Grande forme by Renaud Jean

Reviewed by: Grande forme by Renaud Jean Ann Williams Jean, Renaud. Grande forme. Boréal, 2021 ISBN 978-2-7646-2640-5. Pp. 138. Look! That’s le ministère de la Vie intérieure, with its aquatic façade. And over there, that’s the Entrepôt, that warehouse from which the products that feed society’s desires are expedited by employees (human) or by the robots that make fewer mistakes. And there? That’s the Numériseur, the vast pyramid where personal documents are reviewed and commented upon by their owners, allowing a digital version of themselves to be left to posterity—as is their responsibility. And there’s the Déchiqueteur, where the papers, concrete traces of a life, are destroyed, no longer needed. This is the world through which Quebec author Renaud Jean gives a glimpse of how psychological, technological, economic, and social trends evolving today could easily become twisted into a fiendish future. It is not surprising that a self-aware man living in this dystopian future, a digitized, organized, and dehumanized future, is in pain. What is worthy of note is that the author has created a complex narrator who sees the dysfunction around him and reacts with oh-so-human inconsistency. His emotions range from apathy as his partner’s parents move in and promptly appropriate the apartment to fury as he suffers the indignities of his employment at the Entrepôt where the bell signals another order to fill and the electronic bracelet he wears sends a shock if he is not following “suggestions.” In the world of Grande forme, there is an unstated norm. One should find a way to be “just fine.” Life should be fulfilling. But, as the narrator says in the first sentence: “Ce n’est pas la grande forme” (9). Later, evicted from his apartment for reasons unclear, he says it again (48). Then he is living in a closet in a cousin’s apartment, watching his possessions disappear, sold on the online Marché for rent. Kicked out again, he is in a shelter and will take the sole concrete evidence of his life that remains, a trunk of papers, to the Numériseur to contribute himself, in digitized form, to the future. A laudable effort, but one that elicits the same comment as before (73). And then it is another phase of life, where the Entrepôt, an employee camp, and a suicide attempt lead to a slight change in his self-evaluation: “Ce n’est vraiment pas la grande forme” (111). Alas, this is not the end of the downward spiral, but what makes this grim tale bearable is the humanity with which Renaud Jean infuses the narrator. This latter sees, and we see, that his life is a relentless series of traps, but he survives (as do we) thanks to incessant tongue-in-cheek observations and dark humor. The questions posed by this foray into the future and the responses of one individual give us pause. When he asks, “Qu’ai-je fait de ma vie?” (76), we, too, are being asked to think carefully about the directions our lives are taking. When the vagaries of the outside world are in control, all we can do, it would seem, is hope to remain human. [End Page 248] Ann Williams Metropolitan State University of Denver (CO) Copyright © 2022 American Association of Teachers of French

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