«My wife's erotic potential», fully burlesque

Les bouquins du mardi - Special edition «Les coronarétrospectives de la littérature» - Lauriane Pipoz

My wife's erotic potential is David Fœnkinos' first best-selling book. Released in 2004, it made a name for itself with its impertinent tone and slapstick humor, applied to rather serious themes. Over the course of a hundred pages, we discover neurosis, diminished desire and infidelity in a new light. A tale of a plunge into an absurd world.

David Fœnkinos' main talent? Telling a story using anecdotes and stereotypes. Hector is a collector. He collects objects to forget that life, and particularly his own, is profoundly absurd. At the end of his rope, he attempts suicide. But a series of encounters motivate him to seek treatment and give him a taste for life.

«It's often said that there are women's men, and Hector can be considered an object's man. Far from comparing the woman to the object, we note obvious similarities, and our hero's anxieties can be reflected in the anxieties of infidels, and of all men pierced by feminine scarcity.»

My wife's erotic potential is not the story of a slow recovery, but of a rapid relapse: shortly after meeting Brigitte, tragedy strikes. Hector turns his new wife into an obsession of her own, a collector's item far more addictive than any other. In the process, he scratches the very foundations of feminist theory. But it's not so bad: Hector isn't designed to be a role model.

«Hector looked like a hero. We felt he was ready to take action, to brave all the dangers of our fat humanity, to set female crowds ablaze, to organize family vacations, to chat in elevators with neighbors, and, in case of great form, to understand a David Lynch film. He would be a kind of hero of our time, with round calves. But now he'd decided to commit suicide. We'd seen better heroes, thank you very much. A certain taste for spectacle had made him opt for the subway.»

This entire novel is exploded, so the reference to David Lynch could not be better chosen. Even if the narrative is comprehensible, it is constructed like a work of art, the ins and outs of which would be exhausting to try and understand. It's all down to the author's biting sense of humor and taste for the anecdotal, reinforced by his fun with preconceived ideas.

But surprisingly, the psychology of the characters holds up: it reminds us that we too enjoy describing the world in rambling stories. Why can't we do that in a book? It works. With the help of ridiculous examples, the reader comes to understand the dynamics of the bored husband and wife, or of their falsely balanced couple of friends. An added bonus is the way she describes the lovers, which will be the highlight of Delicacy (2009), making it another hit.

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Fœnkinos knows no bounds: he mocks prejudice, sexism, suicide and even incest. The seriousness of the situations only enhances their comic potential. This slapstick humor reaches its climax at the absolutely absurd end of the book. We close the book not quite sure what the author was trying to tell us, but with a strong desire to talk about it.

Photo credit: © Lauriane Pipoz for Le Regard Libre

Write to the author: lauriane.pipoz@leregardlibre.com

David Fœnkinos
My wife's erotic potential
Editions Gallimard
2004
192 pages

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