They knew that Bernard, their father, was impatient, so they, Agnès and Cécile Pivot, acted quickly to offer us this superb album. Six short months after the death, at the age of 89, of the famous journalist, here is The Taste of Others (Calmann-Lévy), story in illustrations (mostly unpublished) of the exceptional destiny of a man from Croix-Rousse who is curious about everything. Who will delight those who knew him as well as those who have not approached him, as the master of high cathodic masses and dictations seems to belong to the national heritage. With Agnès in the photo and Cécile in the text (captions rich in quotes, testimonies, interviews, etc.), from the war years spent at the municipal school of Quincié-en-Beaujolais to his 180 theatrical performances throughout France, the beautiful portrait, both intimate and public, of the holder of press card 17,316.
The global elite always received with the same simplicity
The CFJ in Paris, ten years as a courier at Literary Figaromagazine launches Read andApostrophes in 1975, Culture broththe Goncourt jury… the years go by, a sweet nostalgia arises. Nabokov, Solzhenitsyn (four broadcasts) and Bukowski of course, but also Walesa (clandestine interview in January 1987), Burgess, Moravia, Douglas (Kirk), Miller (Arthur), Davis (Angela), Fonda (Jane), Le Carré, Spielberg, Manguel… the world’s elite, always received with the same mischievous simplicity, is resurrected. Like all French authors, novelists and essayists, of whom Pierre Assouline notes here the variety and quality in his delicate and so accurate “biography” of his accomplice, to be read then at the table of Drouant. It’s all there, before our eyes: the beginnings, on the set ofApostrophes, of BHL and André Glucksmann, May 27, 1977; that of Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, September 19, 1980; Marguerite Yourcenar, in 1979, Marguerite Duras, in 1984, and Michel Tournier, invited 17 times…
Drawing from his father’s works, Memory does as it pleases, Words of my life, Wine lovers dictionaryCécile Pivot distils here and there extracts bringing additional honey to the black and white or color photos which nourish this pivotal fresco. For his part, Pierre Assouline also recalls how this “individualist with a team spirit” and a fierce reputation for independence was “loyal to the friends, to the ideas, to the values which were always his”. By covering all the passions of this annoying reader, football, the press (with special mention for The Team), Beaujolais, food, the French language, love, family, what Taste of others happily reflects all the faces of a humanist gentleman, with a million subscribers on Twitter, who succeeds without sycophancy in imposing his natural authority urbi et orbi.
.