Monsieur Miller – Page 3 – A Francophile's diary

2022-07-08

Avignon: Aux Environs

The festival doesn’t begin until July 7, so for the few days before that we spent some time in the areas surrounding Avignon. Monday I went on commercial a tour of a couple of Châteuneuf du Pape wineries and the ruins of the château itself. Ruth arrived late Monday night, and after a travel recovery day for her we rented a car. Wednesday morning and mid-day we spent biking in Camargue regional park before meeting up with friends in Arles in the afternoon. Thursday we went on a canoeing trip down the Gardon river from Collias to Pont du Gard.

Châteauneuf du Pape

My tour left in the afternoon from the Office du Tourisme. The guide from À la Francaise navigated the difficulty of 3 clients taking their own car and then loaded the other 4 of us into a minivan and headed out to wine country. We were 6 Americains and one young man from Hong Kong. I was the only French speaker among the bunch, so mostly the guides spoke English, with occasional side conversations with me. Our first stop was Château Fortia, a smaller winery with an interesting family history. Baron Le Roy, the grandfather of the current owner, was one of the creators of the AOP system (Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée) which lets winemakers qualify to label their wines as coming from a particular region if they follow certain quality assurance or tradition adherence measures. We got a tour and then a tasting led by the current winemaker, who appeared to be in his late 60s.

Second stop was Bouachon winery. More extended and showy tasting, entertaining sommelier.

Final stop ruins of Châteauneuf du Pape. Destroyed in WWII when a British bomber in distress emptied its bomb bay to be more nimble in evading a German fighter plane. Bombs accidentally landed on the Château. Sadness.

Funny story: le reliquat

Camargue

Rented a car, drove to Sainte Marie-de-la-mer. Once there, rented bikes (reserved the previous day) and rode along the dike in Camargue. The bikes had electrical assist, so the 22km ride was easy on the legs. Harder was the sandy paths in parts, which required some walking and engendered one spill.

It was hot. Hot, hot, hot. But the biking generated a breeze, and we were right by the sea so got more breeze. Saw less wildlife than hoped for: a number of seabirds and one stand of flamingos. Plenty of tourists on horses. No wild white horses, no bulls. Ah well. Had a picnic lunch (which we packed) at a lighthouse, then turned around.

Arles

Drove to Arles, parked the car just outside the music store that Ruth is renting a keyboard from. Ruth is participating next week in a few workshops organized by the « Les Suds, à Arles festival ». Walked to Place dur Forum and met Nora and family there. Had a drink, talked in French a lot.

Pont du Gard

Thursday morning drove out to Collias in the department of Gard. Rented a canoe from Kayak Vert, put in at their offices in Collias. Shallow but somewhat fast river Gardon (called Gardon or Gard depending how big it at that point). Lots of wind, tricky to keep canoe straight. Sunny but not too hot. Lots of other canoers. Here we saw a white horse walk across the river at some point, with a donkey following it 30 yards behind. Paddled under the bridge — ancient Roman construction, big and in impressive. Saw lots of tourists walking across it, but contented ourselves with floating under it. Continued on for another while to the take out point. All told 8km of canoeing, maybe 3 hours. Company staff collected lots of boats and lots of patrons in a bus + 3 vans.

Drove to Uzès nearby. Supposed to be a quaint village with interesting center. Ate a yummy lunch at a café, but didn’t have much energy to walk around afterwards. Drove home in the afternoon in order return car and get ready for Thursday night performance.

2022-07-082022-07-08

Avignon: L’Arrivée

I’m in Avignon! I left Boston Friday, July 1 and flew overnight to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Logan airport was pretty packed with lots of travelers headed out on vacation. CDG was the same way, but with a partial labor strike on top of it – welcome to France ! About 10% of the CDG flights were canceled, but the only impact it had on me was that the normal RER train from the airport to the TGV station at Gare du Lyon was out of service and I had to take a bus. This turned out to be a positive, as I had an extended conversation in French with the woman sitting next to me, who was returning to her native France from San Diego. She gave me some suggestions of what to see around Avignon, and also pointed out a more efficient route to Gare du Nord from the endpoint of the adhoc shuttle bus, Stade du France / Saint Denis. I made it to the TGV for Avignon with only 10 minutes to spare, so she may have saved me a lot of headache.

I spent the rest of Saturday and much of Sunday just walking around the city and getting oriented. Sunday I woke up around 4am (jetlag) and was out walking by 6am. It was well past sunrise and bright as could be, yet the city was completely deserted. Every few minutes I’d pass a single tourist like me, but otherwise it was empty. Eerie to see these vast spaces intended for hundreds to be empty but in full sunlight. Here’s some photos from that morning.

The Palais du Pape stands atop a rocky cliff at the northern tip of Avignon, overlooking the Rhone river. Tucked in alongside it is an understated park, named Rochier des Domes. It has paths, lawns, ponds, fountains, swans, goldfish, sculptures, and a symbolic small vineyard. But my favorite installation is a human sundial about 30 feet across. A stone marker gives instructions on where to stand based on the day of the year. Your shadow then falls upon a perimeter stone marker that reveals the current solar time. A second stone marker gives a long explanation of the difference between solar time and “legal time”. The whole contraption is named a « cadran solaire analemmatique », and is credited to one G. Bonnet, who designed this installation in 1930. Some other sculptor constructed it. The concept dates back to the Greeks and Romans, and there are apparently hundreds of such things in and around France, but I don’t recall seeing one before.

In addition seeing all the big things that every tourist will see, I noted some small details that made me happy during my first couple days. Here’s a few of those to round out this first of many Avignon posts.

2022-07-012022-07-07

Vole Eddie, vole !

The current issue of L’avant-scène théâtre (dated 15 April 2022 — they are still catching up from Covid disruptions) features the play Vole Eddie, vole ! by Léonard Prain. Rather than put it on the pile to be read in due course, I uncharacteristically picked it up as bedtime reading the night it arrived, and finished it in a single gulp. Prain has picked an unusual subject for a French play: the story of British ski jumper Michael Edwards, aka “Eddie the Eagle”. Eddie competed in the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary and made history despite finishing last, as he was the first British athlete ever to qualify for the Olympic ski-jumping events. His efforts to qualify for the Olympics by completing a 70m jump in a formal competition attracted a cult following worldwide, and he became a star of the 1988 Olympics despite his guaranteed losing status (top jumpers reach 120m).

The story is well documented (on Wikipedia and elsewhere): Eddie came to skiing late, did not have the typical body type for skiers, and wore thick corrective lenses. As a teenager he tried out unsuccessfully for the British national downhill ski team, so switched to ski jumping where there was no British competition. Eddie self-funded a quixotic campaign to reach the Olympics (self-funded, as the British national sports organization ignored him). He spent years living in his car and eating meager rations to save all his money for travel and skiing fees. According to the play, at least, his parents had little to offer him, and his father was dead set against Eddie’s folly.

Given the events recounted are relatively recent, I found myself asking “Does the play add anything to the tale ?” I’m not looking for novel details or scandalous revelations, but rather some insight or human exploration of Eddie’s character and odd journey. Alas, I find myself answering “No”. The dialog is smooth and the language descriptive. The play is designed to be performed by just three actors: one plays Eddie, one plays all the other male parts, and one plays all the other female parts. We see Eddie’s mother and father, his teachers and school coaches, his school peers (both dismissive and competitive), and eventually journalists, sports-casters, and race officials. The character of Eddie is presented as forever a child, with a good natured humor and more than a touch of buffoonery. He is never angry, though he does argue with his parents about his choice to ski rather than follow his father into the family plastering business. In all, not a lot dramatic or thought-provoking.

But it was a pleasant exposure of a fun story, a bit of an amuse bouche as it were. Speaking of which, I’m off shortly to travel to Avignon for the annual theater festival there. I hope I will have lots of blog posts for that!

Updated (2022-07-07): Check out this photo from Avignon:

La distribution à Avignon: Léonard Prain, moi, Sophie Accard, et Benjamin Lhommas

That’s me with the cast of Vole, Eddie, Vole ! I randomly came upon the three of them on this opening afternoon of Festival Avignon. They are here performing the show as part of the Festival OFF. We chatted a bit and I said I’d come see the show. I’ll update my review if I manage to make it to a performance.

2022-05-29

Quand sort la recluse, livre audio

I recently finished the novel Quand sort la recluse by Fred Vargas. I’ve read seven or eight books by Vargas since a bookseller in Paris recommended one to me in 2013, but this is the first one I’ve experienced as an audio-book. Indeed this is the first full-length audiobook I’ve ever listened to in French (I’ve listened to dozens of audiobooks in English). I listened to it over a period of a month or more, off and on during the half-hour blocks that are my commute to the office. It runs about 12 hours in total, surprisingly little for a 477 page printed book. I don’t think I read French silently at 40 pages an hour, though I haven’t timed myself recently.

I enjoyed the book enormously, but that’s almost certainly a combination of enjoying the content and enjoying the medium. I remember being elated when I first reached the point where I could read a full-length French novel without constant reference to a dictionary. The first several French books I read that way seemed to me marvelous, wonderful tomes of literature simply because I experienced them in French. It wasn’t until I had 10 or 15 under my belt that I was able to start assessing the book independently of the things my brain was doing to read the book in French. I assure you, Sigmund Fred ne répond plus is pretty dreadful, even acknowledging that it’s written by a master and intended as a pastiche. Just awful.

I knew from watching plays or listening to the radio that trick to comprehending an audiobook is accepting that one won’t catch every word or understand every expression. Instead, the goal is to understand enough of what’s being said to have a decent chance of following the next sentence, and the next. With the audiobook, I have an escape hatch of hitting the rewind button and going back to re-listen to the most recent 10 or 30 seconds. But I tried to use that very sparingly with Quand sort la recluse. While it’s true that I didn’t catch every word, I was delighted to find that I caught 90-95% of them.

Even more enjoyable was that I found this didn’t take all my brain power: I was able to think about other things while following along with the recording. One of the things I was able to think about was: “wait, what was that he just said?”. To use a programming analogy, it was like my brain would launch a new execution thread whenever it hit a difficulty. That thread would dwell on the word and try to recall its meaning, or dwell on the sounds and try to resolve them into the correct words, while the main part of my brain program continued on ingesting and understanding the recording as it went. I could maintain this for 15 or 20 seconds before having to shut down the auxiliary thread if it hadn’t reached a conclusion. My success rate at figuring out these puzzles in not-quite real-time was something like two-thirds, and those successes were enormously satisfying. I drove to work with an odd expression on my face, a mix of intense concentration but also repeated reward. I arrived at the office with my brain tired but abuzz, although somewhat mystified about how exactly I had gotten to the office — all the attention on the book left me with scant memories of the drive. I hope I didn’t run any red lights….

As to the book itself, it’s pretty decent. Quand sort la recluse is the ninth book in the series featuring Commissaire Adamsberg, head of a criminal brigade in Paris (Vargas writes other books not in that series). The brigade has a well-established cast of supporting characters whose signature traits make for a sort of Commedia dell’arte feel. We already know and love the lieutenant with the eidetic memory, the hypersomnolent computer specialist who must sleep every three hours, the tall, heavy-set female detective, and the confidant who grew up with Adamsberg in the Pyrénées. There is a bit more tension among this crowd than usual, as the story features an internal plot of division within the brigade as well as an external plot of who is behind a series of murders. Adamsberg does his usual thing of investigating without method, following as the wind blows, and letting “tiny bubbles of gas” float around in his brain (a process he himself hesitates to dignify with the word “thinking”). There’s a French expression for this lack of method, which I learned elsewhere: proceeding «à tatons», i.e. by feel. We would say “flying by the seat of his pants”.

As always, Vargas has done her research on an offbeat topic and has something interesting to share with us. This time it’s a venomous spider named «la recluse», rare in France though common in the US (the brown recluse). Although the spider seldom encounters humans and its bite is not fatal if treated with antibiotics soon enough, multiple octogenarian men living around Nîmes die from the poison within a matter of days despite medical treatment. This attracts the attention of the Adamsberg, though the investigation must be unofficial as insect bites are not typically in the purview of the police. Sure enough, the victims share an unlikely and sordid history, and their deaths turn out to be a revenge scheme executed (pardon the pun) with an unusual and symbolic weapon.

A second meaning of «la recluse» dates from the middle ages and refers to a woman who sequesters herself in a tiny stone enclosure, perhaps a meter squared, entirely sealed except for a small window (une fenestrelle) to allow for food to be passed in. The women who became recluses in this way were almost always unmarried rape victims who were deemed impure, too damaged to be desirable as a wife by any man, and too impure to be accepted at a medieval convent. They semi-voluntarily cut themselves off from society, living in sordid conditions and dependent on the charity of anonymous others to provide food. Most died within a few years of this from malnutrition or lack of exercise, but perversely, towns viewed having a recluse as a sort of totem who brought God’s blessing upon the local community for maintaining the recluse. Towns allegedly took pride in having a recluse, and the enclosures (often pigeonniers) could be found under bridges, up against church walls, or in cemetaries.

But wait, didn’t Commissaire Adamsberg encounter a modern-day recluse living in a pigeonnier many decades ago when he was just a boy?! Why yes, now that you mention it, he did, although it takes many chapters for this memory to surface. Somehow the murders, the victims’ history of being a gang of rapists in their youths, the spider poison as the means of killing, and the medieval practice of semi-forced sequestration of rape victims all come together in a well-constructed (if slightly contrived) mystery plot. There are a suitable number of twists and turns (rebondissements) and enough suspects introduced to keep me guessing until the end who dunnit and how. I would certainly recommend the book, as apparently would others: Quand sort la recluse won the Prix Audiolib 2018.

One final note: when I read a paper book these days I typically underline unfamiliar words or expressions and sometimes (when I have the energy) go back afterwards to compile lists of vocabulary words to study. Listening to this book while driving, I could not do that, and I find the lack of such a list unsettling. Or maybe it’s the lack of a physical volume to place on my shelf now that I’ve finished the book. It’s as if I have nothing to show for having read the novel, which feels hollow somehow. I guess this is a property that all audiobooks share, but I feel it pronouncedly with this, my first French audiobook. I suppose I’ll just have to listen to more of them to get over it.

2022-03-162022-03-16

Les Soeurs et les rivaux

Two recent issues of L’avant-scène théâtre feature plays that each, in their own very different ways, examine the relationship between a pair of people with long histories of conflict and amity. In Les Soeurs Bienaimé, playwright Brigitte Buc gives us an unexpected reunion of two sisters in their 40s, Michèle and Pascale, who meet after a 25 year hiatus. Pascale, the younger, long ago fled the dysfunctional family and its rural farm for Paris. Michèle stayed all these years and struggled to care for parents who aged poorly and then died in this provincial community that itself has decayed with time. Now it is Paris that Pascale is fleeing, as her life there has recently been complicated by mental health problems, marital issues, and drug addiction. Michèle is none too happy to have Pascale back, with her notions of rediscovering “authentic village life” and fantasies of converting the farm into a tourist hotel. The interactions are dominated by adolescent-worthy insults, competition, physical scuffles, and recriminations, but in and among the gaps there is some exploration of their shared past and commiseration at their shared dissatisfaction with their separate presents.

I found Les Soeurs Bienaimé rather weak: the themes were well-worn, the characters were flat and unengaging, and the writing was unremarkable. A few days after finishing the play, I happened to listen to an episode of the podcast Le Masque et La Plume that reviewed it, and I discovered that they had a similar critique of it. Glad to have my opinion backed by competent authorities.

Élysée, by Hervé Bentégeat, is an entirely different kind of work, but one that again features two long-time rivals: French Presidents François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac. The play exhibits several imagined but historically possible conversations between them and at various points in their storied political careers.

Mittérand was elected twice back when presidential terms lasted 7 years, and served from 1981 to 1995. Chirac succeeded him and was also elected twice, serving from 1995 through 2007. However, their relationship is far deeper than predecessor and successor. Chirac ran in the first round of the 1981 election as a candidate of the center-right, but was not among the top two vote getters. Those were Mitterrand, a socialist with grandiose ideas, and incumbent President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. D’Estaing had entered office as a center-right candidate, but had moved to be more and more conservative over time, especially on immigration. Chirac had been d’Estaing’s prime minister, but resigned in 1976 and ran against him in the 1981 contest. After his defeat in the first round, Chirac remained opposed to d’Estaing, and his opposition was so intense that he formed an alliance with Mitterrand and threw his support behind the Socialist. It was enough to bring Mitterand to power, and would eventually lead to Chirac being named as Mitterand’s prime minister in 1986. This Left-Right alliance was unusual enough that it earned its own sobriquet: the relationship was dubbed la première cohabitation. It didn’t last long, though, and Chirac quit in time to run against (and lose to) Mitterrand in the 1988 elections. Chirac prevailed on his third presidential campaign in 1995, by which point Mitterrand was old and sick with an abdominal cancer that claimed him a year later. As you can see, the two men had a long, deep, and complex relationship.

The play opens in 1996 with Chirac preparing a funeral oration for Mitterrand and musing on the legacy of the old man, both for the nation and for Chirac personally. From there we go backwards in time, first with a brief scene in 1995 showing the transfer of power from Mitterand to Chirac, and then with another in 1994 showing Mitterand exhorting Chirac to run for president a third time. However the bulk of the play takes place in 1981 and shows the uneasy negotiations around Chirac throwing his support to Mitterand against d’Estaing. The alliance was orchestrated by a third French political figure, Philippe Dechartre. He was a government minister under de Gaulle and then Pompidou in the 1960s, and somehow a trusted friend and advisor of both Chirac and Mitterand. According to the play, Dechartre was instrumental in bringing the two men together in 1981. Historically, Dechartre was indeed the person who arranged to release his own statement of support for Mitterrand, ostensibly a personal opinion but published on stationary branded with the letterhead of Chirac’s party, Rassemblement pour la République. The statement was widely viewed and thought to sway over 100,000 votes in Mitterrand’s direction, well more than the margin of victory.

I don’t know how Élysée comes across for an audience already deeply (or superficially) familiar with all of this French politics from the 1970s, 80s, or 90s. I was only vaguely familiar with the outcomes and knew nothing of the intrigues that made it happen. I knew the names Mitterrand and Chirac, of course, but couldn’t have told you the dynamics of any of their elections. Cohabitation was a hazy thing that I knew the French did at some point, but I was just as likely to confuse it with colocateur if I wasn’t careful. So for me, the play was an impetus to go read several Wikipedia pages about French elections from 40 years ago. But I can’t say I found much else in Élysée to recommend it, and I doubt it will have any staying power as a piece of literature. Still, curious to contrast the “we’re adversaries but not enemies” attitude of French politics back then with the “you are my mortal enemy” attitude of American politics today.

One curious footnote: the play debuted in January 2021 and the role of Philippe Dechartre was played by his real-life son, Emmanuel Dechartre. Dechartre fils is an established stage actor who has been treading the boards since the late 1960s. One has to imagine that he was sought out for this role, if only for the publicity value. He probably does an excellent impression of his father, though, and the age is now right. His Wikipedia page has an extensive list of theatrical appearances, but stopped in 2018. I just now updated it to include Élysée.

2022-03-16

Vocabulaire de L’anomalie (part 2)

As I read Le Tellier’s L’anomalie, I made note of words that either I didn’t know, or knew but felt I wouldn’t recognize out of context. There was roughly one every couple of pages, sometimes more, sometimes less. I’m going back over the list and finding definitions of them. Here’s the next crop, from pages 95-177. The expressions in the first column are hyperlinked out to Linguée.

For my own study, I’ve been using Anki and made a deck of flashcards just of words from L’anomalie. In general people say memorizing a word with the context is better than using just a raw definition, but I find random context not so helpful. But having these context phrases themselves come with implicit context from a full story has helped me enormously – I remember the character of the situation for which this word was used.

Expression	Contexte	Definition
un tréteau	… les étudiants ont dressé des tables à tréteaux, installé un barnum blanc à chapiteau pointu et allumé le barbecue.	(Table à tréteaux) Dispositif formé d’un élément long et étroit porté à chaque extrémité par deux pieds obliques et servant (par paire ou davantage) à soutenir une table, un plancher, une estrade, etc.
un barnum	… les étudiants ont dressé des tables à tréteaux, installé un barnum blanc à chapiteau pointu et allumé le barbecue.	Un abri similaire à une tente ou un chapiteau
un chapiteau	… les étudiants ont dressé des tables à tréteaux, installé un barnum blanc à chapiteau pointu et allumé le barbecue.	Grande tente destinée à accueillir les spectacles, principalement ceux du cirque.
passager	Une telle impression est passagère, les meilleurs auteurs lui auraient confirmé.	Dont la durée est brève.
promouvoir	… aucun enfant ne porte son nom, à moins de promouvoir au rang de progéniture un obscure théorème.	Élever quelqu’un à une dignité, le faire accéder à une fonction, un emploi, un échelon supérieurs
d’emblée	J’ai bu, dit-il d’emblée.	Du premier coup, dès le premier effort ; aussitôt, d’entrée de jeu
le houblon	Elle exhibe la bouteille vide …et lui souffle au nez une haleine tiède et parfumée de houblon.	une plante grimpante de la famille des cannabinacées dont seules les fleurs sont utilisées. Il apporte à la bière l’amertume et le saveur.
un beffrois	ce campus qui tente de ressembler à Poudlard avec … ses beffrois moyenâgeux du dix-neuvième…	Tour de ville, dans laquelle on plaçait des gardes pour surveiller la campagne, et une cloche qui servait à donner l’alarme.
un plongement	… questions triviales sur le théorème de non-plongement de Gromov…	L’action de plonger un objet dans un liquide. En mathématiques les plongements sont des cas particuliers d’applications injectives.
une écuelle	… cette allure de cocker triste qui se noie dans son écuelle ?	Assiette large et creuse sans rebord ; son contenu.
comme un manche	… ça m’est bien égal que vous embrassiez comme un manche.	maladroitement; stupidement
ébouriffé	… elle est figée sure sa chaise, les cheveux ébourifés, l’air furieuse.	avec les cheveux en désordre.
un bizutage	… c’est à Adrian, en forme de bizutage, qu’est confié le soin de modéliser les blocages …	un épreuve d’initiation ordonné avant de l’admettre au sein d’une société scolaire ou universitaire déterminée.
un thésard	… la très intelligente thésarde de Pozzi …	Personne qui prépare une thèse de doctorat.
arrimage	… le dirigeable allemand Hindenberg, accroché à son mât d’arrimage, a pris feu et a été entièrement détruit.	Action d’arrimer, c’est-à-dire de disposer méthodiquement et fixer solidement le chargement d’un navire, d’un véhicule, ou encore d’un avion.
l’avarie (f)	… en raison d’avaries majeures, le vol est réorienté vers le New Jersey.	Dommage survenu à un navire ou aux marchandises qu’il transporte
huer	… beaucoup protestent, certains huent…	Pousser des cris de dérision, des cris hostiles contre (qqn).
se gourer	… vous vous êtes gourés, mon dernier vol, c’est après-demain, pas aujourd’hui.	(Familier) Se tromper.
à la mords-moi-le-noeud	… comme cadeau de départ qu’un carrot cake à la mords-moi-le-noeud.	(Populaire) (Vulgaire) Se dit d’une chose mal conçue, peu crédible ou stupide.
écharper	Vous vouliez qu’on se fasse écharper par less passagers … ?	Déchiqueter, massacrer.
asséner	… elle lui a asséné … qu’elle est «passé à autre chose ».	Porter à quelqu’un un coup violent et bien appliqué
s’engluer	… il quitte l’artique de la climatisation pour s’engluer dans la fournaise de l’été tropical indien.	Se prendre dans une matière gluante, poisseuse
déboîter	Le rickshaw déboîte avec hâte – klaxons encore – et s’enfonce dans le trafic dense en suivant un chemin connu de lui seul.	(Vehiclue) Sortir d’une file.
la boîte	… Nielsen, avec … ses deux petites années de boîte … ignore que ces minutes d’asphyxie sont le luxe de Vannier.	(Familier) Maison, lieu de travail.
une éraflure	André s’étonne de l’absence d’éraflures sur les ailes des voitures, de la survie des rétrovisuers.	Écorchure (déchirure) légère, entaille superficielle.
la survie	André s’étonne de l’absence d’éraflures sur les ailes des voitures, de la survie des rétrovisuers.	Le fait pour un organisme vivant de se maintenir en vie malgré un risque accru de mort
trapu	… c’est un homme trapu … qui se faufile avec une fluidité agressive entre les camions et les voitures …	Qui est court et large et donne une impression de force
fioriture	Aucune fioriture ne vient ruiner la simplicité de la tour: c’est une perfection conquise par d’incessantes soustractions.	Ornement, agrément accessoire et souvent excessif, qui surcharge quelque chose (surtout pluriel)
pétarder	Le rickshaw entre dans le chantier, zigzague en pétardant dans la boue et les planches de bois jusqu’au grand bungalow ..	Faire sauter avec des pétards (= Familier. Bruit, tapage, scandale.)
une escouade	Une petite escouade d’ingénieurs de Singh Sunset Construction, assis, entourent leur patron.	Petit groupe de personnes rassemblées autour de quelqu’un ou dirigées par quelqu’un
un pilier	Arrivé à la base du pilier, Vannier ouvre son sac, en extrait un ordinateur, ..	une colonne; Support isolé en maçonnerie, élevé pour recevoir une charge (arcade, voûte, plafond, charpente, etc.).
un échéancier	Singh Sunset Construction s’engage à un échancier nouveu, et les faibles pénalités … ne visent qu’à couvrir les frais d’expertise et d’avocat.	Ensemble de délais à respecter (un délai = Temps laissé pour faire quelque chose, pour l’obtenir; une échéance = la date à laquelle expire un délai ; fin d’une période de temps).
coulissant	Près des immenses portes coulissantes se découpent, minuscules, trois silhouettes.	Qui glisse sur une coulisse = une pièce ou guide étroit et long, souvent rainé et destiné à la translation de portes, tiroirs, dessus de tables, etc.
la boiserie	Dans cette salle aux boiseries civilisés, …	Tout ouvrage de menuiserie dont on revêt et décore l’intérieur d’un local, et spécialement ses murs (lambris muraux).
un treillis	Dans cette salle aux boiseries civilisés, son treillis camouflage gris-vert ne lui sert pas à grand chose.	Vêtement militaire porté par les soldats dans un but de reconnaissance des factions, mais surtout pour permettre un camouflage en zone de combats.
assurer (véhicule)	… le vol Air France 006, qui assure le Paris-New York.	Faire qu’une chose fonctionne, ne s’arrête pas.
un larsen	Je passe en liaison directe avec le pilote. Un léger larsen chuinte dans la salle de commandement.	Oscillation parasite se manifestant par un sifflement, qui prend naissance lorsque la sortie d’une chaîne électroacoustique, par exemple le haut-parleur, réagit sur son entrée, en général le microphone (On dit aussi effet Larsen.)
chuinter	Je passe en liaison directe avec le pilote. Un léger larsen chuinte dans la salle de commandement.	Produire un sifflement assourdi.
un radôme	… impacts sur le pare-brise, … dégats qu’a subis le radôme, etc.	Coupole diélectrique transparente aux ondes radioélectriques, destinée à protéger une antenne de télécommunications contre les intempéries.
un compte-gouttes	Ils traversent un portique de test de radioactivité, un sas antibactérient, et pénètrent sous l’immense dôme, au compte-gouttes;	Tube de verre effilé, surmonté d’un capuchon de caoutchouc, destiné à compter les gouttes d’une solution. Au compte-gouttes signifie “avec parcimonie”.
un pied-de-biche	… une porte de métal étroite … a été forcée avec un pied-de-biche.	Petit levier métallique à la tête en biais, aplatie et fendue, qui sert à arracher les clous.
dégagé	… nous sommes sorties du cumulo brutalement, dans un ciel dégagé.	Qui n’est pas recouvert, encombré.
une démangeaison	Avez-vous des démangeaisons, des brûlures sur le visage ?	Sensation de picotement de la peau, qui provoque le besoin de se gratter.
être en lice	Riccardo Bertoni – en lice pour le prix Nobel 2021 de physique … – résume la situation …	Être engagé dans une compétition où l’on affronte des concurrents dans le but d’arriver à la victoire. Une locution dérivant du mot “lice” qui était un espace clos dédié aux tournois.
un adoubement	Pourquoi n’est-il qu’un gamin en quête d’adoubement.	Cérémonie au cours de laquelle un homme était armé chevalier.
la niaiserie	Ayant beaucoup lu, traduit, et trop de niaiseries derrière des joliesses, il trouve indécent d’imposer au monde une ânerie de plus.	Acte, parole niaise, stupide. (Niais = Qui est sot et gauche par excès de simplicité ou manque d’expérience)
la joliesse	Ayant beaucoup lu, traduit, et trop de niaiseries derrière des joliesses, il trouve indécent d’imposer au monde une ânerie de plus.	Caractère de ce qui est joli
un golfe	… golfes profonds sure les tempes …	Un baie; un anse. Rentrant du littoral, de grande dimension, en principe plus grand qu’une baie.
déraper	… je ne sais pas à quel moment tout a commencé à déraper.	Prendre un caractère ambigu, dangereux, grossier, etc; S’écarter de ce qui est normal, attendu, prévu et contrôlé
seoir	Un garçon mince, le nom d’artiste qu’il s’est donné lui sied bien.	Aller bien à quelqu’un, convenir à sa personne. 3e personne seulement. Il sied à quelqu’un de = il lui appartient de : Il vous sied mal de trouver à redire à cette décision.
embaumer	Ce que nous appelons une rose embaumerait autant sous un autre nom.	Exhaler, répandre une odeur très agréable ; sentir bon: «Les draps embaument la lavande.»
une entrave	Ce serait une entrave de trop à la justice.	(de «entraver») Ce qui retient, gêne, embarrasse ; obstacle. Littéralement, Lanière, lien munis d’une boucle ou d’un anneau servant à limiter les mouvements des membres d’un animal.
une liane	… fine comme une liane …	Plante dont la tige flexible grimpe en s’accrochant au tronc et aux branches des arbres, ou en s’enroulant autour du support.
une scélérate	La nostalgie est une scélérate.	Personne qui a commis ou est capable de commettre un crime. Un bandit, un criminel.
une architrave		Partie inférieure de l’entablement, linteau ou plate-bande reposant directement sur les supports (colonnes, etc.).
un bardeau		Tuile de bois pour toiture et pour bardage vertical (bardage = revêtement protecteur mince, à dilatation libre, de l’ossature ou des murs extérieurs d’un bâtiment).
étouffer	… pour qu’il ne l’étouffe pas de son assiduité.	Empêcher quelqu’un d’affirmer sa personnalité, l’empêcher d’exister . Littéralement, faire mourir quelqu’un, un animal en l’empêchant de respirer, l’asphyxier.
une assiduité	… pour qu’il ne l’étouffe pas de son assiduité.	application constante à un travail, une action

2022-03-07

Venu de loin, où comment comprendre un fléau ?

For homework this week, my teacher asked me to write a review of a play I saw recently. It wasn’t a French play (though it was Canadian), but I didn’t feel like writing about any of the French plays I’d read recently. So I dashed off 1000 words in about two and a half hours, then did some light corrections with my teacher. Here’s the edited version. Nothing special, but a good exercise in writing — something I’ve done less of lately than in the summer and fall.

Est-ce que la comédie musicale sert à comprendre un fléau ?

« Il s’agit du 11 septembre, cette comédie musicale ». Voilà la phrase qu’on entend partout dans les comptes rendus de Venu de Loin, la comédie musicale canadienne créée en 2017 et jouée encore (où bien, encore une fois après une pause covidienne) à Broadway. Les chroniqueurs plus raffinés se nuancent en disant « Mais vraiment, il s’agit du 12 septembre », parce que les auteurs Irène Sankoff et David Hein nous montrent des sentiments et des actions qui se déroulent dans les jours qui suivent cet attentat et à 2 000 km de là. Ces deux observations sont correctes, mais après avoir lu ces constatations plusieurs fois, j’ai commencé à me demander: Pourquoi est-ce que c’est notable ? Pourquoi l’air de surprise autour de ces remarques ?

C’est normal que les sept arts traitent les fléaux. Le quatrième art nous donne des romans comme La nuit de Weisel, À l’Ouest, rien de nouveau de Hemingway, ou La peste de Camus. Le septième art nous rend La vie est belle, de Benigni, le troisième Guernica de Picasso, le premier Mémorial des anciens combattants du Viêt Nam conçu par Maya Lin. Bien sûr qu’on dit « Il s’agit de l’Holocauste. » ou « Il s’agit de la guerre civile espagnole. », mais on le dit sans être étonné. Mais c’est rare qu’une comédie musicale, enfant vulgaire du cinquième et sixième art, aborde un tel sujet.

La comédie musicale américaine a ses origines dans les petits spectacles ménestrels créés dans les années 1820. Elle est restée dans le domaine du burlesque pendant cent ans avant d’évoluer un peu au début du XXe siècle. Mais ce n’est qu’avec la création de Oklahoma en 1943 que cette forme passe d’un ensemble de chansons populaires défilées sans organisation à une histoire intégrale qui utilise les chansons pour faire évoluer l’intrigue. Les œuvres de Stephen Sondheim (mort il y seulement quelques mois) ont encore transformé ce genre en accordant aux comédiens des arias qui ne font pas évoluer l’intrigue, mais qui approfondissent leurs personnages. Ces arias traitent de sujets sérieux comme la nature de la réalité, le but d’existence, la mort, l’amour, et les remords. Mais Sondheim reste au niveau personnel, évitant les grands événements dans la société (avec l’exception de Les Assassins, qui ne fonctionne guère à mon avis.)

Est-ce que la comédie musicale convient à la tragédie ? Je ne parle pas d’une exploitation comme Les Producteurs (spectacle de Mel Brooks à l’affiche actuellement en adaptation français par Alexis Michalik). Ça, c’est une farce pure qui utilise l’idée d’une comédie à propos d’Adolf Hitler pour illustrer ce qui est carrément destiné à faire un four théâtrale. Non, je parle d’un effort sérieux à utiliser un art léger pour dire quelque chose de sincère et d’honnête à propos d’un fléau. Ce n’est pas du tout évident. Jeudi 24 février, 2022, j’ai assisté à l’enregistrement d’un épisode de Programme tard avec Stephen Colbert à New York. C’était l’après-midi du jour même où les armées russes ont lancé leur invasion de l’Ukraine. M. Colbert a essayé de faire sa chronique humoristique quotidienne, mais le sujet lui a résisté. Il n’a pas pu trouver les mots qui nous feraient rire de cette guerre immédiate en éclaircissant quelques vérités subtiles. Ces blagues sont tombées presque sans réaction, pendant que le public bougeait inconfortablement à sa place.

Deux jours plus tard, je suis encore allé au théâtre pour voir Venu de Loin. Cette fois-ci, la comédie a bien marché, soutenue par le drame et la musique. Le spectacle ne commence pas avec l’attentat du 11 septembre, mais avec les présentations des habitants ordinaires de Gander, Terre-Neuve, Canada: la femme qui s’occupe des animaux abandonnés; l’enseignante qui accueille ses élèves ce premier matin de la rentrée; l’agent de police qui n’a rien à faire que donner des avertissements au cocitoyen qui ne ralentit pas assez au passage piéton; la jeune journaliste qui commence son boulot à la chaine locale; le chef du syndicat des conducteurs d’autobus, qui font la grève. Chacun nous adresse quelques répliques qui annoncent sa routine matinale ou comment elle l’a basculée. Quelques minutes plus tard, ils entendent parler de l’attentat à la radio, et ils sont alertés que certains avions vont se poser à l’aéroport tout de suite. Encore, on nous présente des personnages, maintenant les occupants des avions: un homme d’affaire anglais; une grand-mère de New York; un couple homosexuel de Los Angeles; un chef de cuisine égyptien; la commandante d’un Boeing 747. En quelques mots, ils nous parlent de leurs occupations, leurs destinations, leurs vies. Et puis, leur déboussolement d’avoir atterri au Canada sans avoir été prévenu.

Par la suite, nous voyons les événements plutôt logistiques que dramatiques. Où héberger 7 000 personnes dans une petite ville de 9 000 âmes ? Comment les munir de vêtements, de nourriture, de médicaments ? De quels téléphones et ordinateurs peuvent-t-ils se servir ? Imbriqués dans ses questions prosaïques sont des petits discours, fugaces, à propos des sentiments profonds: la perte, l’isolation, la peur, la mort, et la haine. Les morceaux musicaux sont des tapisseries de voix, pas en chœur mais en séries. C’est quoi l’émotion d’isolation pour un homme d’affaires, une commandante, une grand-mère, un New Yorkais, un Égyptien ? Est-il universel ou particulier ? Ces sujets sont lourds, mais les paroles sont parsemées de petits gestes, un humour naturel exprimé par les personnages pour apaiser leurs propres anxiétés et pas seulement pour faire rire le public. Nous nous identifions avec chacune de ces voix, nous nous troublons et, pour ceux parmi nous qui avons plus de quinze ans, nous nous rappelons nos émotions de cette journée et cette semaine pénible.

Est-ce que la comédie musicale sert à comprendre un fléau ? Avant d’avoir vu Venu de Loin, je dirai «seulement avec difficulté». Le seul exemple que j’aurais identifié c’est Cabaret, qui se situe à Berlin dans les années trente. Il réussit à un certain point à représenter la particularité de souffrance du fléau à venir, mais il y avait trop de scènes burlesques entremêlées. Avec Venu de Loin, je peux répondre sans hésitation. Ici, nous voyons la démocratisation du deuil, et un petit triomphe de la communauté. C’est ironique, pourtant, que ce n’est pas un triomphe américain, mais canadien. Est-ce qu’une telle vertue serait possible au sein des américains, qui ont lancé une offensive massive dans les années après le 11 septembre ? Dans une scène brève, un New Yorkais noir nous raconte «Mon père m’a téléphoné et m’a demandé si j’allais bien au Canada. Comment pourrais-je lui dire que je n’allais pas bien, j’allais mieux que bien ?»

By the way, if you are intrigued to hear the songs the cast album is very good and available on all the usual streaming services. If you want to see the acting as well (which I recommend) but can’t make it to a local or New York production, they filmed a performance of the show and released it on 11 September 2021 to mark 20 years since the attacks. I haven’t seen the filmed performance, but it it is available on Apple TV.

2022-02-22

Vocabulaire de L’anomalie (part 1)

As I read Le Tellier’s L’anomalie, I made note of words that either I didn’t know, or knew but felt I wouldn’t recognize out of context. There was roughly one every couple of pages, sometimes more, sometimes less. I’m going back over the list and finding definitions of them. Here’s the first crop from the first 100 pages or so. The expressions in the first column are hyperlinked out to Linguée:

Expression	Contexte	Definition
geindre	Le chien n’est pas mort, il geint, on dirait la plainte d’un bébé.	Gémir d’une voix faible, inarticulée sous l’effort, la douleur, etc.
les parages	Il est arrivé des heures avant, à surveiller les parages.	Région environnant un lieu quelconque, voisinage
un postiche	Il apprend à se poser des postiches pour se déguiser	Qui remplace certaines imperfections physiques ou qui est ajouté artificiellement
un lotissement	un parking que surplombe le lotissement.	Morcellement volontaire d’une propriété foncière par lots, en vue de construire des habitations. Terrain ainsi construit.
un reliquat	Blake touche le jour même le reliquat	Ce qui reste (d’une somme à payer, à percevoir).
bariolé	l’invisibilité barioléé du joggeur.	Coloré de tons vifs et variés.
foulée	Blake court, à petites foulées, sans hâte	Enjambée de l’athlète en course
tressauter	Il tire trois fois sur Franck, qui tressaute à peine, tombe à genoux, reste affalé contre la balustrade.	Tressaillir; . Être agité de secousses
une douille	Blake ramasse les six douilles dans le sable.	Étui contenant la charge de poudre d’une cartouche d’arme à feu.
torréfier	Un bon café est un miracle né de … un excellent grain, ici un Nicaragua fraîchement torréfié …	Réaliser la torréfaction d’un produit. (torréfaction = Opération qui consiste à traiter par la chaleur, au contact de l’air, certains produits alimentaires (café, cacao), le tabac, pour les déshydrater, développer certaines qualités aromatiques et faire apparaître la couleur brune.)
sécher (un repas)	Il sèche le déjeuner, car il a fixé un rendez-vous à quinze heures.	S’abstenir de participer, d’assister à quelque chose
dru	Ses cheveux drus peuvent évoquer Kafka	Qui pousse vigoureusement et en épaisseur.
tapageusement	… un train burlesque ou des escrocs sans ticket s’installent tapageusement en première ave la complicité de contrôleurs incapables …	De façon tapage (tapage = Bruit confus accompagné généralement de criailleries, de querelles)
de but en blanc	on ne va pas déclarer à la personne qu’on l’aime, comme ça, de but en blanc.	adv. Directement, de façon directe, sans correction liée au contexte.
lénifiant	Le commandant tient des propos lénifiants, mais personne ne doute qu’il va s’abîmet en mer.	adj. Apaisant ; qui endort la vigilance.
ballotter	Il ferme les yeux et se laisse ballotter en tous sens, sans tenter de retenir son corps.	Faire aller alternativement dans un sens et dans l’autre.
faire la cour	Il lui avait fait une cour discrète, et ell avait compris qu’il craignait moins le ridicule que de l’embarrasser.	Tenter de séduire quelqu’un pour s’en faire aimer.
de passage	un chirurgien anglais de passage	Qui ne fait que passer, qui ne s’arrête que pour un court moment (dans un lieu ou dans la vie de quelqu’un
porté sur l’alcol	un bibliothécaire assez porté sur l’alcool	qui boit trop d’alcool
en trombe	Un camion passe en trombe devant elle.	ce qui va très vite, qui est brusque, soudain et souvent peu contrôlé
les collants	cette jupe-là est trop courte, mais je mettrai des collants …	un sous-vêtement ou vêtement moulant qui couvre les jambes des pieds à la taille
un mandat d’amener	Nous avons un mandat d’amener, je le glisse sous votre porte. Ouvrez, s’il vous plaît.	Un ordre donné à la force publique de conduire immédiatement devant lui la personne à l’encontre de laquelle il est décerné.
carmin	… des rideaux carmin de velours épais …	Colorant d’un rouge profond tiré en général de la cochenille du chêne kermès
la goulete	Paul glisse une capsule dans le percolateur, pose une élegante tasse italienne sous la goulette …	Conduit ou couloir incliné qui sert au transport par pesanteur de différents matériaux (gravats, charbon, métal, liquide…
l’intestin grêle	La tumeur que tu as sur la queue du pancréas, à l’opposé de l’intestin grêle, est une tumeur mailgne.	portion la plus étroite de l’intestin, comprise entre le duodénum et le cæcum
impavide	David se lève, marche quelques pas. Tout son corps se refuse à rester impavide.	Qui n’éprouve ou ne montre aucune crainte.
suinter	«Dieu, que la connerie suinte de l’esprit religieux.»	Produire un liquide qui s’écoule goutte à goutte.
à l’aune de	Elle relit «L’Anomalie», à l’aune du désastre qu’il annonçait.	En considération de ; en mesurant par rapport à ; à la mesure de ; à la lumière de.
le pilon	Clémence réimprime … «Les montagnes viendront nous trouver», dont les ultimes examplaires en stock étaient menacés de pilon.	Les exemplaires des livres ou des publications sur papier destinés à être détruits; la « machine » théorique destinée à cet effet.
tanguer	Ugo Darchini tangue et titube, et lorsqu’un peu de champagne s’échappe de sa coupe pour tacher le parquet … il s’excuse …	Remuer par un mouvement alternatif d’avant en arrière.
tituber	Ugo Darchini tangue et titube, et lorsqu’un peu de champagne s’échappe de sa coupe pour tacher le parquet … il s’excuse …	Vaciller sur ses jambes, aller de droite et de gauche en marchant.
éraillée	… il s’excuse d’une voix éraillée et avinée.	Dont la surface est écaillée, rayée; Qui est rauque, voilé
avinée	… il s’excuse d’une voix éraillée et avinée.	Qui a trop bu de vin.
quadrillage	Sa première vision de Lagos … des millions de toitures en tôle rouillée, un quadrillage anarchique, …	Ensemble de lignes, de bandes droites qui se coupent de façon à former des carreaux, des carrés égaux juxtaposés.
héler	La consule repose son verre, et hèle une grande jeune femme …	Appeler de loin.
ne pas en revenir	… sa chanson Yaba Girls a dépassé le millard de vues [sur YouTube]… Slimboy n’en revient toujours pas.	Vivre un étonnement ou une surprise hors du commun.
épuration (f)	un station d’épuration …	Action de rendre pur, plus pur, en éliminant les éléments étrangers.
abreuver	toute une population qui les rejette, avec repugnance et détestations, abreuvée de haine et de reumeurs par les évêques …	Arroser, imbiber en profondeur.
rajeunir	Hélène, connaissez-cous l’histoire de l’espion américain en mission en URSS – ça ne nous rajeunit pas – …	Rendre une certaine jeunesse à (qqn).
un.e barbouze	Les barbouzes n’ont pas bougé d’un pas, ils n’ont d’yeux que pour Slimboy.	Agent secret (police, espionnage) (m ou f).

2022-02-212022-02-21

L’anomalie, Roman de Hervé Le Tellier

This holiday weekend I finished reading the novel L’anomalie by Hervé Le Tellier, winner of the 2020 Prix Goncourt, one of the biggest annual literary prizes in France. I learned of the book from a New York Times article in late November, 2021, which announced the publication of the English translation of this work. The article noted that the original work had been a smash success in France, selling over 1 million copies despite (because of?) being published in August 2020 amidst the various confinements and disruptions of Covid. I figured it was worth a read and so got a hold of a French copy. It sat on my shelf for a while, but I picked it up early this month and polished off its 327 pages in a couple of weekends.

The book is interesting in and of itself; but after I finished it, I read some reviews, looked up the author’s background, and listened to an interview with the author, all of which gave another dimension to the book that I had missed in my ordinary reading. The book begins with a vignette of a professional hitman: his back-story, his methods, and the double life he leads. In the open he’s a successful entrepreneur with a small international chain of vegetarian restaurants, a wife and two children, and a bourgeois Paris apartment. But behind it all he’s a killer for hire with a second apartment, secret bank accounts, multiple passports, a presence on the Dark Web, and any number of lethal toys. This duality gives us the theme of the book right from the outset, though hardly in a way I expected at the start.

The book is divided into three parts. In the first part we meet character after character, one or two per chapter, seemingly without rhyme or reason. Some live in France, some in New York, one in Nigeria, another in New Jersey. What eventually becomes apparent is that they were all on the same Air France flight from Paris to New York in March 2021, a flight which encountered violent turbulents shortly before landing safely at JFK airport. As the first part ends, we learn that a second instance of this airplane – and its full complement of passengers – somehow also appears in June 2021 just after the violent turbulents and tries to land as well. Air traffic control goes nuts at the sudden appearance of the airplane and then they and the military Air Force get very confused as the pilots insist over the radio on their identities and the plane’s designation. All the physical evidence backs their claims, and they are eventually escorted to an Air Force base in New Jersey.

In the second part of the novel we see a lot of U.S. and then world government officials dealing with this unprecedented situation. There are DoD and NSA and CIA meetings. There are mathematicians and physicists and philosophers. There are religious leaders and world presidents. And of course there are the passengers themselves, whose “March-landing” instances we have already met in the first part, and whose “June-landing” (who are 3 months younger and still think it’s March) counterparts we follow in the makeshift camp / prison that the military has set up in a giant hangar. The experts offer various explanations for what has happened, along with citations of which work of science fiction has already illustrated the phenomenon, but come to no conclusion. Meanwhile global intelligence services coordinate a round-up of the March-landing versions of each passenger and bring them to a separate part of the Air Force base. Finally, word leaks out to the public of what has transpired. In a somewhat unbelievable plot twist, the authorities decide to introduce each passenger to their double, provide them with counseling services and economic assistance, and release them back “into the wild”.

The last part of the novel is surprising in that it drops the whole science-fiction bit entirely. Who knows how these people got here, they are here. Once again we are treated to a parade of episodes, each chapter following another character. We get to see ten different ways that this “meet your double three months in your past/future” plays out. Some meetings are violent, others are venomous, some are blassé, others joyful, and some are painful (the cancer didn’t go away, so now the children have to bury their father twice). There are apartments to be shared – and jobs, and husbands, and children. The situations described are very awkward, though the writing is quite good. There’s some slight surprise twist at the end that is left unexplored, but does a nice call-back to the philosophical and science-fiction aspects of the middle part.

So there you go, a traditional if somewhat intricately structured modern French novel with a lot of American flavors running through it, right ? Not sure why it caught the eyes of the Prix Goncourt jury, but surely a decent book, glad I read it. Come to find out (with an hour or two of post-book web surfing) that I missed some fairly major bits. First of all, each chapter in the first part is not only treating a different character, it is written in a totally different style: noir detective pastiche, hackneyed romance, psychological introspection novel, Africain exoticism, littérature blanche. Sure, I got all the settings and the stories, but the exaggerated stylistic changes went over my head completely. Next, it turns out that the author is a mathematician, linguist, journalist, and since 2019 the president of the International Oulipo Society.

What is Oulipo you ask ? Ah, that could be a blog post all of its own. In brief, a group of intellectuals who liked thinking about pushing the boundaries of creation and expression started meeting regularly in 1960 and subsequently founded a literary / philosophical movement they called L’Ouvroir de littérature potentielle (the Workshop for Potential Literature) or Oulipo for short. Its most famous members have been the writers Italo Calvino, Raymond Queneau, and Georges Perec. Although some members were authors, their goal wasn’t so much to produce literature as it was to produce new forms that had the potential for yielding interesting literature. It was very meta, and many of the participants had far more interest in the forms than in the actual literature that could come from them.

Getting back to L’anomalie: the author explicitly pitches it as a work of the Oulipo genre, in the tradition of Italo Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler (I haven’t read it, but there’s a main story involving international book thieves, and then 10 intruding chapters which are the opening chapters of 10 different novels). There’s an obscure final 20 lines of text that are masked versions of some underlying text, with the masking getting more disruptive as the text flows down the page in the form of an hourglass. The last escaping grains of sand spell out «fin» (“End”), while earlier lines have winks to other Oulipo works. And the three major parts of the book are named with lines from poems by founding Oulipian Raymond Queneau (who wrote: “Oulipians: rats who build the labyrinth from which they plan to escape”). Needless to say, this was all lost on me, but it helps explain why the Prix Goncourt jury would have been more inclined to take the book seriously: Oulipo has a proud place as an off-beat but home-grown literary genre.

Despite all these hidden oddities, the book is perfectly easy to follow, at least if you are practiced at reading speculative fiction where a situation is revealed little by little. I haven’t read the English translation yet, but I will have no hesitation recommending it to my English-speaking friends. Come to think of it, I think I’ll go out and purchase a copy for that friend who introduced me to Raymond Queneau’s Cent mille milliards de poèmes …

2022-02-06

Jacques et son maître, par Milan Kundera (à Diderot)

Yesterday I read the play Jacques et son maître: Hommage à Denis Diderot en trois actes. The play was written (in French) in 1971 by Czech writer Milan Kundera. It is a «variation – hommage» on a novel that I haven’t read, Diderot’s Jacques le Fataliste et son maître, which was started in 1765 and published in installments from 1778 to 1780. The novel is apparently a series of philosophical dialogues between a servant and a master, including numerous digressions, bawdy stories, and presentations of new fables (e.g. La Gaine et le Coutelet).

The play is much the same, although Kundera fiercely corrected anyone who called it an “adaptation” of the novel. Instead, it honors Diderot’s original but uses modern theatrical devices like breaking the fourth wall from the opening lines, having characters openly question the talent of the (absent) playwright who is scripting their lines, and staging multiple plays-within-a-play. For all that, though, it remains light-hearted and easily accessible, more entertainment than social commentary. At a guess, it has updated the dialogue of Diderot and dropped most of the philosophy.

To the extent that is philosophical investigation remains, it centers on whether our destinies are our own to shape, or whether «ce qui nous arrive de bien et de mal ici-bas est écrit là-haut». If our fates are already written, then what sense does it make to hold others responsible for their actions, good or bad? In the case of Man and God, this question has one import, but of course Jacques and his master consider it in the context of Character and Playwright, where the answer is (perhaps?) more clear. However as his master asks, «est-ce que tu es un salaud parce que c’est écrit là-haut ? Ou est-ce que c’est écrit parce qu’ils savaient, là-haut, que tu étais un salaud ? Quelle est la cause et quel est l’effet ?» Kundera doesn’t offer much by way of answer, but the audience doesn’t really care.

The bulk of the play is telling and retelling variations of the same story of love triangles (well, really lust triangles) gone wrong: man dallies with woman, then manipulates his friend into marrying his pregnant mistresses; woman is spurned by man, then manipulates her former lover into marrying a disguised prostitute; man offers to help friend hide a secret tryst with a woman, then sleeps with her himself; man offers to arrange a night of debauchery for his friend, then tips off the authorities to expose friend in compromising position. Throughout it all, Jacques tries to tell his master the story of how Jacques lost his virginity, and how that lead to his falling in love with a different woman. There’s lots of ribald details about the sizes of the women’s breasts and butts. It’s a little cringy, but the women are triumphant and the men ruined often enough that it’s still possible to produce this play in 2021 (Théâtre Montparnasse) without attracting too much opprobrium.

The play reminded me a bit of Fin de Partie by Beckett, which was written 14 years earlier. Each has the central dynamic revolve around a servant and a wheelchair-occupying master. Each has a lot of recurrent bits of dialogue and stories that are lengthened each time they are told. And each questions what controls and is controlled by the world we see on stage. But Beckett’s work is far more brooding and gloomy while Kundera’s is whimsical and ironic. None of Kundera’s characters take themselves all that seriously. Moreover, the Kundera dialogue is far more familiar and free than Beckett’s, which is turgid and formal. Perhaps it’s just easier for a Czech to write in French than an Irishman?

Some Vocabulary I Learned

There were a number of words and colloquialisms I learned while reading the play:

faire la noce – faire une partie de plaisir ; mener une vie de débauche.
un bambocheur – Personne qui aime faire la fête.
se toquer – Avoir brusquement un vif engouement pour quelqu’un ou quelque chose
un ardillon – Pointe de métal d’une boucle de courroie, de ceinture.
un tendron – Très jeune fille (d’âge tendre).
une grue – Populaire. Femme de mœurs faciles et vénales ; prostituée.
se fourrer – S’engager dans (une situation embarrassante).
une crécelle – Moulinet de bois formé d’une planchette mobile qui tourne bruyamment autour d’un axe.
- voix de crécelle – aiguë, désagréable.
une raclée – Volée de coups.
- filer (= donner) une raclée à qqn.
pouilleux – Misérable et sale.
une jante – Partie circulaire à la périphérie d’une roue de véhicule.
un essieu – Pièce transversale d’un véhicule, dont les extrémités entrent dans les moyeux des roues.