La citadelle du vertige

by Alain Grousset

Symon n'a jamais connu la Terre. Depuis son plus jeune âge, il est tailleur de pierre, comme tous ses ancêtres. Il vit au sommet de la cathédrale et défense absolue de redescendre vers les bas étages... Grand prix de la littérature de jeunesse. A partir de 9 ans.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, France, French Literature, Roman, Novels

153 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Hana]

So a quick background: This book is a french middle grade novel taught in schools, and I discovered it by chance when looking for books with tall towers in them, as I was trying to find the book Invisible cities, but had forgotten its name. This book's plot intrigued me and I checked it out.

Anyhow, here is the synopsis: Enter the Citadel of Vertigo: a tall towering cathedral containing more than 200 floors looming over the skies, seemingly extending all the way up to the clouds from the land below. This is our world of the Citadel where humans have long abandoned the land, and have instead ventured on a long ascent upwards, and where the only way seems to be up. Amidst humanity's conquest to build a tower high enough to reach the stars, Symon is a young boy who is the son of a stonecutter, and has to help his father with his work, but he heavily dislikes the job. Symon is a boy with greater dreams and ambitions, and above all: a desire to find the truth. He wishes to find the answers behind the reason why humanity really wishes to reach the stars, and to what avail they have left the vast earth below. Symon sees the cathedral for what it really is: A prison. One where all the citizens must blindly obey the Lord of the Church and his people, and never once question anything or to descend to the lower floors of the cathedral. This story is about Symon's journey to find freedom and to see what freedom really even means. Will he achieve it? Or die trying?



The book unravels with a great concept in hand: a grand tower of worship that only goes higher and higher upwards, built by the common people for the religious elite that command all of the people, who have absolute authority and must never be questioned. The worldbuilding is done well, and the roman architecture of the cathedral is explained descriptively to paint a vivid picture of the dreamlike structure that is the Citadel. In addition, we also have art in the book every so often to show the imagery even more clearly. The plot is unique and captivating, and while most of the characters are not given much depth or explored enough, this is somewhat made up for with the character of Symon, the protagonist, who is written well and has good development throughout the story. Where the book shines especially is the themes that it explores: Religious authoritarianism, elitism, existentialism, and bleak cynicism.

So where do my problems with this book come in? Well, the story builds up well until it reaches its climax and ultimate plot twist. And almost all of my issues with the book arise from the reveal, as well as the last 20 pages, the way the book concludes is all very rushed.

While this plot twist does reframe the narrative entirely, it does not do it in a positive way. Because after the truth is revealed, the story makes even less sense than it did before. First off, if there is an extremely intelligent Alien species capable of space travel, why did they not just make a spaceship on earth instead of building a floating cathedral? It is so logistically dumb to be wasting centuries building a floating cathedral out of stone to reach the stars. One thing they try to answer this with is that the Aliens didn’t want humans to advance technologically, as it would be way more difficult to control an advanced civilization than a few hundred villagers. So the question is, did they ever need humans? And the answer is no, they did not. The aliens would have accomplished way more in those centuries trying to build a spaceship or advancing technologically themselves than by controlling humans and making them build a stone cathedral. And the thing is, in the book the aliens do have technology that they hide from the humans. They have food synthesizers that make food in a lab-like room hidden in the lower floors that Symon comes across once. So they have technology, yet they refuse to use it to actually get to space quicker. And I guess the only answer behind why this is so is just that the aliens enjoyed the control and absolute authority they held over the humans. Which, to me, is not convincing enough because they are still wasting centuries upon centuries doing this, and it would get boring pretty quickly. The worse part about the twist, however, lies in the fact that by making Aliens the villains all along, they externalized the problem, and made it seem something entirely different. The core of this book lies in the Noble Elites, who use religion and faith as a means to establish control and a totalitarian rule over the people, create divide within the people and reduce the purpose of humanity to an endless, meaningless and monotonous goal. This being done by aliens now takes away human accountability, especially in building and supporting a society which employs slavery, exploitation and abuse of people. It creates a new villain to hate, instead of looking at the problems we already have. It is just so unnecessary in my opinion, to make Aliens the villains instead of it being humans all along, because we know humans to be capable of such evil already. And if not being a part of causing that evil, humans are always being bystanders to evil. It would have been on point and relevant to today, if the perpetrators had not been some extraterrestrials from another planet, but instead human beings all along.

Another glaring issue in the story, which seems obvious and almost ruins the story for me is that first off, how come Symon is the only person who ever tried to go down to the further floors? Surely there must have been more people in the centuries that the cathedral has been in construction, that tried to seek answers. How is there no group of people against the nobles and the lord? Even in the most authoritarian regimes, there is always a rebellion somewhere. Let’s say the rebels got punished for it and made into servants, or perhaps killed. Even if those things happened, I don't think that would end the rebellion, on the contrary it would start more. Even if those centuries of indoctrination and religious and authoritarian brainwashing were so effective that there was such a psychological barrier preventing people from ever going against the Lord and the Nobles, it still doesn’t make sense that there weren’t other people among generations upon generations to achieve something, as humans are known to be rebellious. Secondly, the entire story can be reduced to almost nothing if you realize they could’ve just invented parachutes and jumped down. I refuse to believe no one thought of this among so many generations of people in the story.

Lastly, in regards to the ending itself: The ending shows us that Symon ultimately did not achieve freedom, and submitted to the aliens, the very fate of all other humans, and the fate that he hated and rebelled against as a child. Symon’s attempts were in vain at the end, and I find the image of him sculpting a rocket just so on the nose and honestly kind of dumb. He is doomed to only dream of escaping, despite the knowledge he has, even though he could still just make a parachute and jump down along with his family. Symon is a great character that is reduced to nothing at the end, his entire journey feels circular and pointless with his conclusion and he loses what made him so special.

This book contains a plot that is conceptually great and has interesting worldbuilding, and is a promising idea that is not executed and realised fully to its potential. It seems to me that the author just did not know where to go with the story, and does not know how to write science fiction very well, which is why the plot twist feels so half baked and reduces the story’s quality. The plot twist and final part of the story feels like it's there more so just to finish the story and fill in the blanks, rather than deliver a satisfying pay off, or explain the lore and worldbuilding better. I think that this book is definitely more of an allegorical and symbolic story, and the author chooses to focus on that aspect more but does sacrifice reason and rationality in the process, and because of this, to me this book does fall a bit flat at the end, especially with its message.


Rating: 6/10


Favourite moment in the story: Symon’s descent


Favourite lines/quotes:

“But what is freedom, if not being in harmony with oneself?” “Freedom is the Earth.” -Symon

“Through his work and love for beautiful things, man has learned to master, to channel the natural forces created by God. You all here must give your all in the construction of this cathedral. It is through labor that you will mark your passage on this Earth and thus show God your will to draw closer to him. Suffer and pray! Such must be your motto. Continue, salvation is at the end of the road!” -The Lord



This review ended up being wayyy longer than it should've been. welp. Hana out :p

[Hamza]

Un bon roman de science-fiction. Le niveau de langue est relativement simple. Ce que j'ai aimé le plus est le symbolisme de l'histoire.

[Mladoria]

C'est avec curiosité que j'ai entamé ce roman jeunesse. le contexte historique de la construction de cathédrale m'intéressant beaucoup.
Le jeune Symon, apprenti tailleur de pierre, passe ses journées entre le travail aux côtés de son père Jacquemain et ses escapades avec sa douce Bertrade qu'il espère bien épouser un jour. La vie est routinière au sein de la cathédrale mais la montée d'étages va soulever bien des interrogations chez le jeune homme qui rêve de la Terre ferme. La descente des étages va aller de paire avec des révélations troublantes sur son monde.
C'est un roman très facile à appréhender. le monde médiéval et ses us y sont remarquablement décrits, dans les activités professionnelles, la vie quotidienne et le lien très prégnant à la religion qui rythme la vie des habitants de la cathédrale. L'aspect historique prime dans la grande majorité du roman et n'est rattrapé par l'aspect science-fictionnel que dans le dernier tiers. le retournement s'il est assez prévisible pour un adulte familier du genre, ravira les jeunes lecteurs par son originalité.
Un très chouette roman à faire découvrir au public cible comme aux adultes, friands de littérature jeunesse qui souhaiteraient une lecture détente agréable.

[Marieke]

Drôle de livre, pas vraiment pour enfant contrairement à ce que sa couverture et son édition pourraient laisser penser. Histoire courte qui peut se lire très rapidement, avec un univers médiéval intéressant mais une irruption de la science fiction un peu maladroite à mon goût.

[mrnws]

C'était quand même bien même si on se rend compte que c'est un peu bâclé. C'est hyper rapide à la fin alors que le début est un peu long. La temporalité est un peu étonnante. Mais c'était quand même bien de le relire.

[Célia]

2,5

[nellitto]

smash c’était archi bien

[Lessidisa]

Mon livre du collège ; est très bien.

[Math le maudit]

Un très bon roman jeunesse qui permet de découvrir le fantastique, pour ne pas dire la science-fiction...

Sous des dehors initiaux plutôt banals, on découvre au final une histoire bien moins simple qu' on pourrait le croire.

[Mouhamad Adhami]

Un livre assez interessant qui nous montre a quel point ( parfois, dans certains pays, a une certaine epoque) on peut etre "cloturé" où on ne peut pas poser de questions, une ideologie imposee, une vie guidee, le revolté condamné

[Nicolas]

le premier roman de sf que j'ai lu à 10 ans, il m'avait marqué je m'en rappelle