Ein Junggeselle

by Emmanuel Bove

A Nice, au début des années 30, un retraité aisé et mondain hésite entre plusieurs femmes qu'il manipule cyniquement. Il les courtise mais les méprise bien davantage qu'il ne les aime. Tout ainsi est jeu et dissimulation, les vrais sentiments sont masqués et les créatures du roman évoluent dans cette ambiance de fausseté typiquement bovienne.
Mais Un célibataire (1932) est l'un des rares romans de Bove dont les personnages ne sont pas complètement assaillis par l'impuissance d'agir et l'angoisse de la survie. Ils s'abandonnent même par moments aux charmes de la séduction. A la fin, le héros célibataire confie à son ultime visiteuse : « Personne n'est fait pour se comprendre. »
Emmanuel Bove (1898-1945), écrivain français longtemps méconnu, admiré par Colette et plus récemment par Peter Handke, qui le traduit en allemand. Auteur de : Mes amis, L'Impossible amour, La Dernière nuit, Mémoires d'un homme singulier.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1932

About the author

Emmanuel Bove, born in Paris as Emmanuel Bobovnikoff in 1898, died in his native city on Friday 13 July 1945, the night on which all of France prepared for the large-scale celebration of the first 'quatorze juillet' since World War II. He would probably have taken no part in the festivities. Bove was known as a man of few words, a shy and discreet observer. His novels and novellas were populated by awkward figures, 'losers' who were always penniless. In their banal environments, they were resigned to their hopeless fate. Bove's airy style and the humorous observations made sure that his distressing tales were modernist besides being depressing: not the style, but the themes matched the post-war atmosphere precisely.

Reviews

[Pascale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unsuccessful but not altogether uninteresting. The novel follows one Albert Guittard, a businessman who has retired to the French Riviera. Exactly how old he is is unclear: on page 1, he is described as pushing 50, whereas on page 83, he is in his mid-sixties. I highlight this inconsistency because I feel this novel could have been a great deal better if Bove had been more painstaking. Guittard fancies himself in love with Clotilde Penner, a beautiful woman he hardly knows. His suit seems certain to succeed when Penner tells him that he has been involved for years with another woman who has stayed behind in Indochina, where Penner spent his career. However, Guiitard realizes he is being played when Clotilde tells him that she knows about this supposedly secret affair. Guittard's fickle nature is then exposed further when he then goes on to pay court to Brigitte, and summons his discarded mistress Winnie to act as decoy. Penner's mistress arrives on the scene. Clotilde begs Guittard to make her husband end his affair. Guittard is cornered into resuming his relationship with Winnie, whom he finds unattractive, simply because appearing to be happy when everybody else is making a hash of their lives gives him the upper hand. The book ends as some sort of bleak farce where pretty much everybody has lost face, but it doesn't matter because we know they'll live to make fools of themselves another day. Although Guittard is less lethargic than most of Bove's antiheroes, he is cut of the same cloth. Unable to feel any emotion truly, except for envy, Guittard is yet another study in bad faith. Winnie herself, although glad to have finally conquered Guittard, has no illusions about him and in the brilliant last paragraph of the novel, she is shown about to implode, then resigning herself to keep playing whichever role Guittard wants her to play at any given moment.