After his Marie novel cycle, Jean-Philippe Toussaint had written the novel The USB key started a new one, the second volume of which Emotions The death of the father connects both texts; the narrator explores a wide range of emotions: joy and sorrow, surprise, fear and anger, even disgust.
“Le centre de gravité des Emotions, c'est la scene de l'enterrement du père. This is a moment of recueillement and introspection, or the emotions of the loved ones are still alive. J'aurais pu construct le roman de façon plus classique autour de la scène de l'enterrement. This is a figure imposée de la littérature, et même du cinéma, de voir un personnage pendant un entrement qui se souvient de différentes étapes de sa vie ou de la vie du défunt. May I prefer a structure plus ouverte, more chronologique. I prefer all the digression in digression, in a movement in the real world, in one piece in music. This is the central theme of the structure, which is surrounded by many movements that are complete and complete. This dimension musicale invisible du roman n'est pas nécessairement apparente à la première lecture.” (Toussaint in an interview with Norbert Czarny, Waiting for Nadeau) 1More precisely, Toussaint builds on the imagery of his previous texts in each subsequent novel; for example, Diane's fondness for bathing is a reference to his early novel. The bathroom alluded to. But also to the mythological scene in Ovid's metamorphoses, in which Actaion Diana was surprised to find herself bathing naked and without her weapons.
The retreat that the bathroom represented in the time of the nouveau nouveau roman is transformed in the visual novel Emotions transformed into an eroticized space for encounters:
C'était un soir, au mois de mai. Diane venait de prendre un bath, Diane a toujours aimé prendre des bains, elle en prenait le matin et le soir (et même au beau milieu de la nuit, comme le jour où nous nous étions rencontrés). Diane aims to have a bath in the black, with the lueur d'une bougie qu'elle déposait sur le bord de la baignoire, en écoutant de la musique classique sur sa tablette. Diane, this evening, après son bain, there is revenue in the room, the cheveux mouillés, a serviette à la main, in the son's peignoir de bain blanc. J'étais en train de lire dans mon fauteuil et je lui avais souri.
Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Les Emotions
It was a May night. Diane had just taken a bath; Diane always loved taking baths, morning and evening (and even in the middle of the night, like the day we had met). Diane liked to bathe in the dark, by the light of a candle she placed on the edge of the tub, listening to classical music on her tablet. That evening, Diane came back into the room after her bath in her thick white bathrobe, her hair wet, carrying a towel. I was reading in my armchair and smiled at her.
This article is written in German and can be found at https://rentree.de. Automatic translations into English and French are available. English, French.
Notes- The focus of the emotionsThis is the setting for the father's funeral. It is a moment of contemplation and introspection, in which feelings of grief mingle with memories of loving emotions. I could have structured the novel more classically around the funeral scene. In literature, and even in film, it's practically a necessary device to see a character at a funeral reflecting on different phases of their own life or on the life of the deceased. But I preferred a more open, less chronological structure. I preferred to move from digression to digression, from one movement to the next, a bit like in music. Even though the central theme dominates the structure, it is framed by two sentences that illuminate and complete it. This invisible musical dimension of the novel isn't necessarily apparent on a first reading.>>>
