What do you think?
Rate this book
Ingrid Caven
1943. Nuit de Noël au bord de la mer du Nord: une petite fille de quatre ans chante Nuit sacrée pour les soldats d'Adolf Hitler. Un demi-siècle plus tard, chanteuse et actrice de cinéma connue, elle donne, à la fin d'une réception officielle, un bref récital dans la Citadelle de David à Jérusalem. Infirme et presque aveugle dans sa jeunesse, elle est devenue cette femme qui, sur scène, a "le sang-froid d'un torero, la concentration d'un moine bouddhiste et la vitale fantaisie d'une animatrice de bordel". C'est elle le personnage central de ce roman d'aujourd'hui où apparaissent les figures qui ont traversé sa vie: Yves Saint Laurent, R. W. Fassbinder avec qui elle était mariée et qui a laissé auprès de son lit de mort un mystérieux manuscrit la concernant, d'autres encore. Et aussi un certain Charles, "juif huguenot", dilettante fasciné par un jeune producteur flamboyant et suicidaire. De la Nuit sacrée de l'enfance aux sacrées nuits de la vie adulte, ce récit endiablé, ponctué d'humour noir, mélange le ton de la bande dessinée et des contes avec la sécheresse de l'information et des documents, parfois inédits. De la féerie l'horreur n'est jamais loin. Ni la mascarade. Surtout à présent, avec l'arrivée d'un monde sans mémoire. Enfin! "la situation est désespérée mais elle n'est pas sérieuse." Pour l'heure se déroule un concert: Musique !
326 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
6 people are currently reading
317 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 28, 2012
In order to review this book, I have to tell about my process and progress of reading this book. I cannot speak about it in its entirety. And firstly I need to remark that I'm neither familiar with the work of Ingrid Caven (actually, not at all) nor Rainer Werner Fassbinder (just a little bit). Furthermore I'm not too interested in novels that spend too much time describing some decadent traits of those who are rich and famous.
For the first 100 pages this book seemed like a random mosaic of images. I don't necessarily need "action" in a novel - I've gone through all of Finnegans Wake once! - but there was not just lack of action. I didn't get it. I had no idea what the author was getting at. And on the level of language there was nohing extraordinary enough to compensate for the lack of action and logic. (The language style is not without interest, either, just not enough to make forget about the lack of action or connectedness.) So, I had a bad start with this book.
It quite changed at one single point about one third into the book, and quite suddenly, and it was changed by only one sentence. That sentence was describing a meeting of the protagonist with Hans Magnus Enzensberger: "his face, the bright eye of someone who lives in the house of words and often does the housework there, it gives you an air of being like new." Now Enzensberger is a topic I'm very familiar with, he's always been among my favorite writers (and he appears in this book because he wrote some lyrics for the singer Ingrid Caven), and that sentence hits the spot. So, when I got to this point, I was starting to wonder: If I were familiar with Caven, with Fassbinder, with Yves Saint Laurent and all those other people appearing in this novel, would I possibly feel like I felt about this description of Enzensberger? I kept wondering, and I was gathering some confidence. But I still had a hard nut to crack: What is Schuhl getting at? I could not see any linking thread between all those episodes.
My second revelation did not come as abruptly as the first one. Yet gradually I started to see something that most of the German characters in the book had in common: Their flight from the German guilt, the mark of Cain that they had to bear as children of the "Third Reich". Maybe "flight" is too strong a word for it... "Strategy"? Strategy sounds too conscious, too conceived. Anyway, I mean, Germans of certain generations have certain ways to deal with this mark of Cain, and some of them can be found in this book. And those are the parts that I can make sense of. I, as a German, felt that Schuhl is a Frenchman who understands German/s/y very well.
I'm however aware that I'm possibly overstressing the topic discussed in the paragraph above. I think there are other levels or layers in this book that I couldn't find the key to. Those parts still seem kind of random to me. But I'm not sure, if that's the fault of the book or the reader. "Wenn ein Buch und ein Kopf zusammenstoßen und es klingt hohl, ist das dann allemal im Buche?" (Lichtenberg).
For the first 100 pages this book seemed like a random mosaic of images. I don't necessarily need "action" in a novel - I've gone through all of Finnegans Wake once! - but there was not just lack of action. I didn't get it. I had no idea what the author was getting at. And on the level of language there was nohing extraordinary enough to compensate for the lack of action and logic. (The language style is not without interest, either, just not enough to make forget about the lack of action or connectedness.) So, I had a bad start with this book.
It quite changed at one single point about one third into the book, and quite suddenly, and it was changed by only one sentence. That sentence was describing a meeting of the protagonist with Hans Magnus Enzensberger: "his face, the bright eye of someone who lives in the house of words and often does the housework there, it gives you an air of being like new." Now Enzensberger is a topic I'm very familiar with, he's always been among my favorite writers (and he appears in this book because he wrote some lyrics for the singer Ingrid Caven), and that sentence hits the spot. So, when I got to this point, I was starting to wonder: If I were familiar with Caven, with Fassbinder, with Yves Saint Laurent and all those other people appearing in this novel, would I possibly feel like I felt about this description of Enzensberger? I kept wondering, and I was gathering some confidence. But I still had a hard nut to crack: What is Schuhl getting at? I could not see any linking thread between all those episodes.
My second revelation did not come as abruptly as the first one. Yet gradually I started to see something that most of the German characters in the book had in common: Their flight from the German guilt, the mark of Cain that they had to bear as children of the "Third Reich". Maybe "flight" is too strong a word for it... "Strategy"? Strategy sounds too conscious, too conceived. Anyway, I mean, Germans of certain generations have certain ways to deal with this mark of Cain, and some of them can be found in this book. And those are the parts that I can make sense of. I, as a German, felt that Schuhl is a Frenchman who understands German/s/y very well.
I'm however aware that I'm possibly overstressing the topic discussed in the paragraph above. I think there are other levels or layers in this book that I couldn't find the key to. Those parts still seem kind of random to me. But I'm not sure, if that's the fault of the book or the reader. "Wenn ein Buch und ein Kopf zusammenstoßen und es klingt hohl, ist das dann allemal im Buche?" (Lichtenberg).
November 30, 2023
58-oji XX a. Aukso fondo knyga. Aprašymuose šis prancūzų rašytojos Jean-Jacques Schuhl romanas 2000 m. apdovanotas Gonkūrų premija. Tai biografinis pasakojimas apie dainininkę, kino ir teatro žvaigždę Ingridą Kaven, kurios aplinkoje sutinkami įžymūs XX a. garsius režisierius, mados karalius, muzikantus, dailininkus. Tačiau manęs ši knyga nesužavėjo - tai tiesiog pasąmonės srauto kratinys, persmelktas alkoholio, tabako, kokaino, užblokuojantis bet kokį pagrindinės veikėjos pažinimą, įvykių supratimą. Gaila, bet tokioms knygoms net truputį gaila laiko. Ji nestebina net savo absurdiškumu.
December 12, 2017
The writing is almost instantly insufferable, and - soon enough - overwhelmingly.
Towards the start I was still being charitable: maybe it's the translation; Patti Smith's Just Kids was just as name-droppy, and it was still all right; maybe it's not an embarrassingly definitive example of that sort of cheap display of "intelligence" by that certain set who conflate their privileged cynicism with wit & insight...
I tried, really, to focus on what could be seen as strengths. O.k.! Using form to shed light on substance is great - that's nuance... But to write vapidly because you perceive vapidity in your subject matter and want to paint it with vapidity is such a cheap way to claim nuance. Only technically a pass, really.
But, he's certainly not the only mediocre wit out there getting praise for that parlour trick...
I thought: O.k., by playing with half-truths, blending reality and fiction, he's of course making an interesting critical comment on the subject matter: On the particularly cynical, worldly, sophisticated, German post-war art celebrity of the 70s and 80s. And there's plenty of room for a legitimate exercise of piercing intelligence in deciding which bits to leave factual and which bits to embellish...
Oh but the writing was so cringe-worthy!
And then to use writing Fassbinder's funeral as an opportunity to pettily and tastelessly disparage the man (a human so clearly superior in both self- and other- awareness to this already suspiciously flimsy intellect) - and everyone who worked with him? Gross, Schuhl.
I'll finish the last 25% of your book, because I'm fascinated by Caven, and by the time period, and I'd rather have closure. But it's going to be a lot closer to getting it over with.
(Update: It did not redeem itself.)
Towards the start I was still being charitable: maybe it's the translation; Patti Smith's Just Kids was just as name-droppy, and it was still all right; maybe it's not an embarrassingly definitive example of that sort of cheap display of "intelligence" by that certain set who conflate their privileged cynicism with wit & insight...
I tried, really, to focus on what could be seen as strengths. O.k.! Using form to shed light on substance is great - that's nuance... But to write vapidly because you perceive vapidity in your subject matter and want to paint it with vapidity is such a cheap way to claim nuance. Only technically a pass, really.
But, he's certainly not the only mediocre wit out there getting praise for that parlour trick...
I thought: O.k., by playing with half-truths, blending reality and fiction, he's of course making an interesting critical comment on the subject matter: On the particularly cynical, worldly, sophisticated, German post-war art celebrity of the 70s and 80s. And there's plenty of room for a legitimate exercise of piercing intelligence in deciding which bits to leave factual and which bits to embellish...
Oh but the writing was so cringe-worthy!
And then to use writing Fassbinder's funeral as an opportunity to pettily and tastelessly disparage the man (a human so clearly superior in both self- and other- awareness to this already suspiciously flimsy intellect) - and everyone who worked with him? Gross, Schuhl.
I'll finish the last 25% of your book, because I'm fascinated by Caven, and by the time period, and I'd rather have closure. But it's going to be a lot closer to getting it over with.
(Update: It did not redeem itself.)
September 7, 2016
Cuốn sách viết về cuộc đời của nữ danh ca kiêm diễn viên Ingrid Caven, được chắp bút bởi chính người bạn đời của bà. Vì là một cuốn tiểu thuyết, nên khó có thể nhận xét đâu là thực tế, đâu là do tác giả hư cấu, nhưng có lẽ vì là tiểu thuyết, nên cuốn sách tránh sa đà vào lối kể lể, liệt kê sự kiện như một cuốn tiểu sử thông thường, thậm chí còn tránh được việc tô hồng nhân vật khi viết về một con người với đủ cung bậc cảm xúc, tính cách, chính điều này làm nhân vật gần gũi và thật hơn.
Cuốn sách giống như những hồi tưởng lộn xộn, những đoạn kể chuyện nhảy cóc mà ban đầu khiến tôi khá hoang mang vì không biết đang đọc cái quái gì, càng về sau câu chuyện có phần mạch lạc và rõ ràng hơn, khi tôi càng đi sâu vào thế giới hào nhoáng, có phần buông thả phía sau ánh đèn sân khấu.
Cuốn sách giống như những hồi tưởng lộn xộn, những đoạn kể chuyện nhảy cóc mà ban đầu khiến tôi khá hoang mang vì không biết đang đọc cái quái gì, càng về sau câu chuyện có phần mạch lạc và rõ ràng hơn, khi tôi càng đi sâu vào thế giới hào nhoáng, có phần buông thả phía sau ánh đèn sân khấu.
June 30, 2023
threads together so many cultural strands and echoes i could appreciate ; marlene dietrich and von sternberg films, fassbinder crossing paths with warhol, the operatic singers and faces that populate the films of werner schroeter. in addition to some fine work describing ingrid caven's gifts and practice as a singer, as a presence, as an actor, as a character, schuhl does some lovely historical fantasizing along the lines of her life and it is as intimate and tender as it is wistful and far fetched. did 4 year old ingrid really sing for the fuhrer? did fass really etch out a note by his deathbed of a possible film of her life? probably not in both cases but in printing the legend we get a more interesting book.
February 6, 2018
I hated every page of it. the most uninteresting book, not boring, but uninteresting - a book about nothing.
March 28, 2018
De Goncourt van 2000
July 25, 2019
Some intricate prose found here and there (nymphet!), but overall not a very memorable read, very questionable use of slurs for a book that was printed in the 21st century
July 28, 2020
放荡中留下的纯真，善意孕育的恶毒，满书都是电影圈造梦者的复杂精神世界。舒尔讲的仅仅是英格丽、法斯宾德、安迪沃荷和伊夫圣罗兰们吗？他所描述的是所有伟大表演者奇观般的精神世界。他们对他人消隐自我，对自我消隐作品，最后所能留下的似乎只有一地焚烧过后的无序灰烬。
August 8, 2009
Prix Goncourt 2000
*
Nuit de Noël au bord de la mer du Nord en 1943 : une petite fille de quatre ans chante Nuit sacrée pour les soldats d'Adolf Hitler.
Un demi-siècle plus tard, chanteuse et actrice de cinéma connue, elle donne, à la fin d'une réception officielle, un bref récital dans la Citadelle de David à Jérusalem.
Infirme et presque aveugle dans sa jeunesse, elle est devenue cette femme qui, sur scène, a « le sang-froid d'un torero, la concentration d'un moine bouddhiste et la vitale fantaisie d'une animatrice de bordel ».
Ça, c'est l'héroïne.
Il y a aussi une robe de satin noir que lui coupe, à même la peau, le grand couturier, un mystérieux manuscrit près du lit de mort du célèbre cinéaste qui a été son mari, le yacht d'un producteur flamboyant entouré de sa cour de filles et de bouffons : tout ce qu'il faut pour un roman de gare.
Mais l'écriture, qui mélange la sèche brutalité des documents avec le ton des contes de fées et du rêve, les dispositifs raffinés du montage et une forte musicalité transforment tout cela en un pur objet littéraire.
*
Nuit de Noël au bord de la mer du Nord en 1943 : une petite fille de quatre ans chante Nuit sacrée pour les soldats d'Adolf Hitler.
Un demi-siècle plus tard, chanteuse et actrice de cinéma connue, elle donne, à la fin d'une réception officielle, un bref récital dans la Citadelle de David à Jérusalem.
Infirme et presque aveugle dans sa jeunesse, elle est devenue cette femme qui, sur scène, a « le sang-froid d'un torero, la concentration d'un moine bouddhiste et la vitale fantaisie d'une animatrice de bordel ».
Ça, c'est l'héroïne.
Il y a aussi une robe de satin noir que lui coupe, à même la peau, le grand couturier, un mystérieux manuscrit près du lit de mort du célèbre cinéaste qui a été son mari, le yacht d'un producteur flamboyant entouré de sa cour de filles et de bouffons : tout ce qu'il faut pour un roman de gare.
Mais l'écriture, qui mélange la sèche brutalité des documents avec le ton des contes de fées et du rêve, les dispositifs raffinés du montage et une forte musicalité transforment tout cela en un pur objet littéraire.
August 17, 2010
Prix Goncourt 2000, ce roman est un tableau pointilliste, un hommage de l'auteur à sa femme (qui fut auparavant l'épouse de Fassbinder et l'égérie de Saint Laurent).
La construction de l'oeuvre, par petites touches, donne l'impression qu'Ingrid Caven fait la danse des voiles. On la saisit, elle vous échappe, elle est humaine, puis mystérieuse, chanteuse et actrice.
Un beau roman, original, un Prix Goncourt courageux. Je dois avouer avoir découvert Ingrid Caven par cet hommage amoureux, pourtant je l'avais aperçue, fugace, dans certains films.
La construction de l'oeuvre, par petites touches, donne l'impression qu'Ingrid Caven fait la danse des voiles. On la saisit, elle vous échappe, elle est humaine, puis mystérieuse, chanteuse et actrice.
Un beau roman, original, un Prix Goncourt courageux. Je dois avouer avoir découvert Ingrid Caven par cet hommage amoureux, pourtant je l'avais aperçue, fugace, dans certains films.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews