A Dutiful Son

by Pascal Bruckner, Mike Mitchell (Translator)

Overview

Pascal Bruckner's memoir reads like a novel, a Bildungsroman which charts his journey from pious Catholic child to leading philosopher and writer on French culture.
The key figure in Bruckner's life is his father, a virulent anti-Semite, who voluntarily went to work in Germany during the Second World War. He is a violent man who beats his wife. The young Bruckner soon reacts against his father and his revenge is to become his polar opposite, even to the point of being happy to be called a "Jewish thinker", which he is not. "My father helped me to think better by thinking against him. I am his defeat."
Despite this opposition, he remains tied to his father to the very end. He has other "fathers", men such as Sartre, Vladimir Jankelevitch and Roland Barthes who fostered his philosophical development, and describes his friendship with his "philosophical twin brother", Alain Finkielkraut.
A great read for anyone interested in the 1960s, the intellectual life of France and the father and son relationship.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781910213162
Publisher:	Dedalus, Limited
Publication date:	08/01/2016
Series:	Dark Masters
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Pascal Bruckner was born 15 December 1948 in Paris. He is one of the "New Philosophers" who came to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s. Much of his work has been devoted to critiques of French society and culture.
His fiction includes Lunes de fiel which was made into the film Bitter Moon by Roman Polanski and My Little Husband published by Dedalus in 2013.
His essays and novels have been translated into more than thirty languages and received worldwide acclaim.
Dedalus will publish his memoir A Dutiful Son in December 2015.

Mike Mitchell has published over seventy translations from German and French. His translation of Rosendorfer's Letters Back to Ancient China won the 1998 Schlegel-Tieck Translation Prize after he had been shortlisted previously for his translations of Stephanie and The Golem.
His translations have been shortlisted four times for The Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize: Simplicissimus by Johann Grimmelshausen in 1999, The Other Side by Alfred Kubin in 2000, The Bells of Bruges by Georges Rodenbach in 2008 and the Lairds of Cromarty by Jean Pierre Ohl in 2013.

Read an Excerpt

Saying my Prayers

Its bedtime. Kneeling at the foot of my bed, head bowed, hands together, I murmur my prayer in a low voice. Im ten. After a brief review of the days sins, I make a request of God, our all-powerful Creator. He knows how regularly I attend mass, how fervently I receive communion, how I love Him above all else. I simply ask Him, implore Him, to bring about the death of my father, while driving if possible. Brakes failing while hes going downhill, black ice, a plane tree, whatever suits Him best.
I leave the choice of accident to you, God, see to it that my father kills himself.
My mother arrives to tuck me in and read me a story. She looks at me tenderly. I intensify my fervour, put on an air of devotion. I close my eyes and say under my breath, Im leaving you now, God, Mamans just come into my bedroom.
Shes proud of my ardent faith and at the same time worried that one day I might be tempted to become a priest. I get up at six in the morning to go and serve at mass in the Jesuit Collge Saint-Joseph, the junior secondary school I attend in Lyons, and Ive already brought up the possibility of going to the Petit Sminaire for my baccalaurat years. Its a low mass, a short one, that is, Im not qualified for the long ceremonies requiring a complex liturgy. When I get lost, I cross myself, it gives me composure. At that early hour there arent many people in the church, not much more than a sparse scattering of devout old women straight out of bed muttering their prayers. Im Gods little eager beaver: the smell of the incense intoxicates me just as the priest intoxicates himself, filling his cruets with cheap white plonk and knocking back a full one himself as early as seven in the morning. His glazed expression makes us giggle. Lighting the candles sends me into raptures, I love this moment of contemplation before lessons. I receive communion, I adore the taste of the host, that unleavened bread that melts on your tongue like a biscuit. It fills me with strength, I mumble my Latin responses without understanding them, which makes them all the more beautiful. I serve at mass with sycophantic ardour I want to have the best marks in paradise. When I screw up my eyes, it seems to me that Jesus is sending an affectionate wink in my direction.
Two years later, on the occasion of my solemn communion, I indulge in an orgy of goodness. I smile at everyone, the Angel of Good himself is living inside me.