On the Line: Notes from a Factory - Softcover

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Joseph Ponthus (1978-2021) worked for over ten years as a social worker and special needs teacher in the suburbs of Paris. He was co-author of Nous... La Cité (The Suburbs Are Ours) and his masterpiece À la Ligne (On the Line) was published in France in 2019 to great acclaim. It won several literary prizes, including the Grand Prix RTL/Lire and the Prix Régine Deforges, and became a major bestseller.

Stephanie Smee left a career in law to work as a literary translator. Her publications span nineteenth-century French children's literature to her recent translation of Hannelore Cayre's prize-winning work of literary crime fiction, The Godmother. Her translation of rediscovered WWII memoir, No Place to Lay One's Head, won the JQ-Wingate Prize.
Joseph Ponthus (1978-2021) worked for over ten years as a social worker and special needs teacher in the suburbs of Paris. He was co-author of Nous... La Cité (The Suburbs Are Ours) and his masterpiece À la Ligne (On the Line) was published in France in 2019 to great acclaim. It won several literary prizes, including the Grand Prix RTL/Lire and the Prix Régine Deforges, and became a major bestseller.

Stephanie Smee left a career in law to work as a literary translator. Her publications span nineteenth-century French children's literature to her recent translation of Hannelore Cayre's prize-winning work of literary crime fiction, The Godmother. Her translation of rediscovered WWII memoir, No Place to Lay One's Head, won the JQ-Wingate Prize.

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Entering the factory
Of course I was ready for
The stench
The cold
The shifting of heavy loads
The harshness of it all
The conditions
The production line
The modern slavery

I wasn’t there to report on it
Nor was I readying myself for the revolution
No
The factory means I get to earn a buck
Put food on the table
As the saying goes
Because my wife is sick of seeing me lounge around
on the couch waiting for a job in my field
So it’s
The agro-industrial plant for me
Food processing
The agro industry
As they say
A factory in Brittany
Handling processing cooking and all things fish
and prawns
I’m not there to write
I’m there for the money

At the temp agency they ask me when I can start
 I pull out the Victor Hugo
My usual literary go-to
Tried and tested
‘Tomorrow at dawn when the countryside pales I guess’
They take me at my word and the next day I clock on at
six in the morning

As the hours and days go by the need to write embeds
itself like a bone in my throat I can’t dislodge
But not of the grimness of the factory
Rather its paradoxical beauty

On my production line I often find myself thinking of a
parable
One of Claudel’s I’m pretty sure
A man makes a pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres and
comes across a fellow busy breaking stones
What are you doing
My job
Breaking these shitty rocks
My back’s done in
It’s a dog’s job
Shouldn’t be allowed
Would sooner die
Some kilometres further on a second fellow’s busy
doing the same job
Same question
I’m working
I’ve got a family to feed
It’s a bit tough

That’s just how it is and at least I’ve got a job
That’s the main thing
Further on still
Outside Chartres
A third man
His face radiant
What are you doing
I’m building a cathedral

May the prawns and fish be my stones

At first the smell of the factory irritated my nostrils
Now I no longer notice it
The cold is bearable with a big jumper a hoodie two
decent pairs of socks and leggings under my pants
Shifting the heavy loads
I’m finding muscles I didn’t know existed
I am willing in my servitude
Happy almost

The factory has taken me 
I refer to it now only as
My factory
As if I had some form of ownership of the machines
or proprietary interest in the processing of the prawns
and fish
Small-time casual worker that I am
One among so many others
Soon
We’ll be processing shellfish too
Crabs lobsters spider crabs and crayfish

That’s a revolution I’m hoping to see
Hoping to bag some claws even if I already know it
won’t be possible
It’s bad enough trying to filch just a single prawn
You’ve really got to hide if you want to eat a few
I’m still too obvious my co-worker Brigitte
an older woman has said to me
‘I didn’t see anything but watch it if the bosses catch
you’
So now I sneak them out under my apron with my hands
triple gloved to keep out the moisture the cold and
everything else so I can peel and eat what I consider at
the very least to be some form of payment in kind

I’m getting ahead of myself
Back to the writing
‘I write as I speak when the fiery angel of conversation
takes hold of me like a prophet’ wrote Barbey
d’Aurevilly or something along those lines somewhere
I’m not quite sure where
I write like I think when I’m on my production line
Mind wandering alone determined
I write like I work
On the production line
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