“Sing, swing, party like Christmas” a real gift from Maya Angelou

“Sing, swing, party like Christmas” by Maya Angelou

Translated by Sika Fakambi published by Noir sur blanc in the “Notabilia” collection

“The phone call came, and my heart slammed against my sternum. I had the part. I had broken into show business. […] My only hesitation was Clyde. Mum and Lottie then offered to look after him. […] I accepted this solution, telling myself that when I “made it”, and I was counting on it, I would rent a large apartment in Manhattan and hire a governess for my son. And during my tours abroad, I would take him, with the housekeeper and why not a private teacher. My life was ordering itself as resolutely as the steps of a marble staircase, and I was preparing to climb to the stars.”

In this third autobiographical novel, Marguerite Johnson, a twenty-year-old single mother, becomes Maya Angelou, and enters the world of entertainment.

Critics’ opinion:

• Élise Lépine has been “hugely seduced”she was literally crossed by the story: “this book went to my brain -, passing through the kidneys, the skin, the stomach, it is indeed a book that swings, I was completely taken in by its story”. She found the trajectory of this woman very interesting: “she makes fun of questions of morality, she advances according to values ​​and gives very sincere pages on what it means to love her little boy and want to live her life as a woman”. Delighted, she concludes: “this book is like Christmas morning unwrapping the presents”.

• Lucile Commeaux was also seduced, although with some reservations: “it is the story of a woman who becomes a public figure, a cabaret singer and dancer who exposes herself with all that that implies”. She found certain aspects of the story surprising: “there is this way of taking charge of the risk and the possible cut to one’s freedom, and this, in a falsely casual tone which is very surprising.” So what are his reservations? “I find that the ‘cruising pace’ of reading settles in too much and I got a little bored.”

“The Imposture” by Zadie Smith

Translated from English by Laetitia Devaux published by Gallimard in the “From the whole world” collection

Eliza Touchet is far from an ordinary woman in late 19th century Victorian England. Not only, after losing her husband, she lives in barely hidden cohabitation with her cousin by marriage – whose countless novels written in the vein of Charles Dickens, minus the talent – she finds herself forced to correct -, but she is also fiercely independent and politicized.

Abolitionist from the start, Eliza is enthusiastic about an intriguing trial which unleashes passions in London: Sir Roger, great heir to the Tichborne empire, who disappeared at sea years before, has suddenly resurfaced and demands his due. At his side, a former slave from the Jamaican colony who belonged to the Tichborne family testifies on his behalf. But can this ghost, so crude and uneducated, really be Sir Roger, as he claims? And why does this black man defend himself like this?

Critics’ opinion:

• Élise Lépine didn’t like this novel: “this book is an exercise in style, it’s too cerebral”. She did not physically feel the story: “she only speaks to the head, confusing it, and with a fragmented form”. However, she recognizes: “this is a brilliantly intelligent novel about the Victorian era.” But this did not reconcile our criticism: “doing something complicated for the sake of something shiny doesn’t interest me. Torturing the reader’s brain in order to squeeze out skull juice results in an empty shell.”

• Lucile Commeaux found this novel “very confusing”: “we have difficulty getting into the reading, the beginning is very complex, we enter a house whose functioning we do not really understand”. It underlines the author’s desire to blur the romantic lines: “everything is very complicated socially and romantically”. Getting involved, she found positive points in the story: “It’s wonderfully well written and the series still works, it’s very rhythmic.”

Sound clips:

• Reading of Sing, swing, party like at Christmas by Maya Angelou by Anaïs Ysebaert
• Reading of The imposture by Zadie Smith by Anaïs Ysebaert