[AGL] Roman contemporain en postbac

'sup dudes !

Je cherche un roman anglais ou américain à faire à mes élèves en première année de prépa éco au troisième trimestre. Je me heurte à plusieurs contraintes:

-Le roman doit avoir un axe civilisationnel (très) fort, pour que je puisse l'étudier en cours en parallèle avec des cours de civi.
-Il doit être compréhensible par des élèves en première année (donc en étant optimiste, B1+/B2).
-Je commence l'année avec des études de nouvelles issues de The House on Mango Street, de Sandra Cisneros, qui aborde la question de l'identité et de l'intégration des immigrants hispaniques aux USA... du coup ça m'embêterait un peu d'utiliser un roman complet sur le même thème, que ce soit en GB ou aux USA (ce qui me coupe quand même un grand pan de la littérature contemporaine.)

Je pensais plus à un roman qui illustrerait une période historique bien précise (quelque chose sous les années Thatcher par exemple, ou en rapport avec la contre-culture américaine des sixties...) Et je serai plutôt tenté d'aller vers du britannique, histoire de sortir un peu de ma "comfort zone".

Any idea ?

The Line of Beauty ?

Jonathan Coe, What's a carve up !
C'est à fond dans les années Thatcher, justement, et c'est d'un drôle…

Résumé sur
http://sunderlandbookgroup.wordpress.com/about-the-book/march-2011-what-a-carve-up/

Et apparemment on en a tiré un film.

Eureka Street, Robert McLiam Wilson.
Je te poste un avis de lecteur. C'est un roman qui m'a beaucoup enthousiasmée et permis d'avoir un autre regard sur l'Ulster.

"The working class neighborhoods of Belfast are central to Robert McLiam Wilson's new novel, Eureka Street. That's the name of the street where Chuckie, the Protestant protagonist, lives with his mother. The narrator is Chuckie's cynical Catholic friend Jake, who lives in Poetry Street, a name that hints at the book's ambition.
The story that unfolds as these two friends criss cross the city is both a funny enjoyable read and a serious political satire on the poisonous politics of Northern Ireland.

The prominence of the street names is significant, for the novel is partly a paean to Belfast and its people. In the middle, McLiam Wilson briefly pauses the plot to voice a lyrical ode to his hometown. In a typically daring piece of writing reminiscent of the style of the American Thomas Wolfe, he describes how, in the wee hours of the morning, he can sense Belfast's stories in the quiet of its streets, when "all the streets are poetry streets."

Yet if that sounds sentimental, the novel is not. Though written with love, the book is also a penetrating satirical portrait of his troubled birthplace.

While being "dead satirical," as Chuckie puts it, McLiam Wilson manages also to be very funny. He plays with the routine Belfast absurdities that have developed after almost thirty years of the "Troubles." One running joke refers to the litter of acronyms-used as shorthand for political parties, paramilitary groups, slogans, and curses-that covers the city's walls. His rich cast of characters conveys superbly the mordant comedy of Belfast conversation as Jake and Chuckie meet regularly with their friends Slat, Septic, and Donal. Then there is Aoirghe, the middle-class Irish Republican radical whose name sounds like a bad cough; Chuckie's mother Peggy, a typical working class martyr-mother who in the course of the novel achieves a surprising liberation; and Max, a beautiful American woman who inexplicably succumbs to Chuckie's approaches.

In the novel's second half social satire gives way to sharp political satire. Although he grew up a Catholic in the same part of Belfast as Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, McLiam Wilson has no time for the evasions of Irish Republican politics. In a disturbing chapter he confronts the realities of terrorism and the political fudging of those realities. The chapter is a pure set-up; a new character is introduced but one senses that she is going to be there only briefly.

The predictability of the tragedy that ensues does not detract from the passionate anger with which McLiam Wilson writes. Afterwards the author takes aim directly at Adams (called Eve in the book; no need for too much subtlety) and at his nationalist party, Sinn Fein. That party's name is usually translated as "Ourselves Alone." In a brilliant flight of satirical invention that may well catch on in Belfast pubs, McLiam Wilson plausibly translates it a shade differently, and lampoons Sinn Fein throughout the novel as the "Just Us" party.

To any young novelist Belfast presents a dramatic gift of a subject, but one that is liable to blow up when unwrapped. This is a city where real life holds more drama than fiction and objectivity is impossible; how to address the grim political violence is a consuming question.

In his brilliant first novel Ripley Bogle, McLiam Wilson had wisely used the Troubles only as background. In Eureka Street, he shows himself ready to face the subject squarely. He does so with notable courage and with a fire in his belly. "

Merci à vous trois.

The Line of Beauty, si l'adaptation dont j'ai vu des extraits sur la BBC est fidèle :censure: *

Jonathan Coe j'avoue que je ne l'ai jamais lu (mais je l'ai vu en conférence, ça compte ? )

Eureka Street, ça me dit quelque chose, je crois que ma mère l'a lu en français... Par contre, la thématique irlandaise est pour ainsi dire jamais abordée aux concours, donc je ne pense pas pouvoir "rentabiliser" la lecture du roman avec mes étudiant-es.

Je vais donc me lire les deux premiers, et je continue de prendre des suggestions

*:

MrBrightside a écrit:

Je vais donc me lire les deux premiers, et je continue de prendre des suggestions

*:

Bon, si tu as déjà une réputation auprès des élèves, tu peux tenter Tom Sharpe. Ancestral vices par exemple. Foutu pour foutu