ZENITH 1

Zenith è un romanzo ambientato nella National Gallery di Washington nelle cui toilettes la protagonista rimane chiusa per sbaglio. Da qui un viaggio notturno in quello che è uno dei musei più ricchi e del mondo con i personaggi di alcune tele che sgattaiolano dai quadri per seguire una loro storia che si intreccia con quella della protagonista.



ZENITH
di Maria Zuppello

Figlio,
mia carne fatta,
fisso il tuo volto
e vengo ai sogni antichi.
Cammina nella palude
Pronto al guado,
giusto e forte
come è dovuto.
E’ tutto.
Lascia la mia mano
e vai


Versi di mia madre.
Scritti pensando a ciò che sarebbe venuto dopo.
Cioè io.
A lei, dunque, dedico questa prima pagina. E tutte quelle che seguono.

INTRODUZIONE N.1
Voi non potete saperlo ma vi assicuro: comincio a scrivere questo libro a penna. Una penna biro. Di quelle che tutti, con meno di un euro, possiamo trovare al bar o in tabaccheria o rubare al collega in ufficio. Sempre che si abbia un ufficio. Uno strumento a portata di mano, di tutte le mani. La penna l’ho strappata al disordine della mia borsetta, il blocco, invece, è un regalo di compleanno di un mio amico gravemente ammalato di miopia. E perfino astigmatico.
Ho scelto un punto preciso della mia casa da trasformare nel recinto sacro. Dove nasce, per mai più morire, il letto del fiume. E’ un punto duro. E’ un angolo. Strano destino quello degli angoli. Godono di misure che gli sono loro proprie e che solo a loro appartengono. Sposano il vuoto e spesso sono costretti a fissarlo per una vita intera. Ma sopravvivono. A molte catastrofi. Al quotidiano. Alle lotte, ai fratricidi, ai piccoli grandi delitti che si consumano in ogni città, ad ogni latitudine, dentro le case di tutti. Gli angoli delle case tengono in piedi il ring, delimitano il tempio, ricusano i colpi del tempo e dello spazio. Sono geometrie allo stato puro.
Non posso stare in piedi, però, anche se mi piacerebbe da impazzire scrivere un intero romanzo in piedi. Un modo originale di interpretare la precarietà? Non posso stare in piedi perché sento che questo lavoro mi impegnerà a lungo. Con continuità. Il posto fisso che ho sempre sognato!
Ma vorrei immaginarmi così. Come uno spaventapasseri. Che allontana le ombre cattive e protegge il raccolto, accrescendo la fecondità del campo.
E’ l’angolo sud-est della casa che diventerà il punto su cui ergerò il mio piedistallo di scrittrice in cerca di ispirazione. Punto di mera geometria. Una durissima onda di canne orientali compone la mia chaise longue. Dura ma comoda. Per tenere sempre vivi e appuntiti i miei pensieri. In perenne stato di allerta. I miei pensieri. Ogni tanto mi guardano da lontano. Ogni tanto mi sovrastano. Talvolta addirittura paiono dilegiarmi.
Sono in cerca di una storia. Ma la storia in realtà c’è già. Faccio finta di illudermi ma so che non è vero. Io intanto aspetto. L’attesa riempie sempre. Aspetto che la storia venga a me, che si lasci bramare, che si dipani davanti ai miei occhi e mi prenda per mano gettandomi nelle braccia dure dei miei personaggi.
Oggi è il 18 maggio 2002. E’ Domenica pomeriggio. E per scrivere un’introduzione è il giorno ideale. Questo giorno della settimana, per lo meno fino a poco prima del tramonto, non riesce ad uccidere il senso dell’attesa che di ogni buona introduzione è il signore incontrastato. Se dopo queste righe troverete una storia vorrà dire che la chaise longue ha compiuto il suo dovere.

INTRODUZIONE N.2
Devo riabituarmi agli oggetti. Succede ogni volta che faccio una doccia. Tutta quell’acqua…Non lava solo il mio corpo ma anche la percezione che ho di me nel mondo. Una nebbia improvvisa che si intreccia nella trasparenza delle gocce. In quel momento il mio mondo è tutto lì. Nei 60 cm x 30 del piatto doccia che è in realtà una vasca da bagno in miniatura. Una vasca da bagno per bambole. Un mondo stretto ma alto, così alto che non se ne scorgono i confini. E il primo oggetto con cui devo vedermela, uscita da lì, non è né il tappeto, né il phon. Piuttosto la penna a biro. E’ affidandomi a lei, e non ad un computer, che ho deciso di sputare questo libro perché vorrei che seguisse realisticamente i sentieri dei miei personaggi. Registrando, come in un elettroencefalogramma, ogni vibrazione, ogni bagliore. Perché mi corregga dalla retorica e mi tenga lontana dall’omologazione di una tastiera. Per tutto questo e per altro ancora.
Perché io possa vedere ogni pagina prendere corpo e scorgere, riflessa nella mia calligrafia, l’inquietudine narrativa dei miei pensieri. Che stanno per lasciarmi e diventare qualcos’altro. E’, forse, adesso arrivato il momento?

INTRODUZIONE 3
Salire le scale, 250 cal.
Alzare il braccio e portarlo alla credenza, 75 cal.
Trascinare la cassa d’acqua, dalla terrazza alla cucina, 162 cal.
Pulire lo specchio, sollevandosi sulla punta dei piedi, 86 cal.
Affacciarsi alla finestra, 35 cal.
Guardare il cielo, 6 cal.
Chiudere gli occhi, 1 cal., 1 cal. sola? Una per ogni palpebra.
Pensare. Nessuno è mai riuscito a misurare le calorie che si consumano quando si pensa. Forse, dipende dai pensieri.
Credo sia una fortuna perché possiamo essere salvati dalla perenne condizione di fantasmi. Noi non consumiamo calorie, come i fantasmi, ma solo quando pensiamo. E i fantasmi, loro, non pensano.
Le storie che andiamo a vivere si attaccano ai nostri pensieri, parassitandoli. Non siamo fantasmi. Siamo grappoli. Gli uni sopra gli altri. Gli uni sotto gli altri. Grappoli che si trascinano dietro storie.

INTRODUZIONE 4
Quanta scrittura va perduta. Potrebbe da sola rappresentare un combustibile alternativo per auto in cerca di nuovi carburanti. Tutta quella scrittura che rimane intrappolata negli arti della nostra mente. Che non trova nessun orifizio, nessuna fessura da cui uscire.
Dove si blocca la scrittura che va perduta? Tra gli occhi e la bocca? Tra gli occhi e le orecchie? Tra le orecchie e la bocca? Ha suono? Ha sapore la scrittura che va perduta? E’ un feto che gia conosce il suo abortivo destino.
E se invece della testa rimanesse intrappolata fra i piedi? Un sasso imprigionato dentro la pelle, così minuscolo da non ritrovare la via d’uscita.
E di cosa parlerebbe la scrittura che va perduta? Forse è grande letteratura. La più grande. Quella che nessuno potrà mai sfogliare o declamare. Sottratta per l’eternità al decadimento fisico e al deterioramento del pensiero.
La scrittura che va persa è quella che io vorrei raccogliere, in ogni strada e in ogni via del mondo.
Per sottrarre all’umanità l’amara melodia del rammarico.

INTRODUZIONE 5
Il posto più scontato è lo specchio. Il mio viso riflesso che bagnato dalla luce sembra rivelare una profondità che non ho. Ma lì non li scorgo e allora mi aggiro tra una stanza e l’altra della mia casa. Magari ci inciampo…
Tutto, però, tace e a rimbalzarmi addosso è solo il silenzio. Forse i personaggi che aspetto non sono mai esistiti? Può l’umana presunzione spingermi fino a questo punto?
Tre azioni, allora, in una: sbatto la porta, compro un biglietto aereo e me ne vado a Washington.
Forse può succedere qualcosa.

ZENITH 2

Macchie. Ovunque. E tutte di spessore. Ammoniaca. Salsedine. Perfino il sale che non ha ombra. Croste di vita avevano finito con il contaminare tutta la città. E non c’era detersivo a redimerle. Né sforzo umano. Se la schiavitù avesse dovuto risorgere in questo scorcio di millennio almeno avrebbe avuto una nobile giustificazione. Loro, le macchie. Alcune erano bellissime. Chiedevano a gran voce una cornice perché chi passasse dedicasse loro uno sguardo, un pensiero, un segmento d’attenzione. Altre erano invise alla strada, al mondo. Perfino alla materia di cui rappresentavano l’atto di superbia più estremo. Le macchie erano un regalo, infatti, che la materia faceva a se stessa. La sua opera d’arte più ingombrante.
Noi e le macchie. Come rapportarsi?
Schivarle? Ossequiarle? Riconoscere loro quella continuità di cui sono in realtà l’ostinata negazione? Le macchie sono il nostro atto di dolore.
Mio Dio mi pento e mi dolgo con tutto il cuore dei miei peccati perché peccando ho meritato i tuoi castighi e molto più perché ho offeso te, infinitamente buono e degno di essere amato sopra ogni cosa. Sopra ogni cosa. Le macchie sono il nostro atto di superbia. Negazione costante della vita come flusso. Negazione di quel “sopra ogni cosa” che dovrebbe essere la nostra freccia di direzione. Le macchie sono fra le cose e sopravvivono anche alle cose quando esse non ci sono piu’. Ci si inciampa dentro come nelle pozzanghere .

All’interno della National Gallery sono inciampata in otto macchie. Era buio ma mi sono accorta della loro presenza. Perché il mio passo non era più lo stesso. E perché all’improvviso non mi sentii più sola. Da queste macchie è cominciata la storia che segue che è la somma della mia e delle storie delle otto macchie, una ad una. Spalmate per secoli su quadri appesi con 8 chiodi alle pareti del museo. Quando le ho incontrate quella notte erano solo macchie. Fuori da una tela. In cerca di una direzione. E di un corpo. Le storie sarebbero arrivate dopo. (...)

Dead Funny: Humor in Hitler's Germany, By Rudolph Herzog

FROM THE INDEPENDENT

Why the Reich had no real rib-ticklers

Reviewed by Steve Jelbert

Peter Watson's recent The German Genius, a primer of Teutonic talent overlooked by a nation (ours) obsessed with National Socialism, was a thoughtful reminder of just how much German Kultur gave to the modern world, from abstract concepts to reassuringly solid engineering. Humour, though, barely appears.

The disconnect between German ghastliness and German brilliance doesn't allow room for it. After all, when John Cleese exploded in Fawlty Towers, it was the concussed Basil's guests who pleaded that there was nothing funny about the war, "not for us, not for any German".

Yet jokes were not simply abolished in the Third Reich, as Rudolph Herzog, son of the film-maker Werner, makes clear in this concise, compelling book. Although some died for their quips, their fates had already been decided from above. The actor and indiscreet raconteur Robert Dorsay, already hounded from employment, made one last splash as lurid posters announced his judicial murder. By contrast, the cabaret artist Werner Finck somehow managed to navigate his way through the era, daringly evading arrest by signing up. Postwar, he became a living symbol of a lost age.

Stripped of historical context, few of the gags in this book are actually funny, the author concedes. But he never lets mild satire pass as heroic opposition. Drinkers entering a bar and substituting "drei liter!" for the "German greeting" ("Heil Hitler!") or jazz-loving Swing Kids yelping "swing heil!" were as ineffectual as they were witty. Such gadflies were rarely prosecuted.

This, then, is a history of what passed for humour, including triumphalist gloating and petty anti-Semitic clichés. Unlike Hammer and Tickle, Ben Lewis's investigation of oppositional humour under Communism, Herzog gives equal space to the state-approved and compromised. Top Nazis liked to be seen enjoying themselves in public, taking in light entertainment that ranged from the feeble to the downright shocking. An astonishingly unfunny script unearthed from a never broadcast television variety show even refers to "concertration camps", a bad taste pun to beat all.

The turgid wartime public information routines of the characters Tran and Helle now seem merely threatening. German film, especially comedy, regressed as party hacks took over and the most talented fled.

But Jewish entertainers, effectively awaiting death, continued to perform. The forced cabaret at the "model camp" Theresienstadt was, paradoxically, freer than any since Weimar. The official propaganda film made under duress by the talented camp inmates somehow became known by the strictly unofficial, bleakly sarcastic title The Führer Gives the Jews a City. If a culture's strength is exemplified by its sense of humour, then the Nazis could never have wiped out Jewry.

Rereading: The Tunnel by Ernesto Sábato

The Argentinian writer's work explored his country's darkest days and helped to bring the military regime to account

Colm Tóibín
The Guardian

t is with sadness and sorrow that we have carried out the mission entrusted to us by the constitutional president of the republic. It has been an extremely arduous task, for we had to piece together a shadowy jigsaw, years after the events had taken place, when all the clues had been deliberately destroyed, all documentary evidence burned, and buildings demolished. The basis for our work has therefore been the statements made by relatives of those who had managed to escape from this hell, or even the testimonies of people who were involved in the repression but who, for whatever obscure motives, approached us to tell us what they knew. – Ernesto Sábato, prologue to Nunca Mas, 1984

The Tunnel
by Ernesto Sábato
Buy it from the Guardian bookshopSearch the Guardian bookshop
Tell us what you think: Star-rate and review this bookErnesto Sábato, who died on 30 April just two months away from his 100th birthday, was a central figure not only in the literary life of Argentina in the 20th century, but in its political and civil life as well. In the dark days after the fall of the generals who had caused the disappearance of thousands of people, and lost the Malvinas war, Sábato was chosen to chair the commission to investigate the crimes against humanity committed during their reign. As a novelist of immense seriousness and power, he was one of the few public figures who had moral authority and independence of mind in Argentina at that time. The commission delivered its findings in September 1984; the report was detailed, horrifying and indisputable. As a result of what it disclosed – published in November 1984 as Nunca Mas (Never Again) – the generals were put on trial. It was Sábato's report that established in the minds of people in Argentina the enormity of what had happened in their country.

Sábato was born in the province of Buenos Aires in 1911 and began his career as a scientist. In the early 1940s, he was one of those many talented Argentinians whose work appeared in the literary magazine Sur, which was edited by Victoria Ocampo. His first novel, The Tunnel, was published in the magazine in 1948. Although he knew and admired Borges and Bioy Casares, and wrote about them in Sur, he was not an intimate of theirs; his early communism, for one thing, would not have endeared him to them. But he had something essential in common with them, and with other Argentine novelists such as Julio Cortázar and Juan José Saer: his work, especially the novels The Tunnel, On Heroes and Tombs (1961) and The Angel of Darkness (1974), was uncompromising and original both in tone and structure.

In his essay "The Argentine Writer and Tradition", Borges made clear the scope and the scale of the ambition of the Argentine writers of the 20th century. He suggested that, by virtue of being so distant and so close to Europe at the same time, the Argentine writer had more "rights" to western culture than anyone in any western nation. They were like Irish writers, he wrote, for whom it was "enough, the fact of feeling Irish, different, to become innovators within English culture". Thus, Borges, Bioy Casares and Sábato had in common the idea that it was not their role to explain Argentina to itself or to the world; it was not their job to explore changes in morals and manners in their country, or write social realism about Buenos Aires or the Pampas. Their job was not to remake their country in their own image, but remake literature itself, to offer it energy and fresh form.

So they took what was available from European literature and set about refining it or undermining it. In The Tunnel, Sábato took the idea of the demented male artist and the city, which had its roots in Russian and French fiction, and transported it to Buenos Aires – not to offer it local colour, but to offer it further depth and strangeness. He created a hero even less heroic than usual and made his actions even more inexplicable to everyone except himself. He allowed the surrounding existential darkness to be even more negative than normal; the protagonist's obsession became more driven, energetic and generally demented than that of his European counterparts, and also more oddly credible and intense.

The intensity and credibility arise from the style. Like Borges and Bioy Casares, as The Tunnel makes clear, Sábato the scientist was interested in the clipped, declarative style of the murder mystery or the police file. While the novel describes extreme states of frenzied feeling and related activity, the prose is fiercely controlled; most of the sentences are short and describe a single action or emotion. Thus, the distance between the subject of the novel and the tone of the prose offers a sort of tension to the narrative. This tension allows the narrator not to bother with analysis of motive, or flashbacks or character studies. It forces the reader to accept these as either totally unnecessary or fully understood.

The Tunnel is a novel about madness recollected in a prison cell, but it is not an apology for the madness or the actions that the madness caused, nor is it a rational explanation of them. Instead, it leads the reader into the world of the protagonist, using a deliberately calm style to suggest that this world is normal. The mind of Juan Pablo Castel is given a kind of logic by the tone and sentence structure of the novel, which are precise and clear.

As in novels by Dostoyevsky and Kafka, there are moments when the rules governing despair are so closely undermined or re-examined or dramatised that the entire enterprise of living or thinking seems deeply absurd. What ensues is pure comedy. This happens, for example, in a classic scene in The Tunnel, when Juan Pablo Castel posts a letter to Maria and then decides he wishes to retrieve the letter. The encounter with the woman in the post office and the listing of regulations and demands put the reader on the side of Castel for a while. But not for long. The feeling that Castel is behaving both rationally and outrageously forces the reader to switch loyalty every few sentences: you feel one minute that Castel is a maniac and his own worst enemy, and then the next minute you really want him to retrieve the letter.

It is clear that The Tunnel belongs to a literary genre that explores dark areas of the self, and violence and irrationality in the anonymous mean streets of the modern city. It is important to remember that it is an Argentine novel only because it was open to European influences and contemporary genres, which it set out to develop and intensify. In its manic material and its grim laughter, it is not a metaphor for any society, Argentine or otherwise. Yet, because of the style, so controlled and factual, and the content, which deals with a world where violence, disorder and megalomania reigned, it is fascinating to read The Tunnel from 1948 in conjunction with the sober and detailed report that Sábato and his commission produced in 1984, about real murders committed in the real city where the fictional anti-hero Juan Pablo Castel once produced his art, and where Sábato produced his first novel.

Jane Austen rare manuscript up for sale

FROM THE GUARDIAN

A rare, handwritten manuscript of Jane Austen's unfinished novel The Watsons is to be sold at auction at Sotherby's in London

Mark Brown, arts correspondent guardian.co.uk,

An incredibly rare handwritten manuscript of an unfinished novel by Jane Austen – the only one that is still in private hands – is to appear at auction in London.

The neatly written but heavily corrected pages are for her unfinished work The Watsons, a novel which many believe could easily have been as good as her six completed works.

Gabriel Heaton, Sotheby's senior specialist in books and manuscripts, said it was "a thrill and privilege" to be selling it: "It is very exciting. This is the most significant Austen material to come on the market since the late 1980s."

It is unquestionably rare. Original manuscripts of her published novels do not exist, aside from two cancelled chapters of Persuasion in the British Library.

The novel is considered around a quarter completed and the manuscript has 68 pages – hand-trimmed by Austen – which have been split up into 11 booklets.

It is most but not all of Austen's unfinished novel. The first 12 pages were sold by an Austen descendent during the first world war to help the Red Cross and are now in New York's Pierpoint Morgan Library, while the next few pages were inexplicably lost by Queen Mary, University of London which has been looking after the manuscript.

The college's director of library services Emma Bull said it happened six years ago, before she arrived, and had resulted in a full investigation which, alas, "did not really come to any firm conclusions about what specifically happened." There had been a hope that they would turn up, but clearly that is now highly unlikely.

The Watsons manuscript shows how Austen's other manuscripts must have looked. It also shines an interesting light on how she worked. Austen took a piece of paper, cut it in two and then folded over each half to make eight-page booklets. Then she would write, small neat handwriting leaving little room for corrections – of which there are many. "You can really see the mind at work with all the corrections and revisions," said Heaton.

At one stage she crosses so much out that she starts a page again and pins it in. It seems, in Austen's mind, her manuscript had to look like a book. "Writers often fall into two categories," said Heaton. "The ones who fall into a moment of great inspiration and that's it and then you have others who endlessly go back and write and tinker. Austen is clearly of the latter variety. It really is a wonderful, evocative document."

The Watsons was written in 1804, not a hugely happy time for Austen professionally – she had one novel rejected and another bought by a publisher who failed to print it.

It was also a difficult time personally and one reason it was not finished may be because fact came too close to the fiction. The Watsons heroine is Emma, one of four sisters who are daughters of a sick and widowed clergyman. The novel would have had the father die leaving Emma in a precarious financial position. In real life, Austen's clergyman father died leaving her in a similar pickle to her fictional heroine.

Had Austen completed The Watsons there are many who believe it would have been a classic. Margaret Drabble described it as "a tantalising, delightful and highly accomplished fragment, which must surely have proved the equal of her other six novels, had she finished it."

The manuscript was bought by the present owner in 1988 when it was sold by the British Rail Pension Fund. It had been bought from Austen descendents in the 1970s when manuscripts, rare books and fine art seemed like perfectly sensible things for nationalised pension funds to buy.

The manuscript has been valued at £200,000 to £300,000 and will be sold at Sotheby's in London on 14 July.

La gloire de Pagnol

D'APRES LE FIGARO

Par Dominique Guiou, Mohammed Aissaoui, Philippe Claudel

Alors que tant d'auteurs du XXe siècle sont au purgatoire, l'écrivain et cinéaste séduit toujours. Une biographie, un film et une vente de manuscrits en témoignent.

• INTERVIEW - Jacqueline Pagnol: «Avec lui, rien ne semblait impossible»

• PORTRAIT - Conteur hors pair, infatigable inventeur

• Des mots chargés de lumière

• Il n'a jamais connu le purgatoire



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Jacqueline Pagnol: «Avec lui, rien ne semblait impossible»
Celle qui la première incarna Manon continue de faire vivre le souvenir de son mari.

Depuis la mort de Marcel Pagnol, le 18 avril 1974, elle veille scrupuleusement sur la mémoire de celui qui l'épousa en 1945 et dont elle fut l'inoubliable interprète -et la vedette de plusieurs de ses films, notamment Manon des sources.

LE FIGARO. - En épousant Marcel Pagnol, vous avez changé radicalement de vie…

Jacqueline PAGNOL. - Oui, j'avais vingt-trois ans quand j'ai commencé à vivre avec Marcel, et je ne l'ai plus quitté. J'ai choisi cette vie, près de lui, et je ne l'ai jamais regretté. Je n'ai plus fait autre chose qu'être à ses côtés, dans la vie quotidienne, bien sûr, mais aussi au cinéma, puisque je n'ai pratiquement plus tourné que pour lui… J'ai essayé, au début de notre mariage, de faire du cinéma sans Marcel. Mais je m'embêtais énormément. J'ai compris très vite que je n'avais pas envie de m'éloigner de lui. Il faut dire que la vie avec Marcel était merveilleuse.

Quel mari était-il?

Il avait un charme fou, il était irrésistible, constamment drôle. Avec lui, rien ne semblait impossible. Les obstacles, les difficultés semblaient s'éloigner comme par magie. Il avait le don d'aplanir la route devant lui. J'étais très sensible aussi à son côté Pic de la Mirandole. Il savait tout, avait réponse à tout. Mon fils et moi lui posions tous les jours des questions sur toutes sortes de sujets, et il répondait simplement. Tout semblait clair, facile…

Pendant les tournages, comment se comportait-il avec vous?

Il me laissait une entière liberté. Marcel n'était pas un cinéaste autoritaire. Je ne bénéficiais pas d'un régime de faveur. Il faisait confiance à ses acteurs. Peut-être un peu trop. Je ne le trouvais pas assez sévère avec moi. Je pensais que j'aurais pu être bien meilleure en étant davantage dirigée. Il n'avait pas l'exigence d'un Clouzot, par exemple, qui était impitoyable sur les tournages. Peut-être étais-je un peu maso, mais par moments j'aurais aimé retrouver l'atmosphère de mes années d'apprentissage du métier. J'avais un professeur de théâtre qui était terrible, qui insultait ses élèves, mais pour essayer d'en tirer le meilleur. Marcel, en revanche, n'intervenait pas. Son sens critique, il le réservait à ses propres travaux. Il lui arrivait assez souvent de me dire: «Tu vois, Jacotte, j'ai jeté ce que j'ai écrit hier. Ça ne valait rien.»


Comment se passaient les journées aux côtés de Pagnol?

Quand il ne tournait pas, les journées étaient très ritualisées. Il se levait très tôt et travaillait jusqu'à onze heures ou midi. Ensuite, nous déjeunions. Puis il y avait la coupure de la sieste, la sacro-sainte sieste. Pour rien au monde, il n'y aurait renoncé. Le jour même de son élection à l'Académie française, au moment où les Immortels ont rendu leur verdict, il dormait, comme si cela avait été un jour comme un autre. Quand l'Académie a appelé, c'est moi qui ai pris le téléphone, et je suis allée le réveiller pour lui annoncer son élection!

Après la sieste, vers trois heures, Marcel passait à l'atelier. Il bricolait, mettait au point des inventions. Il travaillait le bois -il adorait la menuiserie- ou faisait un peu de mécanique. Il lui arrivait aussi de fabriquer des jouets pour ses petits-enfants. Dès qu'il en avait la possibilité, Marcel aimait à se retrouver en pleine nature. C'était un homme très physique. Il avait besoin d'espace, de grand air, de soleil. Parmi tous ses dons, il avait aussi celui de sourcier.

Il s'est découvert sur le tard une passion pour les mathématiques et la physique…

Jusqu'à la veille de sa mort, alors qu'il était physiquement très affaibli, il a travaillé sur le théorème de Fermat. Le corps lâchait, mais l'esprit était toujours aussi vif. Il entretenait des correspondances suivies avec de grands mathématiciens.

Marcel Pagnol revoyait-il ses films avec vous?

Nous avons eu la télévision dès 1954. Il adorait ça! Nous regardions de nombreux programmes, il pensait que la télévision était un magnifique outil pour la culture du grand public. Quand ses films étaient programmés, nous étions devant le petit écran, bien sûr. C'est ainsi que quelques semaines avant sa mort, nous avons revu La Femme du boulanger. Marcel était alors très faible, en observation à l'Hôpital américain. Soudain, il me dit: «Mon Dieu que c'est mauvais…» Voyant mon étonnement, il esquisse un sourire, comme pour me dire de ne pas prendre au pied de la lettre ses propos. Quelques minutes plus tard, il soupire à nouveau: «Ce passage, il est encore plus mauvais que tout le reste… Et tu sais qui l'a tourné, Jacotte? C'est Jean Renoir. Il appréciait mes films, et il était venu me voir pendant le tournage. Moi, je l'admirais et, ce jour-là, il a dirigé le film à ma place.»



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Conteur hors pair, infatigable inventeur
Le parcours sans faute d'un touche-à-tout de génie.

C'est à soixante ans passés que Marcel Pagnol est devenu écrivain. En 1957, quand il commence la rédaction de ses souvenirs d'enfance, l'auteur n'a plus rien à prouver. On pourrait même croire que sa carrière est derrière lui. Ses personnages à l'accent marseillais ont fait connaître au monde entier une Provence à la fois mythique et réelle. Marius, Fanny, César, Panisse, Escartefigue… autant de figures qui ont quitté le folklore local pour faire partie de la famille universelle. Leurs répliques sont dans toutes les têtes: «Tu me fends le cœur», «Mourir, ça m'est égal, c'est quitter la vie qui me fait de la peine.» Pagnol, à l'Académie depuis plus de dix ans, a connu la gloire, les honneurs, l'argent. Et le bonheur. Il coule des jours heureux auprès de sa femme, Jacqueline, interprète lumineuse de Manon, et de son fils Frédéric. Comment pourrait-il imaginer que ces pages, destinées à l'origine au magazine féminin Elle, vont faire de lui l'un des plus grands écrivains de l'enfance, de ses jeux, de ses illusions et de son innocence?

Et pourtant, avec La Gloire de mon père, Le Château de ma mère et Le Temps des secrets, qui se réduisent somme toute à quelques étés passés dans un cabanon perdu entre Marseille et Aubagne, en compagnie de ses parents, de son frère, de son oncle et de sa tante, Marcel Pagnol va ensoleiller à jamais les lettres françaises. Son secret? Il tient en trois mots: simplicité, clarté, émotion. «Moi, disait-il, je n'ai jamais écrit que sur les lieux communs. De quoi parlent mes pièces et mes films? Du pain, de l'eau, de la mère, de l'enfant naturel, de choses toujours très simples… Ce qui est simple est émouvant, et trouve toujours le chemin du cœur.»

Néoréaliste avant l'heure
Pagnol saura mettre au jour comme personne la délicatesse des petites gens. De banales histoires de clochers, de maris trompés et de filles-mères sur fond de cigales et de lavande assureront la gloire à cet Aubagnais, fils d'un modeste directeur d'école communale. Mais c'est curieusement avec un personnage complexe, inquiétant, pour lequel son créateur n'éprouve aucune tendresse, que Pagnol obtint, à trente-trois ans, son premier succès public. Topaze, qui raconte la métamorphose d'un homme qui était la candeur et la probité mêmes en personnage cynique et corrompu, est loin, en effet, des âmes naïves qui peupleront ses pièces et ses films à venir.

Pagnol fut aussi, on le sait moins, un inventeur infatigable. Inventeur de nouvelles formes artistiques en étant toujours à la pointe des progrès techniques. Il fut l'un des premiers à faire du cinéma parlant, puis à utiliser la couleur. Il tourna nombre de ses films en décors naturels, avec une prise de son directe. Il fut néoréaliste bien avant les Italiens. Son ami Rossellini lui avoua: «Si je n'avais pas vu La Fille du puisatier, je n'aurais jamais tourné Rome ville ouverte.» Bricoleur génial, Pagnol mit au point dans les années trente une voiture de son invention, la Topazette, basée sur le principe du chiffre 3: 3 places, 3 portes, 3 roues, 3 litres aux cent. Enfin, il se découvrit sur le tard une vraie passion pour les mathématiques. Il affirmait à Jacqueline: «Tu verras, un jour ma gloire viendra du théorème de Fermat plutôt que de mon œuvre littéraire.» Pour une fois, il se trompait.



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Des mots chargés de lumière
Philippe Claudel, l'auteur des Âmes grises nous dit pourquoi il aime tant les livres et l'univers de Pagnol.

Parfois, en lisant un livre, on sent soudain que notre cœur s'emballe, qu'il bat plus fort et que notre poitrine s'étreint au point que nous nous demandons, pendant quelques secondes, si l'émotion qui nous envahit, et que les mots ont fait naître, n'est pas en train de nous retirer de la vie, de la nôtre en tout cas, pour nous amener vers un lieu d'incandescence que nous n'aurions même pas soupçonné, et que nous n'aurions jamais pu atteindre sans eux.

Les grands auteurs sont ceux-là justement qui parviennent, grâce à leur langue, à déchirer le rideau des apparences et des fausses séductions pour nous dévoiler la profondeur de nos misères, de nos beautés et de notre fragilité. Pour cette raison, j'ai toujours placé Pagnol en compagnie des plus grands, ainsi que dans la lignée de conteurs et de poètes de l'Antiquité pour qui le monde était une célébration et un temple frémissant de présences.

La beauté de sa langue tient à sa voix simple. Pagnol jamais ne s'encombre d'effets. Il dit les choses, comme un artisan parvenu au sommet de sa pratique après de nombreuses années d'exercice sait choisir le bon outil ou éliminer les ornements superflus. La voix simple de Pagnol est une voix profonde qui, à la façon d'un mistral chassant les quelques derniers nuages encore présents, établit un ciel pur et lumineux, qui devient un miroir dans lequel nous pouvons nous reconnaître. Les mots sont chez lui de purs cailloux ramassés dans le lit d'une claire rivière. Ils sont aussi chargés de lumière et de parfums. Lire Pagnol, c'est respirer, toucher, goûter, c'est ap­précier l'om­bre d'un puits, la fraîcheur procurée au plein midi par un muret de pierres sèches, la caresse d'un soleil de novembre sur les collines.

Ensorcelante beauté
Il y a chez Pagnol des phrases, des pages, que je connais par cœur, et j'emploie cette expression par cœur dans un sens presque littéral car il me semble que ce n'est pas ma mémoire qui les a retenues, pas plus que mon intelligence, mais bel et bien l'organe de sang et de vie dont on a fait le lieu métaphorique de nos sentiments.

Oui, c'est le cœur qui retient l'ensorcelante beauté de l'incipit de La Gloire de mon père, «Je suis né dans la ville d'Aubagne, sous le Garlaban couronné de chèvres, au temps des derniers chevriers». Et c'est encore le cœur qui garde comme un trésor rare et douloureux les lignes évoquant la mort de la mère, celle du petit frère et de l'ami d'enfance, le cher Lili, dans Le Château de ma mère . Je tiens l'avant-dernier chapitre de ce récit comme une des plus belles pages de la littérature française. Tout est là, en quelques lignes, de la beauté de nos existences, de leurs incohérences, de nos amours et de nos souffrances. Et cela est dit avec des mots de tous les jours, comme nous en avons tous dans nos poches, sans effet, sans esbroufe. À chaque fois, les larmes me viennent aux yeux, et ce sont autant des larmes de peine que de reconnaissance. Je pleure certes sur les fantômes évoqués qui me renvoient aux miens, mais je pleure aussi comme on ose murmurer un merci à celui qui a su si bien dire.



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Il n'a jamais connu de purgatoire
Ses pièces sont adaptées dans le monde entier. Ses films repassent à la télévision tous les deux ans. Et ses livres de souvenirs ont dépassé le cap des vingt millions d'exemplaires vendus.

Pour Bernard de Fallois, qui a été l'ami de Marcel Pagnol et qui reste l'éditeur de toute l'œuvre de l'auteur du Temps des secrets, il n'y a jamais eu de purgatoire pour l'écrivain provençal. Ses œuvres traversent le temps. Le fondateur des Éditions de Fallois explique ce phénomène par deux raisons. La première tient au fait que, malgré les innombrables adaptations, ses films et ses pièces continuent de passer et de repasser à la télévision. Un exemple: la trilogie (Marius, Fanny, César) est programmée en moyenne tous les deux ans; c'est sans doute la plus rediffusée, beaucoup plus que Guitry. Grâce à la télévision, Pagnol est devenu familier des Français de toutes les générations.

La seconde explication est plus psychologique. Selon l'éditeur, de tous les livres consacrés à l'enfance, ceux de Pagnol sont sans doute les plus joyeux et les plus souriants, sans être mièvres. Les enfants comme les adultes adorent. Résultat: les trois récits de souvenirs (La Gloire de mon père, Le Château de ma mère, Le Temps des secrets), conseillés par l'Éducation nationale, ont connu un succès considérable depuis leur publication en 1960 en édition de poche. Ils ont dépassé le cap des vingt millions d'exemplaires et on estime que de ses autres livres, notamment Topaze, on a vendu entre huit et dix millions d'exemplaires. Aujourd'hui, ses textes valent de l'or: les manuscrits de travail de Topaze et de Jazz, mis en vente mercredi par Sotheby's, ont été préemptés par la Bibliothèque nationale de France pour 28.000 €.

En fait, Pagnol, par la grâce de son écriture -théâtrale, cinématographie, romanesque- a créé un cercle vertueux. Ses livres nourrissent ses pièces qui nourrissent ses films qui nourrissent ses livres… D'ailleurs, il s'est adapté lui-même et a réalisé trois versions de Topaze, dont une avec Fernandel. Dès ses débuts, le potentiel de succès de ses histoires est repéré à Hollywood. Ainsi la Paramount est-elle la première à produire Marius et Topaze: c'était en 1931 et 1932. Topaze est son œuvre la plus adaptée dans le monde. Il a été traduit dans toutes les langues occidentales mais aussi en arabe et en chinois.

Un auteur total
La dernière adaptation cinématographique en date est sortie dans les salles le mois dernier. La Fille du puisatier a été réalisé et joué par Daniel Auteuil, césar du meilleur acteur avec Jean de Florette. Ce film est un succès. «Nous en sommes à un million de spectateurs, et ça devrait continuer», affirme Jean-François Robin, directeur de la photo du long-métrage et auteur du Journal d'un tournage: La fille du puisatier. Et d'ajouter que le film marche beaucoup plus en province qu'en région parisienne. «Je crois que Pagnol touche la ­France profonde», dit-il. Il livre son explication du phénomène: «Pagnol, c'est un auteur total, avec un style et un langage qui rendent les histoires universelles.» En effet, comment expliquer qu'une histoire qui se déroule dans un bistrot typique de Marseille avec quatre hommes jouant à la manille ait pu intéresser la terre entière? Daniel Auteuil l'a bien compris: il prépare le deuxième volet de la trilogie.

Is Philip Roth a truly great American novelist?

FROM THE INDEPENDENT
As a Booker judge resigns with a tirade against Philip Roth, Terence Blacker asks if a literary reputation is being rewritten

Like a royal wedding for the forever-young generation, the 70th birthday of Bob Dylan is almost upon us. There are documentaries about this sainted figure. A series of Dylan-related short stories have been commissioned for Radio 4. Endless cover versions are being released by ambitious young folkies. Feature articles , invariably littered with dog-eared quotes – the times they are, the answer my friend, I was so much older then – are appearing in the press. Grizzled old bastards reminisce about the day they met His Royal Bobness back in 1965.


In a different part of the arts establishment, celebrations for another veteran are not going so smoothly.

The Man Booker International has been awarded to Philip Roth, but one of the judges, Carmen Callil, has elbowed her way into the limelight. Mr Roth "goes on and on about the same subject in almost every book", she complained this week as she disassociated herself from the award's judging panel. "It's as though he's sitting on your face and you can't breathe."

The hoop-la surrounding these two events, the Bob and Phil Media Show, reveal an uncomfortable truth which critics, journalists and the judges of prizes prefer to ignore. In the case of the truly great, the views of cultural bystanders – them, in other words – are almost entirely irrelevant. Ms Callil may feel that Mr Roth has been sitting on her face (not one of the literary world's more attractive images) but the fact is that he will be as indifferent to her opinion as those for whom his writing is a joy.

Every admirer, Cyril Connolly once wrote, is a potential enemy. In their different ways, Bob Dylan and Philip Roth have worked to this credo. Like Mr Roth, Dylan has been assiduous in his determination to put a distance between his work and the outside world. In a celebrity-befuddled culture, this stony self-reliance has inevitably been interpreted as snottiness or eccentricity.

Yet it takes real courage and strength not to play the game, not to be so seduced by the world's view that, over time, individuality becomes softened, institutionalised.

The more Dylan is celebrated as a cultural icon, the less direct his songs begin to feel; when Mr Roth's fiction becomes an argument in the gender war, it becomes less personal, less powerful. An album or a book which is said by the experts to express something grand and general about the age in which we live, is on the way to losing precisely what makes it interesting – its personality.

When Bob Dylan was introduced at a Newport Folk Festival with the words "Take him, he's yours", he felt "ominous forebodings", he wrote years later in his memoir Chronicles. "Screw that. As far as I knew, I didn't belong to anybody then or now... I had very little in common with and knew even less about a generation I was supposed to be the voice of."

No one has accused Philip Roth of being the voice of a generation, but he is famously ascetic is his work habits, and sparing with interviews and the publicity game generally.

As with Dylan, this refusal to be embraced by fame has been regarded as suspect. In Mr Roth's case, the attitudes and opinions of his fictional characters have been attributed to him. He has been accused of going on and on about the same subject, as if worrying away at the same themes is not something every great writer does.

It is the determination of Mr Roth and Dylan not to become a public personality, not to be absorbed into any establishment, which has contributed to their different, but equally astonishing bodies of work.

Dylan translated his favourite Rimbaud quote "Je ex un autre" as "I is someone else". In The Counterlife, Mr Roth's alter ego Nathan Zuckerman reflected similarly, "I, for one, have no self." Perhaps the best way to celebrate these two extraordinary men is not with prizes, parties or documentaries, but simply to read or to listen to them.

What Carmen Callil said...

"He goes on and on and on about the same subject in almost every single book. It's as though he's sitting on your face and you can't breathe. I don't rate him as a writer at all. I made it clear that I wouldn't have put him on the longlist, so I was amazed when he stayed there. He was the only one I didn't admire – all the others were fine... 'Emperor's clothes': in 20 years' time, will anyone read him?"

... and what the literati think of him

Lionel Shriver, novelist

I'm not that touchy about misogyny as long as it's well-written misogyny. his body of work does on average rise to a very high bar, and that's what the Mann Booker is meant to reward.

True, much like John Updike's, Roth's female characters are not nearly as filled out as his male ones; sometimes his women amount to little more than bodies or, when ex-wives, walking mistakes. He can still write a sentence, and continues to engage with big issues, especially, lately – and understandably, given his age – death.

Whether or not there are exceptions – The Humbling was ghastly – we all get the odd free pass, and Philip Roth deserves this award.

DJ Taylor, author and critic

I can certainly see that if I were a woman I'd have trouble with some of Roth's early work in particular but then you'd also have trouble with, for example, early John Updike. Both men are reflecting the attitudes of the society in which they've lived.

It's fair to say that all serious writers end up writing the same book, which is one of Carmen's complaints. Sure he keeps to the same themes and produces the same effect. So did Tolstoy. But at his best with, I would say American Pastoral, Roth is one of the great modern American novelists.

Amanda Craig, novelist

I have such mixed feelings about Roth. I love his black wit, his aphoristic style, his insistence on honesty. Yet I hate the way I have to steel myself to read him, hate his misogyny and hate always feeling worse at the end of his books than I did before I started them. Roth doesn't offer any hope, and that suggests that Carmen is right – he won't last.

Rowan Pelling, former editor of 'The Erotic Review'

I have sympathy for Callil because when he was nominated for the Bad Sex Awards for converting a lesbian to heterosexuality in The Humbling, there was this feeling of "Oh God, enough already." I think she is right that if you had to sit there and read the whole oeuvre you'd feel like you've covered in a whole gush, but there is individual genius to some of them. I did enjoy the earlier books and where I think Callil is wrong is this idea that he won't be read later on.

Fay Weldon, novelist

Roth is, I must gently say, rather old-fashioned about women. He investigates their mental and emotional processes as if they belonged to some entirely different species from his own, not merely to a separate gender.

From a review of 'Deception', published in the 'New York Times'

Vivian Gornick, US critic

The misogyny in Roth's work seemed less and less a function of character, and more and more an indication of the author's own swamped being.

From 'Harpers'