Various: Une nuit à l'hôtel (2019)

This is a collection of eleven short stories, all written by prominent authors, and all having a night in a hotel as the theme. We need books like this, which give us not only an idea of what authorial talent is around, but also perhaps a hint of who we'd like to read more of, or not at all. I particularly appreciated the stories by Cécile Coulon, Nina Bouraoui, Adeline Dieudonné, Franck Bouysse and Négar Djavani.

The stories:

Cécile Coulon, 'Madame Andrée' –  A woman goes to a hotel to have a lesson on playing the flute from her former teacher, although everything is in her mind.

Serge Joncour, 'Une nuit, presque à l'hôtel'  – A man sleeps in a deckchair by the hotel swimming pool because, well, he can't stand duvets: he's an eiderdown salesman.

Nina Bouraoui, 'Une nuit à Timinoun' – A woman with homosexual sympathies admires a young female guest in a hotel after fleeing from her husband, children, and the asphyxiating normality.

Silvain Prudhomme, 'La Femme au couteau' – A guy remembers his university back-backing days, particularly staying in a bug-ridden hotel and being greeted by a woman with a knife.

Adeline Dieudonné, 'Alika' – The hell of a child minder from the Philippines come to France to what amounts to slavery.

Franck Bouysse, 'Ma Lumière' – A clever young boy lives in hotels with his mother who perhaps works as a cleaner, but also as a prostitute.

Négar Djavani, 'Le Dernier' – After twenty-two years a cop tracks down a serial killer who has set up a new life in Buenos Aires.

Caryl Férey, 'Juste pour un jour' – The punk era by the Berlin wall, the title of course being a translation from David Bowie's 'Heroes'.

Ingrid Astier, 'Fil de soie' – A man, dumped by his girlfriend, arrives at a hotel where there's a 'telepathic' barman.

Régis Jauffret, '¡Alzheimer! ¡Que buéno! Y Macrón! ¡También!'  – An insane rant from a hotel (or psychiatric hospital?) in which virtually every sentence ends in an exclamation mark!

Valérie Zénatti, 'Le Miroir de Cirta' – A young French woman traces her mother's and her grandmother's Algeria, before they were forced to emigrate to France.

Serge Joncour: L'Écrivain national (2014)

In Serge Joncour's L'Écrivain national, the writer Serge has been invited by a bookstore in a small town in the Nièvre and Morvan area for a month making library visits and helping writing groups and suchlike. How can he resist, even if the mayor of the town condescendingly calls him 'L'Écrivain national', and his supposedly plush hotel doesn't quite live up to expectations?

A few other things don't quite live up to expectations, but then this is deepest rural France, and the locals, while not being stereotypical hicks, aren't exactly too well up on contemporary culture. Why should this concern the national writer anyway, when he is greeted at the train station (Serge Joncour loves France's train network) by the woman in the station bar who serves him a coffee and a slightly old edition of the local paper?

The national writer is so riveted by a news item in the paper that he doesn't touch his coffee. Or rather, the news item, which he tears from the paper, contains the transfixing photo of the néorurale Dora, partner of the néorural Aurélik, who has been retained in custody following the disappearance of the supposedly rich octogenarian Commodore. Dora has been cleared from any blame. The small town is buzzing with tales of the disappearance, and initially less than buzzing with the appearance of the national writer.

But the locals' interest in the national writer grows almost in proportion as the national writer's interest in his temporary post decreases. The locals, in fact, think he's spending far too much time where Dora is, even that he's sexually involved with her: which isn't true, well not until towards the end at least.

A love story removed from the norm this certainly is, but it's also one of cannabis harvests, an accidental death by one of the least suspected locals, and surely above all an unconventional detective story without a moral, or rather a novel about an amateur detective with highly questionable morals, whose morals are in his underpants? Fascinating stuff, though.

My other Serge Joncour post:
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Serge Joncour: L'Idole

Serge Joncour: L'Idole (2004)

The back cover of this book suggests something of a mixture of Woody Allen and Kafka, particularly as a homage to Kafka. I was reminded more of Emmanuel Carrère's La Moustache, apart from the gruesome ending of that book. Certainly madness is suggested throughout both La Moustache and L'Idole, although L'Idole, I was forced to conclude, is more of a 'what if' book, a hypothesis in which the idea of instant fame is investigated.

Georges Frangin is the hero, the man around whom everything centres, the man who is recognised every day by many people who greet him, ask him for his autograph, pay for his drinks, etc. Initially he thinks they must have mistaken him for someone else, although when he asks one of his 'admirers' for his name the reply is 'Georges Frangin', the supposedly unknown narrator.

Frangin doesn't do television very well, although he tries, and is at the beginning welcomed because of his 'fame'. But fame, of course, doesn't last.

My other Serge Joncour post:
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Serge Joncour: L'Écrivain national