Label: Masturbation

«Au secours pardon»: we'll end up crying together

Before his critique of the «society of sneers» in *The Man Who Cries with Laughter* (2020), but after his escapades as a cocaine-addicted advertising executive in *99 Francs* (2000), Octave Parango spent four seasons in Russia. In *Au secours pardon* (2007), Frédéric Beigbeder’s alter ego is as wretched, funny, fascinating, despairing, horrible, tragic, pathetic, and touching as ever.
«Portnoy and his complex»

«Portnoy and his complex»

Portnoy et son complexe«, the 1969 novel that earned American author Philip Roth his sulphurous reputation, is a must-read. The author had already published a collection of short stories ten years earlier, »Goodbye, Columbus«, which was not a success. Nevertheless, Roth's obsessive themes were already present, starting of course with Jewishness. Like all geniuses, Roth is obsessive. Imagine a Tarantino who wasn't obsessive, or a Proust, a Polnareff, a Flaubert or a Kubrick. And there's one obsession that runs through the whole of »Portnoy and His Complex«: sex.