Conclusion

The Conclusion summarizes the most prominent aspects of the spatial crisis of globalized capitalism, as these have been encountered in the corpus. It draws parallels between these and current events—including U.S. President Donald Trump’s withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate, and his creation of a Space Force. It draws the conclusion that French novels written in the second decade of the new millennium—post-2008-recession, perhaps—become increasingly dystopian, as they move away from the personal existential crises of protagonists finding themselves awkwardly lost in translation toward portraits of societies at large facing more palpably existential threats (financial collapse, war). Indeed, a host of more recent novels depict the near-future demise of the Fifth Republic, if not of France (as a nation) itself. However, these near-future dystopian versions of France also become the occasion for social awakenings and revolution. This is demonstrated by a brief reading of Marie Darriuessecq’s Notre vie dans les forêts (2017).