L’Express: You have brought together in an anthology dozens of texts that writers and philosophers have devoted to time*. Why does this subject inspire them so much?
Brigit Bontour: No doubt because this notion raises dizzying questions such as the appearance of life, our relationship to death or the end of the world. While a human being only lives a few decades, the Big Bang dates back fifteen billion years; hominids around three million years old, the first burials around a hundred thousand years ago. This disproportion necessarily questions us.
Most authors seem to have a melancholic approach to time…
Baudelaire, Brel, Modiano, Ronsard, Chekhov and thousands of others are indeed very pessimistic on the subject. They emphasize the years gone by, the people who have disappeared, the lost illusions… Throughout his work, Patrick Modiano evokes the memory which varies, flees, escapes or is reconstructed. Georges Perec wonders about the prisms of a childhood whose contours he has forgotten… This is the dominant trend.
Is there not a more optimistic trend?
Rarely. Robert Desnos, in the midst of world conflict, celebrates the promise of better days. The tale of Lisle magnifies the poetry of the elephants who, each season, renew their march towards the place where they were born. In this, he is inspired by Aristotle, who likened time to movement, without beginning or end, like a circle offering unlimited perspectives. But this current is clearly in the minority.
Is there a French specificity on the question?
No, French authors do not stand out from their foreign counterparts. Certainly one of the greatest masterpieces of our literature, In Search of Lost Time, includes the word “time” in its title. But Proust, like many others, wonders about the time that no longer exists. His talent is singular, his perception is universal.
What are your favorite aphorisms on the subject?
The choice is difficult, but I will name three. Léo Ferré, of course: “With time, everything goes away.” Rabelais: “Time is the father of truth.” And finally Ecclesiastes, in the Bible: “There is a season for everything, a season for everything, a time to be born and a time to die.”
*The Taste of Time, by Brigit Bontour. Mercury of France.
She has also just published with the same publisher The Taste of Family.
An article from the special “Watchmaking” section of L’Express, published in the weekly on December 7, 2023