Literature has inadvertently incorporated epidemic choreography into its narratives. A literary history of Corona is likely more compelling in texts that don't aspire to be Corona novels. The lockdown colors the texts, becoming epoch-defining for anyone who, in ten years' time, wants to convey a sense of the contemporary nature of the last decade in a film or novel, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall or the period following the collapse of the World Trade Center.
Ils ne s'étaient même pas fait la bise, non, même pas offert this chance des lèvres douces sur la joue et qui auraient pu déraper – et c'était l'épidémie, ça me revient, le premier été de l'épidémie, c'étaient les trop fameux gestes barrières, et de sorte qu'un baiser ne serait-ce que social, ou même amical, quitte justement à ce qu'il devienne tendre et trouble, n'avait pas semblé possible.
Christine Montalbetti, Ce que c'est qu'une existence
They hadn't even kissed, no, not even given each other the chance of gentle lips on the cheek that could have gone wrong – and this was the epidemic, I remember, the first summer of the epidemic, it was those famous gestures of distance, and so a kiss, even a social one, or even a friendly one, even if it would be tender and concerned, had not been possible.
Heidegger's existential philosophy emphasizes that man is not a thing, he is not merely something present, but exists only in the process of living: "Man alone exists. The rock is, but it does not exist. The tree is, but it does not exist. The horse is, but it does not exist. The angel is, but he does not exist. God is, but he does not exist." 1 Decisions must be made, opportunities must be realized – existence is the essence of human beings. This is reflected in Sartre's existentialism when he says, "L'existence précède l'essence," existence precedes essence: human beings emerge in the world and encounter one another; there is no universal nature, no universal essence of humanity. If Montalbetti's novel aims to illustrate this, it does so without scholarly baggage, but when the term 'existence' appears in her work, it is to interpret objects beyond their mere presence for our own existence.
Pour quelqu'un qui entrerait dans this pièce pour la première fois (vous, donc), ces objects ont l'air d'être là pour la fonction qu'ils occupent (qu'y at-il dans this boîte en teck, pourrait-on se demander) ou pour leur joliesse, decorative, et puis voilà ; mais secrètement ils racontent aussi quelque chose au père, car vous savez ça comme lui, combien les objets qui nous entourent continennent des fragments de notre histoire. Comment ils sont la preuve d'un séjour qu'on a effectué, la trace d'un endroit où on a été, le prolongement d'une personne qui vous en a fait le cadeau: c'est fou, la somme de lieux et d'expériences qui peuvent se trouver enfermés dans leur volume compact et muet. Nos bibelots sont là pour ça. Chacun conserve comme a moment lyophilisé de notre existence, and il suffit que vous posiez les yeux sur l'un d'eux pour que ce moment, comme retrempé disons dans la vague douce de votre regard, se redéploie.
Christine Montalbetti, Ce que c'est qu'une existence
To someone entering this room for the first time (that is, to you), these objects seem to be there for their function (what's in that teak box, you might ask) or for their beauty, their decoration, and so on; but secretly, they also tell the father something, for you know as well as he does that the objects around us contain fragments of our history. They are the evidence of a stay we have experienced, the trace of a place we have been, the extension of a person who has given us a gift: it is incredible, the sum of places and experiences that can be enclosed in their compact and silent space. That is what our knick-knacks are for. Each of these objects preserves our existence like a frozen moment, and all you have to do is fix your eyes on one of them for that moment, as if it had retreated into the gentle vagueness of your gaze, to unfold again.
In a single day, so many lives unfold simultaneously: six characters (father and son, Dorris, Magda, Ahmad, and Stan) in their specific life moments, and numerous secondary characters are brought together by Montalbetti into a chorus, a diversity of synchronous existences: a race, a longing, a hospital stay, a migration, a wandering, and the author composes a rhythmic text from the simultaneity of these scenes, creating what Antoine Perraud, in his critique, calls a "planetary palimpsest" that interweaves individuals and the collective. 2 in a cinematographic zoom and a tracking shot of literature, as Alexandre Fillon puts it: "Il ya là le père, septuagénaire les pieds dans des chaussons, dont la principale occupation est de regarder par la fenêtre en laissant venir ses pensées. Il ya le fils, Tom, qui scrute la mer sur le pont In the boat, Rita and Dorris were on board the Airbus. 3 In moments of precise composition, one thinks of the eye school of the Nouveau Roman or the wings of a triptych by Claude Simon:
Au même instant, quelque part sur une plage, un homme, relié à son cerf-volant par la longue laisse de ses brides, tente de le piloter, les mains crispées sur ses poignées, et quel lien bizarre l'attache à l'aérodyne capricieux qui voltige un peu dans le ciel venteux avant de retomber comme un oiseau mort.
[...]
Au même instant, the éoliennes tournent lentement leurs pales dans un décor très vert.
[...]
In this case, an instant pissing point is removed from the bowl.
Christine Montalbetti, Ce que c'est qu'une existence
On croit qu'elle va tomber lentement, s'avachir jusqu'au sol, mais non, elle remonte, elle commence à circuler, elle surfe sur les courants de l'air, elle se met à incarner l'idée de légèreté, elle l'encense, c'est comme si elle la dansait.
At the same time, somewhere on a beach, a man, connected to his kite by the long rope of his bridle, is trying to launch it, his hands gripping the handles, and what a strange connection binds him to the capricious drone, the kite flutters a little in the windy sky before falling back like a dead bird.
[...]
At the same time, the blades of the wind turbines rotate slowly in a very green environment.
[...]
At the same time, a dandelion seed detaches from its sphere.
You think he's falling slowly, sinking to the ground, but no, he rises again, he begins to move, he surfs on the air currents, he begins to embody the idea of lightness, he conjures it, it's as if he's dancing.
The mixture of lightness, meditation and an intense feeling for existence, the almost Buddhist lightness, also contains an awareness of life and death:
Au même instant, quelqu'un enveloppe dans sa vieille couverture doudou son chien qui gemit et le dépose precautionneusement sur le siège passager. Les bubons ont grossi and the douleur paraît unsupportable. The clenche la ceinture de security, allume le contact. The route takes you to the gondola and you can cross the voile de larmes qui stagne dans ses yeux, et il parle doucement à son tout en roulant vers le cabinet du veterinaire de garde pour le faire piquer.
[...]
In my instant, in a double studio, a man poses with his voice on the other tongues.
[...]
Au même instant, quelqu'un (un package de gens, chacun avec son histoire, chacun avec tout ce qu'il lui restait à faire - et chaque fois une tragédie, intacte, entière, extrême, pour soi et pour ceux qui restent) meurt.
[...]
Quelque part, au même instantaneous, quelqu'un, a tripotée de babies, naît.
Christine Montalbetti, Ce que c'est qu'une existence
I don't think there is any compensation.
At the same time, someone wraps their whimpering dog in its old blanket and gently places it on the passenger seat. The blisters have grown larger, and the pain seems unbearable. He buckles his seatbelt and turns on the ignition. The road ahead undulates through the tears in his eyes, and he speaks softly to his dog as he drives to the on-duty veterinarian to have it euthanized.
[...]
At the same time, a man in a dubbing studio is putting his voice on the lips of another man.
[...]
At the same time, someone dies (a series of people, each with their own story, each with everything they still had to do – and each time a tragedy, untouched, whole, extreme, for themselves and for those who remain).
[...]
Somewhere, at the same time, someone, or a whole series of babies, is born.
I don't see it as compensation.
Fabrice Gabriel is right when he criticizes... The world of books the fundamental existential philosophy of Montalbetti's novel is also understood as a reflection on the writing process in its own creation, 4 magical, just like in our childhood:
Écrire un roman, je me dis parfois, c'est, comme quand on était petits, vous emmener dans un recoin et vous chuchoter toi, tu serais ça ; You enter the world in a constructed ensemble, like children when you conjugate no energy to imagine the universe or the world that you have before - this is what you think of Fantômette, or Zorro, and fée, oui, quelquefois j'étais fée (J'avais la robe, blanche, soyeuse, brodée d'or, et la baguette, avec son étoile au bout), et India also, je portais une veste à franges couleur chamois, et de temps à autre j'allais faire un tour dans mon tipi pour voir si ma femme et mon fils allaient bien avant de repair dans les paysages pêcher ou guerroyer. Et vous, là, all de suite, à être un peu Dorris, quand on joue à Dorris (vous all, je veux dire, les garçons aussi), à être un peu Tom, et le père, et all les autres, à tour de rôle – et justement, de rôle, des rôles If you live in the interior, and if you have a secrètement, you don't have to worry about it, and you'll have it in plus depth.
Christine Montalbetti, Ce que c'est qu'une existence
Writing a novel, I sometimes tell myself, is like cornering you as a child and whispering, you, you will be that; immersing you in a world we build together, like children when we pool our energies to imagine universes where we become someone else – was it Fantômette for you, or Zorro, and a fairy, yes, sometimes I was a fairy (I had a white, silk, gold-embroidered dress and a wand with a star on the end), and as an Indian I wore a chamois-colored jacket with fringes, and from time to time I went to my teepee to see if my wife and son were all right before going back out to the countryside to fish or fight. And you, right now, are a little bit Dorris when we play Dorris (I mean all of you, including the boys), a little bit Tom, and father, and all the others, in turn – in roles that you live from within, by secretly putting into them each time, without anyone seeing you, what you truly are.
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- Martin Heidegger, What is metaphysics?, Inaugural lecture of July 24, 1929 (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1955), 35.>>>
- « Toutes ces traces et ces strates distraites du palimpseste planétaire entrelacent l'individuel et le collectif, les colères solitaires et l'indignation politique, l'errance et l'élaboration, l'amour et le désamour, la vie et le roman, le roman et la vie », Antoine Perraud, La Croix, 25. August 2021>>>
- “There’s the father, a seventy-year-old in slippers, whose main occupation is gazing out the window and letting his thoughts wander. There’s the son, Tom, looking out to sea from the deck of a boat. Rita and Dorris are on board the same Airbus. Stan is visiting Magda in the hospital…”, Alexandre Fillon Les Echos, 25. August 2021>>>
- Fabrice Gabriel, The world of books, August 26, 2021: “Un roman qui raconte l'écriture d'un roman en train de se faire”.>>>
