L’Autre Nom – Jon Fosse

L’Autre Nom se déroule sur quelques heures de la vie d’un homme confronté aux grandes questions de l’existence : le deuil, la mort, les silences qui nous lient ou nous éloignent les uns des autres.

L’autre nom est une septologie de l’auteur norvégien Jon Fosse. Il y aura donc sept livres en tout, dans cette première publication en français chez Christian Bourgois on peut lire les deux premiers. L’autre nom c’est surtout une expérience de lecture assez incroyable, puisque tout le roman est composé d’une seule longue phrase.

POURQUOI LIRE L’AUTRE NOM ?
Le livre : il s’agit des deux premiers livres de la septologie L’autre nom, qui en comptera donc sept au total
Le décor : la côte ouest de la Norvège, entre un petit village et la ville de Bergen, la neige, les fjords, cette lumière particulière, ça donne vraiment envie d’y aller !
Le genre : c’est la première fois que je lis un tel livre, très surprenant (voire déstabilisant) dans la forme, mais les thèmes sont ceux qui animent la littérature depuis toujours
Le style : Tout le roman est composé d’une seule longue phrase (il n’y a donc aucun point), qui donne à l’écriture un rythme si particulier, hypnotique

L’HISTOIRE
C’est l’histoire d’Asle, un peintre, qui rentre chez lui. Il était passé à Bjørgvin (Bergen) chez son galeriste et il rentre dans son village en voiture. En chemin, il passe devant l’appartement de son ami Asle, peintre lui aussi, mais il ne s’arrête pas. Il sait bien qu’il aurait dû s’arrêter, et il se demande pourquoi il ne l’a pas fait. À la place, il stationne dans l’allée d’une vieille maison où il observe un jeune couple jouer avec une balançoire. Tout en les observant, il repense à Ales, sa femme, il repense à la peinture qu’il a commencé de peindre le matin même et il pense à Asle. Nous sommes dans sa tête, ce sont ses réflexions, le rythme de ses pensées, qui forment tout le roman.

Pour vous donner une idée de ce à quoi ressemble le texte, voici l’incipit (enfin une partie de l’incipit, parce qu’ici il est difficile de faire la différence entre les premières lignes et les dernières) :

« Et je me vois debout face à l’image avec ses deux traits, un marron et un violet, qui se croisent dans le milieu, une image oblongue, je me vois la regarder, et je vois que j’ai peint les traits avec une grande lenteur, avec une épaisseur dans la peinture, qui a coulé, la couleur se mélange à l’endroit où se croisent la petite ligne violette et la marron, avant de couler vers le bas, et je pense que ce n’est pas un tableau, mais en même temps l’image est telle qu’elle doit être, elle est terminée, il n’y a rien à ajouter je pense, et je dois m’en débarrasser, je ne veux plus l’avoir sur le chevalet, je ne veux plus la voir, je pense, et je pense qu’on est aujourd’hui lundi, »

LA PEINTURE, LA LUMIÈRE, LA VIE ET LA MORT
L’autre nom est un livre très riche, qui aborde de très nombreux thèmes. Ces quatre là sont peut-être les plus proéminents.

On Beauty – Zadie Smith

On Beauty is a 2005 novel by British author Zadie Smith, loosely based on Howards End by E. M. Forster. The story follows the lives of a mixed-race British/American family living in the United States, addresses ethnic and cultural differences in both the USA and the UK, as well as the nature of beauty, and the clash between liberal and conservative academic values. It takes its title from an essay by Elaine Scarry—”On Beauty and Being Just”. The Observer described the novel as a “transatlantic comic saga”.

On Beauty centres around two families and their different yet increasingly intertwined lives. The Belsey family consists of university professor Howard, a white Englishman and Rembrandt scholar; his African-American wife Kiki; and their children, Jerome, Zora, and Levi. They live in the fictional university town of Wellington, outside Boston. Howard’s professional nemesis is Monty Kipps, a Trinidadian living in Britain with his wife Carlene and children Victoria and Michael.

The Belsey family defines itself as liberal and atheist, and Howard in particular is furious when his son Jerome, lately a born-again Christian, goes to work as a summer intern with the ultra-conservative Christian Kipps family. After a brief and badly ending relationship with Victoria, Jerome returns home. However, the families are again brought closer nine months later when the Kipps family move to Wellington, and Monty begins work at the university.

I Am Pilgrim – Terry Hayes

I Am Pilgrim is the debut novel by former journalist and screenwriter, Terry Hayes. It was published on 18 July 2013 in the United Kingdom.

“Pilgrim” is an American former intelligence agent known as the “Rider of the Blue” who later writes a book on forensic pathology. Pilgrim becomes involved in a case in New York City where a mysterious woman uses his book to commit untraceable murders in the aftermath of 9/11. The “Saracen” is a Saudi who becomes radicalised by watching his father’s beheading. He later trains as a doctor and fights in the Soviet–Afghan War. Pilgrim is recalled to the intelligence community who have detected a threat involving the Saracen, who has created a vaccine-resistant strain of the variola major virus.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Jenkins Reid

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a historical drama novel by American novelist Taylor Jenkins Reid, and published by Atria Books in 2017. It tells the story of the fictional Old Hollywood star, Evelyn Hugo, who, at age 79, gives a final interview to unknown journalist, Monique Grant.

Reid released the book cover and an excerpt of the book in Entertainment Weekly on December 6, 2016.

According to Reid, Evelyn is loosely based in part on actresses Elizabeth Taylor, who was married eight times to seven different men, and Ava Gardner, who revealed the secrets of her life to a journalist, who published them in Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations. Reid has also said Rita Hayworth was an influence on Evelyn. Hayworth, whose father was a Spaniard, had a very similar start to Evelyn’s and multiple relationships throughout her career. Other influences included Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star, an autobiography by Tab Hunter that describes what life was like for the LGBTQ+ community in Hollywood at the time, and Scandals of Classic Hollywood by Anne Helen Petersen.

How to Stop Time – Matt Haig

Tom Hazard has just moved back to London to take a job as a high school history teacher. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but due to a rare condition, he has been alive for centuries. He was born in 1581 in France and has lived history alongside famous historical characters such as Shakespeare, Captain Cook, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Tom is constantly under the supervision of the Albatross Society, a secretive group which claims to protect people like him, and its leader, Hendrich. As the story unfolds, he has to decide whether to remain safely in the past, or to risk living in the present.

The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding – Holly Ringland

A haunting, magical novel about joy, grief, courage and transformation from the international bestselling author of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart.

‘On the afternoon that Esther Wilding drove homeward along the coast, a year after her sister had walked into the sea and disappeared, the light was painfully golden.’

The last time Esther Wilding’s beloved older sister Aura was seen, she was walking along the shore towards the sea. In the wake of Aura’s disappearance, Esther’s family struggles to live with their loss. To seek the truth about her sister’s death, Esther reluctantly travels from Lutruwita/Tasmania, to Copenhagen, and then to the Faroe Islands, following the trail of the stories Aura left behind: seven fairy tales about selkies, swans and women, alongside cryptic verses Aura wrote and had secretly tattooed on her body. The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding is a sweeping, deeply beautiful and profoundly moving novel about the far reaches of sisterly love, the power of wearing your heart on your skin and the ways life can transform when we find the courage to feel the fullness of both grief and joy.

The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a philosophical novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde.

The story revolves around a portrait of Dorian Gray painted by Basil Hallward, a friend of Dorian’s and an artist infatuated with Dorian’s beauty. Through Basil, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton and is soon enthralled by the aristocrat’s hedonistic worldview: that beauty and sensual fulfillment are the only things worth pursuing in life. Newly understanding that his beauty will fade, Dorian expresses the desire to sell his soul, to ensure that the picture, rather than he, will age and fade. The wish is granted, and Dorian pursues a libertine life of varied amoral experiences while staying young and beautiful; all the while, his portrait ages and visually records every one of Dorian’s sins.[3]

Wilde’s only novel, it was subject to much controversy and criticism in its time but has come to be recognized as a classic of Gothic literature.

Les silences des pères – Rachid Benzine

Un fils apprend au téléphone le décès de son père. Ils s’étaient éloignés : un malentendu, des drames puis des non-dits, et la distance désormais infranchissable.
Maintenant que l’absence a remplacé le silence, le fils revient à Trappes, le quartier de son enfance, pour veiller avec ses soeurs la dépouille du défunt et trier ses affaires. Tandis qu’il débarrasse l’appartement, il découvre une enveloppe épaisse contenant quantité de cassettes audio, chacune datée et portant un nom de lieu. Il en écoute une et entend la voix de son père qui s’adresse à son propre père resté au Maroc. Il y raconte sa vie en France, année après année. Notre narrateur décide alors de partir sur les traces de ce taiseux dont la voix semble comme resurgir du passé. Le nord de la France, les mines de charbon des Trente Glorieuses, les usines d’Aubervilliers et de Besançon, les maraîchages et les camps de harkis en Camargue : le fils entend l’histoire de son père et le sens de ses silences.

The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul – Deborah Rodriguez

In a little coffee shop in one of the most dangerous places on earth, five very different women come together. Sunny, the proud proprietor, who needs an ingenious plan, and fast, to keep her cafe and customers safe. Yazmina, a young pregnant woman stolen from her remote village and now abandoned on Kabul’s violent streets. Candace, a wealthy American who has finally left her husband for her Afghan lover, the enigmatic Wakil. Isabel, a determined journalist with a secret that might keep her from the biggest story of her life. and Halajan, the sixty-year-old den mother, whose long-hidden love affair breaks all the rules. As these five discover there’s more to one another than meets the eye, they form a unique bond that will forever change their lives and the lives of many others.

My husband – Maud Ventura

In this suspenseful and darkly funny debut novel, a sophisticated French woman spends her life obsessing over her perfect husband—but can their marriage survive her passionate love?

At forty years old, she has an enviable life: a successful career, stunning looks, a beautiful house in the suburbs, two healthy children, and most importantly, an ideal husband, whose wealthy background allows her to transcend her own social class. After fifteen years together, she is still besotted with him. But she’s never quite sure that her passion is reciprocated.

Determined to keep their relationship perfect, she meticulously prepares for every encounter they have, always taking care to make her actions seem effortless. She watches him attentively, testing him to make sure that he still loves her just as much as he did when they first met.

Until one day she realises she may have gone too far . . .

“Excepté mes démangeaisons inexpliquées et ma passion dévorante pour mon mari, ma vie est parfaitement normale. Rien ne déborde. Aucune incohérence. Aucune manie.”
Elle a une vie parfaite. Une belle maison, deux enfants et l’homme idéal. Après quinze ans de vie commune, elle ne se lasse pas de dire “mon mari”. Et pourtant elle veut plus encore : il faut qu’ils s’aiment comme au premier jour. Alors elle note méthodiquement ses “fautes”, les peines à lui infliger, les pièges à lui tendre. Elle se veut irréprochable et prépare minutieusement chacun de leur tête-à-tête. Elle est follement amoureuse de son mari. Du lundi au dimanche, la tension monte, on rit,
on s’effraie, on flirte avec le point de rupture, on se projette dans ce théâtre amoureux.

Maud Ventura, née octobre 92, vit à Paris. Normalienne et diplômée d’HEC, elle rejoint France Inter juste après ses études. Elle est aujourd’hui rédactrice en chef des podcasts dans un grand groupe de radios. Elle ne cesse d’explorer la complexité du sentiment amoureux dans son podcast “Lalala” et dans son premier roman Mon mari.