De Wase trilogie Series by Tom Lanoye, Paul Vincent, Alain van Crugten

Les Boîtes en carton, qui fit connaître Tom Lanoye en Flandre, est l'histoire d'un gamin issu d'un milieu populaire qui, lors d'un voyage scolaire organisé par une caisse d'assurance, au début des années soixante, tombe amoureux d'un des garçons qui participe à l'excursion... moreLes Boîtes en carton, qui fit connaître Tom Lanoye en Flandre, est l'histoire d'un gamin issu d'un milieu populaire qui, lors d'un voyage scolaire organisé par une caisse d'assurance, au début des années soixante, tombe amoureux d'un des garçons qui participe à l'excursion. L'homosexualité approchée sans tabou fit le succès du livre mais, au-delà de cette relation aujourd'hui encore sulfureuse dans un pays catholique, l'auteur brosse une galerie de portraits criants de vérité, souvent cruels et hilarants. Avec cet art de la caricature et du burlesque qui a enchanté les lecteurs de La Langue de ma mère, Tom Lanoye parvient à nous faire revivre cette période de l'après-guerre avec ses poncifs et son euphorie, et cette région, la Flandre, qui faisait, alors, complètement partie de la Belgique. less

Tom Lanoye's mother, an amateur actress, suffered a stroke and lost her ability to speak. With her voice, once so dear to her, gone, she deteriorated, slowly and inevitably. New attacks made her entirely dependent on help.As a grateful and moving homage he reconstructs her life in an abundance of language that used to be hers... moreTom Lanoye's mother, an amateur actress, suffered a stroke and lost her ability to speak. With her voice, once so dear to her, gone, she deteriorated, slowly and inevitably. New attacks made her entirely dependent on help.As a grateful and moving homage he reconstructs her life in an abundance of language that used to be hers. We meet José as a flamboyant, domineering and controlling woman who, investing great effort in her family and their butcher's shop, always strove for everyone's respectability, reputation and well being, resorting from time to time to dramatic scenes and shrewd manipulation to get her way. Among José's most painful experiences were, according to Lanoye, the fatal car accident that killed her one 'difficult' son, and the disclosure that her youngest son, the author, is gay.Good natured and often humorous, Speechless is at times a 'song of curses', as Lanoye describes the conflicts with his beloved diva of a mother and her brave struggle with decline and death. This is an informal, honest testimony of a mother by her son. But it's also the portrait of a generation, of family life in the sixties and seventies. Speechless will speak to anyone who has a family. less