In a virtuoso novel, the author recounts the beginning and end of a couple.
Here and elsewhere. From personal experiences, she constructs frictional works. In each of her novels, she puts her pen to the fire. Its intimate matter is transformed, eluded, metamorphosed, revealed by an incisive style. All his work as a writer allows us to see his sensitive landscape. Camille Laurens, member of the Goncourt Prize jury, was wrongly suspected, in 2021, of a conflict of interest. The philosopher François Noudelmann, her companion at the time, found himself in the first selection for the prize and she devoted a negative column to “The Postcard”, by Anne Berest, in competition with him. Camille Laurens transposed some of the elements of the affair into “Your promise”. The behind the scenes of creation are always fascinating, for those who are interested in the workings of things. But in “Your Promise”, reality is replayed, recreated. The author has composed a virtuoso novel, with treasure hunts and traps, about the impasses of false love.
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2014. The Autobiographer and the Puppeteer. Claire Lancel (recognized writer) and Gilles Fabian (theater director) fall in love with each other. They become a couple. They are already parents and hope to grow old together. She believes in sex and love; he wants to succeed and shine. His favorite phrases: “I don’t want to suffer” and “it’s not my fault”. In 2015, they bought a house in Hyères. It will be the scene of a drama, opening with a trial in 2019. When did things start to go off the rails between them? When he suggested she write a negative review about a personality, precipitating a media lynching; when he began an analysis with a psychologist who spoke of her as a “toxic mother”; when he went to work abroad; when he undertook to write a story, placing himself in rivalry with her; when he started cheating on her.
“Your promise” is also a reflection on the body and evil
Camille Laurens multiplies the voices, the scenes, the places. We move forward with the narrator, constantly going back and forth. The relationship between Gilles Fabian and Claire Lancel: we believe in it, we doubt it, we no longer believe in it, we understand. Words move toward enlightenment. Denial ruled the roost. At some point, you will have to choose between truth and love. “Your promise” is also a reflection on the body and evil. The fragility of age, the brittleness of the soul. He is a narcissist who does not want to give anything for fear that it will not be given back to him; she is an obsessive who wants to give everything in the hope that it will be returned to her. He refuses to suffer; she fears wasting away. We have rarely dissected the mechanisms of perverse male love so well. “Seduce, reduce, destroy. » Claire Lancel will emerge guilty of a story in which the unconscious is the driving force. The mimosa flower, a symbol of women’s rights, plays a role in the plot.
The author uses irony and lucidity. Because this novel about him becomes a novel about her. Why does the narrator get lost in repetition? She chooses the same unhappy men, accusing him of not knowing how to make them happy. At the end, a question: “Was what we experienced love?” » In “Your promise”, everything echoes. You have to end at the beginning. A dinner by the sea. They are good together. My love, my love, my love. Gilles Fabian said to Claire Lancel: “I would like you to promise never to write about me. » The lover swears, in all sincerity. Happiness has no story. “Your Promise” is a cruel and beautiful novel. The woman will continue to love, to wander. Love has stories. Literature here is an honored promise.
“Your promise”, by Camille Laurens, ed. Gallimard, 360 pages, 22.50 euros.
© ed. Gallimard
