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After a 18-year pause, Pennac picked up again the tale of the Malaussène family with a new series of novels, titled ''Le cas Malaussène'' (''The Malaussène Case''). This second cycle consists (as of 2022) of the following novel:
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After a 18-year pause, Pennac picked up again the tale of the Malaussène family with a new series of novels, titled ''Le cas Malaussène'' (''The Malaussène Case''). This second cycle consists (as of 2022) 2023) of the following novel:novels:
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* ''Terminus Malaussène'' (2023)
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* ContrivedCoincidence: Lampshaded at the end of ''Write to Kill'', when a comatose Benjamin who underwent total OrganTheft incredibly happens to be histocompatible with the novel's BigBad, who's in the very same hospital and conveniently very recently dead.
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* OrganTheft: Benjamin falls in a coma during ''Write to Kill'' and a corrupt doctor takes advantage of it to explant all of his organs. He later gets the organs back thanks to ContrivedCoincidence (see that trope above).
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* PerpetualSmiler: C'Est Un Ange starts smiling barely a few seconds after being born and never really stops afterwards. When he needs a clean diaper or a bottle, his cousin Verdun screams instead.
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* PerpetualSmiler: C'Est Un Ange starts smiling barely a few seconds after being born and never really stops afterwards. When he needs a clean diaper or a bottle, his cousin aunt Verdun screams instead.
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* PracticallyDifferentGenerations: Benjamin is around thirty years old when his youngest sibling Verdun is born. Her relationship with her nephew C'Est Un Ange -- who's a year younger -- is more of her being a CoolBigSis.
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* FortuneTeller: Thérèse. She's never wrong, to the point that a minister decides to marry her in order to make use of her gift -- alas for him, her gift was reliant on VirginPower.
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* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: In ''The Scapegoat'', Louna is pregnant and constantly wondering if she should keep the baby, to the point that Benjamin ultimately loses patience and snaps at her. She ultimately gives birth to twin girls.
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* PerpetualSmiler: C'Est Un Ange starts smiling barely a few seconds after being born and never really stops afterwards. When he needs a clean diaper or a bottle, his cousin Verdun screams instead.
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Loads And Loads Of Characters is a redirect that should not be linked to
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* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: The protagonist's family starts out with seven members (eight, including Julius the dog; ten, including honorary aunts Théo and Julie) and new ones are born throughout the series. Then, there are all sorts of colourful characters orbiting around Belleville and Paris.
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* WhoNamesTheirKidDude: Jérémy is in charge of naming every Malaussène child born after him. This results in the girls being named "Verdun" (after the bloody World War One battle - she screams non-stop) and "Maracuja" ("passion fruit", literally and figuratively), and the boys "Le Petit" ("the little one", because he was really small), "C'Est Un Ange" ("he's an angel", because he was peaceful like an angel), and "Monsieur Malaussène" ("Mister Malaussène" -- full name Monsieur Malaussène Malaussène). ''Ils m'ont menti'' reveals C'Est Un Ange and Monsieur Malaussène are respectively called Sept and Mosma for short.
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* WhoNamesTheirKidDude: Jérémy is in charge of naming every Malaussène child born after him. This results in the girls being named "Verdun" (after the bloody World War One battle - -- she screams non-stop) and "Maracuja" ("passion fruit", literally and figuratively), and the boys "Le Petit" ("the little one", because he was really small), "C'Est Un Ange" ("he's an angel", because he was peaceful like an angel), and "Monsieur Malaussène" ("Mister Malaussène" -- full name Monsieur Malaussène Malaussène). ''Ils m'ont menti'' reveals C'Est Un Ange and Monsieur Malaussène are respectively called Sept and Mosma for short.
* WholeEpisodeFlashback: The bulk of ''Des chrétiens et des maures'' is spent retelling the circumstances of Le Petit's conception and birth, and as such it's the earliest story in the chronology of the series.
* WholeEpisodeFlashback: The bulk of ''Des chrétiens et des maures'' is spent retelling the circumstances of Le Petit's conception and birth, and as such it's the earliest story in the chronology of the series.
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* IronicName: Benjamin, whose name can be French slang for [[TheBabyOfTheBunch the youngest sibling in the family]], is the eldest child of his household.
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* BirthDeathJuxtaposition: Since the cycle more or less fits inside the [[MysteryFiction murder mystery genre]], there's always a dead body around - and every story ends with the birth of a new Malaussène child. {{Subverted}} with ''Des chrétiens et des maures'' where there's no deaths.
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* BirthDeathJuxtaposition: Since the cycle more or less fits inside the [[MysteryFiction [[CrimeFiction murder mystery genre]], there's always a dead body around - and every story ends with the birth of a new Malaussène child. {{Subverted}} with ''Des chrétiens et des maures'' where there's no deaths.
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* EvenBetterSequel: While ''The Scapegoat'' received a somewhat muted reception, ''The Fairy Gunmother'' was the novel that made Pennac into a household name, winning several literary prizes and being adapted for TV a year later.
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* GenreBusting: It's difficult to categorise the saga under a single label. While "crime fiction" may be the easiest one, as Benjamin and his family are always inevitably entangled in cases of murder and assorted felonies, there are also elements of thriller, family drama, romance, satire, and absurdist comedy.
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''La saga Malaussène'' (''The Malaussène Saga''), also known as the Belleville cycle, is a series of five novels and a novella by French author Daniel Pennac.
Benjamin Malaussène is a thirty-something guy, who lives in the multi-ethnic Parisian neighbourhood of Belleville with his numerous younger half-siblings and their epileptic dog. He works as a professional scapegoat for a large, unnamed department store - his job is to take the blame and be loudly berated by his manager in front of complaining customers, so that they will be moved to compassion and retract any request for compensation or lawsuit.
\\
The works that make up the original cycle are:
* ''The Scapegoat'' (''Au bonheur des ogres'' [[note]]''The Orcs' Delight''[[/note]], 1985)
* ''The Fairy Gunmother'' (''La fée carabine'' [[note]]''The Carbine Fairy''[[/note]], 1987)
* ''Write to Kill'' (''La petite marchande de prose'' [[note]]''The Little Prose-Seller''[[/note]], 1990)
* ''Monsieur Malaussène'' [[note]]''Mister Malaussène'' [[/note]] (1995)
** ''Monsieur Malaussène au théâtre'' [[note]]''Mister Malaussène on stage''[[/note]] (stage adaptation of ''Monsieur Malaussène'', 1996)
* ''Des chrétiens et des maures'' [[note]]''Christians and Moors''[[/note]] (novella, 1996)
* ''Passion Fruit'' (''Aux fruits de la passion'' [[note]]''By the Passion Fruits''[[/note]], 1999)
\\
After a 18-year pause, Pennac picked up again the tale of the Malaussène family with a new series of novels, titled ''Le cas Malaussène'' (''The Malaussène Case''). This second cycle consists (as of 2022) of the following novel:
* ''Ils m'ont menti'' [[note]]''They Lied to Me''[[/note]] (2017)
\\
''The Fairy Gunmother'' was adapted into a television film in 1988 (as part of the ''Série noire'' TV series of crime stories adaptations) with Tom Novembre, Creator/FabriceLuchini and Anna Galiena, while ''The Scapegoat'' was made into a film in 2013, starring Raphaël Personnaz as Benjamin and Bérénice Bejo as Julie.
Not to be confused with ''WesternAnimation/TheTripletsOfBelleville''.
!''The Malaussène Saga'' contains examples of:
* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother: Mama Malaussène had her first child Benjamin at 14. She's in her mid-forties when her seventh child Verdun is born.
* AnAssKickingChristmas: Downplayed, the first book opens on Christmas Eve when the first explosion happens, but the plot doesn't pick up in full until a couple of weeks later.
* BirthDeathJuxtaposition: Since the cycle more or less fits inside the [[MysteryFiction murder mystery genre]], there's always a dead body around - and every story ends with the birth of a new Malaussène child. {{Subverted}} with ''Des chrétiens et des maures'' where there's no deaths.
* BlindWithoutEm: Le Petit wears a pair of pink glasses with very thick lenses.
* BottleEpisode: ''Des chrétiens et des maures'' is considerably shorter (being a novella rather than a full novel) and largely takes place inside the Malaussène home.
* CameraFiend: Clara.
* TheCaseOf: The title of the second cycle, ''Le cas Malaussène''.
* CharacterTitle:
** ''La petite marchande de prose'' is [[spoiler:Queen Zabo]], whose backstory is explored in the novel.
** ''Monsieur Malaussène'' is [[spoiler:Benjamin]]'s eponymous son, who's born at the end of the novel.
** Likewise, ''Passion Fruit'' is [[spoiler:Thérèse]]'s daughter.
* DeadpanSnarker: Ben, both in narration and in spoken dialogue.
* DisappearedDad: None of the Malaussène siblings know who their (respective) father is, though ''Des chrétiens et des maures'' is a flashback to how Mama Malaussène met Le Petit's father, and Ben knows (at least by name) Verdun's presumed father Robert.
* EvenBetterSequel: While ''The Scapegoat'' received a somewhat muted reception, ''The Fairy Gunmother'' was the novel that made Pennac into a household name, winning several literary prizes and being adapted for TV a year later.
* GayBestFriend: Théo, Benjamin's coworker and honorary aunt to the other Malaussènes.
* GayParee: Undergoes a constant DeconReconSwitch. On the one hand, the typical Parisian stereotypes take a backseat to seldom-seen aspects such as multi-ethnic neighbourhoods, the criminal underbelly and the machinations of the modern high society. On the other hand, the multitudes of zany characters that populate the books and the surreal quality of the story still show the city under a fantastical light.
* {{Goth}}: Thérèse.
* HeroicBSoD: As [[spoiler:Clara]] gets on the scene of her would-be husband's murder in ''Write to Kill'', she doesn't cry or freak out. Instead, she silently pulls out her camera and snaps pictures of the crime scene.
* [[HonoraryUncle Honorary Aunt]]: Julie and Théo, to Benjamin's younger siblings (yes, Théo is an aunt too).
* IncestSubtext: Ben openly admits from the start that she finds Clara attractive, and he says that were they not siblings, they would have been soulmates. This keeps going on even after Ben gets together with Julie.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: The protagonist's family starts out with seven members (eight, including Julius the dog; ten, including honorary aunts Théo and Julie) and new ones are born throughout the series. Then, there are all sorts of colourful characters orbiting around Belleville and Paris.
* MadeOfIron: [[spoiler:Julie, after being tortured in ''The Fairy Gunmother''.]]
* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: Julie Corrençon is an intrepid investigative journalist who once performed an appendectomy on herself on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean. Her boyfriend Benjamin is a mild-mannered NonActionGuy who works as a professional fall guy.
* MassivelyNumberedSiblings: The Malaussène siblings, from eldest to youngest: Benjamin, Louna, Clara, Thérèse, Jérémy, Le Petit and Verdun (who's born in ''The Fairy Gunmother'').
* NoNameGiven: In opposition to their newborn relatives, we never get to know the names of Louna's twins.
* OnlySaneWoman: Louna is the most normal-behaving of the Malaussène children, to the point that she lives elsewhere.
* ThePlace:
** ''Au bonheur des ogres'' refers to the deparment store where Benjamin works (the English title, ''The Scapegoat'', is instead a JobTitle).
** ''Aux fruits de la passion'' is the name of [[spoiler:the day care which Thérèse opens at the story's end]].
* PromotionToParent: Since their mother is always globe-trotting and their fathers are unknown, it's Benjamin (and, less so, Louna and Clara) who takes care of his siblings.
* ReallyGetsAround: Mama Malaussène. This trope is obvious given that she has six -- later seven -- kids, each and every one of them from a different unknown father.
* RepetitiveName: Monsieur Malaussène Malaussène, [[spoiler:Benjamin]]'s son. "Monsieur Malaussène" is his first name and "Malaussène" his family name.
* TheScapegoat: Benjamin's profession, first for the department store then for Talion Publishing.
* ShoutOut:
** The original title of ''The Scapegoat'', ''Au bonheur des ogres'', is a play on Émile Zola's novel ''Au bonheur des dames'' (''The Ladies' Delight''), which is likewise set in a department store.
** ''La petite marchande de prose'' riffs on ''Literature/TheLittleMatchGirl'' (to be precise, on its first film adaptation: ''La petite marchande d'allumettes'').
* SeriesFauxnale: ''Passion Fruit''. After 18 years, ''Le Cas Malaussène'' goes back to Belleville to tell more stories.
* UnfazedEveryman: Ben is a kind and mild-mannered (though snarky) guy who gets thrown into all sorts of surreal situations.
* WhoNamesTheirKidDude: Jérémy is in charge of naming every Malaussène child born after him. This results in the girls being named "Verdun" (after the bloody World War One battle - she screams non-stop) and "Maracuja" ("passion fruit", literally and figuratively), and the boys "Le Petit" ("the little one", because he was really small), "C'Est Un Ange" ("he's an angel", because he was peaceful like an angel), and "Monsieur Malaussène" ("Mister Malaussène" -- full name Monsieur Malaussène Malaussène). ''Ils m'ont menti'' reveals C'Est Un Ange and Monsieur Malaussène are respectively called Sept and Mosma for short.
* WidowedAtTheWedding: [[spoiler:Clara]].
Benjamin Malaussène is a thirty-something guy, who lives in the multi-ethnic Parisian neighbourhood of Belleville with his numerous younger half-siblings and their epileptic dog. He works as a professional scapegoat for a large, unnamed department store - his job is to take the blame and be loudly berated by his manager in front of complaining customers, so that they will be moved to compassion and retract any request for compensation or lawsuit.
\\
The works that make up the original cycle are:
* ''The Scapegoat'' (''Au bonheur des ogres'' [[note]]''The Orcs' Delight''[[/note]], 1985)
* ''The Fairy Gunmother'' (''La fée carabine'' [[note]]''The Carbine Fairy''[[/note]], 1987)
* ''Write to Kill'' (''La petite marchande de prose'' [[note]]''The Little Prose-Seller''[[/note]], 1990)
* ''Monsieur Malaussène'' [[note]]''Mister Malaussène'' [[/note]] (1995)
** ''Monsieur Malaussène au théâtre'' [[note]]''Mister Malaussène on stage''[[/note]] (stage adaptation of ''Monsieur Malaussène'', 1996)
* ''Des chrétiens et des maures'' [[note]]''Christians and Moors''[[/note]] (novella, 1996)
* ''Passion Fruit'' (''Aux fruits de la passion'' [[note]]''By the Passion Fruits''[[/note]], 1999)
\\
After a 18-year pause, Pennac picked up again the tale of the Malaussène family with a new series of novels, titled ''Le cas Malaussène'' (''The Malaussène Case''). This second cycle consists (as of 2022) of the following novel:
* ''Ils m'ont menti'' [[note]]''They Lied to Me''[[/note]] (2017)
\\
''The Fairy Gunmother'' was adapted into a television film in 1988 (as part of the ''Série noire'' TV series of crime stories adaptations) with Tom Novembre, Creator/FabriceLuchini and Anna Galiena, while ''The Scapegoat'' was made into a film in 2013, starring Raphaël Personnaz as Benjamin and Bérénice Bejo as Julie.
Not to be confused with ''WesternAnimation/TheTripletsOfBelleville''.
!''The Malaussène Saga'' contains examples of:
* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother: Mama Malaussène had her first child Benjamin at 14. She's in her mid-forties when her seventh child Verdun is born.
* AnAssKickingChristmas: Downplayed, the first book opens on Christmas Eve when the first explosion happens, but the plot doesn't pick up in full until a couple of weeks later.
* BirthDeathJuxtaposition: Since the cycle more or less fits inside the [[MysteryFiction murder mystery genre]], there's always a dead body around - and every story ends with the birth of a new Malaussène child. {{Subverted}} with ''Des chrétiens et des maures'' where there's no deaths.
* BlindWithoutEm: Le Petit wears a pair of pink glasses with very thick lenses.
* BottleEpisode: ''Des chrétiens et des maures'' is considerably shorter (being a novella rather than a full novel) and largely takes place inside the Malaussène home.
* CameraFiend: Clara.
* TheCaseOf: The title of the second cycle, ''Le cas Malaussène''.
* CharacterTitle:
** ''La petite marchande de prose'' is [[spoiler:Queen Zabo]], whose backstory is explored in the novel.
** ''Monsieur Malaussène'' is [[spoiler:Benjamin]]'s eponymous son, who's born at the end of the novel.
** Likewise, ''Passion Fruit'' is [[spoiler:Thérèse]]'s daughter.
* DeadpanSnarker: Ben, both in narration and in spoken dialogue.
* DisappearedDad: None of the Malaussène siblings know who their (respective) father is, though ''Des chrétiens et des maures'' is a flashback to how Mama Malaussène met Le Petit's father, and Ben knows (at least by name) Verdun's presumed father Robert.
* EvenBetterSequel: While ''The Scapegoat'' received a somewhat muted reception, ''The Fairy Gunmother'' was the novel that made Pennac into a household name, winning several literary prizes and being adapted for TV a year later.
* GayBestFriend: Théo, Benjamin's coworker and honorary aunt to the other Malaussènes.
* GayParee: Undergoes a constant DeconReconSwitch. On the one hand, the typical Parisian stereotypes take a backseat to seldom-seen aspects such as multi-ethnic neighbourhoods, the criminal underbelly and the machinations of the modern high society. On the other hand, the multitudes of zany characters that populate the books and the surreal quality of the story still show the city under a fantastical light.
* {{Goth}}: Thérèse.
* HeroicBSoD: As [[spoiler:Clara]] gets on the scene of her would-be husband's murder in ''Write to Kill'', she doesn't cry or freak out. Instead, she silently pulls out her camera and snaps pictures of the crime scene.
* [[HonoraryUncle Honorary Aunt]]: Julie and Théo, to Benjamin's younger siblings (yes, Théo is an aunt too).
* IncestSubtext: Ben openly admits from the start that she finds Clara attractive, and he says that were they not siblings, they would have been soulmates. This keeps going on even after Ben gets together with Julie.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: The protagonist's family starts out with seven members (eight, including Julius the dog; ten, including honorary aunts Théo and Julie) and new ones are born throughout the series. Then, there are all sorts of colourful characters orbiting around Belleville and Paris.
* MadeOfIron: [[spoiler:Julie, after being tortured in ''The Fairy Gunmother''.]]
* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: Julie Corrençon is an intrepid investigative journalist who once performed an appendectomy on herself on a boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean. Her boyfriend Benjamin is a mild-mannered NonActionGuy who works as a professional fall guy.
* MassivelyNumberedSiblings: The Malaussène siblings, from eldest to youngest: Benjamin, Louna, Clara, Thérèse, Jérémy, Le Petit and Verdun (who's born in ''The Fairy Gunmother'').
* NoNameGiven: In opposition to their newborn relatives, we never get to know the names of Louna's twins.
* OnlySaneWoman: Louna is the most normal-behaving of the Malaussène children, to the point that she lives elsewhere.
* ThePlace:
** ''Au bonheur des ogres'' refers to the deparment store where Benjamin works (the English title, ''The Scapegoat'', is instead a JobTitle).
** ''Aux fruits de la passion'' is the name of [[spoiler:the day care which Thérèse opens at the story's end]].
* PromotionToParent: Since their mother is always globe-trotting and their fathers are unknown, it's Benjamin (and, less so, Louna and Clara) who takes care of his siblings.
* ReallyGetsAround: Mama Malaussène. This trope is obvious given that she has six -- later seven -- kids, each and every one of them from a different unknown father.
* RepetitiveName: Monsieur Malaussène Malaussène, [[spoiler:Benjamin]]'s son. "Monsieur Malaussène" is his first name and "Malaussène" his family name.
* TheScapegoat: Benjamin's profession, first for the department store then for Talion Publishing.
* ShoutOut:
** The original title of ''The Scapegoat'', ''Au bonheur des ogres'', is a play on Émile Zola's novel ''Au bonheur des dames'' (''The Ladies' Delight''), which is likewise set in a department store.
** ''La petite marchande de prose'' riffs on ''Literature/TheLittleMatchGirl'' (to be precise, on its first film adaptation: ''La petite marchande d'allumettes'').
* SeriesFauxnale: ''Passion Fruit''. After 18 years, ''Le Cas Malaussène'' goes back to Belleville to tell more stories.
* UnfazedEveryman: Ben is a kind and mild-mannered (though snarky) guy who gets thrown into all sorts of surreal situations.
* WhoNamesTheirKidDude: Jérémy is in charge of naming every Malaussène child born after him. This results in the girls being named "Verdun" (after the bloody World War One battle - she screams non-stop) and "Maracuja" ("passion fruit", literally and figuratively), and the boys "Le Petit" ("the little one", because he was really small), "C'Est Un Ange" ("he's an angel", because he was peaceful like an angel), and "Monsieur Malaussène" ("Mister Malaussène" -- full name Monsieur Malaussène Malaussène). ''Ils m'ont menti'' reveals C'Est Un Ange and Monsieur Malaussène are respectively called Sept and Mosma for short.
* WidowedAtTheWedding: [[spoiler:Clara]].
