Le port intérieur

by Antoine Volodine

C’est dans une venelle du Tarrafeiro, sordide quartier marécageux près du port intérieur de Macau, que s’est réfugié Breughel. Membre d’une société secrète évoquée à travers les noms énigmatiques de « Paradis »,  « Grand-mère » ou « Les Iles », Breughel a quitté l’Occident. Il a fui avec Machado, un Brésilien, et Gloria Vancouver, l’une des responsables de l’organisation, en détournant une importante somme d’argent. A Macau, les fugitifs ont pris la nationalité portugaise pour effacer leurs traces. Depuis, Machado est mort, mais le « Paradis » veille. Un tueur, Kotter, est envoyé en mission pour apurer les comptes et exécuter Gloria Vancouver.   Le port intérieur gravite autour de l’interrogatoire de Breughel, situation narrative récurrente chez Volodine. Ce seront des interrogatoires successifs que le lecteur va découvrir et dont il ne pourra jamais évaluer précisément le degré de réalité. Car pour protéger Gloria Vancouver, Breughel a anticipé de longue date l’arrivée du tueur, disséminant dans son taudis des textes et des photographies devant amener Kotter à la certitude que Gloria est morte accidentellement lors d’un séjour en Corée. Le lecteur va se retrouver pris malgré lui dans une toile d’araignée d’une finesse extrême, faite de dialogues et de monologues entrecoupés de récits de rêves.   Le Port intérieur est écrit dans une langue musicale suspendue au-dessus du silence. Théâtrale, scénique, presque gestuelle, la phrase s’arrête parfois sur l’impossibilité qu’il y a de conclure. Le point final se transforme en trou noir qui aspire tout à la fois les ruminations et les remembrances de Breughel las, exilé, et semble le conduire au silence ultime. Car Le Port intérieur, c’est le lieu même de la littérature. - Jean-Didier Wagneur, Libération

Genres: Fiction

192 pages, Pocket Book

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Antoine Volodine is the primary pseudonym of a French author. Some of his books have been published in sf collections, but his style, which he has called "post-exoticism", does not fit neatly into any common genre.

He publishes under several additional pseudonyms, including Lutz Bassmann and Manuela Draeger.

Reviews

[endrju]

The Inner Harbour reads like an aberrant spawn of Wong Kar-Wai's 2046, David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch, and João Pedro Rodrigues and João Rui Guerra da Mata's A Última Vez Que Vi Macau. If you're familiar with Volodine’s "post-exotic" oeuvre, you’ll know to expect a distant, post-apocalyptic future—a perpetual endtimes in which nothing truly ends but continues to dissolve into not an eternity but a really long duration. Surprisingly for Volodine, this one is quite clearly dated to just before Macau rejoined the People's Republic of China after centuries as a Portuguese colony. That doesn't mean it lacks his signature "post-exotic" apocalypticism; rather, it manifests as a schizo-paranoid fiction within fiction, spliced with hard-boiled (neon) noir. A marvelous surprise from Volodine.

[Daniel Grenier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mon premier Volodine, publié en 1995. Ce ne sera pas le dernier, même si pour l’instant j’ai plutôt l’impression d’avoir lu un roman typique des Éditions de Minuit que celui d’un auteur avec une voix singulière.

[Julien Ligne 4 · Rating 5 out of 5]

How much Volodine is translated in English? Y’all motherfuckers need to read this.

[KDub · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 🌟 rounded down

The Inner Harbour by Antoine Volodine is one of the most unique books I’ve read. I had a hard time rating it and needed a few days to process it. Frankly, my mind is still reeling from this one.

This is not what I would consider an easy read. Its length, a mere 160 pages, suggests otherwise. But the way it's written, I had to read it in small chunks over a couple of weeks. Normally, a book this size would take me one evening to read. There are run-on sentences (some lasting several pages), the dialogue lacks quotation marks, the story is nonlinear, and it switches between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person without warning. Some sentences are even left unfinished, missing the last noun, and the reader is left to fill in the blank themselves. Apparently, this is common for Volodine’s “post-exotic” work, a genre concept I’m still trying to wrap my head around. It’s not a book everyone will necessarily enjoy.

However, I felt that all these writing techniques (if you can call them that) were used to add to the story's mystery. The main character, Breughel, is an author. So often, it’s hard to tell if what Breughel is saying/thinking is reality, a dream, or something he made up for a book. Besides, with the lack of quotes, it was sometimes hard to tell if he was saying these things out loud or if they were just thoughts in his head, anyway. All of it lends to a maddening, fever-dream state of a book. It was a compelling, yet frustrating experience. However, I still really enjoyed the story overall and would consider reading Volodine’s other works. It’s just not something I could do regularly. Many times, I just want a straightforward plot and conclusion.

Who would I recommend this for? That’s a good question. I’d recommend it if you want to read something challenging that makes you question the narrator's reality and reliability. And if you can embrace the unique writing style, it’s truly a fascinating book.

Thank you to NetGalley and University of Minnesota Press for the eARC.

[Meghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The shifting between first, second, and third person narration as well as the shifting narrator combine with the claustrophobic setting to create a disorientating reading experience. Breughel's unreliable narrative blends with his fictions and his mannerisms, most notably the unfinished sentences, bleed into the Kotter sections making it impossible for the reader to know what to trust. Much of the first half takes place in Breughel's apartment, but the plot ramps up pretty quickly in the second half. Both in the fiction and logbook sections.

This is the first of Volodine's novels that I have read and I wasn't quite sure what to expect with the "post-exotic" descriptor, but I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more of his backlist in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and Univ Of Minnesota Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Jamie Barringer (Ravenmount) · Rating 4 out of 5]

An author imagines himself an adventure involving a field agent who has found him out and is looking for his accomplices... or, a field agent tracks down a man involved with several persons of interest, or maybe something else is really going on. Maybe one or more of the people involved is deceased, or fiction, or insane... All we really know is that a man in Macau is being interrogated about the whereabouts of a woman named Gloria, though that interrogation may be a dream or part of a novel. Fans of Murakami, Ishiguro, Kafka, or Ali Smith may really enjoy this short novel, with its dreamlike storytelling and fluid, ambiguous narrative.

[Jean-charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

J'ai beaucoup aimé. Vous avez trois jours à passer chez votre mère et vous aimez les mises en abyme, mais plutôt celles que publie Minuit? Oyez!

Carnet de bord : Breughel est en cavale à Macao, en déréliction loin de la vengeance du Paradis, une organisation de barbouzes à qui il a volé, mais qui un jour finira par réclamer des comptes sous la forme de Kotter, un tueur. Lui, ou un autre, le trouvera à 22°16’ de latitude Nord et 113°35’ de longitude Est.

Dialogue : attaché par Kotter à une chaise pour un interrogatoire - figure typique du post-exotisme, on se fait interroger - Breughel est un narrateur peu fiable. Sauf pour protéger Gloria, son amour sombrée dans la folie depuis, mais morte annonce-t-il à Kotter. Et il ne finit pas ses phrases de peur que. Ou parce que le lecteur les finit pour lui s'il. Claustration mentale aussi.

Flash-back : non seulement il a roulé le Paradis, mais encore il a séduit Victoria, son agente venue pour le séduire. Désordre. Autant que le taudis dans lequel il est maintenant soumis à la question. Il rêve, et c'est très onirique puisque des « épaves somnambuliques de la guerre noire » regrettent d'y avoir survécu, et l'amitié disparue. Chacun est seul avec « la honte d'être ».

Monologue intérieur : l'interrogé, ignoré par la population car barbare blanc illettré, raconte du pipeau mais il aime l'opéra cantonais... sa chemise lui colle à la peau, les idéogrammes lentement déchiffrés, voire pas du tout, lui filent entre les doigts. Sa compagne d'exil, esprit en fuite dans un univers parallèle de guerre civile paroxystique, lui inspire des carnets d'une prose troublée et auto-phagocyte. Il les a préparés pour la visite anticipée de Kotter. Il vit dans un capharnaüm, y a disséminé les fausses pistes, au fond d'une venelle au mieux embourbée, sans doute en putréfaction elle aussi, comme Gloria, comme lui.

Kotter existe-t-il à l'extérieur de la tête malade de Breughel? Qu'est-ce qui est vrai à part cette solitude?

[Meghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The shifting between first, second, and third person narration as well as the shifting narrator combine with the claustrophobic setting to create a disorientating reading experience. Breughel's unreliable narrative blends with his fictions and his mannerisms, most notably the unfinished sentences, bleed into the Kotter sections making it impossible for the reader to know what to trust. Much of the first half takes place in Breughel's apartment, but the plot ramps up pretty quickly in the second half. Both in the fiction and logbook sections.

This is the first of Volodine's novels that I have read and I wasn't quite sure what to expect with the "post-exotic" descriptor, but I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more of his backlist in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and Univ Of Minnesota Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Mahinder Kingra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the galleys of the forthcoming English-language translation. Inspired by spy novels and post(-modern)-Alain Robbe-Grillet detective fiction, this slim, evocative, and literary novella effectively recreates post-colonial Macau on the eve of its transfer to China. The battle of wits and will between a self-exiled writer and an assassin sent to find his lover is played out in dreamlike fashion amidst the heat, humidity, noise, and garbage of the city’s slums.

[Sjonni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un tueur à gage du Paradis débarque à Macau pour retrouver deux agents en fuite.