say that I passed the milestone of 2011 the bad conscience in the stomach would be an exaggeration as disproportionate as the lack of sun this winter Latvian. But I promised myself to speak here of a novel which, if made about him in France, would probably an echo sounded more sustainable if it had been stifled by another literary novelty resembling in some respects (but not by others). It is true that two novels from Estonia, was a bit much for an autumn filled with hexagonal critics who, often for lack of space, tend to prune face the profusion of books on offer. Moreover, the Baltic books in question are the work of two young women who had never previously published in major Parisian houses. If we add the fact that neither one nor the other has written his book in Estonian (but in Finnish and French) nor live in the Baltic countries (one lives in Helsinki, the other in France for 10 years) ... we can understand that, by necessity more than for "objective" criteria, one has taken precedence over the other in the quest for media recognition.
As often is the person who typed the strongest on the table (the critic, Book), which won the cake - in this case, the Prix Medicis and the price abroad Fnac. Purge with , Sofi Oksanen did not go around the bush for us to throw the figure the fate of two women in Estonia and the country of his family on the maternal side, between late 1930 and early 1990 . The Soviet occupation marked the flesh, deforms the spirits, perverts and destroys families. The transition towards democracy and market economy is not rosy for these two Estonians. I had the opportunity to speak - for good - this book very on this blog. * * * Besides the raw and rough Purge (Stock) , Manichean thought by some in the Baltic country, Estonia A novel, first book published by Katrina Kalda, born 30 years ago years arrival in Tallinn and 10 years later in Calais , would almost like a mild game of writing. Lace hemmed nicely, almost too ornate in places, but crafted with dexterity by a person claiming a more classic style, stylish, successful.
Is it a coincidence? Sofi Oksanen and Katrina Kalda each have the physique of employment (subjunctive), an appearance that matches their style of writing and about their respective novels. First, I met in Helsinki is cutthroat to the death, his lips, the edges of her green eyes. She wears long gothic outfits. She speaks with confidence, sometimes a bit of disdain. It advances without firing a shot, sure of his destiny as a writer.
The second, for the short time we have spent together, neighbors table Lights Festival last November in Caen, came to me with finesse, from a slight hesitation a half-smile, it does not count leaving provided. Diaphanous complexion, blue eyes, thin blond hair, she reminds me of gifted girls Hypokhâgne outputs, fed to mice Library classics and have a fertile imagination. it takes to have built a novel Estonian ( Gallimard). Ambitious architecture, slender pillars, the late Gothic style King's College Chapel, Cambridge. For the rest, nothing british in the plot in question. It takes place also in Estonia in the 1990s with many a trips in the previous decade. Therefore a pivotal period for which this country must reinvent itself at the end of Soviet occupation, which had ended a first period of independence
20 years ago. So when the Red Army left the country, the Estonian nation is recomposed, is looking for heroes, occasionally makes from scratch, or rather the individuals doing it. * * * August, one of the main characters in the novel, has received this task on behalf of a history of dissent that persists to lend Eerik, industrial and influential shareholder of a newspaper. August is found to lay eggs overnight on a novel by the pre-independence, published as a serial in the same rag. The plot intensifies when
understands that the narrator of a novel Estonian none other than the character created by August for his serial novel. A kind of double, but under the flamboyant and bold strokes, which essentially enables the small and timid writer without talent to satisfy his passion by proxy for the wife of Eerik. Do you follow me? This may seem a bit confusing at first, and explained like that in a hurry, but it is not. And if I am sometimes a bit misplaced, it was better to find me quite amazed by the construction that was taking shape before my eyes. Katrina
Kalda the opportunity to slip a few thoughts on the prospect of an entry of Estonia into the European Union ( "Eerik saw agreements and contracts, August saw Dante, Shakespeare and Schiller. Neither saw Food Standards, the pasteurization of milk, increasing oil packed in plastic or passports embedded fingerprint "), waiting for readers ( they" did not want to read their own history " ) or creative writing. Which allows many turns and twists that I will not mention here.
The second half of the book, which is meant to be intimate in a setting of lush countryside, I was less convinced. I preferred the evocations of rooms in Tallinn Viru or mood, the first major hotel built in the city during the Soviet era to accommodate Western tourists, who left without knowledge of hard currency - some have suspected Of course - they were
spied. I would like to announce the opening passage, quite recently, a KGB museum the 23rd floor the institution. The same hotel also plays a significant role in the first novel by Sofi Oksanen ( Cows Stalin, being translated into French for Stock). Only other small flats for my taste:
1. the varnish just surfaced which I mentioned earlier that, in places, gives the impression of a composition too thoughtful to flow naturally (but the narrator does not he say: "Everything is being made, nothing is created" ?)
2. the same way the narrator takes us to witness, I, you, us readers. He wants us to confide his feelings, either. But I like least he asks of us, from time to time, to go "verify" dates and names, "wait for several chapters before a particular event occurs, etc.. Maybe there is a method devised by Katrina Kalda to mark the ground so that the reader does not get lost. Was it necessary? If I only ask to be taken by the hand and led into a book, I do not want what you ordered me or my behavior tells me that no color. About
shades and hues, I will quote in conclusion, in which I recognized, and me with no doubt many readers living nearer the poles than the equator.
"At nine o'clock the sun rose at last, in most cases barely detectable blur, in pale yellow and gray, but sometimes orange and bright, a little liquid, resembling an egg the dish with a yellow center has not finished cooking and whose thin membrane transparent, elastic, threatens to burst at any moment. The timid beginnings of the sun, which seemed to appear only to save us, we put the c ow ur in joy. "
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