Hello friends and subscribers,
How are you doing?
Thursday I was in Bordeaux to attend the Booknseries evening, on the theme of Dark Loves. I came to present my novel Reviens Vite. I met two author friends, Laure Lapègue and Brigitte Hue-Pillette, who presented their novels, “Playslist” and “Amours Noires” respectively.
The room was crowded to our delight. The evening began with cross interviews on each of our novels. Then we each read a passage from the other’s book, and finally we ended the evening with book signings and meetings with the readers present in the room.
What is interesting about each of these evenings is that they always raise subjects that encourage reflection, whether on our work as authors or on our vision of life.
I’m going to make three points that we talked about, that I found very interesting, and that made me think afterwards.
First of all, when I was asked about the vision of my novel Reviens vite. My novel is about love, but a dark love that is not enough. Is this the vision of love that comes out of all my novels? In retrospect, I think so. Pure, simple, just love is not enough to be happy. That’s what I think about love.
Sybil’s love for her husband couldn’t save him from himself. Constance’s love for Mark is real, but she loves her husband very badly, that is to say that he cannot feel her love, and Mark loves his wife Constance, but he has given up on their couple and their relationship. Yet, all three of my characters are filled with love. But it doesn’t bring them the happiness they desire.
I think that love has to be cared for on a daily basis, it has to be nurtured every day, as if it were a child, it has to be helped to grow and grow stronger. This is the vision of love that I express in all my novels. Love is fragile even if it is powerful and absolute, sometimes all it takes is a breath, an encounter for it to get lost and disappear.
Laure Lapègue talked about her character Lola, in Playlist. She is a forty-year-old woman damaged by life and especially by love, who lost the use of language when her marriage fell apart. What I loved in this novel, and what Laure very rightly presented, is that love did not necessarily destroy Lola. Lola is destroyed because she let love destroy her. This vision is not presented enough in literature. It’s easier to present a character as someone else’s victim. Here, what I loved is that Lola is a victim of her own cowardice, she is the one who let love destroy her, she is the one who let her ex-husband treat her that way. It’s what she accepted about the situation that gradually made her become another person, that made her lose herself.
It was very interesting for once to talk about that vision.
Brigitte presented us with her collection of short stories and poetry, Amours Noires. What I like about Brigitte’s writing is that there is always a mixture of light and darkness that can sometimes surprise. In this collection, which is very dark, she explained that she wanted to present love in its darkest, most implacable form, sometimes pushing the characters to do reprehensible things. Who hasn’t one day experienced a devastating passion that makes you lose all sense? It was exciting to talk about this force that you can’t resist, a force stronger than any will. You would like to stop but you can’t, passion always pushes you further and further, sometimes to madness, to mad love.
That’s a small glimpse of the discussions on the theme, which were exciting. I hope that this raises some thoughts in you and that they will inspire you over the weekend.
And you, what is your vision about love?
