Danielle Holian
Jul 27, 20213 min
BOOK REVIEW
Factory you shall never have my soul
I am here
And I count for so much more than you
And I count so much more because of you
Thanks to you
On the Line, is a French bestseller written by Joseph Ponthus and translated by Stephanie Smee.
On the Line, has harsh descriptive and lyrical language of fierce storytelling. Composed of a story about a worker in a delicately uplifting manner, there’s depthful meaning in the absurd beauty that lies on each page. It’s an absolute raw, tender and extraordinary read with memorable stories that will stay with the reader, truly an astonishing literary masterpiece that was wonderfully weaved.
There’s parts in the book that may appear squeamish to sensitive readers that contain violent and vivid descriptions, never denying the actual truth of the storytelling. It leaves the reader moved almost alike in a rebelicious, bittersweet mood. With descriptions on repetitive work required that we should educate ourselves even on the basics of life, it’s an educational read in parts.
As the book is written in free verse over two parts, there’s insightful storytelling about a working class man who worked in hard manual labour on a low income in a fish factory that discusses the food processing industry, labourers who process the food we eat, highlighting these issues, and living paycheck to paycheck.
Part One Penning the harshness conditions on entering the factory in the production line of modern slavery in Brittany, Joseph Ponthus writes, “I’m not there to write, I’m there to make money.” There’s a lot to unpack in each piece making it an intriguing page turner full of elegant prose. “As I write these words I continue to offload rather than unload,” he continues. Doing his best to get to work on a boar or at a factory after going to the unemployment agency in search of waiting for work to bring in money to support his family, there are some parts were a tough read with the realness, but insightful to his life itself, his job with trials and errors, and the hardness to keep going.
Part Two finds Joseph Ponthus questioning, “is this then how men live. Is this then how I’m living,” when he’s on a break, singing to pass the time beginning to not make sense anymore even when he is at the point he cannot go on, he works. Describing his work day only to come home and face it all again tomorrow, there’s a hardness to the tough work he endures knowing he doesn’t belong there. It’s clear to see the exhaustion and fatigue over the course of the mix of long and short pieces. He discusses his last day when the moment arrives, some wish him luck as he does a round of the factory thanking everyone, “I’ve had the pleasure of going through hell for five months,” he says. The realness to the writing with no sugar coating any part of this story makes it an incredible read, from start to finish.
Joseph Ponthus (1978–2021) worked for over ten years as a social worker and special needs teacher in the suburbs of Paris. He was co-author of Nous … La Cité (The Suburbs Are Ours) and his masterpiece À la Ligne (On the Line) was published in France in 2019 to great acclaim. It won several literary prizes, including the Grand Prix RTL/Lire and the Prix Régine Deforges, and became a major bestseller.
Stephanie Smee left a career in law to work as a literary translator. Recent translations include Hannelore Cayre’s The Inheritors and The Godmother (winner of the CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger award), and Françoise Frenkel’s rediscovered World War II memoir, No Place to Lay One’s Head, which was awarded the JQ–Wingate Prize. Her translation of Pascal Janovjak’s The Rome Zoo is forthcoming.
Words by Danielle Holian
Grab your copy of On the Line here