Réalismes déclinistes du polar français contemporain : Nicolas Mathieu, Colin Niel, Antonin Varenne

Abstract

The detective novel has long been described as a form of “authentic” realistic literature (Collovald et Neveu). However, this article analyzes how three contemporary French crime novels—Aux animaux la guerre by Nicolas Mathieu (2014), Seules les bêtes by Colin Niel (2017) and Battues by Antonin Varenne (2015)—challenge and reappropriate conventions of realism. The three country noir novels follow in the lineage of two important traditions of realism, nineteenth-century French classical realism (Dubois) and the social realism of the 1970s and 1980s “néo-polar” (Desnain). Yet rather than anchoring the novels in familiar territory, the authors blur topographical references, create a polyphonic narrative structure and set a horrific tone to provide symbolic and political commentary. The novels thus borrow from magic realism to depict a declining rural and working-class world.