“Do I still have the same passion?”

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As the cycling season draws to a close, Guillaume Martin Guyonnet announces the release of his next book, People who dream, October 30, 2024. A work different from these previous writings. “The novel evokes three people that I know well because it is about my own journey, that of my father, a few years earlier, and that of a humanist scholar, in the sixteenth century,” explains the author. What do this trio have in common? “Norman Switzerland is the central character of history. » And more particularly, the domain of La Boderie.

Guillaume Martin Guyonnet mixes his father’s story with his own

“My father was born in Pont-d’Ouilly, before growing up in Ménil-Hubert-sur-Orne. He was going fishing in the pond behind La Boderie. I mix his story with mine. ” A personal exercise for the writer attached to his childhood land. And a look back a few years.

“It was towards the end of the 1940s, my father lived as a child in a very poor peasant environment. He is left to his own devices and we see a contrast between a life of misery and the golden period he experiences as a child. Childhood is always synonymous with freedomthere is no problem,” says Guillaume Martin Guyonnet.

The freedom of childhood is lost over the years

A carelessness that we find in the professional cyclist’s journey. “When I was young and I practiced cycling as a sport study in Flers (Orne), I had no worries. I got on my bike for pleasure. I didn’t look at the watts, I didn’t have a training platform…”

Today, I am famous, I have money, but do I still have the same passion? You lose something when it becomes your job. It’s like a lost paradise.

It is this notion of freedom that Ornais highlights in his novel. “Childhood and youth are a free period and we lose that without realizing it. Sometimes we are a little nostalgicso we try to remember it,” explains Guillaume Martin Guyonnet.

Journey of a 16th century scholar

Last actor in the story: Guy Lefèvre de La Boderie. A real-life historical figure who lived in the 16th century. “A humanist intellectual from the Renaissance, who spoke around ten languages,” describes the author, who delved into writings to understand the man.

Based on actual facts, this remains “ a fictional characterbecause I imagined him when he was around twenty years old, particularly when he left Orne for Antwerp. It is filled with ideals, then doubts appear: will I be remembered? It’s a tense time. »

La Boderie: central place of history

The Boderie area is the common denominator. “A setting of greenery, sweetness and innocence”, as the main person describes it. “This is my house, my own normality. I went to study and it was when I returned to Normandy a few years ago that I became more interested in the history of the place. »

And more personal work for the cyclist who sees a parallel with his father’s journey. “We left, then came back. We all have that urge to run away in our late teens before coming back home. »

Guillaume Martin Guyonnet invites us to dream in the nostalgia of childhood with the carefreeness that characterizes it: “likehappy fools ».

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