne sunt date nume, însă personajul principal al romanului este chiar fiul, din perspectiva căruia ne și este prezentată povestea: la Roches și înainte de venirea la Roches. Fiul este prins la mijloc între teama pe care o simte față de tatăl abuziv și iubirea față de mama submisivă. Totodată, relația sa cu natura sălbatică înconjurătoare îl va ajuta în dezvoltarea lui emoțională și în descoperirea identității.
O carte care mi-a oferit o adevărată experiență și pe care o recomand cu drag mai departe!
September 8, 2022
Del Amo es otro de esos nombres que pueblan desde hace mucho tiempo mi pila de pendientes, de hecho hace años que tengo por casa Una educación libertina, de modo que, cuando me topé con este libro en la mesa de novedades, me llamó mucho la atención pero el ánimo pronto se desinfló cuando comprobé que la prosa sonaba muy raquítica, toda escrita en tiempo presente y describiendo acciones, lo que se dice la prosa cinematográfica. Y sin embargo, la curiosidad persistió agazapada en un rincón.
Hace una semana decidí tomarlo de la biblioteca porque tenía un viaje en tren de por medio y preferiría un libro que pudiera ir interrumpiendo si hacía falta, algo que no exigiera toda mi atención. Ya en las primeras páginas me vi sorprendido por lo que en realidad es una escritura elegante y discreta, una prosa que fluye como riachuelo primaveral, en la que Del Amo recurre a una gran riqueza de vocabulario y que engarza con cuidado, buscando antes dejar regusto y que las palabras resuenen tras leerlas que no los gestos ostentosos y rimbombantes. No ha habido página en la que no se iluminara una luz en mi cabeza tras leer la aparición inesperada de un sustantivo o un verbo.
La historia se centra en la llegada de un hijo y su madre a una montaña en algún punto de Francia, posiblemente cerca de los Pirineos, dónde el hijo ha de reencontrarse con el padre, que se nos presenta como un hombre jocoso y dominante a ratos e intimidante la mayoría del tiempo. Aislados en una casa solitaria en las montañas, este encuentro adquiere resonancias míticas, incluso trágicas, que se van desplegando con sutilidad y muy gradualmente, haciendo que Del Amo demuestre un gran dominio de la narración y también un gusto espléndido para seleccionar los detalles a través de los que la narración avanzará, como si se tratara de un pintor impresionista.
A veces me sorprende las conexiones accidentales que surgen entre mis sucesivas lecturas. Escuadrón guillotina situa su acción en 1916, luego leí El vagabundo de las estrellas que fue publicada en 1915 y tiene un segmento final dónde London busca crear unos pasajes elegíacos narrando las vidas pasadas de su narrador cuando fue cavernícola. El hijo del hombre se inicia con una introducción alegórica, con una narración que aborda una partida de caza de un padre y un hijo en tiempos prehistóricos y que sirve al autor para buscar la dimensión universal de esta historia íntima y particular de sus personajes.
Así, la narración se teje de forma muy atmosférica, el clima crece en agobio conforme la narración avanza y las resonancias trágicas adquieren más fuerza a medida que se desvelan ciertas noticias desagradables para el padre y la historia se complica.
Jean Baptiste del Amo es solamente unos meses más joven que yo y sin embargo escribe como un maestro, con gran madurez, sabiduría y justicia, demostrando un gran control sobre el texto pero sin golpes de autoridad, siempre atento a los detalles y tejiendo una lengua que vibra a baja intensidad, con una serie de gestos que recuerdan al Cormac McCarthy tardío. Me refiero a esa aproximación a la violencia a través de personajes corrientes, presentar unas creaciones sin nombre propio para reforzar el sustrato alegórico de sus personajes, la inmersión simultánea tanto en el lado más brutal de la naturaleza como en el más sensual, también en primar lo sobrio por encima de lo magnífico y otra serie de características que vale la pena descubrir con su lectura.
Me ha sorprendido muy gratamente y me ha demostrado que las primeras impresiones no siempre son acertadas, así que muy posiblemente pronto saldaré esas lecturas pendientes de Jean-Baptiste del Amo que aguardan en mis anaqueles.
Hace una semana decidí tomarlo de la biblioteca porque tenía un viaje en tren de por medio y preferiría un libro que pudiera ir interrumpiendo si hacía falta, algo que no exigiera toda mi atención. Ya en las primeras páginas me vi sorprendido por lo que en realidad es una escritura elegante y discreta, una prosa que fluye como riachuelo primaveral, en la que Del Amo recurre a una gran riqueza de vocabulario y que engarza con cuidado, buscando antes dejar regusto y que las palabras resuenen tras leerlas que no los gestos ostentosos y rimbombantes. No ha habido página en la que no se iluminara una luz en mi cabeza tras leer la aparición inesperada de un sustantivo o un verbo.
La historia se centra en la llegada de un hijo y su madre a una montaña en algún punto de Francia, posiblemente cerca de los Pirineos, dónde el hijo ha de reencontrarse con el padre, que se nos presenta como un hombre jocoso y dominante a ratos e intimidante la mayoría del tiempo. Aislados en una casa solitaria en las montañas, este encuentro adquiere resonancias míticas, incluso trágicas, que se van desplegando con sutilidad y muy gradualmente, haciendo que Del Amo demuestre un gran dominio de la narración y también un gusto espléndido para seleccionar los detalles a través de los que la narración avanzará, como si se tratara de un pintor impresionista.
A veces me sorprende las conexiones accidentales que surgen entre mis sucesivas lecturas. Escuadrón guillotina situa su acción en 1916, luego leí El vagabundo de las estrellas que fue publicada en 1915 y tiene un segmento final dónde London busca crear unos pasajes elegíacos narrando las vidas pasadas de su narrador cuando fue cavernícola. El hijo del hombre se inicia con una introducción alegórica, con una narración que aborda una partida de caza de un padre y un hijo en tiempos prehistóricos y que sirve al autor para buscar la dimensión universal de esta historia íntima y particular de sus personajes.
Así, la narración se teje de forma muy atmosférica, el clima crece en agobio conforme la narración avanza y las resonancias trágicas adquieren más fuerza a medida que se desvelan ciertas noticias desagradables para el padre y la historia se complica.
Jean Baptiste del Amo es solamente unos meses más joven que yo y sin embargo escribe como un maestro, con gran madurez, sabiduría y justicia, demostrando un gran control sobre el texto pero sin golpes de autoridad, siempre atento a los detalles y tejiendo una lengua que vibra a baja intensidad, con una serie de gestos que recuerdan al Cormac McCarthy tardío. Me refiero a esa aproximación a la violencia a través de personajes corrientes, presentar unas creaciones sin nombre propio para reforzar el sustrato alegórico de sus personajes, la inmersión simultánea tanto en el lado más brutal de la naturaleza como en el más sensual, también en primar lo sobrio por encima de lo magnífico y otra serie de características que vale la pena descubrir con su lectura.
Me ha sorprendido muy gratamente y me ha demostrado que las primeras impresiones no siempre son acertadas, así que muy posiblemente pronto saldaré esas lecturas pendientes de Jean-Baptiste del Amo que aguardan en mis anaqueles.
October 30, 2021
Coup de coeur absolu
Je n'ai pas lu ce livre, j'ai écouté Mathurin Voltz qui le lisait, une nouvelle expérience bien agréable le temps de faire la route vers Nancy pour "Le livre sur la place".
Un prologue surprenant nous immerge au temps des chasseurs-cueilleurs. C'est la vie qui se perpétue en pleine nature avec ses joies et ses dangers. Un cycle complet : l'accouplement, l'accouchement, l'arrivée de bébés vivants ou non, l'apprentissage de la survie, la chasse, la pêche, manger, mourir.
Ensuite réapparaît le père, il arrive dans la cour de l'école auprès de l'enfant âgé de 9 ans, cela faisait six ans qu'il avait disparu mystérieusement. On sent la violence dans les attitudes, les regards lorsque la mère les découvre à son tour.
Trois personnages innommés, utilisés à la troisième personne, démontrant déjà la froideur de cette 'famille'.
L'écriture de Jean-Baptiste Del Amo est sublime, un style virtuose, des phrases longues, descriptives, immersives qui nous font non pas imaginer mais voir les scènes, les ressentir, les vivre presque avec intensité.
Je voyais la ville, ce quartier ouvrier rural mais je voyais aussi le chemin du voyage entrepris vers la montagne et le hameau des Roches où se dresse un semblant de maison en ruines. C'est là que le père emmène tout le monde pour un séjour au départ estival mais qui risque bien d'être plus long que prévu.
C'est l'héritage du père, la maison de son enfance, où il a vécu. Il veut la reconstruire et retrouver l'unité d'une famille.
La nature d'abord hostile pour l'enfant, magnifiquement décrite deviendra pour lui une alliée.
La plume est splendide, le vocabulaire riche et précis, accessible d'un grand réalisme. Ce texte est âpre, sombre, tragique. Il parle de la transmission des violences humaines, de la souffrance, de la domination des femmes par l'homme, de l'emprise. Il met en exergue la confrontation de la violence du monde adulte et de l'enfance.
Ce récit alterne entre passé et présent pour comprendre l'origine de la violence qui anime le père. L'intensité de l'écriture secoue, dérange, enchante. Ce récit c'est aussi l'amour et la cruauté, la beauté et la noirceur, l'opposition entre la nature et la ville, la complexité de l'être humain, la jalousie qui mène à la folie.
La lecture de Mathurin Voltz est parfaite, sa voix est posée, le ton est juste, c'est captivant.
Immense coup de coeur de cette rentrée littéraire ♥
https://nathavh49.blogspot.com/2021/1...
Je n'ai pas lu ce livre, j'ai écouté Mathurin Voltz qui le lisait, une nouvelle expérience bien agréable le temps de faire la route vers Nancy pour "Le livre sur la place".
Un prologue surprenant nous immerge au temps des chasseurs-cueilleurs. C'est la vie qui se perpétue en pleine nature avec ses joies et ses dangers. Un cycle complet : l'accouplement, l'accouchement, l'arrivée de bébés vivants ou non, l'apprentissage de la survie, la chasse, la pêche, manger, mourir.
Ensuite réapparaît le père, il arrive dans la cour de l'école auprès de l'enfant âgé de 9 ans, cela faisait six ans qu'il avait disparu mystérieusement. On sent la violence dans les attitudes, les regards lorsque la mère les découvre à son tour.
Trois personnages innommés, utilisés à la troisième personne, démontrant déjà la froideur de cette 'famille'.
L'écriture de Jean-Baptiste Del Amo est sublime, un style virtuose, des phrases longues, descriptives, immersives qui nous font non pas imaginer mais voir les scènes, les ressentir, les vivre presque avec intensité.
Je voyais la ville, ce quartier ouvrier rural mais je voyais aussi le chemin du voyage entrepris vers la montagne et le hameau des Roches où se dresse un semblant de maison en ruines. C'est là que le père emmène tout le monde pour un séjour au départ estival mais qui risque bien d'être plus long que prévu.
C'est l'héritage du père, la maison de son enfance, où il a vécu. Il veut la reconstruire et retrouver l'unité d'une famille.
La nature d'abord hostile pour l'enfant, magnifiquement décrite deviendra pour lui une alliée.
La plume est splendide, le vocabulaire riche et précis, accessible d'un grand réalisme. Ce texte est âpre, sombre, tragique. Il parle de la transmission des violences humaines, de la souffrance, de la domination des femmes par l'homme, de l'emprise. Il met en exergue la confrontation de la violence du monde adulte et de l'enfance.
Ce récit alterne entre passé et présent pour comprendre l'origine de la violence qui anime le père. L'intensité de l'écriture secoue, dérange, enchante. Ce récit c'est aussi l'amour et la cruauté, la beauté et la noirceur, l'opposition entre la nature et la ville, la complexité de l'être humain, la jalousie qui mène à la folie.
La lecture de Mathurin Voltz est parfaite, sa voix est posée, le ton est juste, c'est captivant.
Immense coup de coeur de cette rentrée littéraire ♥
https://nathavh49.blogspot.com/2021/1...
April 12, 2024
His first book was an absolute banger but for some reason this one just didn’t hit the same, and I don’t know why. It’s a lot shorter and has a lot less characters so think there just wasn’t enough to get my teeth into. There was definitely drama in this book similar to his last one but the drama seemed to be reserved until the very end and it was almost as soon as I got settled into the story it was over.
Del Amo is great at creating atmosphere in his work though and there is a real sense of dread through this entire work which keeps you reading. There is no point in this story where you feel safe and you are always waiting for more things to go wrong. He is a real master storyteller and also a master at focusing on what appears to be banal relationships and places but which have a very sinister feeling at their core. Will definitely be reading more of his work when it comes out in English.
Del Amo is great at creating atmosphere in his work though and there is a real sense of dread through this entire work which keeps you reading. There is no point in this story where you feel safe and you are always waiting for more things to go wrong. He is a real master storyteller and also a master at focusing on what appears to be banal relationships and places but which have a very sinister feeling at their core. Will definitely be reading more of his work when it comes out in English.
May 7, 2024
'The Son Of Man' by Jean-Baptiste Del Amo, beautifully translated by Frank Wynne, is my first ever ARC (from NetGalley, published by Fitzcarraldo Editions), which I am truly grateful for and was clearly extremely excited to read.
My excitement soon turned to great pleasure of indulging in meticulously crafted prose - a story of a nameless family, the mother, the son and the father, who has been absent for six years of a nine year old's life and suddenly reappeared, determined to win them back. Questions start to rise together with the feeling of unease, the suspense, as they meet again, leave the town, travel to a remote mountain to live in an unfinished house among nettles and tall pines, Les Roches. The story, told from perspectives of all three, paces slowly, until unfolds, plentiful of astounding descriptions by someone who loves to observe and sees, and depicts every detail with such accuracy and beauty the novel becomes better than a movie: you see it too, you sense it, you smell it, you feel - from the drone views of the surroundings to an eye of an animal, to a dream of a child.
The beginning in prehistoric times, a seemingly unrelated chapter, depicts the same themes found throughout the story, which takes you back and forth in time, from the new place to the old one, before and after, here and there. A rather simple plot with masterful use of language makes you reflect and think deeply about the cycle of life, love, temporariness, brutality, insignificance, generations and generational traumas, loss, relationships of men and sons and women, life in the world and in nature, which almost becomes a separate character itself - all intertwined.
In a great work of literary fiction I look for means of expression, the same things discussed and talked about a myriad times told in a different way. And all of it is found in abundance in this brilliant read.
My excitement soon turned to great pleasure of indulging in meticulously crafted prose - a story of a nameless family, the mother, the son and the father, who has been absent for six years of a nine year old's life and suddenly reappeared, determined to win them back. Questions start to rise together with the feeling of unease, the suspense, as they meet again, leave the town, travel to a remote mountain to live in an unfinished house among nettles and tall pines, Les Roches. The story, told from perspectives of all three, paces slowly, until unfolds, plentiful of astounding descriptions by someone who loves to observe and sees, and depicts every detail with such accuracy and beauty the novel becomes better than a movie: you see it too, you sense it, you smell it, you feel - from the drone views of the surroundings to an eye of an animal, to a dream of a child.
The beginning in prehistoric times, a seemingly unrelated chapter, depicts the same themes found throughout the story, which takes you back and forth in time, from the new place to the old one, before and after, here and there. A rather simple plot with masterful use of language makes you reflect and think deeply about the cycle of life, love, temporariness, brutality, insignificance, generations and generational traumas, loss, relationships of men and sons and women, life in the world and in nature, which almost becomes a separate character itself - all intertwined.
In a great work of literary fiction I look for means of expression, the same things discussed and talked about a myriad times told in a different way. And all of it is found in abundance in this brilliant read.
June 6, 2022
Een soms erg hard boek over kwetsuren in het leven van iemand, wat die teweeg brengen bij die persoon zelf en bij de mensen die dicht bij hem staan, en hoe die mensen op hun beurt kwetsuren oplopen en anderen hiervan het slachtoffer maken.
In dit verhaal gaat het om een vader die zijn vrouw verliest en alleen achter blijft met zijn jonge zoon, later een ernstig arbeidsongeval krijgt waardoor hij zijn werk verliest, en die al de littekens die deze verliezen hem bezorgen, uitwerkt op zijn zoon. Op zijn beurt doet deze zoon dat ook met zijn eigen zoon.
De meeste vreselijke dingen die mensen doen hebben ergens een oorzaak in het verleden: slecht geheelde (innerlijke) wonden, niet verwerkte trauma's. Dat praat de vreselijke dingen niet goed maar je kan wel begrijpen waar het vandaan komt.
Een verhaal dat me heel erg heeft aangegrepen temeer dat ik het einde las midden in een slapeloze en stormachtige nacht.
Soms vond ik de natuurbeschrijvingen wat te lang maar dat was voor mij het enige minpunt aan deze korte roman.
In dit verhaal gaat het om een vader die zijn vrouw verliest en alleen achter blijft met zijn jonge zoon, later een ernstig arbeidsongeval krijgt waardoor hij zijn werk verliest, en die al de littekens die deze verliezen hem bezorgen, uitwerkt op zijn zoon. Op zijn beurt doet deze zoon dat ook met zijn eigen zoon.
De meeste vreselijke dingen die mensen doen hebben ergens een oorzaak in het verleden: slecht geheelde (innerlijke) wonden, niet verwerkte trauma's. Dat praat de vreselijke dingen niet goed maar je kan wel begrijpen waar het vandaan komt.
Een verhaal dat me heel erg heeft aangegrepen temeer dat ik het einde las midden in een slapeloze en stormachtige nacht.
Soms vond ik de natuurbeschrijvingen wat te lang maar dat was voor mij het enige minpunt aan deze korte roman.
June 12, 2025
Hayvan Hükümranlığı'nda Del Amo,kuşaktan kuşağa aktarılan şiddeti, hayvanlara yapılanları domuz çiftliğinde yaşayan bir ailenin tarihi üzerinden anlatmıştı.
Adamın Oğlu'nda da babadan oğula aktarılan eril tahakkümü,şiddetin daha görünmez yönlerini bir ailenin hikayesi üzerinden anlatıyor. kısaca oğluyla yalnız yaşayan bir anne, yıllar sonra çıka gelen eşinin isteği üzerine onunla bir dağ evinde yaşamayı kabul eder yeni bir başlangıç umuduyla.. ama bu başlangıç belki de bilinen bir sonun başlangıcı olacaktır kimbilir?
Adamın Oğlu'nda da babadan oğula aktarılan eril tahakkümü,şiddetin daha görünmez yönlerini bir ailenin hikayesi üzerinden anlatıyor. kısaca oğluyla yalnız yaşayan bir anne, yıllar sonra çıka gelen eşinin isteği üzerine onunla bir dağ evinde yaşamayı kabul eder yeni bir başlangıç umuduyla.. ama bu başlangıç belki de bilinen bir sonun başlangıcı olacaktır kimbilir?
April 16, 2024
“Love is a disease, a virus that infects the hearts of men, a heart that is already sick, already rotting, already corrupted, eaten away by gangrene since time immemorial, whose depths it would be futile to try to fathom. Im telling you this now for the sake of the man you’ll become one day: never fall in love, no good can come of it”
.
It’s no secret on here that Jean-Baptiste Del Amo’s first novel to be translated from the French into English, Animalia, was one of my favorite modern novels of recent years, so it goes without saying that his sophomore English effort The Son Of Man is equally as raw, abrasive, and brilliant. Following similar themes of man vs nature and the more ominous man vs himself, Del Amo once again dazzles with his rich language and beautiful display of imagery to navigate the complexities of familial relationships, most importantly the savage tensions between fathers and sons. A poignant meditation on the human connection with the natural world. As a writer I will reiterate my feelings that Del Amo is a French equivalent of a Cormac McCarthy and William Faulkner, the way he can write such abrasive material in such a gorgeous tone, one that is hard to witness but at the same time you can’t look away
.
The first fifteen pages cut like a knife seemingly taking us back to prehistoric times with the relationship of wandering humans careening through the woods hunting and gathering and initiating the family unit throughout time, the beginnings of primordial man, displaying the pressures on a son placed upon him by his father, an exquisite opener that will wet the appetite of any reader. The remainder of the novel careens back and forth between present day where a father, mother and son ( they are never named more than that) are returning to the fathers old family cottage deep in rural France, isolated from most of humanity, and alternately with the day the father returns to the mother and sons lives after a lengthy absence.
.
Let me tell you that nothing I can say will prepare you for the tension rising beauty that Del Amo uses to paint his words like a work of art on a canvas. The brutality that happens in such muted episodes is astounding, there are specific passages that stand out as pulse racing and life altering. We get the pleasure of the father recalling a story of his father and a rifle from when he was just a boy himself, small glimpses into the toxic masculinity that is passed down from each generation. The boy just following in the footsteps as he watches his estranged father slowly derail in the middle of nowhere. A heartbreaking scene with the mother and a new baby which is not for the faint as it will test the fortitude of your mind and body, all leading to a conclusion that is so effortless but fantastically trance like, it has wrapped my brain for a full week and I still can’t stop thinking about it. Jean-Baptiste Del Amo is one of the few who give me hope for the future of modern literature, a master of language, words, and storytelling, this novel is unnerving, unwavering, unbelievable
.
It’s no secret on here that Jean-Baptiste Del Amo’s first novel to be translated from the French into English, Animalia, was one of my favorite modern novels of recent years, so it goes without saying that his sophomore English effort The Son Of Man is equally as raw, abrasive, and brilliant. Following similar themes of man vs nature and the more ominous man vs himself, Del Amo once again dazzles with his rich language and beautiful display of imagery to navigate the complexities of familial relationships, most importantly the savage tensions between fathers and sons. A poignant meditation on the human connection with the natural world. As a writer I will reiterate my feelings that Del Amo is a French equivalent of a Cormac McCarthy and William Faulkner, the way he can write such abrasive material in such a gorgeous tone, one that is hard to witness but at the same time you can’t look away
.
The first fifteen pages cut like a knife seemingly taking us back to prehistoric times with the relationship of wandering humans careening through the woods hunting and gathering and initiating the family unit throughout time, the beginnings of primordial man, displaying the pressures on a son placed upon him by his father, an exquisite opener that will wet the appetite of any reader. The remainder of the novel careens back and forth between present day where a father, mother and son ( they are never named more than that) are returning to the fathers old family cottage deep in rural France, isolated from most of humanity, and alternately with the day the father returns to the mother and sons lives after a lengthy absence.
.
Let me tell you that nothing I can say will prepare you for the tension rising beauty that Del Amo uses to paint his words like a work of art on a canvas. The brutality that happens in such muted episodes is astounding, there are specific passages that stand out as pulse racing and life altering. We get the pleasure of the father recalling a story of his father and a rifle from when he was just a boy himself, small glimpses into the toxic masculinity that is passed down from each generation. The boy just following in the footsteps as he watches his estranged father slowly derail in the middle of nowhere. A heartbreaking scene with the mother and a new baby which is not for the faint as it will test the fortitude of your mind and body, all leading to a conclusion that is so effortless but fantastically trance like, it has wrapped my brain for a full week and I still can’t stop thinking about it. Jean-Baptiste Del Amo is one of the few who give me hope for the future of modern literature, a master of language, words, and storytelling, this novel is unnerving, unwavering, unbelievable
Read
November 27, 2024my god 😖😩😞
August 26, 2024
A French family, father, mother and 9 year old son, are making their way to their father’s old house in the mountains of the Jura, but this is no holiday. We get a drip feed through flashbacks of the situation they are in and the image of a mountain cabin idyll soon disappears.
The mother is an alcoholic, addicted to painkillers and spends her time reading romance novels; she also turns out to be pregnant. The father has included a gun in his backpack, he is moody and behaves irrationally, reflecting on life with his own father. Maybe the mysterious Uncle Tony will arrive.
Much of this is seen through the eyes of the young son, to whom the motives of the adults are incomprehensible. This element of uncertainty, along with the gothic abandoned house, give the novel an eeriness, and a sense of dread.
Dealing with issues of domestic violence, and without moving into the territory of horror Del Amo generates a sense of tension from the best of that genre, and maintains it to a satisfying finale.
The mother is an alcoholic, addicted to painkillers and spends her time reading romance novels; she also turns out to be pregnant. The father has included a gun in his backpack, he is moody and behaves irrationally, reflecting on life with his own father. Maybe the mysterious Uncle Tony will arrive.
Much of this is seen through the eyes of the young son, to whom the motives of the adults are incomprehensible. This element of uncertainty, along with the gothic abandoned house, give the novel an eeriness, and a sense of dread.
Dealing with issues of domestic violence, and without moving into the territory of horror Del Amo generates a sense of tension from the best of that genre, and maintains it to a satisfying finale.
November 26, 2025
Love is a disease, a virus that infects the hearts of men, a heart that is already sick, already rotting, already corrupted, eaten away by gangrene since time immemorial, whose depths it would be futile to try to fathom.
Well, happy holidays to you too, Del Amo.
But he goes on:
I'm telling you this now for the sake of the man you'll be one day: never fall in love, no good can come of it.
Fair.
For humans, more than any other beast that roams this cursed earth, are born with this void inside, this dizzying void they desperately strive to fill throughout their brief, inconsequential, pitiful time in this world, paralyzed as they are by their own transience, their own absurdity, their own vanity, and by the preposterous notion planted in their heads that, in one of their fellow creatures, they might find the wherewithal to fill this void, this emptiness that preceded their existence.
:-(
Well, happy holidays to you too, Del Amo.
But he goes on:
I'm telling you this now for the sake of the man you'll be one day: never fall in love, no good can come of it.
Fair.
For humans, more than any other beast that roams this cursed earth, are born with this void inside, this dizzying void they desperately strive to fill throughout their brief, inconsequential, pitiful time in this world, paralyzed as they are by their own transience, their own absurdity, their own vanity, and by the preposterous notion planted in their heads that, in one of their fellow creatures, they might find the wherewithal to fill this void, this emptiness that preceded their existence.
:-(
February 20, 2025
Un romanzo che è essenzialmente un'analisi del rapporto padre-figlio e delle dinamiche che lo caratterizzano (dinamiche che sembrano rimaste sostanzialmente invariate nel corso del tempo); una riflessione su come la violenza finisca per generare violenza e crei un circolo vizioso da cui sembra quasi impossibile uscire.
Il tutto narrato attraverso una prosa estremamente ricca e dettagliata, capace di ricreare immagini e sensazioni, sicuramente più matura e consapevole rispetto all'esordio dell'autore.
Un bel libro.
Il tutto narrato attraverso una prosa estremamente ricca e dettagliata, capace di ricreare immagini e sensazioni, sicuramente più matura e consapevole rispetto all'esordio dell'autore.
Un bel libro.
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