And one, and two, and three. Three books signed by Edgar Morin with three different publishers are published between April 24 and mid-June. An astonishing productivity from a sociologist and philosopher who displays 102 springs! Let’s not kid ourselves, Edgar Morin barely dipped his pen in fresh ink: Seeds of sagacity (Fayard, June 5) compiles in 100 pages some of the author’s past reflections, while Conversation with Edgar Morin (Zadig/Autrement, June 12) offers around sixty pages of interviews.
As for the third work, much more substantial (400 pages), it is like a cabinet of curiosities. It is The Method of The method. The lost manuscriptthe third volume of his great work in six volumes, which he misplaced in 1983 and found in 2006 when he had long since replaced it with Knowledge of knowledge. It is this reworked manuscript that Actes Sud is publishing today to the “immense joy” of the author, as he writes in his foreword.
The fact remains that, even when supplied with minimal texts, the Morin “label” has been selling for years now. 116,000 copies of Lessons from a century of lifefor Denoël and Pluriel in 2021, 25,000 copies for the editions of l’Aube the same year with Soul brothers (with Pierre Rabhi and Denis Lafay), thousands of copies in 2022 with Let’s wake up! (Denoël) and Life story(s), with Laure Adler (Books). And do it again in 2023 with three new titles (One more moment…, From war to war: from 1940 to Ukraine, Expect the unexpected: dialogue with Nicolas Truong) !
“Retirement, what retirement ?”
Edgar Morin is not the only “old timer” to bring joy to publishing. Two examples among many others: the luminous historians Mona Ozouf, 93 years old, and her great friend Michelle Perrot, 95 years old, who continue to publish inspiring works. “Retirement, what retirement ?” could also exclaim Francis Ford Coppola, 85 years old, in competition this year at Cannes with Megalopolis, his first feature film in thirteen years. The same goes for Hugues Aufray, just married at 94 years old, and Pierre Perret, 89 years old, who have still not put away their guitar, or even for Judith Magre, 97 years old, who talks about the heroines of tragedy at Racine in the company of Olivier Barrot every Monday at the Poche Montparnasse theater.
Without forgetting the tireless Line Renaud, never safe from current events. Could writing and the arts in general be elixirs of youth? We are tempted to believe it. Didn’t the great Michel Bouquet almost die on stage at the age of 96, in April 2022, after… seventy-five years of career?
For all others, we recommend reading the enlightening work Decide your age (Allary Editions) by Jean-Marc Lemaitre, Inserm research director at the Institute of Regenerative Medicine and Biotherapy in Montpellier. Or how to influence the hands of our biological clock. Depending on our genetic heritage (for 15%) and our lifestyle (for 85%), the deviations from our chronological age, we learn, can even go up to fifteen years more or less.