EMMANUEL CARRÉRE — CLASS TRIP

I grabbed this novel because it looked slim and had skiers on the cover. Later I realized I had read/seen some of Mr. Carrère’s other work: read Limonov; seen The Moustache, which he adapted and directed. 

I predict Class Trip will stick in my memory much longer than the aforementioned. What is has is a rare combination of brutality and empathy. The story concerns a pubescent boy with lots of problems. Nicolas. The first problem we hear about is an unfulfilled desire for enough gas station coupons to acquire a plastic model of the human body; the last (spoiler!) is that his father has been kidnapping/murdering children for years. A small problem, an enormous problem: the innovation and the feat of Class Trip is that Mr. Carrère treats both with equal consideration; we understand why the gas station coupons are such a big deal for Nicolas. We’re in his head. It’s a strange/fascinating place to be, because another strength of the novel is how it understands inchoate male sexuality. It’s not for nothing that Nicolas desires a model of the human body. He’s very confused about his own. And Nicolas’s discoveries about his body would be interesting enough as a motif, but Mr. Carrère connects this to a philosophical inquiry of great scope, namely what a great risk it is to have a body. I mean, there’s death, for one…