A-Infos (en) France, UCL AL #362 - Culture - Read: Georges Navel, Passages (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Georges Navel, this writer and poet, this worker, this extraordinary 
man, a passer-by in the worlds of work as a laborer, fitter, earthmover, 
proofreader, and beekeeper, delivers a novel full of simple, poetic, and 
marvelous descriptions of nature. It's about this rural life in a 
Lorraine village, near the Moselle River, close to the blast furnaces, 
the sweat and the suffering. Through the eyes of a child, the 
contrasting landscapes of butterflies, dragonflies, mushrooms, molten 
steel, and tattered bodies unfold. The poor life, described simply, 
without bitterness; the lives of the thirteen children in Georges 
Navel's family. We follow the daily melancholy of some, the playful 
clashes of gangs of children, and sometimes suffering and death. The 
grim reaper is an integral part of these worlds, along with the deaths 
of young children, the harsh living conditions, the accidents, and the war.

From Illusions to Disillusionments
Passages is also about this, the comings and goings from the front lines 
during the Great War, the illusions and disillusionments of these 
displaced peoples, forced to live near the battlefield. And it was the 
departure for Algeria of Georges Navel, still a child, his family taking 
him away from these areas of bloody barbarism.

Passages to other worlds, other references with all the dreams that 
accompany them. Passages from illusions to disillusionments, passages 
from childhood to adolescence, from the imaginary to the real.

Passages is all these beings, dying soldiers, proud and haughty, poor 
souls lost on the paths of the murderous zone.

Passages is all these encounters: those with the natives, the 
cantankerous priest, the schoolteacher, the illusory bearer of 
republican values, the members of his family, his neighbors, worn down 
by labor, all those ghosts that haunt his memories.

Passages is the time to return to Lyon where his family was evacuated. 
He learns the trade of a fitter and discovers the anarcho-syndicalist 
milieu. At the same time, he attends the trade union university and 
marches on May Day behind the black flag.

Passages is his wanderings off the beaten track his father would have 
wanted, his desertion from military service, his time in the ranks of 
the Republican army during the Spanish Civil War in 1936.

This very well-written work constitutes more than a poetic testimony or 
an autobiography rich in adventures. It is an important historical and 
sociological contribution to the lives of the Common People. We are 
immersed in the conditions of the proletariat, rural life, and the 
harshness of the forge environment. We sense the presence of imminent 
danger, of irreversible workplace accidents, of the bruised flesh on the 
battlefield and in the workshops.

Passages is a book of transition between a rural economy and a 
dehumanizing industrial society. If you are passing through, it is an 
invitation to pay homage to the Common People.

Dominique Sureau (UCL Angers)

Georges Navel, Passages, L'Échappée, Paris, 2025 (1st ed.: Le Sycomore, 
1982, then Gallimard, 1991), 384 pages, EUR22.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-Georges-Navel-Passages
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