Alain Blottière's Rimbaud punk

Unpublished article - Ivan Garcia

Alain Blottière's latest novel tells the story of a teenager who discovers Rimbaud's poetry, and sees Rimbaud during his bouts of blindness. A true ode to poetry in an end-of-the-world Paris, Black azure presents an original and mythical case of Rimbaldian conversion that makes us want to read poetry. Rimbaud lives again... in a punk version. A mystical and compelling book that follows in the footsteps of a mythical figure in French literature.

In Montmartre, the pantheon of Parisian poets, Léo spends a scorching summer in his apartment at 14 rue Nicolet. Where Verlaine and Rimbaud once lived and loved. Seventeen-year-old Léo is bored; he's been left alone in Paris, while his mother and friends are away on vacation. But he soon finds himself embroiled, in spite of himself, in a strange game. A victim of blindness attacks, Léo thinks he's going blind. At the same time, during these attacks, he has visions. He sees Rimbaud and Verlaine, and the history they shared.  

Back to the past

«There was no shortage of reasons for glooming or looking the other way, not least of which was the dazzling certainty that all the world's woes could only get worse.»

Black azure is built on this alternation between the present and the protagonist's blindness, taking us back to the Paris of the 19th century.^th century. In the course of the story, Léo gets to know his building better and meets some of his neighbors, such as Julie - with whom he will have a romance - and Monsieur Prinz - a Holocaust survivor who will teach him a few life lessons, including the legend of the blind soothsayer Tiresias. Between his ophthalmological consultations with Doctor Lalumière - we appreciate the author's irony -, his neighborhood and his forays into Rmbaldi's past, the hero grows up. Gradually, he takes up poetry and emancipates himself from unsatisfactory relationships.

Read also: What poetry does

After How Baptiste died, winner of the December 2016 award, and Dreamers (2012), the author explores how a teenager grapples with death and manages to exorcise his fears. Black azure, true to its title, is a dark novel about a world that is disintegrating, just as the hero's view is disintegrating. The author's simple, vivid style highlights his character, as well as the mythology at work at the heart of Rimbaud's figure. Alain Blottière skilfully blends different styles and typography to give the work greater verisimilitude. Just as he describes Rimbaud's portrait, pencilled on a Montmartre facade. Still visible today.

Poetic conversion

Fascinated by the poet's ghost, Léo starts reading the book Arthur Rimbaud, Œuvre-vie, edited by Alain Borer, «le roi des rimbaldiens», with excerpts interspersed throughout the story. But by frequenting «the devil of the Ardennes», Léo is transformed into a poet and a ruthless seducer. As a symbol of his conversion to his new religion, Rimbaldian poetry, the protagonist tattoos the word «Rimb» under his right eye in red ink. A way of warding off fear and becoming a «seer» in the midst of chaos.

«In the bathroom mirror, Léo looked at his eyes, searching for that glint that would make them invincible. But the one Printz had noticed, if it was true, must have come from the sun and didn't show in the light of the lamps. [...] He had just removed his bandage. Rimb was a blackish scab that looked like nothing. Yet he no longer wished to hide this disturbing scar, which already seemed to him to be making a friendly sign to the indelicate devil, this rogue from the Ardennes who proudly flaunted his filth and lice, stinking up the room at the Hôtel des Etrangers and multiplying provocations that would make even the most scruffy Zutists shudder.»

On reading’Black azure, The reader is fascinated by Alain Blottière's courage to play with his character and poetic texts in this way. As well as showing us that, before being a legend, Rimbaud was above all a man, sometimes lovable and often despicable. From time to time, we would have liked the author to have gone further in the provocation and interactions between Rimbaud and Léo, but on reflection this might have made the story indigestible. Whether you're a convinced Rimbaldian or a poetry neophyte, Black azure is an enjoyable read, taking us behind the scenes of legendary French literary figures.

Write to the author: ivan.garcia@leregardlibre.com

Black azure
Alain Blottière
Editions Gallimard
2020
60 pages