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Kiosque
Sept années durant, de 1983 à 1990, jusqu’à l’avant-veille du prix Goncourt, un apprenti-écrivain du nom de Jean Rouaud, qui s’escrime à écrire son roman Les Champs d’honneur, aide à tenir rue de Flandre un kiosque de presse.
A partir de ce « balcon sur rue », c’est tout une tranche d’histoire de France qui défile : quand Paris accueillait les réfugiés pieds-noirs, vietnamiens, cambodgiens, libanais, yougoslaves, turcs, africains, argentins ; quand vivait encore un Paris populaire et coloré (P., le gérant du dépôt, anarcho-syndicaliste dévasté par un drame personnel ; Norbert et Chirac (non, pas le maire de Paris !) ; M. le peintre maudit ; l’atrabilaire lecteur de l’Aurore ; Mehmet l’oracle hippique autoproclamé ; le rescapé de la Shoah, seul lecteur du bulletin d’information en yiddish…)
Superbe galerie d’éclopés, de vaincus, de ratés, de rêveurs, dont le destin inquiète l’ «écrivain » engagé dans sa quête littéraire encore obscure à 36 ans, et qui se voit vieillir comme eux.
Au-delà des figures pittoresques et touchantes des habitués, on retrouve ici l’aventure collective des lendemains de l’utopie libertaire post soixante-huitarde, et l’aventure individuelle et intime d’un écrivain qui se fait l’archéologue de sa propre venue aux mots (depuis « la page arrachée de l’enfance », souvenir des petits journaux aux couvertures arrachées dont la famille héritait de la part de la marchande de journaux apitoyée par la perte du pater familias jusqu’à la formation de kiosquier qui apprend à parler « en connaissance de cause ».)
A partir de ce « balcon sur rue », c’est tout une tranche d’histoire de France qui défile : quand Paris accueillait les réfugiés pieds-noirs, vietnamiens, cambodgiens, libanais, yougoslaves, turcs, africains, argentins ; quand vivait encore un Paris populaire et coloré (P., le gérant du dépôt, anarcho-syndicaliste dévasté par un drame personnel ; Norbert et Chirac (non, pas le maire de Paris !) ; M. le peintre maudit ; l’atrabilaire lecteur de l’Aurore ; Mehmet l’oracle hippique autoproclamé ; le rescapé de la Shoah, seul lecteur du bulletin d’information en yiddish…)
Superbe galerie d’éclopés, de vaincus, de ratés, de rêveurs, dont le destin inquiète l’ «écrivain » engagé dans sa quête littéraire encore obscure à 36 ans, et qui se voit vieillir comme eux.
Au-delà des figures pittoresques et touchantes des habitués, on retrouve ici l’aventure collective des lendemains de l’utopie libertaire post soixante-huitarde, et l’aventure individuelle et intime d’un écrivain qui se fait l’archéologue de sa propre venue aux mots (depuis « la page arrachée de l’enfance », souvenir des petits journaux aux couvertures arrachées dont la famille héritait de la part de la marchande de journaux apitoyée par la perte du pater familias jusqu’à la formation de kiosquier qui apprend à parler « en connaissance de cause ».)
288 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 9, 2019
29 people want to read
About the author
Jean Rouaud
82 books12 followersJean Rouaud (born December 13, 1952) is a French author, who was born in Campbon, Loire-Atlantique. In 1990 his novel Fields of Glory (French: Les Champs d'honneur) won the Prix Goncourt. First believed to be the first book in a trilogy, Fields of Glory turned out to be the first book in a series of five books on the family history of the author. In 2009 he published the novel La femme promise.
Source: Wikipedia
Source: Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 17, 2020
For seven years in the 1980s, Jean Rouaud financed his dream of becoming a published author by working at one of the newspaper kiosks which form such an iconic part of the Paris street scene. These kiosks seem better suited as the subject of, not a book, but a Sunday colour supplement article, illustrated to show how their design has evolved over the years: the domed roof with a curvy green frieze round the edge designed for Haussman’s Paris; the stark angular plexiglas version of the type in which Rouad worked, and the most recent, controversial version of a “walk-in” green structure shielding customers from the elements.
Rouaud has needed to pad the book out, initially with descriptions of the eccentric anarchist friend who ran the stall, the rather sad ageing men employed to run errands, the motley stream of locals who came by for their favourite paper or magazine. He includes chapters on some of the controversial modern architecture of Paris 1980s, to which he seems opposed: the famous pyramid at the Louvre or what we call “The Pompidou Centre” with its pipework displayed on the outside. He writes about his family, but bearing in mind they have been the subject of five previous books, commencing with “Les Champs d’Honneur” which eventually made his name, this seems repetitious.
Having exhausted these themes, he turns more frequently to navel-gazing, wondering why he has such an urge to write, fearing that he will be as unsuccessful as the painter who is reduced to serving on the stall as well, deriving encouragement from other writers who achieved success late like Henry Miller. He tells us how sorting the newspapers has made his writing more organised and controlled, which makes one wonder what on earth it was like before. He continues to agonise over the style he should adopt, clearly wanting both recognition and the freedom to plough his own furrow.
I found this memoir particularly hard going, not just because French is not my first language. Despite implying that he has “toned down” his preferred style, Rouaud’s sentences remain long, sometimes lasting for an entire page, and tortuously garrulous, often performing mind-boggling flits without taking a breath between several tenuously linked ideas – from an Elvis lookalike with his banana-shaped hairstyle to “primitive” Flemish painters. The style seems like a throwback to the past, pretentious and laboured, larded with heavy-handed attempts at humour which invariably turn out overdone. The subject matter oscillates between the banal and the obscure. One minute he is describing in tedious detail the process of sorting magazines, the next referring to some anecdote about an obscure writer from the past, or to an artist with whom we are assumed to be familiar. Are Chardin’s painting of a skate, for instance, or Jan Van de Meyer’s unfinished portrait of Saint Barbara so well known that there’s no need to include photos of them – and why has he digressed into writing about them anyway?
Some themes are interesting, such as Rouaud’s fascination with haiku, and his habit of recording impressions using this form, in his attempt to engage more directly with realism in his first love of poetry (although he cannot abandon the belief that “l’irréalisme poétique” can be the most effective approach). The section on how Flaubert made a transition from romantic writing to “le mot juste” of Madam Bovary could also be quite enlightening, but all these disjointed topics are jumbled together in a mentally exhausting fashion. The whole book seems to be a rambling mess of ideas which needs to be reorganised.
I suppose one could regard this book as a French equivalent of “Flaubert’s Parrot” but Julian Barnes has the knack of doing it much better. Yet this style is clearly an acquired taste which some will enjoy.
Rouaud has needed to pad the book out, initially with descriptions of the eccentric anarchist friend who ran the stall, the rather sad ageing men employed to run errands, the motley stream of locals who came by for their favourite paper or magazine. He includes chapters on some of the controversial modern architecture of Paris 1980s, to which he seems opposed: the famous pyramid at the Louvre or what we call “The Pompidou Centre” with its pipework displayed on the outside. He writes about his family, but bearing in mind they have been the subject of five previous books, commencing with “Les Champs d’Honneur” which eventually made his name, this seems repetitious.
Having exhausted these themes, he turns more frequently to navel-gazing, wondering why he has such an urge to write, fearing that he will be as unsuccessful as the painter who is reduced to serving on the stall as well, deriving encouragement from other writers who achieved success late like Henry Miller. He tells us how sorting the newspapers has made his writing more organised and controlled, which makes one wonder what on earth it was like before. He continues to agonise over the style he should adopt, clearly wanting both recognition and the freedom to plough his own furrow.
I found this memoir particularly hard going, not just because French is not my first language. Despite implying that he has “toned down” his preferred style, Rouaud’s sentences remain long, sometimes lasting for an entire page, and tortuously garrulous, often performing mind-boggling flits without taking a breath between several tenuously linked ideas – from an Elvis lookalike with his banana-shaped hairstyle to “primitive” Flemish painters. The style seems like a throwback to the past, pretentious and laboured, larded with heavy-handed attempts at humour which invariably turn out overdone. The subject matter oscillates between the banal and the obscure. One minute he is describing in tedious detail the process of sorting magazines, the next referring to some anecdote about an obscure writer from the past, or to an artist with whom we are assumed to be familiar. Are Chardin’s painting of a skate, for instance, or Jan Van de Meyer’s unfinished portrait of Saint Barbara so well known that there’s no need to include photos of them – and why has he digressed into writing about them anyway?
Some themes are interesting, such as Rouaud’s fascination with haiku, and his habit of recording impressions using this form, in his attempt to engage more directly with realism in his first love of poetry (although he cannot abandon the belief that “l’irréalisme poétique” can be the most effective approach). The section on how Flaubert made a transition from romantic writing to “le mot juste” of Madam Bovary could also be quite enlightening, but all these disjointed topics are jumbled together in a mentally exhausting fashion. The whole book seems to be a rambling mess of ideas which needs to be reorganised.
I suppose one could regard this book as a French equivalent of “Flaubert’s Parrot” but Julian Barnes has the knack of doing it much better. Yet this style is clearly an acquired taste which some will enjoy.
July 29, 2019
Portraits à la Doisneau du petit peuple parisien vu du kiosque, portraits aussi de perdants magnifiques. Et puis récit de la création artistique, des réflexions qui l'accompagnent, des signes et des événements qui font que "ça prend" comme avait dit Roland Barthes dans un texte oublié à propos de Proust. Sous le patronage de compagnons d'infortune (temporaire) comme Flaubert, et de poètes japonais Zen lunatics comme disait Kerouac. On y croise ce magnifique haiku, que je connaissais bien (de Issa) :
L’arracheur de navets
montre le chemin
avec un navet
et c'est autre tout aussi magnifique que je ne connaissais pas (de Bashô)
Après le chrysanthème
Hors le navet long
Il n'y a plus rien
L’arracheur de navets
montre le chemin
avec un navet
et c'est autre tout aussi magnifique que je ne connaissais pas (de Bashô)
Après le chrysanthème
Hors le navet long
Il n'y a plus rien
April 11, 2019
Lecture un peu laborieuse d’un auteur que j’avais un peu délaissé. Mais si les portraits des clients m’ont émue et les souvenirs des tâches répétitives du petit boulot qui avait financé mes études m’ont replongée dans le passé...j’ai eu beaucoup de mal avec les dissertations sur le nouveau roman et l’influence de Bôsho.
Je préfère Rouaud quand il relate son passé plutôt que ses motivations littéraires.
Je préfère Rouaud quand il relate son passé plutôt que ses motivations littéraires.
June 13, 2019
De belles figures gravitent autour du Kiosque. Le style de Rouaud est bien là avec son plaisir de décrire le Paris des Années 70 à fin 1990. Et en filigrane, son désir d'être écrivain s'ajoute aux événements du kiosque où il est vendeur.Les personnages familiaux et familiers, pour qui connait les livres de Jean Rouaud, réapparaissent dans une recherche d'authenticité d'un livre à écrire.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews