♦ “Adding life to days” by Anne-Dauphine Julliand
It is with bated breath that we open Anne-Dauphine Julliand's latest book. How can we approach such suffering? Because, she tells it bluntly from the foreword, fate has struck a third time. After his daughter Thaïs, who died in “three and three quarters years» of a genetic disease, whose short life touched the readers of Two small steps on the wet sand (Les Arènes, 2011). After Azylis, who suffered from the same illness as her sister, at the age of 10 and a half, whose loss, Anne-Dauphine Julliand testified in Consolation (Les Arènes, 2020), had caused indescribable pain, “the one that tears the soul. She doesn’t tell a story.” Anne-Dauphine should have “stop there», keep for herself what was left for her family to live on. But, the day before his 20th birthday, his eldest son, Gaspard, died.
Before the abyss that opens beneath his feet, “there is nothing to write“. “And yet, I write. Because I'm alive. For those who are alive. I write, on behalf of all my people. Those up there and those down here. I write the link. I write what keeps us going. I write life», explains the author in the preamble to this book dedicated to Arthur, her youngest son.
Life despite everything, life stronger than anything. This is what emerges from this text that we read in one go. “Adding life to the days», this sentence from Professor Jean Bernard, which already set the tone of Two small steps on the wet sandis the title of this new book. Because the imperious life reminds itself of the mother who has just heard the intolerable. “Your son committed suicide. » In the nothingness of his “inner withdrawal», the sound of his heart is evident: “A throb, dull. Then another. Badam. And another. And yet another. Badam. Badam. Each time more intense, faster. »
When fate persists, when suffering burns with a hot iron, when the heart implodes, Anne-Dauphine hears this woman, encountered during a signing of her previous book, who had told her about the suicide of her daughter. She crossed France to come to Gaspard's funeral and whispered in his ear: “We can survive it. » Yes, it is possible “to accept the pain and savor the joy», to smile again, to scare away the darkness. Thanks to the vermilion of a nail polish, it is possible to taste the sweetness of spring again.
Edition Les Arènes, 144 p., €18
♦ “Symbols in Painting” by Robert Bared
“Symbolic language is by definition coded. » It is to open access to these codes that this book offers a decryption of 90 recurring symbols in Western painting, classified by themes: time, space and matter, numbers, colors, fauna, flora, objects, parts of the body… “Symbolism exceeds the power of the senses (…) : it opens the space of representation to what it does not represent”, cultural references that we have forgotten or lost. This beautiful art book restores, with supporting examples, the meaning of these symbols, in their ambivalence, changing over the centuries. “In the land of symbols, beasts speak, mirrors mean before they even think, flowers release their color in chosen gardens, gods and mortals wear invisible masks. »
Hazan, 216 p., 160 illustrations, 45 €.
♦ “The God of Beasts” by Fabrice Hadjadj
“Lord, truly, your thoughts are not our thoughts! What was going through your mind when you invented the aardvark? » Awakening in him the amazed child who discovers the infinite diversity of life, including the reality “goes beyond fiction”, the philosopher Fabrice Hadjadj takes his reader into the great bestiary of the Bible. The immaculate lamb, the talking donkey, the ant and the bee shown as examples, the vinegar sponge held out to Christ on the cross… provoke a light spiritual, philosophical and theological reflection, seasoned with fables, a “sermon to pigs” and many touches of humor. Like the creatures he celebrates “like a snub from infinity”, the author delivers here an abundant work, a journey through the Scriptures as rich as it is unusual.
Desclée de Brouwer, 336 p., 19.90 €
♦ “Dilexit nos, He loved us” by Pope Francis
At the heart of a dehumanized world, Pope Francis offers us a text of astonishing relevance. In this encyclical published in the fall – the fourth of his pontificate – he makes the Sacred Heart the keystone of a spirituality that is both interior and fraternal. From Saint John to Thérèse of Lisieux, via Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, the pontiff weaves the threads of a living devotion where the heart reveals itself as a place of sincerity and a driving force for social change. Nourished by personal experiences and literary references, this luminous text rehabilitates popular piety while providing a synthesis of eleven years of pontificate. A gripping read for those seeking the path to their heart.
Cerf/Bayard/Mame, 144 p., 4,90 €.
♦ “Atlas of Biblical Countries” by Jean Emériau
“Leave your country and go to the land that I will show you.” This is the injunction from heaven addressed to Abraham which marks the beginning of the great transhumance of believers all around the Mediterranean basin. The Bible then deploys a number of location details, many of which will be validated neither by nature nor by archeology. From Paul's travels to the present day, the tangle of empires and the consequences of wars further blur the lines. This atlas of biblical countries, thanks to the educational care of Jean Emériau its author, puts the data in order and offers 72 maps and plans distinguishing regions and periods. The biblical references are supplemented by ancient texts and explanatory notes.
Desclée de Brouwer, 2024, 287p., 25€
