The Family Clause

It makes me laugh when something that seemed obscure to me throughout the book is mentioned as a fact, as if nothing had happened, in a five-line summary which I could have read from the beginning. I thought it was a stylistic effect to leave it unclear exactly what the "family clause" is, but I guess I was just not paying attention.

In any case, this famous family clause, it stipulates that a son must take care of his father. And the son, in our case, wants to revoke it, because frankly, his father is pretty hateful. In short, a universal story.

Summary

A father, now a grandfather, returns to Sweden twice a year. He supposedly wants to see his family, but more importantly, he has to do so to keep his residence permit. For a very long time, his son has been taking care of everything during his visits: he manages the apartment, buys food, takes care of his administrative affairs. But the father takes it all for granted, so much so that he thinks his son is not doing enough and is constantly criticizing him. And this year, when the son is now a father of two small children and exhausted, he claims the right to take care of his own affairs, without guilt.

Impressions

I read this book because the author is Swedish. The more I study linguistics, the more I want to speak a language other than French and English. I'm working on that, but until then, I figure I can at least read books written by authors whose native language is different. I learned afterwards that the author also won the Prix Médicis étranger 2021 for this novel, which is good news.

I found it fair, sincere, I enjoyed reading it. It is rather well written, I was not bored. I found the characters sometimes completely unsympathetic, sometimes rather touching. Neither white nor black. Grey.

Maybe that's the problem. This book didn't make me feel particularly out of place, or upset in any way. By the time I wrote my weekly review, so a few days after finishing it, I already didn't really remember the book. I can't deny that it's good, I can see why it won an award, but it didn't make an impression on me. It wasn't totally ordinary, or totally extraordinary. It was good. And it will quickly fade into the limbo of my memory.

I can't boast of having won the Prix Médicis. But in any case, if there was a prize for "the most lukewarm critic", I would surely win it.