Changing lives: Claudine Galea

Everything is dirty

Claudine Galea's novel Les choses comme elles sont The novel takes the childhood and adolescence of an unnamed protagonist in Marseille and its surrounding area during the 1960s and 70s as its starting point for an exploration of childhood, family dynamics, and the impact of historical events on individual development. At its core, it is the story of "Petite," who evolves from a curious child to a rebellious teenager and finally to a young woman on the cusp of all possibilities. The novel portrays an existential family history of great hardship, marked by "black holes" that are unspeakable yet indelible. Simultaneously, it recounts the linguistic density of the eras lived through in Marseille and the bitter aftereffects of history from one shore to the other of the Mediterranean. Galea's fresco combines a lyrical writing style with the distance required to examine the darker corners of France's national narrative.

The story begins with a moment of radiant, childlike purity, which, however, proves deceptive. The "Petite" experiences a sudden break with her idealized world when the pristine cleanliness of her communion dress is stained by the grime of the world. On her communion day, the young protagonist feels like a radiant white flower, an emblem of childlike purity. This feeling of being a "goddess," surrounded by admiration, is abruptly ended. The discovery that the soles of her new white shoes have become dirty shatters this illusion. The stain on the supposedly untouched whiteness of her clothing and her self-image reveals to her the presence of dirt and imperfection in the world: "Look, Papa, look, everything is dirty. [...] I am no longer white." The shock of no longer being "white" marks the symbolic loss of her childlike innocence and her first painful encounter with unvarnished reality. This first experience of disillusionment lays the foundation for her later search for truth and her burgeoning rebellion against superficial appearances.

Her upbringing is marked by the strained relationship between her parents, "Mère-Ritou" (Mother-Ritou) and "Père-Élios" (Father-Élios), who live in an atmosphere of avoidance and hidden conflict. Communication between "Mère-Ritou" and "Père-Élios" is often tense and characterized by silence or loud arguments. The protagonist senses that a deep, unresolved trauma lies in her mother's past, to which she has no access.

The narrator identifies the origin of the family's unhappiness as a "black hole" in Mère-Ritou's past, a trauma to which neither Petite nor Père-Élios has access. She feels that something has gone "wrong" in this inaccessible place in time, like a clock whose hands have stopped, which explains the current tensions and the mother's "distorted" way of thinking. This metaphor of the "black hole" refers to hidden, unresolved traumas that permeate family life and determine the emotional atmosphere. The protagonist's childhood is inextricably linked to these familial and historical shadows, which prevent open communication and create an atmosphere of oppression. Petite must learn to navigate this environment, which often means adapting or hiding.

The Petite seeks solace and meaning in books and her imagination, creating an imaginary sister and spending time with her father, who shares secrets and helps her decipher the world in her own way. At the same time, the narrative reveals the pervasive stigma and ignorance that the Petite experiences from a young age, whether in relation to "old maids" or the initial lack of understanding of money and social realities. Animals reflect the family dynamics, ranging from nurturing affection to the brutal reality of loss. In response to the family's constraints and unresolved conflicts, the Petite develops a profound "love affair with words." She escapes into imaginary worlds, invents stories, and uses language to shape or analyze reality. Words become her tools for understanding the world, orienting herself, and ultimately, rebelling.

The protagonist describes how words, even the insulting and crude ones ("suce, salope"), take on a clarity and precision that she retains in her memory. She senses the power of words, their ability to stand out in the darkness of memory and influence reality. For her, these words are not merely sound, but powerful tools that make the invisible visible and help her grasp the essence of a traumatic experience. This fascination with the tangible power of language becomes a driving force in her later search for truth and emancipation. It is through grappling with words that she learns to decipher and name the complex realities that surround her.

Reading trails

Change the life

As the text unfolds, Petite's family conflict escalates during her adolescence, resulting from the unresolved conspiracy surrounding her father's missing ship. Sainte-AnneThese family problems and "unseemly secrets" have an unspoken impact on the daughter. The political and historical upheaval in France, particularly the Algerian War and the events of May 1968, provides a further backdrop for the growing tension and the search for meaning. The young woman experiences her parents' arguments about politics and the past, which often end in emotional or physical outbursts. Her own rebellion manifests itself in the desire to change her life ("changer la vie"), in the act of stealing as an attempt at liberation, and in a disturbing sexual "experience" with a boy, which she interprets as an act of discovery and experimentation that simultaneously repels and empowers her. The novel culminates in a list of countless "vies" (lives) that the protagonist experiences in her imagination—from dancer to politician, from butcher to pilot.

• Mannequin at YSL, a star icon who ended her career due to an injury.
• Institutrice (teacher), which she quickly gives up because she dislikes the adults and their lack of dreams.
• Serveuse de bar (barmaid), who likes the smell of sawdust and coffee, but drinks it herself at the end of the day.
• A striptease artist who loves her shape but is disgusted by the way men look at her and spits on them.
• Vendeuse en boulangerie (bakery saleswoman) who is overwhelmed by the selection of pastries and gains weight.
• Libraire (bookseller), a dream that turns out to be a sales job where she has no time to read.
• A woman who offers her body for money and suffers pain in the process.
• Actress who doesn't understand roles and feels bad about herself.
• Vendeuse de pralines (chocolate seller) on the beach, who hates the crowds and prefers to swim in the sea.
• Nez de parfumerie (perfume nose), which loses its ability when it thinks about its boss.
• Danseuse de claquettes (tap dancer) who is inspired by Fred Astaire, but doesn't have the legs of a Ginger Rogers.
• A female alpinist who is fast and agile, but gets dizzy when looking down into the depths.
• Joueuse de bridge (bridge player) who loves the adrenaline rush of the game, but realizes that passions can be deadly.
• Éleveuse de chèvres (goat breeder), who loves nature, but not the bleating of the goats as much as the chirping of the cicadas.
• Nadia Comaneci, a childhood dream compromised by her mother, a communist.
• A pianist, her greatest, yet unbeginned dream.
• Championne de natation (World Swimming Champion) who enjoys swimming but only learns the techniques late.
• Avocate (female lawyer) who defends her female classmates against boys, but finds that she cannot make a living doing so.
• Femme de ménage (cleaning lady), who cleans the hidden, dirty corners, which her employers do not notice.
• Diseuse de bonne aventure (fortune teller), who tells the “horror prophecies” – the truth.
• Orlando, a transgender person according to Virginia Woolf, who, however, cannot come to terms with a male genital.
• Female bus driver in the mountains who loves the scenery but is annoyed by her passengers.
• Alexandra David-Néel, an explorer with no more unexplored territories.
• Flic (female police officer) who solves cases but despises the hierarchy.
• Novice en monastère (Novice in the monastery), who likes the beauty and secrets of the monastery, but does not want to deny her female nature.
• Soumise puis maîtresse SM (Submissive and then SM Domina), which she calls "biographical logic".
• Postière (postwoman), who discovers the hidden lives of people through her letters, but must escape from this small microcosm.
• PDG de grande entreprise (CEO of a large company) who does not adapt her style and is not taken seriously by colleagues.
• Journalist, enquêtrice (journalist, investigator), another biographical manifestation.
• Bouchère (butcher) who loves butchering meat and is fascinated by the precision of an experienced butcher.
• Croque-mort (undertaker), who, however, cannot fit into a series like "Six Feet Under".
• Hôtesse de l'air (flight attendant) who travels the world but is frustrated when she encounters obstacles from travelers.
• Promeneuse de chiens (dog walker), who compares herself to a “Promeneuse d'enfants” and suggests an exchange.
• Femme politique (female politician) who strives for power and is willing to give up friends, parents and children for it.
• Rock singer who is celebrated but leaves the stage to find "other transportation".
• Chat-à-la-fenêtre (window cat), who loves to watch, but dislikes the cold and rain of a Dutch summer.
• Coureuse cycliste (female cyclist) who becomes world champion, but falls for a man and is prevented from participating in the Tour de France by male privileges.
• Riche héritière (rich heiress), who owns villas and apartments all over the world, but finds that money cannot stop time and places lose their magic.
• Mère de famille nombreuse (mother of a large family), who wonders what will become of her life when the children are grown up.
• Cinéaste, raconteuse d'histoires, créatrice de fictions (filmmaker, storyteller, creator of fictions), who only begins at sixty.
• Valses de Vienne (Viennese Waltzes), which confess that confessions have their price, but turns are unforgettable.
• Ébéniste (furniture maker), a creative profession that requires precision and attention to detail.
• Danseuse chez Pina Bausch (Dancer at Pina Bausch).
• Cantate sous les doigts de Jean-Sébastien Bach (Cantata under the fingers of Johann Sebastian Bach).
• Camille Claudel, but fifty years later, so that she can hurl a "Fuck you" at the sculptor and her mother.

Many of these imaginary lives end in disappointment and failure, or reveal unexpected drawbacks. Yet it is precisely in this diversity and the recurring notion of being able to say "Fuck you" to all limiting authorities and conventions that her insatiable search for identity, freedom, and self-realization manifests itself. The imaginary creation and inhabitation of these "lives" becomes her personal way of overcoming the "trous noirs" (black holes) of her family history and creating and living her own "true" story through the power of words. These multifaceted identities are an expression of her ongoing striving for self-discovery and emancipation from the shackles of a burdened past and familial conditioning, with art and imagination serving as both an escape and a survival strategy. The heavenly blue of the ceiling painting in the villa's hallway, painted by her father, becomes a symbol of beauty, solace, and the unspeakable that endures within this family.

Although many of these "lives" end in disappointment or failure, they illustrate their refusal to be confined to a single, predetermined existence. They demonstrate their inner rebellion and their desire to explore all facets of their being, even if this means radically rejecting the expectations of others. This is a continuation of their childhood imagination, which now becomes a conscious strategy for self-discovery.

The “trou noir” as inherited trauma

The recurring motif of the "black hole" symbolizes the unresolved traumas and unspeakable secrets in the family history, especially the loss of Mère-Ritou's father on the ship. Sainte-AnneThese deep wounds shape generations and are, often unconsciously, passed on to the protagonist, who must find her own way of dealing with them.

The term "trou noir" (black hole) appears in Claudine Galea's novel Les choses comme elles sont A central image that transcends its original meaning, symbolizing both concrete traumatic events and profound psychological states, as well as unspoken family secrets. At the heart of the "trou noir" lies Henriette's (Mère-Rituo's) life trauma. It began on March 18, 1950, with the cargo ship's disappearance without a trace. Sainte-Anne, on which her father Paul worked as a mechanic. For Henriette, this was a "trou noir" that consumed her and plunged her into immense suffering. The uncertainty surrounding the fate of the ship and its 15-member crew—rumors of confiscation by Franco's authorities in Barcelona, ​​mysterious postcards, and alleged traffic—made the matter a "secret-défense" that remains inaccessible to this day. This unresolved mystery and trauma shaped Henriette, leading to "enormous loneliness" and "monstrous sorrow," from which she drew anger, a desire for destruction, and aggressive, provocative behavior. Her "trou noir" also manifested itself in fainting spells ("trous noirs") and was the cause of the breakdown of her marriage to Christian. It was a place where "logic went haywire," a frozen moment in time that "devoured her from within." For Christian (Père-Élios) himself, the Algerian War and the “loss of his country” also represented a “gouffre” (abyss), and he associated Henriette’s “trous noirs” with her miscarriages and the idea of ​​“children falling into the black hole”.

The "Petite" is aware of the "black holes" and "indescribable secrets" that exist within her family. She senses that Mère-Ritou's "trou noir" is the source of the family's unhappiness and dysfunctional dynamics. Although she lacks rational access to it, she feels it in her body. This "trou noir" marks the beginning of the "disintegration of her childhood," the fading of magic, the increase of familial tensions, and her parents' "parlermentir" (talking lies). In a traumatic experience at the cinema, when a boy sexually assaults her, the state of "blackness" and darkness is described as her "inner screen" that overlays what she sees and swallows the event into a "trou noir." Afterward, she describes herself as "empty" and simultaneously "boiling." The Petite understands that concealing these secrets leads to "entering into secrecy" and "putting oneself in a hole," where one "broods" and is "eaten away from within." In her own development, the Petite initially tries to escape these "holes" and conflicts, for example, by stealing from the supermarket, which she sees as liberation and in which she wishes to "kill" her mother. Later, she tries to escape her mother's influence by not eating and "disappearing," symbolized by a body that becomes transparent and wants to fly into the "sky-blue of the ceiling." Ultimately, when she herself has "descended into the hole" and "touched the bottom," she finds her way out. She "searched for everything she knew, understood, and felt" to grasp the history of her family and era and "came back to the surface." The sky blue of the ceiling, which her father had painted, symbolizes her way out of the "trou" and the beginning of "her life" and "her lives".

The power and limits of language and storytelling

The protagonist is searching in Claudine Galea's novel Les choses comme elles sont From her earliest childhood, she yearns for understanding and control through the power of language. She develops a "love affair with words," eagerly learning to decipher signs and advertisements, and devouring books in which she hopes to find the ideal of "vie de famille" (family life). For Petite, stories possess a magical power and are true because they are possible. But this quest repeatedly encounters the limits of language and the adult world. Communication between her parents, Mère-Ritou and Père-Élios, is often strained, marked by silence or slamming doors. Petite discovers early on her parents' "parlermentir" (speaking lies), a form of concealment and distortion of the truth that she grasps intuitively. Mère-Ritou, trapped in her own "trou noir" (black hole), can neither give her daughter answers nor offer an authentic family reality. These unspoken secrets and the adults' "inability" to truly name things drive the protagonist to create her own "true" story and to live through words. This is particularly evident in the chapter "Faire l'expérience" (Making the Experience), where, despite the disgust she feels during a traumatic sexual encounter, she recognizes the boy's "power of words" and records them in her memory as "true and alive" because they convey her "knowledge." This act of understanding through experience and language, even though it is painful, becomes her personal "screen" on which she rearranges the world. Ultimately, it is her urge to change her life ("changer la vie"), her ability to create imaginary lives, and her determination to write "things as they are" from the "belly of the sea" that free her from the cycle of trauma and allow her to inhabit the world through her own self-created words.

Emancipation as an act of (self-)destruction and new beginnings

The protagonist in the novel Les choses comme elles sont From the very beginning, she is a character who strives for freedom and self-determination. This deep-seated need manifests itself in a consistent rebellion against parental authority and societal norms. Even as a child, she resists the controlling and often contradictory expectations of her mother, Mère-Ritou, whose "practical" way of thinking and aversion to "imagination" the protagonist finds restrictive. The mother's concealment of truths and glossing over of reality drive the protagonist to find and write her own, "true" story.

The "Petite" defies the expectations of her mother and society, which seek to force her into a specific role. She dreams of long hair, even though her mother cuts it short, and longs for adventure rather than a "practical" life. The scene in which she learns to ride a bicycle is a striking example of her burgeoning autonomy.

Learning to ride a bicycle without training wheels, an activity she shares with her Père-Élios and which Mère-Ritou disapproves of, becomes a pivotal moment of liberation. When she manages to steer the red bicycle on her own, she experiences a completely new sense of power and freedom. The bicycle becomes a symbol of her autonomy and her triumph over the limiting forces in her life. Her ability to navigate curves quickly and safely, and even to briefly let go of the handlebars, expresses her burgeoning desire to shape her own life like a queen, independent of her mother's control. This is a physical and emotional manifestation of her striving for self-determination.

Her attempts at emancipation are often radical and painful: in the chapter "Disparaître" (Disappearing), she refuses to eat in order to become "invisible" to Mère-Ritou and escape her influence. This act of disappearing is a symbolic expression of her desire for liberation and a glamorous, self-determined life as a model for YSL. Another expression of her rebellion is the act of stealing a pair of jeans from the supermarket in the chapter "Voler" (Stolen). This theft is interpreted as a "liberation" and an act of "revenge," symbolizing her desire to destroy the "old order" in order to break free from the confines of her parents' home and societal constraints. Her inner fantasies even extend to the desire to "kill" her mother in order to escape the oppressive situation. These actions, coupled with their growing “sauvagerie” and the slogan “Changer la vie” (Change life), illustrate their uncompromising drive to overcome the dysfunctional family reality and find a new, personal identity beyond the “trous noirs” of the past.

Childhood as a reflection of national and historical ruptures

Claudine Galeas Les choses comme elles sont It is a political novel insofar as it intertwines the intimate narrative of a girl's coming of age with the upheavals of French history—especially the colonial past and its aftermath. The biography of the father, "Père-Élios," leads back to the French wars in Indochina and Algeria, the traumas of which are reflected in the father's silence, his broken speech, and his emotional distance.

The novel particularly poignantly reveals the repressed history of French colonialism in Algeria—and its lasting imprint on bodies, language, and family structures. The father, a "Français d'Algérie," bears the scars of this colonial relationship: his origins in Philippeville, his service in the colonial war, his emotional reserve, and his silence about his experiences all point to the repressed traumas of an entire generation. His biography exemplifies the ambivalent position of the "Pieds-Noirs," who saw themselves as both French and displaced, yet hardly fit into the French self-image after 1962. The novel does not address this colonial past head-on, but rather through its ruptures and gaps: in the missing letters, in the silence between the characters, in the father's melancholic gaze. The child senses the shadows of this history—its unnamability and its power—and begins to create a counter-space through language and imagination. Thus, the novel creates a poetic archive of the postcolonial, revealing how deeply colonial violence intrudes upon private narratives—even when it remains unspoken. A striking example of this national history's penetration into family life is the argument over the doll "Bamboula": Mère-Ritou's racist remarks about Africa and Biafra provoke an explosive confrontation about colonialism and the "pieds-noirs," revealing the couple's deep-rooted political differences and personal wounds, already visible in the protagonist's childhood.

These collective experiences of violence are not presented as background noise, but rather as structuring forces within the familial and social order – leaving their mark on the characters' language, bodies, and affective relationships. The novel thus engages in a subtle deconstruction of postwar French society, which relies on an official historical narrative in which guilt and shame have no place. At the same time, Galea's prose rejects any heroic or linear narrative. Instead, it reveals the social and symbolic orders in which gender, origin, and class exert their unyielding influence – for example, in the figure of Mère-Ritou, who adheres to a repressive pedagogy, or in the linguistically marked stigmas of the "old girls" and the father's family, who originated in Algeria. The political impulse lies in the form itself: in the fragmentation of chronology, in the montage of voices and images, in the alternation between lyrical introspection and documentary harshness. The novel is thus also a critique of the nation's hegemonic narratives, which create exclusions, erase differences, and smooth over history. The child character breaks through these structures with her joy in storytelling, in contradiction, and in the search for truth—she embodies the text's poetic and political subversion.

Les choses comme elles sont This is also a novel about the 1968 generation—not as a chronicle of the revolt, but as an intimate exploration of its preconditions and repercussions. The narrator's childhood and adolescence unfold in the 1960s in an authoritarian, standardized, and linguistically disciplined world where obedience, gender segregation, and silence prevail. School, home, and social rituals exemplify a pre-1968 society in which oppression was not only political, but also physical, linguistic, and emotional. By staging the child's rebellion—her questioning, inventing, and writing—as a counter-gesture to this rigid order, the novel inscribes itself into the history of subjectivation, which erupted publicly in May 1968. The political revolt here announces itself in the private sphere, in the unwillingness to accept the world as given—and in the poetic power to think of it differently. Thus, Galea's novel becomes the "other" novel about 68: not a myth of the barricades, but the quiet, radical preparation in the innermost being of a child that shakes the order of things.

Last but not least, Les choses comme elles sont A feminist political novel because it depicts female subjectivity beyond normative roles, making speaking about the unspeakable the central act of self-empowerment. The "Petite" develops into a young woman who resists patriarchal violence, the mother-daughter entanglement, and societal expectations by asking questions, inventing stories, and seeking her own space in the fractures of language. The political dimension lies not in programmatic statements, but in the poetic resistance against the impositions of a system that naturalizes violence and erases memory. Galea's novel calls for the visibility of repressed realities—uncompromising, poetic, and political all at once.

Conclusion: Write your life in order to change it.

The novel title Les choses comme elles sont It is both a poetic and sober assertion and a rebuttal: it names reality in all its harshness, ambiguity, and disquiet, without smoothing it over or glossing it over. Claudine Galea writes against familial silence, against historical amnesia, and against linguistic appeasement, in order to make visible those "choses" that operate in secret: violence, taboos, desire, war traumas, colonial entanglements. The title thus marks the claim to a radical, almost childlike, incorruptible perception that omits nothing—not the little girl's soiled white Sunday clothes, not the mother's silent suffering, not the lie of the national narrative. At the same time, it harbors Les choses comme elles sont an ironic twist: It is precisely the literary perspective that reveals that things do not simply "exist," but are made, concealed, narrated, and silenced – and that language is needed to break open this "truth."

Les choses comme elles sont This is a remarkable narrative about the complexities of growing up in a family marked by silence and unresolved trauma. Claudine Galea masterfully portrays childhood as a place of extreme sensitivity, where even the smallest events leave deep scars and shape the character of later life. "Petite" is a character who rebels against the burden of the past and the narrow confines of the present, driven by immense curiosity and a profound sense of justice. The novel reveals how personal stories are inextricably intertwined with historical events, particularly the Algerian War and its aftermath, which permeate the protagonist's family life as underlying tensions. The family's "black holes"—the disappearance of Mère-Ritou's father, the miscarriages, and the unresolved political conflicts—are not simply gaps, but active forces that shape the characters' behavior and their relationships with one another.

A central theme is the power of language and writing as a means of coping with and reshaping reality. The protagonist learns not only to accept "things as they are" as facts, but also to bring the underlying hidden truths and feelings to light through words. Writing becomes the ultimate form of her "enquête" (investigation) and her motto "Changer la vie" (Change life). She strives to break down entrenched narratives and create a new, personal story. Recurring symbols such as the blue sky as a place of beauty and refuge, the sea as a sign of loss and freedom, and the bicycle as an expression of autonomy anchor this search for emancipation in the physical and emotional landscape of the novel.

Dominique Fourcade's motto at the beginning of the novel is a poetics key to the entire text by Claudine Galea:

Fourcade formulates a radical expectation of writing: it should enable one to be present at the moment of the catastrophe's origin or the moment of silence—not looking back, but in the immediate now of the upheaval. This demand is reflected in Galea's novel's structure: the narrative does not move linearly, but rather tentatively approaches those fracture points where memory, trauma, and history begin to inscribe themselves. The expression "ramasser la peau de leurs voix à l'ombre de leurs gestes" (to peel the skin of their voices into the shadow of their gestures) evokes a paradoxical movement: voices here have a "skin," a materiality that must be salvaged—they are vulnerable, fleeting, but also palpable. The gesture of gathering from the shadow of gestures points to writing as an act of making audible again voices that would otherwise remain intertwined. Galea's novel is this attempt, through literary form, to salvage those voices buried beneath the violence of history.

The protagonist transforms from a child surrounded by trauma into a young woman who actively seeks her own truth and embraces her inner "sauvagerie"—her untamed, authentic nature—as a strength in order to find her own voice. The symbolic escape to the sea at the end of the novel represents not only physical liberation but also the beginning of a lifelong journey of self-discovery and the creation of multiple "visas." Les choses comme elles sont This demonstrates that complete emancipation and "changing one's life" do not lie in fleeing the past or forgetting the "black holes," but rather in the courageous literary confrontation with the unspeakable and the transformation of pain into expression, and thus into freedom. The narrator becomes a seismograph of her own family history, which, through the act of writing, transcends the individual and becomes a testament to the complex entanglements of personal suffering and collective history.

This article is written in German and can be found at https://rentree.de. Automatic translations into English and French are available. English, French.