Serge - Yasmina Reza

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Serge

by
Yasmina Reza

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

Title:	Serge
Author:	Yasmina Reza
Genre:	Novel
Written:	2021 (Eng. 2025)
Length:	213 pages
Original in:	French
Availability:	Serge - US
	Serge - UK
	Serge - Canada
	Serge - Canada (French)
	Serge - France
	Serge - Deutschland
	Serge - Italia
	Serge - España

	from: Bookshop.org (US)

French title: Serge
Translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman

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Our Assessment:

B : solid novel of memory and family

See our review for fuller assessment.

Review Summaries
Source	Rating	Date	Reviewer
The French Rev.	.	3/2022	M.-A.Sourieau
Le Monde	.	14/1/2021	Jean Birnbaum
Le Temps	.	29/1/2021	L.Koutchoumoff Arman

From the Reviews:

"Les dialogues cinglants engagent les lecteurs à penser différemment un événement historique odieux, mais l’ensemble du récit demeure confus et ambigu en raison notamment du trop grand nombre d’anecdotes et de personnages qui nuisent à la cohésion du tissu narratif." - Marie-Agnès Sourieau, The French Review

"Serge, donc. Il s’agit d’un roman bien sûr mais l’art du dialogue qui se déploie ici est tel que l’on en sort avec la nette impression d’avoir vu, entendu, touché les personnages, qui, le temps de la lecture, s’activent sur notre scène mentale. (...) Mais où qu’elle conduise ses personnages, la romancière capte avant tout le décalage entre ce qui est dit et ce qui est ressenti. Le flot verbal qu’elle met dans la bouche de ses protagonistes, et surtout dans celle de Serge, boule d’angoisse sous ses airs de grande gueule, n’est qu’un leurre." - Lisbeth Koutchoumoff Arman, Le Temps

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       Serge is a family-novel, focused on the three adult Popper-children: narrator Jean, older brother Serge, and sister Nana. Serge is already sixty, but as Jean sums up: "We'll always, to each other, be the three Popper children".
       Early on Jean does wonder: "how we siblings ended up staying as thick as thieves" -- but the novel basically begins with the death of their mother, with noting: "Once she was dead, things went off the rails". The heart of the novel involves a family trip, as Serge's adult daughter is eager to visit Auschwitz.
       As Jean explains:

Joséphine's gotten it in her head ever since her grandmother's death. She'd like for her father come along. Nana's fine with it and plans on coming. Serge's freaking out at the idea of being with those two. So, I'm going, too.

The family is Jewish, but neither religious nor particularly interested in their family history. The mother -- a fan of Putin, no less -- emphatically did not want to be buried where her husband was -- "No ! Not with the Jews !" -- and is cremated, and the children's attitude is summed up in an exchange Serge and Jean have in their hotel room in Poland:

     "Can't say we've asked many questions," Serge says.
     "Nope."
     "Either of us. No curiosity."
     "Nope."
     "We really don't care in the end."
     I think about it. "Yes."
     He's right. We've never thought we ought to bother ourselves with family history. For that matter, hadn't our parents imposed a tacit silence ? All these old stories, who wanted them ?

They try to go through the motions here, as:

The overarching idea of this expedition -- I'm still trying to get to grips with it -- was, to put it with all the solemnity of our time, to visit the grave of our Hungarian relatives. People we never knew, who we'd never heard talk of, whose misfortunes seemed not to have upended our mother's life. But that's our family: they died because they were Jewish, they experienced the macabre fate of a people whose heritage we carry on, and in a world besotted with the word "memory," it seems ignominious to wash one's hand of such a matter. At least that's what I understand of my niece Joséphine being so feverishly invested.

       On site, they continue to have trouble connecting, not least because of the tourist-crowds and the peculiar, voyeuristic 'experience' of touring Auschwitz and Birkenau. And matters aren't helped by, especially, Serge's attitude; as Nana complains: "he's been a wet blanket on this trip".
       Among the other issues playing a role in events are Serge's break-up with girlfriend Valentina, his efforts to find an apartment for Joséphine, and, most significantly, his attempt to secure Nana's son, budding chef Victor, a summer job. The opportunity Serge wrangles is neither really appropriate -- "a two-week stage like I'm an apprentice", Victor complains -- nor what Victor is interested in, but Serge takes offense at what he takes as Victor's ungratefulness, and it all also leads to a rupture with Nana. After they're back from Auschwitz: "Nana and Serge have independently and mutually decided not to talk to each other ever again".
       In explaining himself to Serge, Victor had written that he did not want or need the kind of help Serge was offering, but rather that: "I just need a family". When Serge and Jen and Nana's mother died, her niece Margot had said: "Mamie, you were the one holding this mishmash of a family together", and indeed with her death things do fall apart -- yet even with their antagonisms, the three siblings seem unable to completely abandon one another; a sense of family -- even if an often not very satisfactory kind of one -- remains.
       Serge had complained to Jean:

Did we need to go to Auschwitz ? Be honest. Did we need the whole gang? Maybe it will end in tragedy.

       But Reza is not one for grand, dramatic tragic scenes and turns; more true to life, she explores the many smaller ones typical for a family. If less spectacular, they are no less deep and substantial.
       Serge offers rich character-portraits of the different family-figures, struggling in their various ways, including with their relationships, within and beyond the family. While there is considerable movement to various locales, it still has much of the feel of a chamber piece -- dominated by outsized older brother Serge, even as Jean is the one telling the story (and despite the other relationships he is dealing with). With its several generations -- other older figures also figure prominently, as well as the shadows of those who perished long before -- Serge deals with memory and various forms of legacies, as well as with family in the broadest, multi-generational sense as well as on the most immediate and intimate level.
       Intentionally small-scale -- even when dealing with something like the Holocaust -- Serge is still a resonant work, a solid novel dealing with its themes in interesting ways.

- M.A.Orthofer, 9 July 2025

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Links:

Serge:

Restless Books publicity page
Flammarion publicity page
Folio publicity page
Hanser publicity page
Adelphi publicity page
Anagrama publicity page

Reviews:

Yasmina Reza:

See the complete review's Yasmina Reza page

Other Books by Yasmina Reza under Review

Other books of interest under review:

See the index of French literature at the complete review

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About the Author:

French author Yasmina Reza, born in 1959, achieved her first great success with the play 'Art'. She has also written fiction and screenplays.

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