The workshop for potential literature, Oulipo, remains productive and, with Hervé Le Tellier, has made it to the shortlists of several literary prizes during the summer break. A play on possibilities: What if something unimaginable were to happen in March 2021, something we currently consider science fiction? What if we had to encounter our doppelgangers? What if this plane encounters terrible turbulence on its way to the USA? True to Oulipo's group poetics, it's another play on references, quotations, and mise-en-abyme effects, all presented in a witty, clever, and exciting way. The group's president, Hervé Le Tellier, invents an alter ego with a novel of the same name, Victør Miesel, and the ø is not coincidentally a mathematical symbol; Tellier himself studied mathematics and linguistics, as he explains in his book. Toutes les familles heureuses had written.
Clémence Balmer lit vite, this is his métier, and at one hour elle a fini. The Anomaly ne ressemble à rien de ce que Victor a product auparavant. This is not a novel, a confession, a non plus a succession without lien de phrases lumineuses or de formulas scintillantes. This is a long-range book, with a striking rythm, which has a few laughs, and it is reconnaissance in filigree that is influenced by Miesel, by Jankélévitch à Camus, Gontcharov and others. A black text, without distance, even though the persiflage is douloureux: […]
Hervé Le Tellier, L'Anomalie
Clémence Balmer reads quickly; it's her job, and she's finished in an hour. die anomaly It is unlike anything Victor has ever produced before. It is not a novel, not a confession, not a seamless succession of luminous sentences or glittering formulas. It is a strange book, with an insistent rhythm that one cannot escape, and in it she recognizes, in a delicate way, everything that has influenced Miesel, from Jankélévitch to Camus, Goncharov, and so many others. A dark text, devoid of distance, where even the parody is painful: […]
Raphaëlle Leyris writes in Le Monde des Livres: “The novel has a lot of rebondsions, which are from the Etats-Unis au Nigeria, in passing by France and the Indies, to confront the confrontation of its protagonists with the double soudainement apparatus, possessing an effective narrative that has been reborn with the children in great distinguishment. for his father, for the names of his characters and his ambitions for the Roman world, The Anomaly "Diffère du reste de son travail, on y trouve les constantes d'une œuvre qui, depuis près de trente ans, juggle avec les structures, la langue et les références." 1
And the novel ends in a way that is both poetic, autopoetological, and scientific, with an unfinished tour d'horizon:
It is difficult to describe this fact, even if it does not exist in the language to define this vibration in the world, this pulsation is infinite, part out on the land, and in the same instant, it also affects the chat while sleeping in the fireplace The chalet in Arkansas is located overlooking the city of Bordeaux, and the Zambèze chutes and the low immaculées of the Anapurna, the Rialto bridge on the Grand Canal de Venice with the art encombrée of the Grand Bidonville de Dharavi and the pontoon sale au bord d'un évier à Montjoux and the old tire crevé in the cour d'un garage in Mumbai
Hervé Le Tellier, L'Anomalie
It is difficult to describe what is happening; no word exists in language to define this slow vibration of the world, this tiny pulsation that affects everyone on Earth at the same instant: the cat sleeping by the fireplace in that Arkansas cottage, the greylag goose flying across the sky above Bordeaux, the Zambezi Falls, the untouched snow of Anapurna, the Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal in Venice, the clogged artery of the great slum in Dharavi, the dirty sponge on the edge of a sink in Montjoux, and the old flat tire in the yard of a garage in Mumbai.
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- "This novel, full of twists and turns, which travels from the United States via France and India to Nigeria to tell the story of its protagonists' confrontation with suddenly appearing doppelgangers, has a narrative effectiveness that does not forgo the literary games so dear to this important Oulipiian. Although The Anomaly Despite its depth, the number of characters, and its ambitions as a world novelist, which distinguish it from the rest of his work, it contains the constants of a work that has been juggling structures, language, and references for almost thirty years.>>>
