2010 Clothes Montreal

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Back among men, Philippe Besson

Homecoming with the young hero of the first novel by Philippe Besson.

"They lived happily and had many of children. "
Unlike fairy tales, most of the novels give us the opportunity to imagine the rest of the story. What happens to these characters, the time of reading, we have brought in their wake? Once the book is closed, they sometimes remain in us, as the memories of those childhood friends that we lose track. So should we or not to proceed with a novel that, initially, did not expect and risking the reunion? This is the question that may arise after reading Back among men Philippe Besson where, ten years after the publication of her first novel In the absence of men gives us news of his young hero. We left
Vincent de L'Étoile, at the age of sixteen, in disarray. In the cocoon of his golden youth of beautiful areas, while the slaying war Europe, he discovered love in the arms of a soldier on leave and at the same time, friendship and delicious ambiguity of the most sensitive worldly, Marcel Proust. But the war had claimed her and Arthur, the loved, the one by whom Vincent's body had revealed himself, fell in battle, leaving her young lover and sorry about the departure. To where? It was the reader to imagine the rest.
I was very touched by this first novel, which reported, with much grace and sensuality, the first stirrings of adolescent love. Writing BESSON, removed, lyrical but controlled rang true (the novels that followed seemed to me more often laborious and not affected). Deciding to read this sequel, it was both want to get a bit of intimacy with the character but also expose themselves to comparison and, as often happens in these cases, to disappointment.

In Back among men, Vincent tells first the slow drift that has, for seven years away from Paris and his family with whom he cut the bridges. Foreign lands, exotic tastes which he barely flavor. The pain of loss has made him a stranger to himself and others and it is in solitude, far from the comforts of Paris, he discovers the world, almost unwittingly following in the footsteps of Rimbaud traveler. And then it will start for the New World, a land of promise where we can reinvent itself and start anew. But we learns quickly, it is impossible to escape his family and his environment and Vincent eventually return to Paris, returning to the void that his years of wandering have been unable to fill.
The first part of the novel is a beautiful travelogue where we find some pleasure with the character of Vincent, solitary, almost mute, a blank page just waiting to be filled. Subsequently, in my case, passes well, and BESSON, wanting to write a novel in the wake of the first, seems to want out at any cost the same patterns (I'll leave it to the effect of household surprise) and finally a bit tired. Ten years ago, I found his writing light, and now it seems increasingly heavy and falsely valuable (the few passages a little sensual curl even literature in rose water). I'm not sure that Besson has radically changed his way of writing. What I am certain that I am no longer the same player a decade ago.
Difficult to advise for or against. Fans of the author's sure to love. Those who read the first in memory may be disappointed.

Reference:
Philippe Besson, Back among men, Julliard, 2011.