Thibault, Les. Roger Martin du Gard's Tolstoyan fresco of bourgeois life, published between 1922 and 1940. In 1931, after the appearance of Le Cahier gris (1922), Le Pénitencier (1922), La Belle Saison (1923), La Consultation (1928), La Sorellina (1928), and La Mort du père (1929), the original epic scope of the roman-fleuve was drastically curtailed and the project completed in four further volumes, the three of L'Été 1914 (1936) and Épilogue (1940).
The male-dominated story is told by an omniscient narrator, though with much use of dialogue, style indirect libre, a novel within a novel, letters, and towards the end a diary. The structure is based on a series of set episodes of varying duration and complexity. The novel follows the destinies of Antoine and Jacques Thibault, sons of an overbearing, intellectual, Catholic father. Both become materialist agnostics, Antoine a successful society doctor, Jacques a writer and socialist revolutionary. The Protestant de Fontanin family is a foil to the Thibaults. Daniel de Fontanin becomes a Gidean sensualist and a painter; his sister Jenny and Jacques fall in love. His mother is perhaps the most admirable character portrayed, though the most striking female figure is the emancipated Rachel, Antoine's lover. The author is adept at working parallels and contrasts into his complex plot. Characters are not given as absolutes. The web of relationships is very convincingly handled, the psychology perceptive and discreet but rarely profound. Sexuality is treated with some frankness. Focus and tempo vary greatly. Sections of La Mort du père are sluggish, and parts of L'Été 1914, where analysis of the causes of the war predominates, tedious and artificial. The art of Les Thibault is one of tolerant humanist irony, indirect suggestion, and implicit meanings. Style is never allowed to obtrude. Time, death, love, loneliness, egoism, the alleviation of suffering through medicine and social justice are the main themes of this ambitious portrayal of the bourgeois human condition.
[David Steel]
