La Vie devant soi by Romain Gary

Extract

[...] It is a beautiful tribute that Romain Gary pays to his mother and love serves as a thread. But here he is less formal than in The Promise of the Dawn, published fifteen years earlier. Between Momo the polyglot who wants to become someone important and the young Roman Kacew the common points are countless. Their changes of identities, their desire to write, their passion for literature all these indices lead to the publication under a pseudonym of this fascinating novel and create links with the life of the author. [...]

[...] That of immigration and the cohabitation of communities is the most obvious. The Belleville district is populated mainly by migrants who first came from Eastern Europe, then Jews excluded from Tunisia or Algeria, and finally Muslims and Africans. The activities of these downgraded people do not prevent a genuine solidarity from being established. Momo embodies this possible cohabitation, he speaks Arabic, Yiddish, and passes in turn for a Muslim or a Jew. A few French 'of stock' like Nadine also show a lot of compassion. [...]

[...] The death of this old woman moved me. She speaks loudly, but has a huge heart. Her journey retraces the misery of the 20th century, a Jewish Polish woman, prostitute in Algeria then in the popular neighborhoods of Paris, she knew the Deportation and came back traumatized. Behind a rough aspect, she does good around her, keeps Momo for free, writes letters for the illiterates. Her life is behind her. Then Gary creates a multitude of endearing characters that bring life to the Belleville neighborhood, a bit like Zola did in L'Assommoir. [...]

[...] The title, La Vie devant soi, place Momo at the heart of the novel. He is the narrator, he is the link between all the other protagonists. His future is the final point of the fiction. Here we find the keys to the learning novel, that is to say those of a young character who discovers the meaning of life, during strong and often painful experiences. Momo is not spared by life, he first feels orphaned, taken in by Madame Rosa, then learns at the end of the novel that his father, a pimp, killed his mother and was interned, a father who dies during their meeting. [...]

[...] Despite its origins, even if Madame Rosa worries about a possible violent heredity for Momo with Dr. Katz, he will have the opportunity to become, as he wishes, a policeman, a terrorist or a writer. He will have a choice, something that Mademoiselle de Chartre did not have. III Finally, I became passionate about the autobiographical dimension of this work, which did not appear at the first reading. It was by reading a biography of Romain Gary that I made the link between Madame Rosa and his mother Mina Owczynska, an actress without a penny and without a husband, forced to live from small jobs. [...]