And you, my dear Chamisso, I have chosen to be the keeper of my wondrous tale, so that perhaps, when I have departed from the earth, it may serve as a useful lesson to some of its inhabitants. But you, my friend, if you wish to live among men, learn first and foremost to worship the shadow, then money. If you wish only to live for yourself and your better self, then you need no advice.
Adelbert von Chamisso, Peter Schlemihl's Miraculous Story
Editorial fiction has been a strategy in past centuries to legitimize one's own fiction as a found document. In the 21st century, this can take the form of an album of other people's selfies. Jacob B'rebi, for example, took 369 selfie photos of himself in a single year in the early 70s and pasted them into an album. The novel Les vies de Jacob Christophe Boltanski's work is a reflection on identity and memory, starting from an unknown, nomadic existence.
The optical effect is resistant to an exam plus attention. Derrière ce sourire inaugural, il n'y avait qu'une seule personne. An inconnu résumé à son buste en Hermès, a man-tronc and manchot enfermé in a small rectangle de carton bordé d'un contour blanc. The size dimensions standard: 3,5 centimètres de large, 4,5 centimètres de haut, the format prevu pour a passeport or a permis de conduire. Quoi de plus banal? The photo of the identity figure shows the different parts of the world. Reliquats administratifs, miroirs d'une jeunesse perdue, on en possède tous quelques exemplaires démonétisés enfouis au fond d'un tiroir.
Christophe Boltanski, Les vies de Jacob
The visual effect didn't hold up to closer scrutiny. Behind that opening smile, there was only one person. A stranger, reduced to his Hermes bust, a limbless torso, captured in a small cardboard rectangle, framed by a white border. Standard print size: 3,5 cm wide, 4,5 cm high, the size of a passport or driver's license. What could be more banal? The ID photo is one of the most ubiquitous things in the world. Relics of bureaucracy, reflecting our lost youth—we all have a few invalidated copies lying around in a drawer.
The author-narrator acquires this photo album at a flea market, and he interprets these shifting images of a foreign identity—sometimes with a beard, sometimes in uniform, sometimes with a worried expression, sometimes with a forced smile. A long search for this anonymous figure, a metonym for France, begins. The acknowledgments at the end of the book reveal the many insightful conversations the author must have had. The publisher:
“Son besoin de savoir le conduit dans des échoppes à l'abandon, des terrains vagues, des docks déserts, des lieux ultra-sécurisés, puis dans les cimetières de Djerba, and enfin en Israël, aux confins du desert du Néguev ou au pied du mont Hermon. Patiemment, l'auteur reconstitue les vies vécues et rêvées de Jacob, où se mêlent paradis perdu, exil, désirs de vengeance, guerres et ambitions artistiques Peu à peu, la quête s'approche du myth, celui d'un homme qui recherche une terre pour oublier les arrachements de l'enfance, mêle instinct de fuite et de liberté, dans l'espoir de se réconcilier avec la mort et avec la vie.” 1Boltanski refers to Adelbert von Chamisso's art fairy tale Schlemihl On his Jacob: Just as Jacob sells his shadow to the devil and receives a constantly full purse of gold in return, he experiences the subsequent exclusion from his society. And similarly to the Lorraine author Chamisso, born in Reims, Boltanski argues that the story represents the torments of a century "characterized by the rise of individualism, by the need for autonomy, peace and recognition, for distinction." 2
Tu te demandes sans doute pourquoi je te raconte tout cela. Ta vie n'est pas un conte fantastique et je me garderai bien de te traiter de schlemiel ou de toute other épithète. Mais vos destins ont un point commun.
Dans ton automate, on l'a dit et redit, tu changes constamment d'identité, tu enchaînes des rôles, tu collectionnes des avatars, all ceux que tu aurais pu être mais que tu n'es pas. You explore the potentialities that you portes in both and projects that chose d'intime enfoui au plus profond de ton être. You can also have certain activities in which you have secrets, and you will be able to share with your young children, in this family of substitution, in a recueil that you watch as a person, even if you have children. You can start with what you see in front of you. Ton album photo, this trace qui te survit, c'est ta part d'ombre.
Contrairement à Peter Schlemihl, you don't have as much as a Faustian pact, but you don't have to abandon it. Tu la gardais jalousement, dissimulée parmi ton fatras. Et un jour, privée de ta presence, détachée de toi, elle est partie with les encombrants comme une vieille étoffe un peu mitée. You don't have anything to do with it. Elle a été achetée. Once it's back to main, it's fine to integrate the marching circuit. Elle est devenue un bien. Puis, une idée, the point of departure of an artistic oeuvre, and enfin un object de litige.
Christophe Boltanski, Les vies de Jacob
You're probably wondering why I'm telling you all this. Your life isn't a fantastical story, and I'm not going to call you a Schlemihl or any other epithet. But your fates have one thing in common.
In your photo booth, as has been said several times here, you constantly switch identities, you link roles, you collect avatars, all those you could have been, but aren't. You explore the possibilities you carry within you and project something intimate, buried deep inside. Perhaps you also reveal some of your activities that must remain secret, and you patiently collect all your twin brothers, this whole surrogate family, in a collection you show no one, not even your children. You probably guess where I'm going with this. Your photo album, this trace that outlives you, is your dark side.
Unlike Peter Schlemihl, you didn't subject it to a Faustian pact, you neither lost such a pact nor abandoned it. You jealously guarded the album, hidden away in your clutter. And one day, without your presence, detached from you, it was thrown away with the trash like an old, slightly moth-eaten cloth. You didn't sell it. It was bought. After being passed from hand to hand, it entered the market. The album became a commodity. Then it became an idea, the starting point of an artistic work, and finally, an object of contention.
And so it has ultimately become a political story as well. Simon Liberati For example, the diasporic situation of the Jewish protagonist of Boltanski's novel emphasizes a photo album: “Sur la piste du Juif errant on rencontre quelques fantômes, des inscriptions effacées, des étiquettes, de l'hébreu, de l'exégèse biblique, un pucier, un agent secret, un diplomate, des anonymouses, autant de portraits discrètement et précisément tracés. Le premier métier de l'auteur, son expérience du terrain lui donnent l'économie de moyens, le trait et le mordant des bons dessinateurs." 3
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- His thirst for knowledge leads him to abandoned shops, wasteland, deserted docks, heavily guarded places, later to the cemeteries of Djerba, and finally to Israel, to the edge of the Negev Desert and the foot of Mount Hermon. With patience, the author reconstructs Jacob's lived and dreamed life, in which lost paradise, exile, desires for revenge, wars, and artistic ambitions intertwine. Gradually, his search approaches the myth of a man seeking a land to forget the uprooting of his childhood, a journey where instincts for escape and freedom intertwine, in the hope of reconciling himself with life and with death.>>>
- This fable écrite au moment où il traverse une period de grand désarroi traditional les affres d'un siècle marqué par l'essor de l'individualisme, par un besoin à la fois d'autonomie, de tranquillité et de reconnaissance, de distinction.>>>
- Following the trail of the wandering Jew, we encounter several ghosts, erased inscriptions, labels, Hebrew, biblical exegesis, a caretaker, a secret agent, a diplomat, anonymous figures—so many portraits, drawn discreetly and precisely. The author's first profession and his experience in the field give him the economy of means, his distinctive style, and the incisiveness of a skilled draftsman.>>>
