Lisbeth Koutchoumoff Arman
Published on April 28, 2024 at 11:56. / Modified on April 28, 2024 at 11:57.
It’s raining and he’s crying The Origin of Tears by Jean-Paul Dubois. It has been raining continuously for two years in Toulouse and the surrounding area. The city takes on the appearance of Venice in aqua alta weather. In 2031, the year in which the novel takes place, climate change has shifted to the liquid side, sometimes squalls, sometimes drizzle. These downpours refer to the narrator’s internal tears. Paul is crying inside. He returned from Montreal where he went to collect the remains of his father, Thomas Lanski, the man who died twice.
No need to maintain the suspense since the back cover spills the beans that isn’t a story: Paul is going to shoot two bullets at his already dead father, lying in the morgue, near the Toulouse hospital. The Origin of Tears is entirely Paul’s confession to his psychiatrist. Also entirely in the writing of Jean-Paul Dubois, in the invention of this black comedy where the tragedy is metabolized into a grand-guignolesque farce the better to cry real tears. The author of Not all people experience the world in the same way uses humor and the grotesque to make perceptible the taste of sorrow, the very substance of the solitude of being.
Interested in this item?
To take full advantage of our content, subscribe! Until April 30, take advantage of nearly 15% off the annual offer!
CHECK OFFERS
Good reasons to subscribe to Le Temps:
- Unlimited access to all content available on the website.
- Unlimited access to all content available on the mobile application
- Sharing plan of 5 articles per month
- Consultation of the digital version of the newspaper from 10 p.m. the day before
- Access to supplements and T, the Temps magazine, in e-paper format
- Access to a set of exclusive benefits reserved for subscribers
Already a subscriber?
To log in
