Son infidélité ne me choquait pas. C'était le mensonge qui m'était douloureux. The reality is after the annual events in the municipality. Transpirer in the bras of another man, oui. Affabuler, non. C'était ma limite.
De mon côté, j'étais devenu fidèle sans trop forcer ma nature. The fidélité has a dimension that is somewhat absurd and just like me, which I chose from Japan: the love of a single woman, according to the approach to a motif, in the same way that Monet has chosen the nymphs in the fin de sa vie, y avait borné son talent sans s'égarer à peindre à côté des cactus ou des giraffes.
Erwan Desplanques, La part sauvage, Editions de l'Olivier, 2024.
Her infidelity didn't shock me. It was the lie that hurt. That after so many years of living together, she could manipulate reality. To sweat in another man's arms, yes. But to invent stories, no. That was my line.
For my part, I had become faithful without unduly straining my nature. There was something absurd and uncompromising about this fidelity that I didn't dislike, something Japanese: the love for a single woman like the deepening of a motif, just as Monet, at the end of his life, had chosen water lilies and limited his talent to them, without losing himself in painting cacti or giraffes alongside them.
Erwan Desplanque's collection of short stories La part sauvage (2024) brings together ten short stories that, in their subtle, psychologically rich snapshots, paint a portrait of a generation wavering between conformity and self-loss, between ironic world-weariness and inner weariness. All the stories share a specific structural and thematic pivot: the tipping point. This is a moment of change, confrontation, or realization that opens up a different perspective on themselves or their world for the characters—often painfully, often quietly. From the sum of these ruptures, transitions, and upheavals emerges a profound reflection on the human relationship to oneself, to one's relationships, and to the present. Stéphane Jarno writes: “Desplanques sketches situations and characters with a few concise strokes and immediately starts the countdown, but his true strength lies in planting explosives. Like a skilled demolition expert, he knows exactly where they will cause the most damage: poorly repaired cracks, worn materials, shaky walls, oxidized emotions, jaded couples, decaying friendships, lies, hypocrisy… And the explosions hurt, especially the bourgeois, intellectuals, bobos, executives, or neo-rurals, that is, the – at least seemingly – moderate milieus that the author appears to know well and in which he has set his ten short stories.” 1
Erwan Desplanques's story "La part sauvage" (The Wild Part) not only forms the eponymous centerpiece of the collection but also its thematic heart. With quiet intensity, it explores questions of memory, family history, identity, and the role of language in dealing with that which cannot be fully expressed or rationalized: the foreign within the familiar, the untamed amidst bourgeois facades—that "wild" part which seems to have no place in the order of the present but keeps returning. At the heart of the story is a place that no longer exists: the grandfather's former zoo, now a supermarket parking lot. The zoo is a "vanishing place" in two senses: physically erased and simultaneously mentally repressed. The narrator—a father of two young daughters—learns of the zoo's existence by chance and indirectly, during a family visit. It is not memory that drives him, but a lack: "I have no memory of this place, but I need to go there." "This gap becomes the driving force of the story: The search for the zoo becomes a search for a missing, repressed part of one's own origins. The place stands emblematically for the forgotten, the uncanny, which had no place in the family narrative – for the 'wild' side of the family, which threatens to slip from consciousness through the gradual disappearance of the older generations."
The narrator belongs to the generation of educated middle-class people who have their lives under control—career, relationships, children, irony. Yet this grip seems fragile. The reappearance of the vanished zoo disrupts this apparent order. His reaction to the news of its existence reveals an almost childlike urge to return—not out of nostalgia, but to grasp something that finds no expression in everyday language. Desplanques portrays this movement not with pathos, but with a mixture of seriousness, self-irony, and melancholy. The narrator knows that there is "nothing left to see." But the desire remains: "Je veux voir le zoo."—a sentence that seems almost defiant, like a symbolic act against sheer oblivion.
The zoo refers not only to a place, but to a relationship to wildness, to the animalistic, which is suppressed or controlled. Here, the animal is not an external figure, but an expression of the Other within the self. The animals of the zoo—long since dead or sold—continue to have an effect: in dreams, in gestures, in the gaps of memory. The narrative suggests that this "part sauvage" has not disappeared, but lives on latently—in perception, in language, perhaps in the body.
The meeting with the aunt—one of the last remaining links to the grandfather's generation—illustrates how deeply the family history is riddled with ruptures and silences. The aunt's memories are fragmentary, hesitant, tentative. Language loses its ease—hesitation and muteness prevail. The wildness no longer has a place in the order of speech, but it lives on in the body, in gestures, glances, and imagination.
The second layer of the narrative unfolds in the bourgeois present: school, children, everyday life, the supermarket – the stage of a functioning existence. Yet even here, cracks begin to show: the child is disappointed because there are no real animals at the zoo school; the narrator observes himself in his role as a father, as a "modern man" – always reflective, conscientious, but inwardly detached. The emotional intensity of the visit to the old zoo grounds contrasts sharply with the polished surface of contemporary discourse. This contrast is the true tension of the narrative: between a world of order, representation, and education – and a world of the unspoken, the uncivilized, the wild, which has lost its language and name. The "part sauvage" is that which eludes our grasp – but it makes itself felt: through desire, restlessness, through the silence between words. Stylistically, Desplanques employs a concise, precise language that is rarely explicit but atmospherically dense. He works with empty spaces, with hints, with rhythmically placed sentences that often conceal more than they reveal. It is precisely through this that he creates the melancholic intensity that characterizes his stories. The "wildness" does not appear as a natural idyll or a violent fantasy – but rather as a quiet yet insistent presence of the uncontrolled within the seemingly civilized.
“La part sauvage” is a reflection on generations, on memory, on disappearance—and on that which does not disappear. History reminds us that the past is not over until it has been remembered—and that any order that erases the wild, the other, the incongruous rests on shaky ground. The return to the “zoo” is therefore not a sentimental journey, but an existential movement: toward the unknown, the uncanny, the truth of a “part sauvage.”
In attempting to summarize the narratives, this story forms a background tone:
L'homme debout. A former superior suddenly reappears after years, embroiled in a court case for bullying, and asks the narrator to testify as a defense witness—a request that reopens old wounds. In the encounter with this man who once held power over him, the narrator becomes acutely aware of the full emotional and psychological burden of the past. The moment he refuses to lie is not a simple moral decision, but an act of profound self-respect: the perpetrator's return forces him to reflect on the past, but also to distance himself from it.
La brûlure. When Anna burns her hand while baking, it's more than just a kitchen accident—it's a cathartic expression of her inner exhaustion, her suppressed resentments, and her melancholic self-doubt. The external wound makes visible an inner injury that has long been denied: the feeling of being overlooked, unseen, or never truly taken seriously. An encounter with an empathetic doctor in the emergency room finally opens a space for tenderness, understanding, and self-acceptance. In this seemingly banal episode, the drama of a quiet, female life lived in the shadow of others' successes is condensed.
Le grand saut. A young man accompanies his father, a charismatic rock star, on tour and witnesses how he is worshipped like a god by the audience—until he secretly strikes him during a crowd surfing jump. The scene unfolds like a surreal patricide ritual, a physical gesture of emancipation that finds expression in violence because language has long since failed between father and son. The blow is less revenge than an attempt to establish a symbolic balance, a moment of physical truth in the face of an existential affront. The story explores the difficult legacy of fathers, the mixture of admiration, disappointment, and silent rage—and the complex need to be loved nonetheless.
Florabelle. An electrician meets a famous influencer and, along with his partner, becomes increasingly captivated by her beautiful, seemingly perfect life – a voyeuristic obsession ensues. But when he gets close to the woman again in real life, for example, during a physically intimate moment in the garden shed, the fantasy shatters against reality. The story deconstructs the imagery: what shines digitally appears pale, physical, vulnerable – and ultimately banal – in real life. The desire for media-driven glamour leads to emptiness; it becomes difficult to distinguish between genuine feelings and staged longings.
Team spirit. A football team learns of the sudden death of a teammate – the shock doesn't lead to a grand expression of grief, but rather a quiet, collective decision: to play. Sport becomes a wordless form of mourning, a physical way of processing the loss. By resuming the game, they not only honor the deceased but also save themselves from despair. This understated story possesses great emotional power: it shows how everyday rituals – in this case, sport – can offer a form of support in existential moments that language cannot. Movement becomes a form of remembrance.
La part sauvage. A man learns by chance that his grandfather once owned a zoo—a fact completely omitted from his family history—and sets out to find this vanished place. The journey becomes a symbolic expedition into the repressed past, into the untamed, which can neither be rationally explained nor fully remembered. Amidst the ruins of a lost life and the responsibility of fatherhood, the narrator discovers something that transcends mere nostalgia: a sense of the irretrievable, of that which defies all order.
The dinosaurs of the future. Two teenagers hide in the school building during a potential school shooting – in the shadow of the violence, they confess their love for each other, knowing that these words are more like protective phrases than truths. The scene reveals the paradoxical need for meaning in the face of the absurd: the declaration of love is simultaneously authentic and performative, tender and calculated. The threat activates a final, childlike, pure form of intimacy that otherwise has no place in everyday life. The unavailable – the end, the violence, the truth – can erupt into this world of precarious growing up at any moment.
Une catastrophe privée. A man fails to live up to the expectations of his family, and especially his father-in-law – in a seemingly banal conversation, the powerlessness of modern man erupts. Amidst economic rationality and the expectation of constant self-improvement, the emptiness behind the performance mask is revealed. With subtle irony, the story exposes the fractures in classic images of masculinity: strength, responsibility, control – everything is shaken.
Storm. A young girl experiences a storm while her parents and grandparents seem helpless – and realizes that she is the one holding the family together. The child's perspective reveals how fragile the adult world is, how much its stability depends on external roles. Salomé becomes the "silent adult" in a world where the actual adults barely live up to their responsibilities. The narrative deconstructs parental authority not loudly, but through quiet, precise observation.
Giulia. A father, exhausted by family tensions, lies down in the grass with eye patches on – until the family dog gently nestles against his temple. It is a wordless gesture, almost too delicate for the realities of life, yet powerful enough to temporarily mend an inner rift. Amidst the inability to express needs or resolve conflicts, the animal acts as a medium of affective truth: not thinking, but feeling. Giulia It is a silent plea for the dignity of affection that takes place outside of language.
Desplanques' short stories are not classic plots, but rather condensed landscapes of the soul, whose dramaturgy is based on the inner upheaval of a situation. What connects all the stories is the feeling of a void: a lack of orientation, an unresolved conflict, an emotional vacuum. Whether it is the father figure (The big jump, La part sauvage), the desire for recognition (Florabelle, A private catastrophe), death and the failure of care (Storm, Giulia) or the collision with one's own mediocrity (La brûlureThe stories operate within the tension between the private inner world and the social outside. The motif of failure is particularly central: professional, emotional, and familial. Desplanques' characters are exhausted by an ideal they cannot fulfill – yet which is inevitably projected onto them.
Another central theme is desire – not only in an erotic sense, but as a longing for visibility, warmth, closeness, and meaning. These moments – when a character suddenly seeks or refuses physical touch – mark crucial transitions. Often it is male characters who expose themselves in their awkwardness, but also female characters like Anna in La brûlure or Salomea in Storm They experience existential thresholds that reorder their subjectivity.
Desplanques' narrative style is restrained, understated, and highly sensitive. The stories are mostly told in the first person or from a very close personal perspective. They are voices that speak tentatively, reflectively, sometimes ironically, often melancholically—allowing the reader to delve into a consciousness that oscillates between self-protection and openness. The language is unadorned, yet highly suggestive. Simple images (e.g., the burn wound, the movement of a scooter, a dog on the lawn) become symbolically charged without ever seeming allegorically overloaded. Dialogues and inner monologues intertwine, memories permeate the present. It is a writing style that focuses entirely on perception, capturing entire attitudes to life in small gestures—and functioning almost cinematically.
I'm looking forward to associating the woman with the source I'm talking about with images that I'm reviving in the world, this gamine boudeuse qui résumait à elle seule l'Italie, la fiction, la jeunesse éternelle et l'âge d'or du cinéma mondial.
Giulia m'avait confié que le secret de la réussite était de savoir quitter un rôle, d'en faire le deuil pour endosser le suivant. C'était presque une leçon de vie: se dépouiller des personnages qu'on s'invente et finir par être soi. Enfin soi. Plus que soi.
Erwan Desplanques, La part sauvage, Editions de l'Olivier, 2024.
Sometimes I found it difficult to reconcile the woman I was talking to with the images in my head – this sulky child who combined Italy, fiction, eternal youth and the golden age of world cinema.
Giulia had confided in me that the secret to success lay in leaving one role, mourning it, and slipping into the next. It was almost like a life lesson: shedding the self-invented characters and finally being yourself. Truly yourself. More than yourself.
The collection La part sauvage It unfolds a worldview of fragility in an age of overwhelm. In a society where performance, visibility, and consumption are omnipresent, the stories mark spaces for pausing, self-reflection, and vulnerability. Desplanques presents characters who grapple not with power, but with powerlessness; not heroes or heroines, but people learning to endure, to let go, or to be honest. The "wildness" in the title doesn't refer to violence, not an escape into the animalistic, but to an untamed, not entirely civilizable zone of humanity: a need for meaning, for unconditional closeness, for an unprotected existence. In this sense, the stories are also a plea for empathy: they show how difficult (and precious) it is to be human. La part sauvage It is a collection of quiet revolutions. The characters don't shatter expectations with a bang, but with a whisper, a glance, a rejection, a pain. Desplanques writes stories that run like fine cracks through his characters' self-image—and perhaps through that of the readers as well. Their power lies in their quietness, their humanity, and their vulnerability. This wildness, it turns out, doesn't lie beyond civilization—but within us. And it is possible to confront it.
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- "S'il croque situations et personnages en quelques traits vifs et enclenche sans tarder le compte à rebours, Desplanques excelle dans l'installation des charges explosives. En bon artificier, il repère l'endroit où elles feront le plus de dégâts: les fêlures mal comblées, les matériaux usés, les murs branlants, l'oxidation des sentiments, les couples émoussés, les amitiés moisies, le mensonge, les faux-semblants… Et les deflagrations font mal, particulièrement chez les bourgeois, les intellos, les bobos, les cadres ou les néoruraux, des milieux tempérés — du moins en apparence — que the author ensemble bien connaître et où il a situé ces dix nouvelles.” Stéphane Jarno, “La Part sauvage”, d'Erwan Desplanques: ces moments où tout déraille…, Télérama, 8. March 2024.>>>
