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De wereld, de hagedis en ik
Il s'appelle Claude. Il est né à Montréal, pas très longtemps après la crise d'Octobre. Il a grandi loin de la grande rumeur du monde, soucieux seulement de répondre aux attentes de ses parents qui voulaient son bien. Pourtant, le monde a réussi à l'atteindre. A la télé, à l'école, il a entrevu l'injustice, l'horreur, là-bas, loin des barbecues estivaux et de la décoration Ikea.
Et Claude est devenu juriste, analyste à la Cour pénale internationale de La Haye. Il contribue par son travail à instruire un procès criminel contre un chef de guerre congolais qui embrigade des enfants pour en faire des tueurs, des violeurs. Jusqu'au jour où ce Kabanga, à cause d'un vice de procédure, est relâché et renvoyé dans son pays.
Claude démissionne et entreprend de traquer l'homme, dont il sait la culpabilité. Ce rêve de justice qui l'obsède depuis l'enfance, il a décidé de le réaliser dans l'action. Mais une fois qu'il aura rencontré ces êtres de chair et de sang, bourreaux ou enfants soldats, que restera-t-il de ses idéaux?
Dans ce troisième roman, Gil Courtemanche montre plus que jamais un styliste hors pair, trouvant toujours le mot, le rythme, la couleur exacte, cet équilibre entre détachement et compassion qui nous permettent de partager avec ses personnages leurs moindres émotions. Un roman bouleversant.
Et Claude est devenu juriste, analyste à la Cour pénale internationale de La Haye. Il contribue par son travail à instruire un procès criminel contre un chef de guerre congolais qui embrigade des enfants pour en faire des tueurs, des violeurs. Jusqu'au jour où ce Kabanga, à cause d'un vice de procédure, est relâché et renvoyé dans son pays.
Claude démissionne et entreprend de traquer l'homme, dont il sait la culpabilité. Ce rêve de justice qui l'obsède depuis l'enfance, il a décidé de le réaliser dans l'action. Mais une fois qu'il aura rencontré ces êtres de chair et de sang, bourreaux ou enfants soldats, que restera-t-il de ses idéaux?
Dans ce troisième roman, Gil Courtemanche montre plus que jamais un styliste hors pair, trouvant toujours le mot, le rythme, la couleur exacte, cet équilibre entre détachement et compassion qui nous permettent de partager avec ses personnages leurs moindres émotions. Un roman bouleversant.
- GenresFrance
Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2010
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About the author
Gil Courtemanche
15 books29 followersGil Courtemanche est journaliste depuis 1962.
Jusqu’en 1977, il a collaboré à différentes émissions radio et télé de Radio-Canada telles que Le 60, Métro Magazine et Présent national.
De 1978 à 1980, pour Radio-Canada toujours, il a conçu et animé l’émission L’Événement et a aussi été animateur et scripteur de l’émission Enjeux, tout en étant éditorialiste à la sation CBOT à Ottawa (réseau anglais). En 1978, il a animé et scénarisé le premier magazine d’affaires publiques de Télé Québec, Contact.
De 1980 à 1986, Gil Courtemanche a été animateur, analyste et correspondant pour les émissions Télémag, Première Page, Le Point, à Radio-Canada.
Il a aussi été journaliste pour La Presse et a participé à la conception et à la fondation du quotidien Le Jour.
Depuis 1986 et encore à ce jour, il collabore à diverses publications, notamment Alternatives. Il est aussi chroniqueur en littérature étrangère pour la revue Le Libraire, en plus de tenir une chronique dans le quotidien Le Devoir.
Il a par ailleurs tenu une chronique hebdomadaire sur la politique internationale dans les quotidiens Le Soleil et Le Droit, durant 8 ans. Plusieurs de ses textes sont regroupés dans Chroniques internationales, paru en 1991 au Boréal.
Il a coréalisé la série de témoignages Soleil dans la nuit, trente clips produits pour TV5 Europe-Afrique-Canada, à l’occasion du premier anniversaire du génocide au Rwanda. Il a réalisé et scénarisé L’Église du sida (The Gospel of AIDS), documentaire sur le sida au Rwanda (prix du meilleur documentaire du Festival Vues d’Afrique 1993) qui lui fournira la matière de son roman, Un dimanche à la piscine à Kigali, acclamé aussitôt par le public puis par la critique, et aujourd’hui traduit dans 10 langues et 13 pays. Gil Courtemanche a également produit et réalisé divers documentaires et messages publicitaires sur le tiers monde pour les organismes «Le Cardinal Léger et ses œuvres» et OXFAM-Québec (la lèpre en Haïti, la problématique de l’eau, le développement agricole aux Philippines, le programme de formation d’enfants handicapés en Thaïlande, etc.)
Coréalisateur et scénariste pour Radio Canada et TF1 du docu-variétés Roch Voisine l’Idole (prix Félix et Gémeaux de la meilleure émission de variétés 1991), il a aussi réalisé et scénarisé Kashtin: Le Tambour éternel (Kashtin: The Eternal Drum).
Commentateur pour diverses émissions d’affaires publiques, animateur durant un an de la série The Editors sur PBS, collaborateur régulier au magazine L’actualité (il y a signé divers grands reportages, dont un numéro spécial sur l’Algérie, en 1998), Gil Courtemanche a remporté en 1998 le National Magazine Award for Political Reporting.
D'avril 2008 à novembre 2009, il a été consultant auprès du procureur en chef de la Cour pénale internationale.
Jusqu’en 1977, il a collaboré à différentes émissions radio et télé de Radio-Canada telles que Le 60, Métro Magazine et Présent national.
De 1978 à 1980, pour Radio-Canada toujours, il a conçu et animé l’émission L’Événement et a aussi été animateur et scripteur de l’émission Enjeux, tout en étant éditorialiste à la sation CBOT à Ottawa (réseau anglais). En 1978, il a animé et scénarisé le premier magazine d’affaires publiques de Télé Québec, Contact.
De 1980 à 1986, Gil Courtemanche a été animateur, analyste et correspondant pour les émissions Télémag, Première Page, Le Point, à Radio-Canada.
Il a aussi été journaliste pour La Presse et a participé à la conception et à la fondation du quotidien Le Jour.
Depuis 1986 et encore à ce jour, il collabore à diverses publications, notamment Alternatives. Il est aussi chroniqueur en littérature étrangère pour la revue Le Libraire, en plus de tenir une chronique dans le quotidien Le Devoir.
Il a par ailleurs tenu une chronique hebdomadaire sur la politique internationale dans les quotidiens Le Soleil et Le Droit, durant 8 ans. Plusieurs de ses textes sont regroupés dans Chroniques internationales, paru en 1991 au Boréal.
Il a coréalisé la série de témoignages Soleil dans la nuit, trente clips produits pour TV5 Europe-Afrique-Canada, à l’occasion du premier anniversaire du génocide au Rwanda. Il a réalisé et scénarisé L’Église du sida (The Gospel of AIDS), documentaire sur le sida au Rwanda (prix du meilleur documentaire du Festival Vues d’Afrique 1993) qui lui fournira la matière de son roman, Un dimanche à la piscine à Kigali, acclamé aussitôt par le public puis par la critique, et aujourd’hui traduit dans 10 langues et 13 pays. Gil Courtemanche a également produit et réalisé divers documentaires et messages publicitaires sur le tiers monde pour les organismes «Le Cardinal Léger et ses œuvres» et OXFAM-Québec (la lèpre en Haïti, la problématique de l’eau, le développement agricole aux Philippines, le programme de formation d’enfants handicapés en Thaïlande, etc.)
Coréalisateur et scénariste pour Radio Canada et TF1 du docu-variétés Roch Voisine l’Idole (prix Félix et Gémeaux de la meilleure émission de variétés 1991), il a aussi réalisé et scénarisé Kashtin: Le Tambour éternel (Kashtin: The Eternal Drum).
Commentateur pour diverses émissions d’affaires publiques, animateur durant un an de la série The Editors sur PBS, collaborateur régulier au magazine L’actualité (il y a signé divers grands reportages, dont un numéro spécial sur l’Algérie, en 1998), Gil Courtemanche a remporté en 1998 le National Magazine Award for Political Reporting.
D'avril 2008 à novembre 2009, il a été consultant auprès du procureur en chef de la Cour pénale internationale.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 21, 2015
First published in French in 2009, The World, The Lizard and Me, Gil Courtemanche's second last novel before his death in 2011, is not an easy book to read or review. The writing is exquisite, the structure flawless, the characters sympathetic, flawed and reflective of our global society. Courtemanche's writing is profound. It is the subject matter, and the emotional effect of the book that makes this a difficult review to write.
The protagonist is a man named Claude Tremblay, who works as a political analyst for the International Criminal Court at The Hague. His role is to collect data from witness statements that can be used to build an objective, solid case against the warlord Thomas Kabanga, who is accused of (among other things) creating an army of 3000 child soldiers, torture, rape and murder. However, before he stands trial, his case is thrown out because of a procedural error, and Kabanga is freed. Disillusioned, Claude resigns from his position and follows Kabanga back to his homeland of Bunia, where he plans to bring Kabanga to justice.
When I started the book, I found Claude to have the arrogance and naivety that comes with white European privilege. Until he is eleven, he has no concept of the ills of the world; his parents shelter him from news of famine, death, war and genocide. However, when he does become aware of it, he pursues it relentlessly with what he calls "intellectual curiosity". To be honest, I looked forward to seeing the character development that was to come: Claude had a long way to go. I wanted to see him go to the Ivory Coast and see true suffering. I wanted to see him become some kind of warrior for peace, and intellectual hero who saves the day. I, too, was naive, and arrogant.
The novel is short, coming in at only 191 pages, but within those pages there are layers and layers of pain. The pain of torture, rape and the theft of childhood innocence. The pain of loneliness and social exclusion. The pain of loss, and the pain of failed love. Courtemanche skillfully carries the reader's emotions through the sea of pain with exquisitely worded analogies and metaphors. Comparing the loss of childhood innocence to the Bay of Paimpol, he describes how just as the clams that are starved of water during the spring tide produce the best meat, Claude's deprivation of knowledge of the pain of the world, until he discovered it on his own, gave his understanding of it an added depth. Perhaps we lack the passion and commitment to fight the evils of the world because we are desensitized to them; in Claude's case, that desensitization never took place, and so it becomes the driving force in his life, to the expense of ordinary human relationships.
Courtemanche's lyrical and evocative analogies and descriptions, interspersed with Claude's emotional distance, gives the novel a haunting, quiet tone. Perfectly translated by David Homel, Courtemanche whispers of atrocities with sensitivity, and a simmering anger at the injustice he experienced during his own stint at the ICC. As Claude Tremblay struggles to understand his first-hand encounters of the atrocities he has witnessed, and his own influence on the forces that are driving the conflict, the reader is both repelled by him, and filled with pity. He tries to distract himself from the trauma by focusing on trivialities - a new set of clothes, his next meal, alcohol - just as we might, after witnessing news reports of atrocities, change the channel and watch a comedy instead. Claude throws light on our own weakness and failures as human beings. That is what makes this book so difficult to read.
Gil Courtemanche's resume of humanitarian action against oppression and violence speaks for itself. This novel is a quietly powerful climax to that work, and should be required reading in any University Humanities course. It is painful to read, because it both describes many different kinds of pain, and reveals our own weakness to us. It is painful because the violence depicted in it is graphic, and because that graphic violence is not gratuitous but a reflection of true occurrences that we tune out and pretend are not happening, simply because they are happening to people other than us. Reading this novel is a necessary pain, and it has been masterfully created.
Read more of my reviews on Literogo
You know how the wind blows. You can't grasp it or take it into your hands and capture it, but it's all around, it envelops you and sometimes it slows you down. It rustles the leaves of quiet trees, changes the rhythm of a man who is walking, and who bends his back to push through the invisible force. In Africa, rumour is like the worst kind of wind, like a sandstorm. The wind goes where it wants to. No-one knows the origin of the wind of rumour, but it blows and chokes people, it makes them blind and mad. Sometimes, often, it kills and starts bloody conflicts.
The protagonist is a man named Claude Tremblay, who works as a political analyst for the International Criminal Court at The Hague. His role is to collect data from witness statements that can be used to build an objective, solid case against the warlord Thomas Kabanga, who is accused of (among other things) creating an army of 3000 child soldiers, torture, rape and murder. However, before he stands trial, his case is thrown out because of a procedural error, and Kabanga is freed. Disillusioned, Claude resigns from his position and follows Kabanga back to his homeland of Bunia, where he plans to bring Kabanga to justice.
"My father used to say that your can't take the hatred out of hearts a century old. Here, every heart, even the child's, is a century old. They are fed on stories and fables and old wounds, and you can write a name on every scar. Sometimes it is the name of someone's family, but most of the time it's the name of a group, an ethnicity. You have to understand the importance of the tribe. It's what you call social security. The tribe is family and there's no such thing as justice."
When I started the book, I found Claude to have the arrogance and naivety that comes with white European privilege. Until he is eleven, he has no concept of the ills of the world; his parents shelter him from news of famine, death, war and genocide. However, when he does become aware of it, he pursues it relentlessly with what he calls "intellectual curiosity". To be honest, I looked forward to seeing the character development that was to come: Claude had a long way to go. I wanted to see him go to the Ivory Coast and see true suffering. I wanted to see him become some kind of warrior for peace, and intellectual hero who saves the day. I, too, was naive, and arrogant.
How do you reconcile the search for truth with legalities? It is the first time I've asked myself that question, the first time I think that statutes and procedures and legal guidelines don't guarantee the administration of justice. What if law were only an intellectual exercise with no relation to what is just, decent, and self-evident? Kabanga is guilty. Hundreds of thousands of people experienced his guilt in their flesh. Why do we have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, like in an ordinary murderer's trial? And whose reasonable doubt - that of thousands of victims, or of three cold-eyed, distant judges who have never set foot in Ituri?
The novel is short, coming in at only 191 pages, but within those pages there are layers and layers of pain. The pain of torture, rape and the theft of childhood innocence. The pain of loneliness and social exclusion. The pain of loss, and the pain of failed love. Courtemanche skillfully carries the reader's emotions through the sea of pain with exquisitely worded analogies and metaphors. Comparing the loss of childhood innocence to the Bay of Paimpol, he describes how just as the clams that are starved of water during the spring tide produce the best meat, Claude's deprivation of knowledge of the pain of the world, until he discovered it on his own, gave his understanding of it an added depth. Perhaps we lack the passion and commitment to fight the evils of the world because we are desensitized to them; in Claude's case, that desensitization never took place, and so it becomes the driving force in his life, to the expense of ordinary human relationships.
Reading the world press casts me into a despair that has nothing theoretical about it. Now that Kabanga is free, my life is slipping away, like blood dripping slowly from a wound next to the heart...My ability to analyse and synthesize disappeared with Kabanga. Astonishingly, I discovered anger, rage, real revolt, rejection of the established order, of the rules and conventions that once governed me. And if these emotions are so strong and so clear, they must have been in me all the while, and I was denying them, I was wrapping them carefully in sheets of silk paper known as pragmatism and my rational method, I was filing them away as if they were items of objective information... I was a coward.
Courtemanche's lyrical and evocative analogies and descriptions, interspersed with Claude's emotional distance, gives the novel a haunting, quiet tone. Perfectly translated by David Homel, Courtemanche whispers of atrocities with sensitivity, and a simmering anger at the injustice he experienced during his own stint at the ICC. As Claude Tremblay struggles to understand his first-hand encounters of the atrocities he has witnessed, and his own influence on the forces that are driving the conflict, the reader is both repelled by him, and filled with pity. He tries to distract himself from the trauma by focusing on trivialities - a new set of clothes, his next meal, alcohol - just as we might, after witnessing news reports of atrocities, change the channel and watch a comedy instead. Claude throws light on our own weakness and failures as human beings. That is what makes this book so difficult to read.
Will I ever be able to speak and act like a man, and move from cold observation and meticulous analysis to words and actions? I think so, even if I know nothing of the process that appears to be so natural, but is baited with traps, by the illusions of the educated and aware man: the feeling of being superior, the certainty of the analysis, the incomprehension of chance and the unconscious. Only my ignorance of man will keep me from being a man. How many emotions have I repressed that way, abortions of my own self?
Gil Courtemanche's resume of humanitarian action against oppression and violence speaks for itself. This novel is a quietly powerful climax to that work, and should be required reading in any University Humanities course. It is painful to read, because it both describes many different kinds of pain, and reveals our own weakness to us. It is painful because the violence depicted in it is graphic, and because that graphic violence is not gratuitous but a reflection of true occurrences that we tune out and pretend are not happening, simply because they are happening to people other than us. Reading this novel is a necessary pain, and it has been masterfully created.
Read more of my reviews on Literogo
March 23, 2019
3.5
Ça m'a fait le même effet qu'Un dimanche à la piscine à Kigali. J'aime beaucoup le style d'écriture de Gil Courtemanche, mais j'ai toujours un problème avec ses personnages féminins et les relations de son personnage principal avec ceux-ci. C'est le sempiternel syndrome de la maman et la putain (et quelquefois, on a les deux dans un même personnage; youppidou). Et les fins de romans de Courtemanche me sapent tout espoir. C'est difficile d'en sortir indemne. Je donne 3.5 surtout parce que son écriture vient toucher quelque chose de profondément humain chez moi.
Ça m'a fait le même effet qu'Un dimanche à la piscine à Kigali. J'aime beaucoup le style d'écriture de Gil Courtemanche, mais j'ai toujours un problème avec ses personnages féminins et les relations de son personnage principal avec ceux-ci. C'est le sempiternel syndrome de la maman et la putain (et quelquefois, on a les deux dans un même personnage; youppidou). Et les fins de romans de Courtemanche me sapent tout espoir. C'est difficile d'en sortir indemne. Je donne 3.5 surtout parce que son écriture vient toucher quelque chose de profondément humain chez moi.
June 10, 2017
I loved this book. the way it dealt with themes of love and justice was so good.
January 16, 2016
Claude Tremblay is a political analyst for the International Criminal Court in the Hague where he is subsumed in building a case against an African warlord Thomas Kabanga, the sort of warlord we are all too used to reading about – a man who recruits child soldiers, and for whom violence, rape and torture is an everyday way of life. Behind this relatively simple plot is a complex and compelling novel which explores with intelligence and perception some very important ideas indeed. Law, justice, truth, the concept “beyond reasonable doubt” and other legal niceties, the nature of “technicalities” which so often allow the guilty to walk free, personal integrity and responsibility, all these matters make this a wonderful absorbing and thought-provoking read, as well as being an empathetic portrait of one man doing what he can to combat evil. Published some years back in Canada, I’m at a loss to understand why it hasn’t so far made more of an impact, because it surely does what good fiction should do, which is make the reader think and ponder on the complexities of life. A truly excellent book.
July 25, 2011
Best surprise of the year! Not sure why I hadn't already heard of this book - I found it at a used bookshop in Montreal and bought it simply because Gil Courtemanche's book on Rwanda* is one of the best I've ever read. This one, published in 2009 by Boreal, is just as good. It's Rwanda-related, focusing on Rwandan-backed rebels operating in DR Congo's Ituri district and the bungled attempt by the International Criminal Court to convict one of the leaders with crimes against humanity. This novel does not stray very far from the truth. Bravo Gil Courtemanche - peut-être une version film?
*Un Dimanche a la Piscine a Kigali/Sunday at the Pool in Kigali
*Un Dimanche a la Piscine a Kigali/Sunday at the Pool in Kigali
May 3, 2014
En lisant ce livre, je me sens comme si je partage les même expériences que Claude au sujet de l'Afrique. Tellement semble être pareil entre l'Ouganda et le Congo en ce qui concerne la vie quotidienne. Seule la fin m'a déçu un peu mais je ne peux pas dire exactement pourquoi. Presque aussi bon que Dimanche à la piscine à Kigali.
March 14, 2016
Gil Courtemanche savait bien présenter des sujets loin d'être évidents. L'univers du droit international est inconnu de la plupart d'entre nous. Loin d'être un livre nous livrant des informations sur le sujet, l'atmosphère et les questionnements que soulève ce type de vie est très bien représenté. Un livre à lire pour tout ceux qui sont conscient que la vie est complexe et remplie d'injustice.
August 12, 2016
Ça grince.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews