Jean-Michel Guenassia – The Incorrigible Optimists Club
Optimism is often considered a cure to sadness. The infallible key to happiness and well-being. Well, I think that’s hardly the case. Whereas pessimism keeps a person locked in a permanent state of catatonic misery, optimism provides you -and that’s not a random choice of verb- with a fierce melancholy that’s more heartbreaking than watching your favorite team lose the finals to their biggest rivals. Optimism is the evening breeze that blows on a summer day and it’s the burning heat that sweeps the land at noon. It’s the NO that life screams at you, whose destructive power can be experienced only if you’re a breathing, dreaming human being. Pessimism is comfortable. Optimism is the opposite.
The Incorrigible Optimists Club begins and ends with a funeral. Not the same one, of course, but two very different ones. In between, there is innocence, malice, books, childhood, adolescence, books, broken promises, broken homes, books, chess, revolution, books, photography, music, Russians, exile, books, movies, dreams, friendship, love, romance, hate, grudge, books, life, death, cookies and books. Although it’s really hard to put down, be warned, there’s an intense, lurking quality permeating the book, that creeps inside you without you realizing it, and messes around with all it finds there. If it wasn’t a book, it would be the scarring moment when you hold the person you love -summer breeze and all-, feeling the ultimate content and acknowledging the ruthless certainty that it’s only a moment and, as is the case with all moments, it will pass and there’s nothing you can do about it. Simply put, it’s the very proof that there’s nothing painless about being an optimist.