In his new novel “La Désinvolture est une bien belle chose” (Mialet Barrault), Philippe Jaenada delves into the world of the Moineaux, these lost young people who let time pass in a café in Saint-Germain-des-Prés in the early 1950s. Starting with the mystery of the death of Jacqueline Harispe, a 20-year-old girl who fell out of a window at dawn on November 28, 1953, Jaenada manages, thanks to significant archaeological work in the archives, to bring a whole world back to life. Selected in the first list of the Prix Goncourt and the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens, “La Désinvolture est une bien belle chose” is one of the books that is attracting attention this coming literary season.
When he starts a book, Philippe Jaenada follows his instinct.It is irrepressible. It is the consequence of a fascination, an obsession with the passing of time, with what disappears and what remains. By pulling the threads, I try to dust off the archives so that the few traces that remain are visible.”
At the beginning of writing Casualness is a beautiful thing.Jaenada has almost nothing, just a series of photographs published in an obscure photography book, Love on the Left Bank by Ed van der Elsken who fascinates him. In the photographs we see young people, the Sparrows of the book, who drink, play chess, kiss night and day, away from the world.Something that intrigued me. I couldn’t tell if they were happy or desperate, if they were casual or lost… I wanted to try to find out who these young people were and what became of them..”This is the beginning of a monumental work of research in the French archives, of which the 482 pages of the novel are the sum. “I have no limit (it is very pretentious) to express in the most accurate way what I want to say. To achieve this, if it takes thousands of parentheses and digressions, I do it.”
But let the reader not be afraid, Jaenada is his friend, his guide in the abundance of these archives.I often take the example of an evening: you have to let yourself be a little confused by all the names and over time they become closer characters.”
Sound clips:
- Charles Bukowski on the set of Apostrophe by Bernard Pivot, September 22, 1978
- Excerpt from In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni by Guy Debord (1978)
- Reading of an excerpt from “Casuality is a Beautiful Thing” by Philippe Jaenada by Oriane Delacroix
- “On the road again” by Willie Nelson, 1980
