
There is a paradox Angot. Critics who defended him when she expended more hostile reactions are that "The small" lack this active distraught "Incest", "Subject Angot" or "why the Brazil". Conversely, those who have more violently attacked him when she played to the map of the autofiction kowtow this new book, they feel more calm, more controlled, more literary kind. She, in turn, hates that asked about his "great return". This she responded, a bit pinched air is never part. That it is not what this novel represents a break in his work for twenty years and fifteen novels. And it is correct.
In reality, the writer not share nor is; She explores. The work of Christine Angot illustrates this wonderful word of the painter Pierre Soulages: "It's doing that I find what I'm looking for." With this burned story of 188 pages written in the present, Christine Angot has, in our eyes, found what she was looking for. Full light flood on the dark side of the female power in dissecting the scalpel strategies avoidance of confrontation in the heart of the couple, it is this rate, this breath, this breathing, this power that make great novels. It out shaken.

"Small" tell the story of the descent to the underworld of a couple, Hélène and Billy. Hélène comes from divorce and, with her daughter Mary, two years, fled, more than left, the Australia and a husband who allegedly committed "sex crimes". Hélène is - as Billy, moreover - vegan, it is against contraception and abortion. For the death penalty, "it is less secure, but in some cases it is radical." It reads "It" and "Here", like the French song (of Brel to Vanessa Paradis) and Japanese cinema. Finally, "she returned very against Sarkozy, but she shares his diagnosis on the evolution of society." In Paris, she met a musician from Martinique, rap producer and sound engineer, whom she becomes pregnant. They are in love, have desire for one another, but little by little things go to debilitate.
In the beginning, it's odds and ends, Hélène asked of dreadlocks to their first child, Clara (four others follow); She asked that he be tattooed his name on his body. He refused in both cases. Then the constraints become more numerous and oppressive. At first, Billy decides to not replicate, not to enter the game. "To prevent the tension mounting, he lets decide." This is not a question of criteria, but initiative. The important is not the choice, but who did. (...) When it's household, if applicable a board just it, it's good. As long as it relates to it, all is well. Otherwise it prevents, it repels. And, as long as it can, it will push. "To avoid to get excited, he decided that this does not reach him. "The parade is to fuck off."
But the disputes are more violent, especially after its entry in a Buddhist sect in which she attempts to lead the children. To péter cable, she chooses as a technique to dramatize situations, to accelerate the process of victimization. Cool, until then, if well occcupant of his children that he loves, falls into the trap, losing a night of violence, is uplifted by the cops. Custody, recidivism, conviction, separation. It can no longer see the small. She won. At least for a time.