La ville de plomb

by Jean Meckert

La ville de plomb, c'est le titre d'un roman qu'écrit Marcel, un tout jeune dessinateur industriel, pour se libérer du quotidien, pour exprimer sa peine, ses espoirs et surtout l'impression pesante, étouffante, que fait sur l'âme de l'adolescent qu'il est encore le monde affreux qu'est le nôtre.
Mais la ville de plomb, c'est aussi Paris, le Paris de Belleville, que Jean Meckert, dans ce livre d'un réalisme puissant, ,vrai, sans faiblesse, sans complaisance, fait vivre intensément grâce à une intrigue très simple : Étienne et Marcel, deux tres jeunes gens de Belleville, sont tous les deux épris, d'une dactylo, Gilberte. Leur inquiétude, Ieur timidité, leur inexpérience de la vie compliquée d'un manque total d'illusion, leur sensualité qui se cherche, les rendent tous trois terriblement maladroits. Sans doute Gilberte, après des tentatives amoureuses décevantes, trouvera-t-elle avec Marcel le chemin d'un bonheur possible, mais ce n'est là que l'apparence d'une heureuse conclusion. Le débat, si l'on peut dire, reste ouvert, ce débat navrant d'âmes de faibles avec un monde fort, fermé, un monde de rats, un monde impitoyable, un monde de plomb.

384 pages, Paperback

Published October 7, 2021

About the author

Jean Meckert was a key figure in twentieth-century French literature, bridging populist novels and detective fiction. Know for his birth name for the books published in "Collection Blanche" by Gallimard Editions, for his pulp fiction works and noir detective novels he used several pen names such as Jean Amila, John Amila, Édouard, Edmond, Guy Duret, Albert Duvivier, Mariodile and Marcel Pivert. He also wrote theatre and screen plays. His work transpires a libertarian sensibility.

Reviews

[Pascale · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first book by this author, and definitely not my last. The story starts with a brilliant and unusual scene: 19 year old Etienne, keen to lose his virginity, has accepted the invitation of a 40 year old widow to visit her at home on a flimsy pretext. Marguerite Pillot is as keen to have sex as Etienne is, but both of them are so awkward that the evening is far from pleasant. After sex, Etienne disgusted with himself and his unappetizing "conquest", turns violent and pushes the poor woman so hard that she hits her head on the floor. A few days later, neighbors discover the dead body and Etienne panics. First he confides in his best friend, Marcel, then in his father. None of them know what to do, and Etienne hopes against all hope that nobody will connect him to the victim, although she was a colleague of his and he left a drawing with his signature on it in her apartment. Eventually he has sex with Gilberte, a 22 year old secretary whom Marcel has courted in vain. Gilberte is a virgin and the seduction scene is almost as harrowing as the first one. In fact, by today's standards, it would be considered date-rape. Shortly afterwards, Etienne is arrested, Gilberte discovers she's pregnant, and she decides to wait patiently for his release. However, possibly under pressure from his parents, Etienne writes to her he doesn't intend to marry her when he comes out of prison. Out of pride, Gilberte refrains to inform him of her pregnancy, and toys with the idea of abortion, but confides in Robert, an older man who has proposed to her but is too weak to marry her against his mother's wishes. Robert is a brillant portrait of a bigoted middle-aged man unable to chart his own course in life. Predictably, Robert drops Gilberte like a hot potato when he hers her news. Gilberte then confides in Marcel, who is a lot more sympathetic, and the book ends on a moderately hopeful note. Marcel is partly a stand-in for the author. Like Etienne and Gilberte, he is dissatisfied with his paltry wages and the monotonous future ahead of him, but the difference is that he has imagination and dreams of a career as a writer. Interpolated with the chapters telling the story are chapters of a novel in which he transposes what happens to him in a futuristic setting where Paris has been contaminated and closed off. In search of loot or for sentimental reasons, a few people regularly smuggle themselves in, but are never allowed out. Marcel's double makes the fateful journey and finds himself confronted to a huge population of rats and rival gangs of desperadoes. It can't be a coincidence that Marcel shares his name with Proust and Gilberte hers with Swann's daughter. The jealousy between Marcel and Etienne over Gilberte is also a clear link with Proust's oeuvre, but of course all these characters belong on the lowest rungs of the social ladder. Their lack of education and prospects is a main theme of the book. This is reminiscent of Francis Carco or Eugène Dabit but Meckert has a voice of his own. Meckert doesn't idealize the figure of the writer either. In a hilarious scene from Marcel's novel, he shows the young man deserting the bleeding Gilberte and feverishly planning an elaborate funeral for her instead of trying to help her survive her miscarriage. Meckert views all his characters with a kind of disillusioned compassion. I found this book engrossing from start to finish.