The new opus from the Sète writer is a fresco of heroic fantasy, in reality a beautiful setting for writing that is still among its most accomplished literary works. The Book of Ashes is 400 pages on power, hemoglobin, religion, obscurantism. And a message: cherished freedom.
It’s the book of four hundred blows! An epic with four hundred blows: one in each of the 400 pages which are devoured as if the story consumed our bad torments of the soul. A shot for each of the pages swallowed greedily. It’s rhythmic. In this adventure novel, it pulses severely like when an artery suddenly bursts under grapeshot.
Olivier Martinelli does better than putting his illness at bay: he keeps the distance of an accomplished novelist!
It is, also, perhaps because it is a cathartic book, for each of us, and undoubtedly for the author himself: these fights, wars and other volcanic explosions, spurts of hemoglobin is also, incidentally, a way of exorcising, of putting the disease at bay. His, that damn myeloma. And, as a literature enthusiast, Olivier Martinelli does better than put his illness at bay: he keeps the distance of an accomplished novelist!
It abounds: “Writing allows me to distance myself from this sword of Damocles and the medical context and also to escape from my job as a maths teacher. But, unlike some authors, I am not saying that writing is painful. Even when the scenes are difficult, I have a smile on my face. It’s pure joy. It allows me to live other lives.”
A universe ofheroic fantasy all his own with a twist to discover
There are also, in this medieval-futuristic fresco-chronicle, constructed as a juxtaposition of intertwined news, the wounds, those that we inflict or that we suffer; those that we give willingly and those that we heal because we have to. Even redemption.
For this new opus, so successful, baptized The Book of Ashes (we know what to expect), which follows the Book of the Pure in this vein, and which can be read without having discovered the preceding ones, Olivier Martinelli first transmuted himself. He found the philosopher’s stone in the guise of a heroine: it is now in the skin of Zila, a woman – and not the least who holds the destiny of an entire people in her hands – that he has woven a universe ofheroic fantasy very much his own with a twist of theater to discover!
Light and thick writing. Worked, magnetic. Literary.
And to better fit the era, judiciously feminist, Zila-Martinelli, sister of the king, will take the lead of a sort of “crusade” while nothing predestined her to exercise this power which belonged to her brother. Enough to give more strength to the exercise of her responsibilities for which she was not prepared. Martinelli takes on this book with always this writing that is both light and thick. Worked, magnetic. Literary.
Against obscurantism
The author continues: “I wanted to make a feminist pamphlet and I said to myself in this case it might as well be that the main character be a woman.”Why a pamphlet? “Women’s rights are falling further and further behind; they are flouted and those who should defend women are the ones who do it the least. And then, anything that would be dangerous to say, that would not be fictitious, in the current era and through the imagination, we can allow ourselves to say many more things.“ And, finally, “Putting yourself in the shoes of a woman is also a new experience and I wanted to try my hand at that. It is also a pamphlet against obscurantism”.
“Is freedom worth all the sacrifices?” The author validates: “That’s a bit like the message of the book”
The Palocks (the wicked), Daan the Red, the Book of Truth, the Goddess of Peace and the beating heart of this new novel (from Leha) of which we can read the definition, page 20: “He could have campaigned for the abolition of all forms of devotion to their invisible gods…” Because this anticlerical book where we “vomits submissive people” the essential question arises: “Is freedom worth all the sacrifices?” The author confirms: “That’s a bit of the message of the book.”
“When we write heroic fantasy, we are not necessarily taken seriously on a literary level”
Clan wars where we are torn apart over the interpretation of a sacred book… Short, well-packaged chapters, with beautiful formulas. Which above all allows you to escape. Some scenes, he explains, were even inspired by films, such as Roller Ball or from Journey to the end of Hell... It is, above all, a literary setting. We find all the style of the author there. We would certainly have liked to spend more reading time with certain complex characters! That would have added a few dozen pages of… fun! Enough in any case to erase any fear of a promise of literature of the imagination which carries within it something pejorative for some. When we write heroic fantasy, we are not necessarily taken seriously on a literary level“, confides Olivier Martinelli.
The prolific Sète author already has two other manuscripts in his drawers. One of which will allow him to return to his first love, rock. Quickly !
Olivier SCHLAMA
-
The Book of Ashes, Leha Editions, €20.
Also read on Tell them!
Culture: Olivier Martinelli, the rock writer, presents his writing in beautiful poetic notes
Literary Chronicle: Jack and the Hedgehog, Janine and the Squirrel and Victor’s Gardeners
Comic strip: In Sérignan, the sun rises (also) on new talents
