Smoking bans help keep our lungs pink and breathing longer, and, if anything, are good for the children… right? It’s supposedly good for the general populace, these health-conscious laws. But controversial French author Benot Duteurtre criticizes these seemingly “safe” topics, including the increasing emphasis on remaining youthful in his hilariously horrifying satire “The Little Girl and The Cigarette,” recently translated into English. He simultaneously comments on terrorism and reality television, all in sync with a common thread: the inescapable hypocrisy embedded in a “good” deed in a world increasingly obsessed with public image.
In a bureaucracy-saturated world, where children and youth are venerated to extremes, a bitter and critical, unnamed protagonist sneaks a smoke, quietly rebelling in a bathroom stall. “How could I have imagined that after these years of relative freedom, my social life was going to be translated into a return to childhood with its prohibitions, while children were rewarded with ever-increasing rights?” he thinks with increasing bitterness toward the kids who run wild through the public office he works at.
Not only does the unnamed man crave simple freedoms, he adamantly projects his social view, and an unorthodox one at that: Middle-aged white men are the oppressed. He no longer wants to live within the stereotype of the easy-living, privileged and indebted individual. In this futuristic world, those formerly “oppressed,” women, the elderly, even children become the oppressors. But Duteurtre cleverly strays from generalizing when a racist white man saves the main character because he too is white.
The book is filled with other dimension-adding paradoxes that reflect the overall themes of double motives within social interactions and government policy. For example, suburbanites drive their SUVs to the city’s “Fresh air day,” tobacco company executives steer clear of smoke and children are the equivalent of wise men. Sound far out? Duteurte’s clear, unadorned prose will have you reading the story as if it comes from a trusted news source, like the circumstances could, or may already, be happening.
The author brilliantly twists terrorism and reality TV, two sickly fascinating elements of modern society, into an abominable image: A terrorist group captures six westerners and forces them to compete with song, dance and trivia for their lives. The judges are the people who vote from around the world after each episode is streamed online. His imaginative yet simply put ideas provoke an uncomfortable, strange, but honest form of fiction with an end that will make you cringe, connecting with its raw sense of humanity.
This cynical, home-hitting commentary on the saturation of public-relations ploys in Western society questions how far individuals will sell out in favor of the subtle, yet unwavering ideas of the masses.
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The Little Girl and The Cigarette

What: A social satire written by controversial author Benoît Duteurtre.
Gist: Think health-conscious laws and children’s rights are inherently good? Think again.
Gem: The plot includes a genius combination of reality television and terrorism.