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Du côté d'Ostende
C'est une histoire cruelle, brève et sans illusions comme Jacqueline Harpman sait si bien les raconter. Au crépuscule de sa vie, Henri Chaumont, qui a su dissimuler un appétit pour les personnes de son sexe, considère tristement qu'il n'a pas assez vécu : « J'étais un jeune homme plein d'avenir, je suis un homme sans passé ; on se gaspille ». Des mondanités où ce célibataire se disperse dans un Bruxelles intemporel, serait-ce aujourd'hui ou était-ce hier ?, il a eu au moins une amitié féminine qui a résisté au temps, celle qui le liait avec la belle et féroce Emilienne Balthus. Au début du récit, Emilienne meurt, inconsolable depuis toujours d'avoir perdu son amant, le peintre Léopold Wiesbeck. Elle laisse ses carnets qu'Henri découvre, voyageant mentalement au hasard de ses regrets. Ainsi, enchâssé dans l'intrigue principale, se souvient-il aussi du suicide d'un adolescent qui pensait aimer Henri sans espoir de retour. Il n'avait pas compris qu'Henri lui ressemblait. Fatal malententu !
Il y a quelque chose du Henry James de La Bête dans la jungle dans ce conte macabre, élliptique, immoral, qui n'insiste jamais, mais où l'on se drape de gaieté à chaque deuil, où le sentiment se colore d'un merveilleux gris éternel.
Il y a quelque chose du Henry James de La Bête dans la jungle dans ce conte macabre, élliptique, immoral, qui n'insiste jamais, mais où l'on se drape de gaieté à chaque deuil, où le sentiment se colore d'un merveilleux gris éternel.
209 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2006
About the author
Jacqueline Harpman
37 books2,497 followersJacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929. Being half Jewish, the family moved to Casablanca when the Nazis invaded, and returned home after the war. After studying French literature she started training to be a doctor, but could not complete her medical studies when she contracted tuberculosis. She turned to writing in 1954 and her first work was published in 1958. In 1980 she qualified as a psychoanalyst. She had given up writing after her fourth book was published, and resumed her career as a novelist only some twenty years later. She wrote twelve novels and won several literary prizes, most recently the Médicis for the present novel. She was married to an architect and had two children.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
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September 6, 2026I was so impressed by orlanda that I was gifted three other novels by Hartman. I immediately resolved to read one per season to avoid overdosing. Equally promptly i distracted myself with other books, but faced with a journey, I picked up this novel on the basis that it was short and was in larger print than the other two. As it turned out; it follows on from la plage d'ostende, but that does not seem particularly important at the moment.
Starting reading I was overwhelmed with an odd sensation, just what a strange gift it is to start reading a novel and everything is mysterious. I had no idea who the characters were, or when the novel was set, or really where. While the front cover mentions Ostend, the story effectively in takes place in the head of the narrator, which may or may not be in Brussels, along with the rest of his body.
This novel is the narration of a socially closeted man who receives a series of confessions, this gives the effect of reafing through a series of spacious formal rooms, linked by narrow wood panelled corridors. In each room two characters sit in fixed relation to each other as one reveals their secrets and lies to the other.
Harpman worked for much of her life as a pyschoanalyst, and this might be a novel that arrises out of civilisation and it's discontents. If one has to repress oneself in ordr to function and be accepted in society, then the drive to confess and reveal oneself is perhaps equal to the degree that one is in a state of repression. In this novel death alone provides an opportunity to cast off the mind forged manacles. Which might be taken as an indictment of late twentieth century bourgeois Brussels society, equally it might be taken as indicating that this section of society provided Mme Harpman with a comfortable income, and that here she simply knows what she was writing about.
I wondered while reading, but not while wandering, nor listening to Luciano Berio's "Folk Songs" cycle, about the purpose of confession in a novel. HBalikov wisely in a comment below points to their unreliable character.
I don't think that truthfulness is at issue on this novel. In the sense that we are not given material between the covers to judge if the narrator is being decieved or not. Given how the novel ends, whether or not the narrator is effectively transformed by the confessions that he bears witness to, is not in play either.
Perhaps there is something about that, being witness, or maybe the need to confess - but to what end in a godless novel? There seems go be instead simply a desire to be known, to be truely seen; for the reader this means the teading experience is of the careful emergence of a spider's web of relationships, actual, desired, or presumed, in the eyes of that bourgeois society. As such it is a kind of written version of "the discreet charm of the bourgeoisie", but without ambassdors, drug smuggling, or shooting at people in the street below.
Starting reading I was overwhelmed with an odd sensation, just what a strange gift it is to start reading a novel and everything is mysterious. I had no idea who the characters were, or when the novel was set, or really where. While the front cover mentions Ostend, the story effectively in takes place in the head of the narrator, which may or may not be in Brussels, along with the rest of his body.
This novel is the narration of a socially closeted man who receives a series of confessions, this gives the effect of reafing through a series of spacious formal rooms, linked by narrow wood panelled corridors. In each room two characters sit in fixed relation to each other as one reveals their secrets and lies to the other.
Harpman worked for much of her life as a pyschoanalyst, and this might be a novel that arrises out of civilisation and it's discontents. If one has to repress oneself in ordr to function and be accepted in society, then the drive to confess and reveal oneself is perhaps equal to the degree that one is in a state of repression. In this novel death alone provides an opportunity to cast off the mind forged manacles. Which might be taken as an indictment of late twentieth century bourgeois Brussels society, equally it might be taken as indicating that this section of society provided Mme Harpman with a comfortable income, and that here she simply knows what she was writing about.
I wondered while reading, but not while wandering, nor listening to Luciano Berio's "Folk Songs" cycle, about the purpose of confession in a novel. HBalikov wisely in a comment below points to their unreliable character.
I don't think that truthfulness is at issue on this novel. In the sense that we are not given material between the covers to judge if the narrator is being decieved or not. Given how the novel ends, whether or not the narrator is effectively transformed by the confessions that he bears witness to, is not in play either.
Perhaps there is something about that, being witness, or maybe the need to confess - but to what end in a godless novel? There seems go be instead simply a desire to be known, to be truely seen; for the reader this means the teading experience is of the careful emergence of a spider's web of relationships, actual, desired, or presumed, in the eyes of that bourgeois society. As such it is a kind of written version of "the discreet charm of the bourgeoisie", but without ambassdors, drug smuggling, or shooting at people in the street below.
February 12, 2022
Vervolg op La plage d'Ostende, Harpmans bekroonde roman over de destructieve liefde tussen Léopold Wiesbek, een schilder, en Emilienne Balthus, een minderjarig meisje.
In Du côté d'Ostende zijn beide overleden en ligt de focus vooral op wie achtergebleven is, in het bijzonder op Henri Chaumont. Als familievriend van Emilienne leidt Henri een leven van dienstbaarheid tegenover anderen. Hij onderdrukt zijn homoseksualiteit, zijn eigen passie:
'Parfois je me dis que je suis passé à côté de la vie: un métier que je fais sans passion, aucun amour, quelques amitiés, je n'ai contribué au bonheur de personne.'
Deze zelfverloochening breekt Henri zuur op, wanneer een jongen tot wie hij zich aangetrokken voelt zelfmoord pleegt. Zijn dood weerspiegelt de zelfgekozen dood van zijn moeder. Aangevuurd door een erfenis van Emilienne, enkele schriftjes, tekent Henri zijn levensverhaal op.
Fijnzinnige roman over de complexiteit van relaties en menselijk contact. Het levensverhaal van Henri is behoorlijk meanderend en daardoor vaak moeilijk te volgen.
In Du côté d'Ostende zijn beide overleden en ligt de focus vooral op wie achtergebleven is, in het bijzonder op Henri Chaumont. Als familievriend van Emilienne leidt Henri een leven van dienstbaarheid tegenover anderen. Hij onderdrukt zijn homoseksualiteit, zijn eigen passie:
'Parfois je me dis que je suis passé à côté de la vie: un métier que je fais sans passion, aucun amour, quelques amitiés, je n'ai contribué au bonheur de personne.'
Deze zelfverloochening breekt Henri zuur op, wanneer een jongen tot wie hij zich aangetrokken voelt zelfmoord pleegt. Zijn dood weerspiegelt de zelfgekozen dood van zijn moeder. Aangevuurd door een erfenis van Emilienne, enkele schriftjes, tekent Henri zijn levensverhaal op.
Fijnzinnige roman over de complexiteit van relaties en menselijk contact. Het levensverhaal van Henri is behoorlijk meanderend en daardoor vaak moeilijk te volgen.
February 28, 2025
Une suite intéressante de « La plage d’Ostende », où on retrouve le personnage d’Henri Chaumont, peut-être trop injustement relégué au second -voire au troisième- plan par Émilienne dans le premier opus. J’ai réussi à être surprise en peu de pages, le récit n’est pas allé là où je l’attendais, à mon grand plaisir.
Je recommande la lecture de ce livre à tous ceux qui ont particulièrement aimé « La plage d’Ostende » et qui sont curieux d’en apprendre plus sur Henri, ou qui souhaitaient, comme moi, replonger dans l’histoire d’Émilienne, tout en ayant un regard neuf sur l’histoire.
À ne pas lire en stand alone comme j’ai pu le voir ailleurs ! Le récit n’a alors aucun intérêt, car les personnages et les actions ne nous sont plus présentés.
Je recommande la lecture de ce livre à tous ceux qui ont particulièrement aimé « La plage d’Ostende » et qui sont curieux d’en apprendre plus sur Henri, ou qui souhaitaient, comme moi, replonger dans l’histoire d’Émilienne, tout en ayant un regard neuf sur l’histoire.
À ne pas lire en stand alone comme j’ai pu le voir ailleurs ! Le récit n’a alors aucun intérêt, car les personnages et les actions ne nous sont plus présentés.
July 7, 2025
Sprakeloos...
Wat een meesterschap
Wat een prachtige taal
❤️❤️
Wat een meesterschap
Wat een prachtige taal
❤️❤️
August 3, 2011
Abandon après 1/3 ... avec Harpman, ça passe ou ça casse !
July 30, 2026
Me dio un poco igual pero fue mi libro de este mes
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews