«François, portrait d'un absent»: a December prize for friendship

An overview of some of the major literary prizes - episode #

Le Regard Libre N° 48 - Loris S. Musumeci

«It comes like a wave.
That night, I understood what a white voice was. Jérôme's voice was white.
Now the memories come flooding in. It's coming in like a wave.»

François died, swept away by a wave, with his daughter Bahia. François worked in film and radio. François was crazy about life. He smoked, drank, loved life, work and precision. He was «beautiful and contradictory». In a book that straddles the border between essay, testimonial, poetry and novel, Michaël Ferrier paints the story of a friendship. From adventures to anecdotes, with a smile on his lips and a tear in his eye, the portrait of an absent man bursts onto the blank page to offer the one who is no longer a presence in literature.

François, portrait of an absent man seems to have sprung from the author's fingers on his computer keyboard. One senses that he wanted to talk about his late friend, without quite knowing how to go about it. And so, quite naturally, he delivered a few memories, a few thoughts, a few reflections that are all part of the success story. Because it's well written? Yes. Because it's touching? Yes. Because the individual story of a writer, who no one cares about a priori, and his friend, who we don't care about any more, has universal appeal? A big yes.

In fact, the exercise adopted by Michaël Ferrier is not as simple as all that. Writing a tribute to a departed friend may be good for both the writer and the deceased's family and friends, but can it appeal to a wider readership, even when nothing sensational is recounted? An honest and therapeutic testimony does not necessarily make a good book. No doubt the author knew that. And thankfully so. Because he succeeded in making the words of his text resonate in the reader's heart, thanks to a style that is both demanding and accessible, and because he succeeded in integrating the reader into his story. The reader is not just a witness. He is an actor, revisiting his own youth, rethinking his own deaths, celebrating his friends.

The award for this book is all the more well-deserved in that Michaël Ferrier succeeds in taking us with him to the boarding school where he knew François, just as he takes us to Japan and the cinema. At the same time, but intimately linked to the portrait of the absent, He talks passionately about cinema, literature, radio and its very special world. He also allows himself some rather funny remarks on social issues, despite the book's prevailing seriousness. Notably, when he rambles on about beards, as they are worn today.

«He would have been - a tad - annoyed by the new beards that are flourishing these days, the fashionable beards of the hipsters, They're so square and full that from a distance they could easily be mistaken for bears, but they're all calibrated to an identical model, with very few variations, nuances or tones. Or the beards that are now almost compulsory for MPs wishing to become members of the government: cynical, partisan beards that grow on the chins of careerists over the course of a few nights, making them look like sous-chefs at their desks. A thick but highly disciplined beard suits the gravity of this new clergy, both an attribute of power and a new figure of respectability. Not to mention the fanatics» beards, which are the flip side of their lack of virility, their fundamental powerlessness. The beards of all these bearded men! Wearing a beard with dignity seems almost unthinkable these days. François is very particular about his own: he cultivates his three-day beard with particular care. As he says himself: "He's carefully unshaven.»

Other such passages discuss alcohol, hemp, art, travel, death. And friendship. It's the real subject of the book. Serious and light, François, portrait of an absent man is neither revolutionary nor a masterpiece. It is simply a very good companion, whose elegance, sobriety, nostalgia, sadness and gaiety accompany us as we return to those who are absent. Made present by memories.

«François... He knows things about me, I know things about him. We're the only two who know. That's what friendship is about, this shared knowledge, the others don't know, it's the knowledge of the things of death. And who will be my redeemer? A bull-headed man? Or a bull with a man's head? One day, a wave will wash me away too, and I'll join it. Then I'll become forever incomprehensible to others, impenetrable to others. I'll enter the forbidden zone and, this time, I won't come back.»

Write to the author: loris.musumeci@leregardlibre.com

Michaël Ferrier
François, portrait of an absent man
Editions Gallimard
2018
234 pages

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