Barrel wood. Another pretty one novella to be credited to the “Polaroid” collection, directed by Marc Villard at In8 editions. According to a formula now proven (around forty titles in the catalog, including texts by Nicolas Mathieu, Marcus Malte or Marin Ledun), Cyril Herry paints in eighty pages the humanist portrait of a skinned kid, fallen into the margins, by choice or by obligation. We won’t know. She has no name and has been living in the woods for months, summarizing her contacts with the world through a few pilferages and brief squats in the houses on the edge. She picks up food, warm clothing, a bath, and books too. No reason, nor lesson, is presented to us to justify his escape. It’s up to us to imagine its contours without any family drama, social clash, tantrums or simple infantile bravado being imposed on us to explain the ostracism. We come to favor the hypothesis of a pure need for spiritual retreat, like Diogenes of course, since only the title of the work gives us a semblance of a clue. Throughout this sylvan escape freely inspired by the story of Clara, the woman from the Cévennes woods (arrested in 2023 after fourteen years of a wild life), we inevitably think of foxwood by Antoine Chainas, for the fable side, for the ode to freedom and autumnal smells, for the silence of the thickets or for the imperceptible sound of the forests. Silence is golden and solitude is infused into the poetry of a gently sloping late season.
Cyril Herry
Diogenes’ daughter
Editions In8
Edition: 1,500 copies.
Price: €8.90; 84 p.
ISBN: 9782362241512
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