Three intermedial Orpheus variations: Palermo, Berlin and Trump's USA in the work of Sébastien Berlendis

Trilogy of Obsession

A comparison of the three novels by Sébastien Berlendis – Return to Palerme (2018, cited as RP), Seize lacs et une seule mer (2021, cited as SL) and 24 times America (all Actes Sud, 2026, cited as FA) – shows that these are variations on the same obsessive theme: the search for a lost woman in a landscape steeped in melancholy and history.

In each novel, the narrator searches for a phantom figure, but finds temporary solace in a new, real encounter: In RP, he looks for Délia in Palermo, but instead enters into a physical, almost dreamlike relationship with Elizabeth, the granddaughter of the original palazzo owner. In SL, Inna Helm is the "phantom guide," while the Syrian filmmaker Leyla accompanies him in reality through the Berlin summer. Finally, in FA, he follows Marianne's trail in the USA to her house in the dunes, but there he encounters only a silhouette behind glass; the real turning point comes with his meeting with the Swedish DJ Linn in Chicago.

While RP is claustrophobic and fixated on decay, SL, through its connection of nature and film, appears more lucid. FA, in turn, uses the vastness of the road movie to describe the theme of absence as a "breath" that propels the narrator through a decaying civilization.

In RP, the narrator returns after eight years to a heat-stricken Palermo, scarred by ruins and fires, to search a dilapidated palazzo for the material remains of his lost lover, Délia. The novel's poetics manifest themselves here through a physical-chemical process: in a bathtub converted into a darkroom, the narrator develops old negatives, with the "fixing" of the baryta paper becoming the central metaphor for the attempt to make a fragmented memory physically tangible against the erosion of time. This work reenacts the "film of a life," a fragmented montage of fullness and emptiness, staged through intertextual references to film classics such as "The Swimmer" or "Belarmino" as a journey between affective images and painful absence.

Berlendis uses photography here as evidence of lived experience. The practice of photographing each other in intimate moments reveals the desire to preserve love in images. At the same time, the announcement that the films will be destroyed at the end of the day underscores the finality of loss and the fleeting nature of digital recording.

In SL, the protagonist embarks on a summer walk through Berlin after discovering two Super 8 films by a mysterious Inna Helm, dating from 2016, in an antiquarian bookshop. The novel's poetics strictly follow the logic of these found images; the narrator acts like a projectionist, traversing Berlin's 16 lakes as a series of fixed projections to recreate the timelessness of the footage within the historically significant landscape. Berlendis interweaves a "geology of writing" with the Orpheus myth, the motif of the retrospective gaze upon the vanished Eurydice framing the melancholic flânerie between bucolic nature experiences and the harsh urban history of Berlin.

FA recounts the narrator's three-week journey from Brooklyn to Lake Michigan to find Marianne, from whom he has received only hand-drawn postcards for the past three years. The novel's poetics are consistently structured cinematographically and numerically: echoing the 24 frames per second of classic cinema, the work is divided into 24 scenes, which function like cinematic shots of a melancholic road movie through the decaying Rust Belt. Through the deliberate use of technical devices such as the Rolleiflex or the Polaroid camera, perception is filtered, with media errors like overexposure or ghostly figures becoming metaphors for the instability of memory, while the narrator ritually cultivates a "dead trail" of the past.

Immersion in water (lakes, sea, pools) is a central motif that appears in all three books as a moment of purification or a standstill in time: In RP, the narrator flees the Italian heat into the sea or dilapidated swimming pools. – In SL, the 16 lakes around Berlin form the structural skeleton of the novel; swimming here is an act of ritually repeating film images. – In FA, the narrator seeks out water at every stop on the journey (from Lake Erie to Lake Michigan) to cool the "nettles" of memory and heat.

Cinema acts as an intertextual and intermedial mirror (here the film) The SwimmerThe narrator sees his own fate – the aimless search for solace and home – reflected on the screen. Visual media reception blends with the immediate physical desire in the cinema, causing film and reality to merge.

24 times America

Travel, memory, and the figure of Marianne

Sébastien Berlendis's novel unfolds a melancholic travelogue that simultaneously offers a poetic reflection on memory and loss. The narrator travels from New York to Lake Michigan to see Marianne again, from whom he has received only sporadic hand-drawn postcards for the past three years. The three-week journey through Pennsylvania and Ohio follows the traces of a previous trip they took together. Motels, cafés, industrial towns, and lonely lakes form the backdrop to this movement through space and time, while the landscapes of the American Midwest become projection surfaces for memories.

This excerpt illustrates the fragility of memory due to technical imperfection. The failed, overexposed Polaroids create "ghost figures," which is symbolic of the entire journey: The narrator tries to capture Marianne, but she remains—just like the overexposed photos—a fleeting, intangible apparition in a decaying landscape.

The novel is strongly visual: the narrator uses cameras like a Rolleiflex or a Polaroid to "frame" impressions. The narrative itself is divided into twenty-four episodes that function like film shots—short sequences reminiscent of travelogues or still images. In this way, the boundaries between real space, memory, and imagination blur; the journey simultaneously becomes a cinematic search for clues.

Marianne's disappearance is not portrayed in the novel as a closed event, but rather as an ongoing state: a form of presence through absence. The narrator lives with the memory of her, and it is precisely this absence that becomes the driving force behind his actions. After the "brutal break" of their relationship, he reflects, her absence has become, as it were, his very breath. The journey through America is therefore less an attempt to actually win Marianne back than a ritual of remembrance—an attempt to keep alive the trace of a vanished person. This poetic program is encapsulated in a sentence by Jean Cocteau: "Je cultive sa trace morte"—I cultivate her dead trace.

This idea also shapes the novel's aesthetic. The narrator repeatedly recounts how his cameras fail to capture what he hopes to see. Overexposure and technical glitches produce blurry images or so-called "ghost figures." Instead of clear portraits, shadowy silhouettes emerge. These photographic errors function as visual metaphors for memory itself: Marianne still appears bright and present in the narrator's consciousness, yet her contours are beginning to blur. A similar image appears in a memory of a book Marianne once read: a woman's body merging with the wallpaper of a room—as if a person were slowly dissolving into her surroundings.

Landscapes of memory and cautious opening

Berlendis uses the model of camera movement to describe the narrator's journey through space and time. The world is not viewed statically; it appears as a sequence of film images passing by the train windows. This visual poetics directly links physical movement with the process of remembering the first journey ten years prior.

As the journey progresses, Marianne becomes increasingly connected to the places the narrator traverses. She disappears as a concrete person, while her presence simultaneously lives on in the landscape. Again and again, the narrator believes he recognizes her silhouette or hears her voice whispering to him, like a stage direction, to film a particular scene. The memory is thus spatially anchored: motels, dunes, lakes, and intersections bear traces of past encounters.

This search intensifies at times to almost hallucinatory moments. In Chicago, for example, the narrator repeatedly follows strange women through the streets because their silhouettes remind him of Marianne. Each encounter ends in the disillusionment of realizing it was an illusion. The climax of this process is finally reached at Marianne's house, the "Casa dei Fiori." There, the narrator believes he sees an immobile silhouette behind a pane of glass. But the figure does not respond to his gestures. The scene serves as a symbolic image of ultimate distance: the beloved remains visible, yet unattainable.

Towards the end of the novel, however, this fixation on the lost lover slowly begins to shift. The encounter with the young Swedish woman, Linn, marks a subtle break in the narrative's flow. Marianne remains present as a memory—a sliver of light or a flickering mirage in the narrator's mind—but this new encounter opens the possibility of gradually letting go of the obsessive pursuit of the "dead trail."

Thus, Marianne ultimately remains less a real figure than an aesthetic point of reference that has shaped the narrator's perception. The journey through America therefore becomes a movement between past and present: an attempt to decipher the traces of a lost love, while at the same time slowly creating space for a different future.

Time structure

The novel possesses a complex and multifaceted temporal structure that clearly transcends a linear travel narrative. Time does not appear in the text as a simple chronological sequence, but rather as a superimposition of different levels, similar to a palimpsest. The narrated present is repeatedly interrupted by layers of memory, so that past and present merge into one another.

The narrative is framed by a three-week trip in midsummer, beginning in New York and ending at Lake Michigan. The narrator, experiencing a period of personal stagnation, decides to undertake this journey in order to find Marianne again. This present-day narrative, however, is constantly overlaid with memories. The most significant of these is the memory of their first trip together to the USA, which took place exactly ten years earlier. Nearly every place the narrator visits in the present triggers an extensive flashback. He consciously attempts to "revive the memory of certain places" and to make the experiences of that time visible once more.

Between this first journey and the present day lie further temporal markers that illustrate the growing distance between the two characters. Marianne's departure, or rather the separation, took place seven years ago, while the last postcards she drew, which the narrator received, are dated three years ago. These scattered clues further structure the past and show how the relationship dissolved over the years.

The narrator also describes moments in which different memories and times merge. In such states, "multi-layered moments" emerge, in which images of Marianne and different temporalities are simultaneously present. Memories of other places—such as the Ligurian coast, the Var region, or the Vercors mountains—suddenly overlay the American landscape. This creates a kind of mental space in which geographical and temporal planes merge.

This particular temporal structure is also reflected aesthetically, especially through overexposed images or "ghost figures" in Polaroid photographs. These technical effects symbolically represent the workings of memory: the past overshadows the present, makes it appear blurry, or distorts it.

The novel's structure also defies simple chronology. Instead of ending with the arrival of the journey in the present, the text concludes with a detailed recollection of the end of the first journey—at JFK Airport and in Rockaway. This creates a circular structure: the end of the earlier journey simultaneously forms the starting point for the narrative exploration of the later one.

Overall, the novel thus engages with memory, in which the present appears less tangible than what has already been experienced and lost. Time becomes a space that the narrator traverses in order to reconstruct traces of the past and to "cultivate a dead trail."

Travel in Trump's America

Although Sébastien Berlendis's latest novel initially appears as a melancholic travelogue and a cinematic quest for a lost love, it can also be read as a political novel about the United States. The political dimension doesn't manifest itself in explicit theses or programmatic reflections; rather, it arises from the narrator's attentive observation of the landscapes, cities, and social milieus he traverses during his journey. It is also noteworthy that Donald Trump's name is not explicitly mentioned in the text. Nevertheless, the novel conveys a political and social atmosphere strongly reminiscent of the tensions in contemporary America.

This dimension becomes particularly clear in the depiction of industrial decline in the so-called Rust Belt. Along his route, the narrator encounters numerous places marked by economic crisis and structural decay. Cities like McKeesport appear as spaces scarred by deindustrialization, while along the Monongahela River – a "rivière de fer" – the abandoned steel mills dominate the landscape. The decay is described most drastically in Detroit and Gary: Gary appears as a place where hopelessness is concentrated and where people wander the streets like "dead on standby." These impressions point to the social consequences of industrial collapse and the fragility of entire urban spaces.

This landscape of decay is intertwined with a keenly observed social mood. Particularly in rural Pennsylvania and Ohio, the narrator repeatedly encounters a strong connection between patriotism, political rhetoric, and religious symbolism. Signs bearing slogans like "lose your gun, lose your life" stand next to monumental churches announcing Judgment Day, while American flags dominate even the manicured lawns of isolated suburban homes. Such impressions create a sense of cultural distance for the narrator, leading to the conclusion that Europe seems very remote in these regions.

In parallel, the novel registers changes in the social structure of American cities. From the very beginning, the narrator reflects on the transformation of Brooklyn, which he no longer recognizes as the "popular Brooklyn" of his memory, but rather as a new, "white and bourgeois" neighborhood that has become alien to him. Such observations of gentrification and social inequality accompany the entire journey and are particularly concentrated in the description of cities like Toledo, which appears as an urban space torn apart by highways and poverty.

Against this backdrop, migrants and ethnic minorities emerge as an essential component of American society. The country repeatedly appears as a mosaic of diverse immigration histories. In New York, for example, the narrator visits the Ukrainian-influenced Little Odessa neighborhood in Coney Island and observes Indian delis, while in Chicago, the historic Polish and Swedish neighborhoods recall earlier waves of immigration. The symbolic role of Ellis Island as a historical gateway for millions of migrants is also mentioned. Many industrial regions—such as the Port of Ashtabula on Lake Erie—were originally established by Finnish, Swedish, and Italian workers.

The social tensions and historical conflicts connected to this story are not ignored. The situation of the African American population in Gary, Indiana, is particularly poignant. There, the narrator describes people pushing their few belongings in shopping carts through a devastated city, appearing like "morts en sursis"—people on standby, waiting for death. Such observations also lead to reflections on the history of American racism, for example, when the narrator encounters the routes of the Underground Railroad, which once helped enslaved people escape to Canada, or when he learns about the former racial segregation on the region's beaches.

Alongside historical and social perspectives, everyday encounters repeatedly emerge, revealing the country's diversity. In Brooklyn, the narrator observes Latino families grilling and playing soccer in parks, while in Chicago he meets a man from Puerto Rico who talks to him about memories of the Mediterranean. Such scenes lend the text a quiet, observational dimension and portray America as a space simultaneously shaped by migration, cultural diversity, and social divisions.

Finally, the novel also touches on ecological issues. The narrator repeatedly mentions polluted rivers contaminated by nitrates or industrial waste and points to the danger posed by toxic coal ash near Michigan City, which threatens both the groundwater and the lake. The landscape thus appears not only as a historically and socially wounded space, but also as an ecologically scarred one.

Thus, the novel's political significance arises less from explicit commentary than from a poetics of observation. By precisely registering ruined landscapes, social fractures, historical traces, and everyday encounters, Berlendi paints a multifaceted picture of an America whose present is marked by economic crises, migration experiences, social inequalities, and unresolved historical conflicts.

European connections

In Sébastien Berlendis's novel about America, France and Europe repeatedly appear as a central point of reference from which the narrator perceives his journey through the United States. American landscapes, cities, and encounters are constantly compared with European experiences. The perception of the foreign environment thus remains inextricably linked to the narrator's French origins. Europe appears less as a concrete place than as a cultural and aesthetic horizon that activates memories, longings, and standards.

In the vastness of the American landscape—particularly in the industrial regions of Pennsylvania and Ohio—Europe is experienced as a distant, almost mythical entity. The narrator states that Europe is far away, thus conveying a sense of cultural distance. At the same time, he repeatedly searches for European traces in his American surroundings. The Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook, with its more "European" appearance, appears as a familiar space of resonance. A visit to a bar in Ashtabula takes on a melancholic note through its European setting and Italian specialties like mozzarella. This perception is also triggered in Chicago: In a café-disquaire frequented by a young, artistic crowd, the narrator experiences the atmosphere as an almost European ensemble.

Alongside these cultural moments, the comparison of landscapes plays a central role. France repeatedly serves the narrator as an aesthetic benchmark for emotionally situating American nature. The coastline of Pelee Island, for example, reminds him of the Cotentin Peninsula in Normandy. The dunes of Warren Dunes on Lake Michigan evoke memories of the beaches of the Var region in southern France, which he visited in his youth. Other landscapes are linked back to him in this way: The Roubion river landscape in the Drôme appears as a sensory horizon of memory, overlaid with the impressions of the American dunes. The seaside resort of Saugatuck evokes associations with fashionable resorts on the French Atlantic coast, while a cemetery on an island reminds the narrator of the Plainpalais Cemetery in Geneva. Through these comparisons, a dense network of geographical memories emerges, connecting American spaces with European landscapes.

Furthermore, the text demonstrates that France and Europe are present in everyday American life as cultural destinations of longing. Several encounters make it clear that European culture represents an imaginary escape for some characters. For example, Emily, a waitress at the Corner Restaurant, speaks of her dream of traveling to Paris, not least because her idol Jim Morrison is buried there. Juliane, who works at a movie theater in Charlotte, also openly expresses her desire to visit Europe and speaks of her enthusiasm for European cinema of the 1960s. Other characters allude to this cultural presence more casually: Maryvonne, the shop owner, apologizes for having forgotten the French she learned in high school. Even in the culinary realm, France is visible, for instance, through references to "croissants français" or a "petit-déjeuner gourmet" explicitly labeled as French.

Finally, Europe also appears in historical and personal entanglements. In Niles, Fort Saint-Joseph recalls the French presence of the 17th century and makes it clear that the region's history is partly linked to France. European references also emerge in conversations with people the narrator encounters along the way. A man from Puerto Rico speaks of his enthusiasm for the Mediterranean coast, especially places like Porquerolles and Le Lavandou. The Swede Linn recounts a previous trip to the Normandy coast and expresses her desire to repeat the experience. Finally, during a visit to a movie theater in Detroit, it is mentioned that the Fox Theatre—much like the Gaumont Palace in Paris—is one of the largest cinemas in the world. Such references make it clear that Europe does not exist merely as a nostalgic point of comparison; it also extends into the American landscape through historical traces and individual memories.

Intermedial Poetics

The poetics of Berlendis's latest novel are significantly shaped by photographic and cinematic techniques. This intermediality underscores that the narrator does not perceive the world directly, but always through a "lens" of memory and aesthetics. The novel develops a veritable poetics of framing and montage, derived directly from the logic of cinema and photography. Even the title alludes to the classic speed of film—twenty-four frames per second—and accordingly, the narrative itself is divided into twenty-four sections. These episodes function less like traditional chapters than as individual shots or sequences of images that are strung together to create a movement through space and time.

The narrator's perception is also heavily influenced by cinematic terminology. When he looks out at the landscape from the train or car, he often describes this view as a kind of "travelling," a camera movement through the surroundings. The various camera models—such as Rolleiflex, Polaroid, or Instamatic—therefore appear not merely as props in the narrative; they become instruments with which the narrator attempts to grasp and order the world. His journey becomes a sequence of framed impressions, a series of images that he wants to capture or at least compose in his imagination.

This visual perception is simultaneously accompanied by numerous intermedial references. The narrator repeatedly views American landscapes through the filter of films and cinematic memories. Places like Detroit or Rockaway Beach therefore appear to him not only as real locations, but also as spaces with a special "cinégénie," a cinematic quality that makes them seem like images already seen. Reality is thus constantly intertwined with its media representation.

At the same time, technical terms from photography and film serve as metaphors for psychological states and memory processes. This is particularly evident in the motif of overexposure. Failed Polaroid photographs, caused by excessive light, blur contours and create shadowy "ghost figures." In the novel, these image distortions become a symbol of memory itself: it shines intensely, yet simultaneously loses its precise outlines—a process that also shapes the image of the vanished Marianne.

The motif of the frame serves a similar function. When the narrator speaks of "framing" a landscape, he is not merely describing a photographic technique, but also an attempt to order his own perception. The framing principle allows him to bring the chaotic reality and his own emotions into an aesthetic form. The camera thus becomes an instrument with which grief and memory can be structured, at least temporarily.

Furthermore, the phrase "immobile fictions" appears in the novel. This refers to the desire to freeze fleeting moments—moments of beauty or desire—into a state of stillness, much like a photograph stops time. The novel's own temporal structure follows this logic: present and past repeatedly overlap, as if two images were superimposed. This simultaneity is reminiscent of the photographic technique of double exposure, in which multiple shots appear in the same image.

In this way, mediality becomes a central poetic principle of the novel. Cinematic and photographic techniques not only represent an aesthetic form, but also provide a metaphorical vocabulary with which Berlendis describes the fragility of memory, perception, and reality. The camera ultimately appears as a kind of memory apparatus—an instrument that attempts to capture places and people before they disappear irretrievably.

In the America book, photographic and filmic devices play a central role in the novel's aesthetics and poetics. The various cameras that appear in the text are not merely technical tools, but also function as metaphorical instruments with which the narrator attempts to capture fleeting moments and give form to the experience of disappearance.

The Rolleiflex, a classic twin-lens reflex camera, plays a key role, appearing in the novel as a consciously employed, almost ritualistic instrument. Because it is relatively conspicuous and requires careful adjustment, it is particularly well-suited for composed portraits and landscapes. In the text, it becomes a means by which the narrator seeks to archive places and people, as it were, before they disappear completely from the present. When he photographs a dancer in Coney Island, for example, he attempts to "frame" a fleeting moment in the image. The effort required to find the right perspective and setting reflects the fragility of the moment itself: the image is created only under precarious conditions and threatens to slip away at any moment.

The camera (Rolleiflex) here forms an interface between the self and the other. The act of "framing" (cadrer) is an attempt to control the overwhelming reality. The failure due to technical limitations (backlighting, focus) reflects the difficulty of transferring the living moment into a lasting archive.

Alongside this more deliberate form of photography is the Polaroid camera, frequently used for spontaneous snapshots during the trip. As an instant camera, it produces images immediately at the moment of capture, but this very technical immediacy proves ambivalent. The narrator repeatedly recounts overexposed photos in which contours blur and figures become shadowy silhouettes. These so-called "ghost figures" transform the photographic process into a metaphor for memory: the past appears bright and present, yet simultaneously loses its clarity. Within this aesthetic logic, the figure of Marianne also becomes visible. She is omnipresent in the narrator's consciousness, yet as a real person, she increasingly eludes him.

Another camera that appears in the novel is an Instamatic—a simple and somewhat outdated model prone to technical glitches like double exposures. It is precisely this imperfection that lends it a special poetic function. In the text, the double exposure becomes the visual counterpart to the novel's temporal structure: the present of the current journey constantly overlaps with the memory of an earlier trip the narrator once took with Marianne. A photograph of Charlotte that accidentally takes a double exposure thus captures an "unexpected melancholy." The image not only shows a person, but also makes visible the simultaneity of different temporal planes—the juxtaposition of then and now.

Finally, with the Caméscope of the young Swedish filmmaker Linn, another form of cinematic vision emerges. It is an old video camera from her childhood, with which she films short clips and a kind of summer diary. These grainy images appear deliberately simple and fragmentary. For the narrator, they embody a different way of dealing with time: not the obsessive pursuit of a lost trace, but rather a contemplative pause in the flow of memory. Linn's films show simple scenes—for example, a woman walking down to the river—and from them create a kind of "static fiction," a tranquil image that no longer seeks to capture the moment, but merely to observe it.

In this way, Berlendis uses the various technical devices as poetic tools. Rolleiflex, Polaroid, Instamatic, and Caméscope form an ensemble of perspectives that reflect the psychological movement of the novel: the search for a lost person, the attempt to preserve fleeting moments, and finally, the slow learning to let go of the past.

intertextuality

In Sébastien Berlendis' novels, intertextuality is a constitutive element of his poetics, organizing the perception of the world through the filter of film, literature, and music. A comparison of the three novels reveals how these references act as a mirror for the narrator's loneliness and his search for a lost woman.

Film as a filter for perception and a provider of structure

In all three novels, reality is constantly compared with cinematic works. Places are not judged geographically, but rather by their cinematic resemblance ("cinégénie"): The narrator in FA sees the USA through the lens of directors like James Gray ("Two Lovers," "The Yards") or Douglas Sirk ("A Time to Love and a Time to Die"). In Detroit, the scenery resembles a "Western in slow motion." – In SL, cinema serves as a direct model for the search for clues. The narrator refers to Wim Wenders ("Wings of Desire") and Chantal Akerman ("News from Home") to capture the atmosphere of Berlin. The work of Jean-Marie Straub ("L'Inconsolable") provides the central motif of the Orpheus myth. – The films in RP provide direct metaphors for the narrator's actions. He watches films like Frank Perry's "The Swimmer" in the cinema, which mirrors his own ritual swimming in Palermo pools. John Huston's "The Misfits" is also quoted to evoke a mood of desperate drunkenness.

The projection of the Super 8 film is the catalyst for the Berlin novel's plot. The narrator transforms from a passive observer into an active seeker, with the "images outside of time" forging a bridge to the year 2016. The medium of film dictates the novel's structure: the six film sequences determine the narrator's route to the six Berlin lakes.

Literature as a mirror of the soul and a mythological anchor

The literary references serve to articulate the protagonists' inner turmoil and their relationship to time. The America book is deeply influenced by Jack London's Martin Eden, whose protagonist suffers from an inability to linguistically tame the "sensations of the world"—a feeling shared by the narrator. The motif of "cultivating a dead trace" originates from Jean Cocteau and defines the entire project of the journey. – The intertextuality in the Berlin book is mythologically charged. The reference to Cesare Pavese and the Orpheus myth clarifies that the narrator (like Orpheus in Straub's work) consciously chooses a life without the lost Eurydice, while retracing her steps. – The Italian text is interspersed with fragments by André Hardellet, which underscores the melancholic, almost dreamlike atmosphere of decaying Palermo.

Music as an atmospheric "soundtrack"

Music acts as an emotional anchor in the novels, often triggering memories of the lost lover or defining the atmosphere of a place. Songs by Bob Dylan ("You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go") or David Bowie ("Heroes") serve as emotional landmarks or even as "bad omens" in FA. – The melancholic mood of Berlin in SL is underpinned by musicians like Beirut ("Prenzlauer Berg") or Bill Callahan ("Riding for the Feeling"), who are explicitly mentioned in the text as companions on the journey. – In RP, it is often tape recordings of the missing Délia's own voice that, as a medial artifact, create a painful intermedial presence.

While the intertextuality in the Italy book is rather existentialist and bleak (fixated on decay), it appears mythologically reflective in the Berlin novel (Orpheus theme). In the USA, the intertextual dimension reaches a new breadth by weaving the road movie genre with a dense layer of American literature and pop culture to represent the absence of the loved one as the "breath" of the narrative. All the works, however, are united by the principle that reality only becomes legible and bearable through the "archive of art."

Orpheus

In all three novels, the narrator is a driven man following a “dead end” (trace morteThe impetus for the journey is always tied to a specific medium. The choice of locations reflects the narrator's inner state.

The narrator returns from Palermo after eight years to an old palazzo and there discovers Délia's material remains (clothes, notes) as well as old photographs from the 1950s. – Palermo is a city of ruins, heat, and fires in the hills. The crumbling architecture of the palazzo serves as a repository for the "disjointed memory."

The discovery of two Super 8 films and photos belonging to a certain Inna Helm in an antique shop triggers SL's journey from lake to lake. – Berlin is depicted as a bucolic waterscape in which the present (swimming in the 16 lakes) overlaps with the dark layers of German history (World War II, division).

This excerpt explores the aesthetics of stillness (poses immobiles). Inna Helm is portrayed as a kind of Eurydice figure, whose face is revealed for only a fraction of a second. The photograph of the film image is an attempt to transform the fleeting moving image into a static archive, in order to make the phantom figure of Inna tangible.

Hand-drawn postcards in FA, which the narrator received three years earlier from Marianne in Indiana, lead him on a road trip from Brooklyn to Lake Michigan. – America depicts the industrial decay of the Rust Belt (Pennsylvania, Ohio). The journey takes him through abandoned steel cities like Gary and Detroit, described as "nodes of hopelessness."

All three novels by Sébastien Berlendis can be read as variations on the Orpheus myth, with the search for a lost woman (Délia, Inna Helm, Marianne) always taking place through a melancholic topography and media reconstruction (photography, film).

In the novel SL, the connection to the Orpheus myth is particularly pronounced and is marked by the author himself through explicit intertextual references. The narrator follows in the footsteps of Inna Helm, who appears to him like a "phantom-like guide from the past." This act of following is often linked in scholarship to the characteristic gesture of the backward glance, which marks the decisive moment in the Orpheus myth. An interpretative key is provided by a scene near the end of the novel: The narrator watches the film "L'Inconsolable" by Jean-Marie Straub, which is based on a text by Cesare Pavese. In this version of the myth, Orpheus consciously chooses a life without Eurydice, as he does not want to relive the coldness and emptiness of the underworld. Against this backdrop, Inna Helm's disappearance also takes on a mythological dimension: much like Eurydice in ancient myth, she vanishes from the narrator at the very moment he attempts to capture her "immobile poses" on film as he walks along the sixteen lakes. The attempt at fixation—the gaze that seeks to hold on—paradoxically leads to loss.

The narrator attempts to reproduce the "empty frame" of the past in the present. Photography serves here to re-enact the film sequence. The melancholy arises from the realization that while the images are reproducible, the presence of the person filmed is irretrievably lost.

In RP, the theme of the underworld—the classical katabasis—is translated into a modern, highly metaphorical form by linking it to the physical process of photographic development. The narrator locks himself in his bathroom for eight hours, which he has converted into a makeshift darkroom. This chambre noire appears as a kind of Hades: a dark, enclosed space in which the narrator attempts to bring the "disjointed memory" of his lost lover Délia back to the surface through chemical processes. The development of the photographs thus becomes a descent into the depths of memory, where the past—much like a figure from the underworld—can only become visible under precarious conditions. Yet this attempt at recovery remains fundamentally fragile. Although the narrator, in developing the images, is essentially reconstructing "the image of a life," he simultaneously announces his intention to destroy the films at the end of the day. This announced destruction symbolically marks the final letting go of the Eurydice figure Délia. The setting itself also reinforces this atmosphere: Palermo, with its ruins, its oppressive heat and its ghost-ridden past, appears as a claustrophobic space of decay, further intensifying the underworld metaphor of the novel.

The darkroom in the Palermo novel is a metaphor for the underworld (katabasis) into which the narrator descends to physically "fix" the memory of Délia. The chemical development is a painful process (haut-le-cœur) in which the past is materially forced to the surface to fight against oblivion (mold/moisture).

In FA, the Orpheus motif is taken up in a contemporary variation that intertwines travel, media distance, and memory. The narrator's journey through the American Rust Belt follows a poetic program characterized by a quote from Jean Cocteau: "Je cultive sa trace morte" (I cultivate my dead trace). This motif of the "dead trace" structures the entire narrative movement. The journey across the United States becomes an attempt to rediscover the vanished Marianne in the landscape—particularly in the dunes of Indiana—even though the narrator has only drawn postcards of her left behind. When he finally reaches her house, the Casa dei Fiori, his beloved appears only as a vague silhouette behind a pane of glass, unresponsive to him. As in the Orpheus myth, the beloved figure thus remains unattainable; the gaze that seeks to bring her back encounters the boundary of the reality of her disappearance. This constellation is reinforced by the novel's use of media: the Polaroid images frequently produce "ghost figures" ("figures fantômes"). These technological artifacts serve as a poetic symbol of the modern Orpheus's inability to capture a clear and vivid image of the past.

Thus, it can be said that Berlendis' protagonists are modern Orpheus figures whose "lyre" is the camera or the pen. They do not descend into an otherworldly realm of the dead, but rather into the archive of images and memories, where they usually have to accept the painful realization in the end that "the season is already over".

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Appendix: The chapters from 24 times America

1. Arrival in Brooklyn. The narrator returns to Brooklyn, where red brick buildings and dimly lit avenues immediately evoke memories of Marianne and their first trip together. The visual poetry begins with the first photograph of a couple in a café, framed through the windowpane like a film still. The somber atmosphere of the apartment symbolizes the stagnation and melancholy of recent years. This opening establishes photography as the central means of transforming fleeting reality into a lasting, yearning narrative.

2. Coney Island. The journey to Coney Island is described as an immersion into a "living myth" of century-old roller coasters and Ukrainian canteens. Using a Rolleiflex camera, the narrator captures the charismatic dancer Withey, whose movements evoke the energy of the 1970s. The sea acts as a physical anchor point where the present merges with the literary worlds of John Fante. The poetics utilize the "travelling" of the subway to depict the aesthetic transition from gentrification to a wild past.

3. Ellis Island & East Village. In Manhattan, the dream of a bygone bohemian life gives way to the sobering reality of modern mass tourism. A flashback to a winter crossing to Ellis Island illustrates how fog and ice symbolized the growing distance between the lovers. In the East Village, the narrator searches for remnants of a "wild time" in front of the facades of the Anthology Film Archives. The skaters in Tompkins Square Park, bathed in dim light, become cinematic figures reminiscent of Mary Ellen Mark's photography.

4. The Amtrak-Pennsylvanian. The departure from Penn Station marks the transition into the vastness and cold of the American heartland. During the eight-hour journey through industrial zones, the train car becomes the stage for an inner journey through the world of literature. The train's metallic aesthetic contrasts with the melancholic images of bathers passing by in the distance. Arriving in Pittsburgh, the decay of the Victorian houses reflects the fragility of the narrator's own mission.

5. Monongahela River & Stahltal. The drive through Steel Valley leads past abandoned factories that stand like gigantic monuments to a bygone era. In the "Coal Plain," time seems to stand still in dark diners and muted baseball broadcasts. Religious slogans and patriotic flags mark a cultural alienation that deeply affects the narrator. The failed Polaroids of playing children transform the harsh reality into ghostly, overexposed apparitions.

6. Butler & Franklin. The morning begins with industrial colossi (blast furnaces, overhead cranes, water towers) shrouded in mist, radiating an almost eerie visual stillness. Exploring the abandoned Venango Nursery Club reveals a melancholic world of dusty ballrooms and underground bowling alleys. An Irish motel with its earth-filled pool becomes a symbol of the drying up of dreams and vitality. Here, the poetics intertwine the still life of architecture with the painful absence of a loved one.

7. Conneaut Lake Park. The historic amusement park transforms into a place of "painful beauty" at dusk. The legend of the ghost of the young bride Elizabeth lends the dilapidated hotel a hauntingly romantic dimension. Memories of the rickety "Blue Streak" roller coaster underscore the dangerous intensity of a love gone by. The professional smiles of the majorettes serve as a counterpoint to the melancholy and capture the "American" spirit.

8. Ashtabula. Arriving in Ohio, the narrator encounters the town's tragic railroad history, marked by disasters and rapid reconstruction. The Ashtabula lighthouse appears as a solitary, almost mythical object amidst the endless expanse of Lake Erie. A Fitzgerald cocktail in an Italian wine bar helps the narrator briefly alleviate his emerging eccentricity. Here, the poetics intertwine the grand narrative of technological disasters with the personal story of individual sorrow.

9. Sandusky & Pelee Ferry. A morning bath and a conversation with the tattooed James mark the transition to Canadian territory. The narrator recalls a storm that once forced him and Marianne to wander aimlessly in the desolate heart of Ohio. The ferry "Pelee Islander" glides through an archipelago that seems like a world out of time. The landscape is interpreted here as a layered model, where geological prehistory and personal memories overlap.

10. Pelee Island. The island rests on a petrified coral reef and offers a unique microclimate for exotic plants like tobacco and apricots. Among the ruins of Vin Villa and rusty shipwrecks like the "JJ Carroll," the narrator searches for material traces of time. Nature is transformed into literary poetry through inquisitive observations of rare flowers and limestone rocks. A brief nocturnal encounter in the sea momentarily rekindles the longing for renewed connection.

11. Toledo & Detroit rapprochement. Crossing Toledo reveals a cityscape torn apart by poverty and industry, offering little hope. West Jefferson Avenue presents a panorama of decay, with bricked-up houses and factory ruins. The poetics of destruction become tangible at the McLouth Steel factory, where wrecking balls are tearing down industrial history. The search for the former quarters in Detroit ultimately leads to a no-man's-land of brick and cold casino light.

12. Leland Hotel & City Club. The nearly century-old Leland Hotel stands like a stone survivor amidst the theatrical decay of Detroit. The narrator explores its endless, dusty corridors and discovers within them an almost sublime, ghostly emptiness. An encounter with the legendary DJ Stirling connects Detroit's subculture with the aesthetics of Iggy Pop and David Bowie. Photography is celebrated here as an archive of thirty years of excess and subcultural physicality.

13. Masonic Temple & Detroit Ruins. Behind its neo-Gothic facade, the gigantic Freemasons' temple reveals an unexpected luxury of marble and gold. In the temple's Olympic-sized swimming hall, the narrator observes a young diver of timeless elegance. This scene evokes images from a 1960s film, transporting the present into a melancholic cinematic world. Here, the architecture serves as a frame for observing graceful movements that momentarily obscure the city's decay.

14. Fox Theatre & Farewell to Detroit. In the opulent Fox Theatre, the narrator experiences the fury and political power of a film about the 1967 race riots. The visual violence on screen corresponds to the harsh reality of Detroit's streets and parks. A final evening at the Cliff Bell's jazz club reveals the almost hypnotic power of music on Marianne. Finally, the narrator leaves the "dead city" behind to escape into the wide, flat landscape of the West.

15. Michigan Hinterland & Felt Mansion. The journey leads through a monotonous landscape of perfect golf courses and deserted small towns. The stately Felt Mansion is imagined as the ideal, monastic setting for a future "roman noir." In Niles, the narrator learns of the immense power of a seiche, which can suddenly engulf entire islands. The narrative here focuses on the hidden, often tragic stories behind the facades of historic buildings.

16. Warren Dunes. The dune landscape on Lake Michigan appears like a "mini-Sahara," brimming with vitality and South American family life. Influenced by Jack London's novel "Martin Eden," the narrator reflects on the difficulty of taming the world through language. The blue of the lake and the beige sand create a visual harmony reminiscent of past summers in Sardinia. Here, the vast natural landscape becomes a hall of mirrors for literary and deeply personal reflections.

17. The clay swamp. In a hidden stream, people bathe, covering their bodies with a thick layer of gray clay. This almost ritualistic scene evokes Thai films and the sensuality of liberated bodies. The narrator connects this image with intimate memories of Marianne in the French Alps. The bathers' "static fiction" creates an atmosphere of dreamlike timelessness and deep connection to nature.

18. Dune surfing & Casa dei Fiori. The encounter with the young Canadian woman Charlotte on the highest dune brings a new, sporty dynamic to the journey. A double-exposure photograph taken with the old Instamatic captures her unexpected melancholy in a moment of technical serendipity. Finally, the narrator finds Marianne's "Casa dei Fiori," only to learn that she has already left. Here, the poetics use this disappointment to reflect on the incomprehensibility of our present time.

19. Miller Beach & George. At Marquette Park, the narrator meets George, who is dedicated to preserving the fragile dune flora. A hike through Miller Woods reveals an ecological refuge that defies industrial encroachment. George recounts the stories of eccentric artists and writers like Nelson Algren who once found sanctuary here. In this scene, the experience of nature merges with the desire for a counterculture to the urban hustle and bustle.

20. Buffington Harbor & Chicago Memory. Industrial plants and cement works displace the idyllic dunes, making the Polaroids appear burnt under the extreme light conditions. In Buffington Bay, luxurious casino ships contrast with rusty freighters and an atmosphere of neglect. A flashback takes us to the Pilsen district of Chicago, where wet towels held the windows of a modest hotel closed. Here, the mood intertwines the harsh glare of consumerism with the bleak reality of an urban no-man's-land.

21. Chicago Loop. The narrator arrives in the metropolis of Chicago and checks into a modern, sterile room on the 26th floor of Hampton Hill. A visit to the Museum of Contemporary Photography confronts him with disturbing images of violence and blood. Walking along the Chicago River serves as a physical cleansing of the many impressions of the journey. The city's architecture is staged as a glass, vertical backdrop for the solitary search for Marianne's trail.

22. Wicker Park & ​​Linn. The search for Marianne leads to the multicultural Wicker Park, where the narrator almost loses himself in the sea of ​​bodies. A chance encounter in the Flat Iron Building brings him together with the Swedish DJ Linn. Together they escape the noise of the night to North Avenue Beach to see the ocean. Here, the scene transforms into a fleeting, nocturnal love story under the neon lights of the metropolis.

23. Linn's Film & Farewell. A sudden storm forces the couple to flee to a palatial hotel, where they surrender to the present moment. Later, at the Film Center, the narrator contemplates Linn's photographs of Swedish rivers and bathing women. These "immobile fictions" reflect his own yearning for aesthetic stillness and tranquility. The departure from Chicago marks the end of yet another search, while the plane already waits.

24. JFK Airport & Rockaway. A final flashback leads to the New York airport at the end of the first trip with Marianne. A twenty-four-hour layover turns into an impromptu night on cots and a final exploration of Far Rockaway. The place appears as an "abandoned fortress," framing the final farewell to America. The journey concludes with the realization that Marianne's absence has now itself become the very breath of memory.

This article is written in German and can be found at https://rentree.de. Automatic translations into English and French are available. English, French.