Reading to make the world a better place

It is neither a novel, nor an essay, nor an autobiography, much less an autofiction. It is "a book and that's it!" Alice Zeniter warns us in the introduction to Toute la moitié du monde , written during the Covid pandemic. In it, she delves deeper into her relationship with literature, first as a reader, then of course as a writer. In a chapter entitled "Being an author," she notes the different forms of "secondarization" of women in literary life, according to Anne-Marie Garat's phrase.

One sign of this is that less than 30% of literary prizes go to them. There is also, as in other fields, a glass ceiling: for example, the assumption that women only write for women. "Only those books that fulfill a function other than being novels, those that are recognized as having a certain usefulness, escape the status of 'good women' books," she writes. Reading her, I am reminded of the observation by ethnologist Françoise Héritier that there has always been a "differential valence of the sexes, according to which the two sexes do not have the same value. The male sex is worth more than the female sex," and everything produced and made by women has a lesser value.

Alice Zeniter confides: "With 'The Art of Losing,' I gained the status of a recognized author for reasons that have nothing to do with literature." This book, published in 2017, deals with her family's history from Kabylie to the shantytowns reserved for the harkis. It has won half a dozen literary prizes and has been discussed, it's true, mainly for its historical and political merits. Another chapter is devoted to the characters. The gendered distribution of roles in society continues in fiction. "A whole half of the world is missing from literature," she says.

Thus, it is very rare for women to hold political or scientific conversations among themselves, traits reserved for male characters. However, she becomes attached to the characters. She speaks of "strange encounters that last several days, even weeks, and become relationships." This is why she prefers to speak of empathy with the characters rather than identification, which she says she cannot achieve. Isn't the role of fiction to promote concern for the other, both similar and different?

Could it be that "the rather obvious link between fiction and care" (the care of others) is what makes reading novels, like taking care of others, an exercise reserved mainly for women? 70% of readers are indeed female. A dizzying question, which opens up many avenues! Far from being a consequence of biological sex, these female specializations result from cultural and historical constructions, what we call gender relations.

They have specialized the male gender in "external" technical, political, and scientific functions, and the female gender in the domestic sphere and care. This distribution of roles can and must change. Far from being a second-rate practice, reading and writing, particularly novels, then become an asset for changing the world. And " all half the world" then moves from a subordinate role to that of a driving force for making the world a better and more humane place. So let's read, without limit, we won't waste our time!