Jean-Louis Fournier, 45 pounds on the clock: “Old people are the future!” »

Published at the beginning of October – after the start of the literary season – it is printed in large letters. Logical in wanting to appeal to presbyopes from a very young age for a book that wants to pay homage to the elderly. “ This is one of the advantages of old age: the more your eyesight declines, the less we see ourselves aging, the more we take a step back… », starts Jean-Louis Fournier quickly, stomping around in his lair, on the second floor of his Parisian pavilion.

For this new publication, the stage fright of the author born in Arras in 1938 does not weaken, despite 45 Books on the clock. Neither is enthusiasm: “ People sometimes tell me “You who are old…” before apologizing! But of what? Old man, that’s not an insult! I’m proud to be old. Old people are the future! », says the father of Noiraude (the cow in the cartoon) andThe Necessary Minute of Mr. Cyclopedes (with his accomplice Pierre Desproges).

Far from Brel, he dreams of flocking T-shirts for nursing homes with this slogan: “ The older the better. » Don’t count on him to play the wise old man. “ No miracle: all the young idiots have become old idiots! You’re not smarter when you’re old, nor more stupid. What can make the difference is certainty. And I think we have less certainties when we are old. In any case, I have less! “, he confides.

Also read our major interview with Jean-Louis Fournier (October 2023).

Recently, he found some old comrades: “ Growing old brings you closer together, even people you didn’t really like. There are no more rivalries: we no longer seek to have the upper hand, the most beautiful woman, the most beautiful car. Finished all that. We don’t want to be the first anymore! », says this local resident of Père-Lachaise who dries burials – “ I don’t want to be spotted. »

Joking aside, death worries him: “ The downside of getting older, aside from the adventure of cutting your toenails, is that you lose the people you love. » Sylvie (the house has since remained frozen in its flowery decor), Desproges of course, and also Jean-Marc Roberts, the publisher of his bestseller about his two disabled sons, Where are we going, dad? (Femina Prize 2008): “ The day he died, I wondered if I was going to continue writing. I wrote for him… »

Analgesic

What if he has regrets? “ I had some troubles on the family level of courseconfides the author of The Lord’s Servant. But I was lucky enough to make a living from a job that I loved. » A secret of youth? “ Humor is a painkillerhe repeats. Humor is not the funny guy telling Belgian jokes at the table. Just look at Woody Allen’s face: he doesn’t have a funny face. Great comedians tend to be very unhappy people who have found a way to deal with unhappiness through laughter.. »

His next book could be called My last wishes : « I’ve been afraid of everything since I was a kid. If my mother was late, she was deadconfides this eternal worry. I have always been afraid of living. Now I’m afraid of dying. » A lifelong lover of roses, he has just developed a passion for other flowers with which he surrounds himself with bouquets: immortelles.

Our opinion: 5/5

There’s still light under my hat. Ed. Buchet-Chastel, 144 p., €17.

Read an excerpt here.

With an alert step, Jean-Louis Fournier precedes us up the double staircase of his Parisian pavilion surrounded by roses, followed by Artdéco, a graceful little black and white cat.

Filled with books and memories, the 2^e floor, under the roof, is his lair. In an hour, he will go down the thirty steps half a dozen times – opening the door to the postman who loved his book, showing us a photo of his Citroën convertible, of Desproges, of his wife Sylvie Durepaire who died in 2010, of feeding Artdéco . He never came up out of breath.

He also went down to get the famous hat of the title. A soft blue felt which has complemented his silhouette for around ten years: a gift from his friend Jean-Michel Ribes, who brought him onto the stage of his Rond-Point theater for a reading. A childhood dream for this son of a literature teacher from Arras.

Stunning in accuracy, grandiose in derision and poignant in modesty: his latest book also draws up an inventory of artists who waited to reach maturity – octogenarian Michelangelo painting the Sistine. “ Masterpieces are rarely works of youth », notes Fournier. He writes each book like the last: “ I don’t write for money, but to prove to myself that I can still please and move people. To write is to continue to exist. » The letters from his readers – especially from his readers – still delight him as much.