Paul Cluzet is not where we might have expected him. Unlike Roman Kolinka, Jules Benchetrit and Léon Othnin-Girard, his three brothers, he does not plan to be an actor. For what ? “Perhaps I was too drunk when I was little, asking me if I wanted to be like my dad when I grew up. I think I “twisted” in a spirit of rebellion. And then it didn’t appeal to me that much. I always preferred to write,” he analyzes. And when the time is more for autofiction, this recently thirty-year-old chooses fiction. The story of sensitive Robert, a little dumped, a little lost, quite drunk, who sees the appearance in his drunken moments of a certain Bobby, who is none other than the child he was. Summoning childhood to rediscover the taste for living and loving, the novel alternates between innocence and license. With true love on a saving quest.
A novel to bring to life
Paul has been working on this novel for seven years (the time of maturity). “I’m a bit of a wanker,” he slips, amused, in a musical, slightly breathy voice. Paul therefore always wrote. Poems when he was fourteen. Being published one day seemed out of reach, even a muted dream. His grandfather, Jean-Louis Trintignant, to whom he had read the first chapters of his novel, nevertheless encouraged him. As for his grandmother Nadine, known as “Nana”, an established writer whose footsteps he follows today, she validated each of the stages. “But I could have written anything, they would have approved, because they love me! », objects Paul Cluzet, the first to doubt him.
Even if it is fiction, we leave traces of ourselves
A point that he has in common with Robert, the narrator of Bobby Nazebroque. Because like any first novel, even if it is fiction, we leave traces of ourselves. Almost in spite of oneself. Paul chose writing (unless it was the other way around), undoubtedly, as Annie Ernaux points out, because, “Writing is first of all not being seen. » Move forward masked. Not to be brought back to an ancestry whose fame can sometimes seem cumbersome. “Also out of fear of questions that are too intimate, too tricky,” he admits. Being the son of my parents is a Source of pride, of course, but perhaps there was a need to stand out, to not have to go through that, a question of ego…” More than pride. ego, we must undoubtedly see in it a desire to find one’s place. A place of your own. Without cutting himself off from family and friends who are essential to him and whose importance he measured during his Australian years. “I moved to Melbourne when I was 21,” he says.
I took a lot of inspiration from a photo of me on the set of Victoire ou la Douleur
I’m not a chauvinist, but I was so homesick that I could cry in front of the Tour de France! “. It is therefore natural that those he loves inhabit his novel anonymously. Like this speech from one of his characters about love being more important than anything. Paul says he borrowed it almost word for word from his father, François Cluzet, who expressed this during an interview. As for Bobby, the kid is him as a child. Even in its physical description. “I was very inspired by a photo of me on the set of Victoire ou la Douleur des femmes, a film by Nana (film released in 2000, with Marie Trintignant in the main role, Editor’s note), where I am holding the clapperboard, with the Playmobil cut and the itchy velvet pants,” he remembers. Like Bobby, little Paul had great ambition. “If I met him today, I would tell him that he was dreaming a little too hard, a little too high…”, underlines Paul.
A character inspired by his own story
And behind the sometimes nervous gestures that punctuate his words, we can sense shyness, extreme sensitivity and the fear of being led into intimate territories. Too intimate. Marie Trintignant is never mentioned head-on. And “clearly”, as he admits, he is afraid of the questions there. But how can we not see in the absolute quest for love of Robert, the narrator of his novel, the trauma of a child deprived of a mother too early? Paul admits to being crossed by this ideal himself, like the great romantics of the 19th century. And, with modesty and maturity, speaks rather of this form of “emotional dependence more important than the norm perhaps…”, which is his. Which he is working on. We feel that the young man has the intelligence, the entourage and the weapons to move forward. He also says he is “spoiled by life”. And after having often been annoyed to read this, recognizes the therapeutic side of writing and the satisfaction of the work accomplished. Moreover, at the end of the novel, Bobby compliments Robert with “Not so lame in the end”, in which the author’s voice seems to resonate. Paul Cluzet has made a name for himself. The way(s) is clear.
“Bobby Nazebroque” (Grasset editions)
