Poésie visuelle

En ce moment, je lis Patrizia Vicinelli.

L'enlisement. Sur "Ma chère Lise" (Vincent Almendros)

Vincent Almendros, Ma chère Lise, Minuit, 2011.

Un jeune homme de 25 an, professeur particulier, tombe amoureux de sa jeune élève, Lise, 15 ans. Elle, elle vient d'une famille que l'on devine très riche ; lui, il est issu d'un milieu modeste. 

L'intrigue - que l'on devine être un prétexte - est traitée par Vincent Almendros avec nonchalance, ironie, et un peu d'objectivisme pour faire de cet itinéraire classique (directement issu du roman français du XIXe siècle) un objet moderne et peut-être intéressant. 

Mais les personnages restent esquissés, à peine ébauchés, l'on ne sait d'où ils viennent et où ils vont. Leurs contours sont (volontairement?) imprécis et très flottants. La comparaison avec Sagan, souvent évoquée à propos de ce premier roman, est peu pertinente car ici l'esprit domine sur le sentiment. Et joue à cache-cache avec le romanesque. 

Non, point de tristesse à qui dire bonjour ou au revoir, ni de phrase racinienne venue donner le ton ; c'est plutôt vers Jean-Philippe Toussaint que semble faire signe ce roman esquissant les objets, effleurant les  sensations. 

Bien calculée, la parabole s'arrête sur une fin vaguement amère. Dans cet "enlisement" final qu'éprouve le narrateur on devine que le signifiant, lui, ne ment pas. C'est un en-Lise-ment.  

Pasolini, un testament

"Pétrole" est resté inachevé en raison de la mort brutale de l’auteur en 1975, et a été publié posthume presque vingt ans plus tard, en 1992. Ce texte, qui pourrait sembler marginal en raison de son incomplétude, est vu par Valérie Nigdélian-Fabre comme un testament inachevé, une "somme" lacunaire de tous les grands thèmes pasoliniens.

"Pétrole" a comme intrigue des affaires et des meurtres liés au monde économique et politique italien. Pasolini y interroge en même temps le rôle de l’art et du langage en tant que potentialités humaines. Plus profondément, l’auteur développe une réflexion sur le rapport des corps aux pouvoirs politiques et économiques. Le pétrole est le matériau qui, par ses multiples valeurs symboliques, incarne les enjeux de cette écriture : c’est le liquide qui irrigue le corps social et financier, encre de la terre, mais encore sang ou déjection...

Lire la suite sur nonfiction 

Les transformations silencieuses du livre...

Tribune publiée sur Futurebook et en français sur Actualitté 

It is the beginning of September and in bookshops, shelves are near collapsing under the sheer weight of future best-sellers. Of over four hundred books published, only a dozen will actually be successful. Journalists have been trying to predict for weeks who will be the winner of the next Goncourt prize. Publishers are on the verge of a nervous breakdown. As for authors, well, they are already there. In France, it is called la rentrée littéraire, the beginning of the literary season. For the first time last year, this unique marketing ritual was spoilt by some serious new players: e-publishers. This year, undeterred, they are back with even more to tell.

But let’s be clear about this, the success of the e-book in France is to be honest sporadic. Its beginnings have not been as striking as they have been in the English-speaking world. Nevertheless, e-books are gradually finding a readership in France and the widening spread of tablets and e-readers have played a key part in their democratisation. Beyond this fad for new technologies lies the development of new publishing projects leading the way for more transformations to come.

The most noticeable change on the French literary landscape has been the tentative appearance of big publishing houses onto the digital scene. The heavyweights of French publishing who had first denied the relevance of the e-book soon realised they could no longer continue punching below their weights and had to evolve quickly if they were to beat competition. So now all their new titles are available both in printed and electronic formats. However, this cannot yet be considered as a genuine “transition”, as the e-book is still playing a minor part in an industry vastly dominated by paper. In truth, not much has been done to develop its full potential. The pricing policy of traditional French publishers, for instance, is nonsensical: e-book prices are as high as those of printed hardbacks and yet their production costs are much lower. An economical nonsense which can only be explained by a desire to control a market they are not yet ready to face.

E-publishers have also experienced some major changes. With Print On Demand (POD), the hybrid formula seems to have become a real option. At EMUE, we have been using POD since day one - we had no wish to oppose printed and electronic formats and liked the concept of an eco-responsible and long-lasting book. This idea has now gained ground: POD has been adopted by other publishers such as publie.net, who had previously been completely opposed to printing their books. In short, this Franco-French cold war between print and electronic is currently entering its thawing phase. Today, traditional publishers and new players stray towards sharing their competencies and complementing each other.

Meanwhile, e-publishing projects have been flourishing in all sectors. From children’s to academic books, the offering has increased and diversified. Many projects are still a work in progress, hosted on blogs or prototypes. Nevertheless there is a lack of clarity around our profession. What is an e-publisher ? It is hard to tell in the current climate. Is it a web 2.0 publisher, a webmaster or even a multitasking author, or all of these at once ? Perhaps it is time to differentiate between on the one hand, collaborative platforms who find it difficult to assert themselves, on the other hand, blogs and magazines who only publish on their websites and finally genuine publishers who offer downloadable off-line content. What is certain is that in order to assert itself a digital project will have to use and exploit the openness of the web. The gap is widening between those who are just beginning in e-publishing and those already well established who have set out to capture the international market (e.g. StoryLab has recently started publishing in Italian).

Building a long-lasting catalogue remains a major challenge for French e-publishers who cannot rely solely on one or two titles to carry their project. It is the catalogue which imposes the line in publishing and creates the team spirit every publisher aspires to. This “family feeling” can be found with us, atEMUE, in narratives which are at a crossroad between cultures, humour and emotion, in other words in our empathy for today’s society. However, the enriching of a catalogue can also be achieved through diversification: new labels have been launched embracing a broader range of genres than ever before. Some publishers have become so eclectic they are now in danger of losing the plot with their feverish rush to increase the number of their labels appearing to be the main target, to the detriment of quality. Their projects are mushrooming using traditional best-seller techniques and have a disappointing copycat feel about them. Mommy-porn and its mignons are giving e-publishing in France a bad name and its critics plenty of ammunition. To us, readers are not mere consumers of formatted content. We believe each book must be a truly unique encounter for the publisher AND the reader.

(un grand merci à Ray Parnac)

Roxane Lecomte lit L'Ora(n)ge

C'est toujours sur Epagine que Roxane Lecomte (alias La Dame au Chapal) propose une lecture décapante de mon recueil de nouvelles !

"Ce qu’il faut retenir c’est que Monsieur Sciarrino possède une écriture mature – et j’insiste sur ce mot-là – sans faute de ton, plume assurée, noirceur, légèreté, humour, beaucoup d’émotion et de justesse, entremêlés avec brio. Emilio ne se cantonne pas à un seul univers : j’imaginais autofiction et urbanisme, je tombe également sur quelque chose de très visuel : j’aurais bien vu au moins une image de Sasufi pour chaque nouvelle…"

Merci !

Duras

Si le nom de Duras est inévitable, c’est que l’auteure est entrée de toute sa personne dans la mythologie littéraire. Marguerite – Donnadieu de son vrai nom – a tout fait pour mériter le titre d’icône inspiratrice de style littéraire, mais aussi vestimentaire ou culinaire (sa recette de soupe aux poireaux reste un must). Éclipsée par tant d’éclat, son œuvre a été parfois réduite à quelques titres, devenus des poncifs emblématiques. C’est contre une telle simplification abusive que s’insurgent les curateurs de cette édition titanesque, destinée à fournir enfin une vision documentée, philologiquement exacte, et surtout exhaustive de son écriture.