Arnaud Viviant, Adrien Goetz and Donal Ryan: the books not to be missed

Goncourt station. 120 years of literary awards

By Arnaud Vivian.

La Fabrique editions, 178 p., €14.

The rating of L’Express: 3/5

In the fall of 1998, two years after his co-option to the November Prize jury, journalist Arnaud Viviant was fired by his patron, Michel Dennery, for having voted in favor of Elementary particles by Michel Houellebecq. In the process, he created, with the other transfers, the December prize, endowed with 30,000 euros by Pierre Bergé. That same year, 1998, Viviant joined the jury for the Prix de Flore, another prestigious distinction in the small literary world. We feel it, the critic of the mask and feather and of Defector, often implacable, even in bad faith, would have liked to have been more surly during his trip to the land of literary prizes. But being himself judge and party, he is here more biting than mean. And let’s say it right away, if he reserves few revelations, his short essay is full of tasty anecdotes.

It is true that the subject, inexhaustible, ready to smile. In the realm of literary prizes – between 2 and 5,000 – more or less endowed, more or less sellers, but still prized, there are countless compromises, brilliant strokes, reversals, good words… that they come from jurors, publishers or the authors themselves. Fundamentals – creation of the Goncourt prize (1903) in reaction to the “latent monarchism” of the French Academy, of the Femina prize (1904) in the face of the misogyny of the Ten, etc. –, in the great hours of literary palms, Arnaud Viviant distills a few pearls, such as the wrath of the press in 1919 against Goncourt to a Marcel Proust neither poor nor young as prescribed by Edmond in his will or this statement by Robbe-Grillet in 2001 : “Why has the Medici prize survived? Because every other year we crown a salable turnip.” On good terms… Marianne Payot

Intrigue in Brégançon

By Adrian Goetz

Grasset, 220 pages, €19.50.

The rating of L’Express: 3/5

It is a magical setting that should have inspired novels by Alexandre Dumas and Maurice Leblanc. Why had French literature never taken hold of Fort Brégançon? Adrien Goetz corrects this error with Intrigue in Brégançon, the new investigation by Pénélope, her recurring character as curator of the Mobilier national who regularly finds herself in trouble, flanked by her upside-down boyfriend, the journalist Wandrille. This time, Penelope is in charge of modernizing the decoration of the summer residence of our presidents. Except that one day, while we are carefully preparing the visit of an African head of state, a guide-lecturer who seems uneventful is found stabbed in the inner courtyard of the fort – it’s unfortunate. Especially since this dragger Wandrille is suspected!

It will be understood: Goetz has fun staging a literary Cluedo. He had the privilege of staying there and it shows, he takes us everywhere. Erudite and mischievous, he plays with places by multiplying historical digressions and comical insights – as when he imagines what Brégançon would have looked like if Georges Marchais or Arlette Laguiller had been elected to the Elysée. Saint-Simon would have laughed at this Republican Marly. If it was General de Gaulle who inaugurated this presidential resort, the soul of Georges Pompidou still floats in the rooms. You were looking for a book of cozy crime funny and stylish? This Intrigue in Brégançon is to slip into your suitcase. L.-HDLR

Oblique Sun and Other Irish Stories

By Donald Ryan, trans. from English (Ireland) by Marie Hermet.

Albin Michel, 258 P., €21.90.

Express rating: 4/5

If the 20 short stories in this collection have one thing in common, apart from Irish soil, it is their unpredictability. Donal Ryan has the meaning of the first sentence (“I knew that boy didn’t have that in him, I felt it from the first second”), but very clever who could guess the story based on the first lines. Let’s take Retirement. The narrator, leaning against the pedestal of a statue, has exhausted his last resources in buying a pack of cigarettes; over the pages, he discovers himself, an assassin without faith or law who has found no other expedient for his old age than an ultimate crime which will lead him to prison, where “three complete meals and two snacks” will be served to him . In Physiotherapy, a woman passes a ball to a disabled man in a medical center, before recalling their wedding day when he had surprised her holding the hand of another, shortly before the death of their son.

Here, the characters fight for their survival, physical or spiritual. A Congolese immigrant understands only too well the price to pay for the pretty house offered by her employer (Grace)an old man remembers an expeditious justice, which ends up killing its authors little by little Platoon)a ruined entrepreneur joins the search for the ring lost by his neighbor (Who loses cries)… All the short stories are written in the first person singular, all abound with details which give them an immediate truth, and all resonate for a long time although they never exceed fifteen pages. Bertrand Bouard