The Stock editions did not send me, despite my request, the new work by Line Papin (Après l’amour, €19.50), so I bought it at the Paris bookstore, place de Clichy. I am surprised that Manuel Carcassonne, the boss of Stock, did not note that After Love was the title of a film by Diane Kurys, interpreted among others by Isabelle Huppert, Yvan Attal and Bernard Giraudeau.
In 1992, when After Love was released on French screens, Manuel was 27 years old. He was not yet directing Stock but was already going to the cinema. Another surprise: on the title page, we learn that Miss Papin gives, in this sixth book, “fragments”. For Littré, a fragment is a “piece of something that has been broken”. What is the broken thing that After Love would bring the fragments back together? The heart of the author or that of her ex-husband, a fine singer with whispered poetry? Littré specifies: “Piece detached from a book, from a work. What work are these fragments the pieces of? A hidden Odyssey?
Tangy romances. It has been several years since Line Papin returns to her love story with the sexagenarian mentioned above, but she had not yet delivered as she does in After love. Isn’t this the first time she has spoken in verse on this subject? Poetry is what remains when one has loved too much. They are touching, these fragments illustrated by the drawings of Inès Longevial. All books should be illustrated, like children’s books, because all books are children’s books. Literature for adults seems to have disappeared from the tables of booksellers, giving way to a cargo of tangy romances that can be read from 7 to 77 years old, like the Tintin albums.
Nostalgia for a life with a star: “Hotel rooms/ Places I know so well/ Every week/ A different hotel/ I like these neutral places/ Which we have the keys for one night. The pages aren’t numbered, so you’ll have to come up with the poem “Fidelity” yourself, which begins with “A pigeon soars in the sky.” It is often in the sky that a pigeon flies away, like an Airbus 380. The plane that I have dreamed of taking since it was put into circulation. The last to fly – in the sky, as Line would say – are those of Emirates. The problem is that they only go to Singapore, the city-state where you have to swallow your gum if you don’t want to end up in prison.
Verlainienne Line: “I’m sad/ So sad/ At the very end of sadness. A Glimmer of Hope: “I’m going through sorrow/ As you go through rain/ Hair in the wind.” What do you call a quatrain where there are only three lines? Tertrain does not appear in my Littré. In this grief crossed hair in the wind, I seem to recognize the influence of Patrick Bruel on the young poetess. At the end of the collection, this astonishing nihilistic confession: “I come to the world unique, accompanied by nothing or anyone. Which recalls the famous “Out, then, into the night with me!” in Candida, the play by Irish author George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950).
Celine Nieszawer/Leextra via opal.photo – illustration : dusault pour «le point »