Journey to the end of the dark night by Pierre Soulages

In Pierre,Christian Bobin's outrenoir painting, by Pierre Soulages, is a distracted meditation on the emergence of all presence on earth. A must-read.

Some readers will describe this book as a narrative, others as an essay, others as a collection of reflections, others as a song. an essay, a collection of reflections, a poetic song, a letter of admiration to a friend others a poetic song, others a letter of admiration to a friend, others an inner dialogue others a philosophy of the dark, still others a distracted meditation. But what's the point of trying to pin a genre on Christian Bobin's latest work? Bobin's latest work, whose title, an open comma on the horizon rain of words and images will be torrential.

Et d’ailleurs, cet ouvrage irait même plus loin, en riant à gorge déployée, en nous disant, à nous lecteurs, qui êtes-vous pour oser me coller un genre ou un matricule sur le frontispice? Pourquoi voulez-vous enclore mes mots? Arrêtez! Cessez donc d’étiqueter, de délimiter les choses ou les chants, sacrebleu, ne soyez plus l’auteur de votre vie. Oubliez-vous un moment car c’est seulement de cette façon que vous attraperez la lumière qui passe et que vous redeviendrez des anges: 

«There's nothing worse in life than ourselves. Ourselves: with the vanity of our words, the hypocrisy of our silences, the trembling of our interests, the little decayed tooth of our faith in life. Ourselves. Strength is constantly given and given back to the angels we are no longer and must become again if we wish to remain human.»

Christian Bobin uses an indefinite, protean genre to take us on a train journey on the night of December 24, 2018, from Le Creusot to Sète, the home of his friend Pierre Soulages, who will be a hundred years old at midnight and to whom he would like to give his latest book: The night of the heart. During his nocturnal journey, punctuated by the jolts of the train and the comings and goings of the few cabin passengers, Christian Bobin closes his eyes and thinks of Pierre Soulages« painting in all its shadowy guises. He thinks of the effect it has on him. He thinks of the light it contains: »You are the one who decided to illuminate with black."

Read also | Journey to the end of the dark night by Pierre Soulages

He thinks that the Louvre is not the best place to exhibit his paintings, that the best place would be «a rotting garage in a country village». He thinks of Pierre Soulages' habit of signing his paintings on the back. He thinks of his snail's pace and the lightning speed of his imagination. He thinks that his paintings have no title. He thinks a lot about his infinite variations of black. He thinks his paintings are an act of resistance against the current reign of the packaging:

«Your painting appears at a time when powerful technologies are preparing to cover the world in colorful, merchandising, void covers. Your black is a call to resistance.»

These thoughts about Pierre Soulages and his painting memories of Christian Bobin's father and other close friends. Bobin's father and others close to him: «My father's eyes were the room of the sun. I inhabited it powerfully. Those eyes are now mine. I live from their eternity.» These thoughts summon a presence that often comes accompanied. Bach summons Rimbaud, who summons Soulages. This gives the book a warmth, like a living home, filled with objects, stories and people people in every room.

The digressions the author stores here and there answer or complete each other from one chapter to the next, offering an organic, renewed reading, close to life. In the end, we don't set off from Le Creusot to reach Sète. We don't go from point A to point B. We reach Sète by way of the stars, by way of Mount Fuji.) is Mount Fuji«, by walking the idiotic red carpet at Cannes, by passing through the Channel Tunnel of the author's memories and by everything that makes us, at such and such a time, in such and such a place, an accidental, mysterious and unheard-of combination of the sum of our impulses, our syntheses, our dreams, the wind tousling our hair and surely a whole host of other things that escape us.

Christian Bobin's writing is rich in images. They follow one another like a procession of Isis, following a Corpus Christi procession, following a procession of Ganesh. The associations are fertile, the repetitions serve as colorful vehicles, and the rhythm is driving.

Au final, si vous ouvrez cet ouvrage, vous ne le reposerez qu’une fois lu, la tête remplie mais étonnamment plus légère. Est-ce un des pouvoirs de l’écriture? Le lecteur, entre deux gorgées de Coca-Cola ou après son rendez-vous chez le dentiste, où qu’il soit et d’où qu’il revienne se réservera le droit d’y répondre après avoir lu les phrases lumineuses de Christian Bobin dont les racines de cuivres tirent leur jus des peintures noires de Pierre Soulages. La singularité de l’écrivain répondant à la singularité du peintre, comme une discussion gratuite entre deux oiseaux:

«In writing, I seek a voice, my own, for if I find my voice, then I will immediately find the unique voice of those I love. The singular calls the singular that answers it, like two birds in the forest, invisible to each other.»

Write to the author: [email protected]

Photo credit: © Wikimedia

Christian Bobin
Pierre,
2019
Editions Gallimard
95 pages