{"id":513404,"date":"2022-11-01T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-01T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/?p=513404"},"modified":"2022-11-01T08:56:12","modified_gmt":"2022-11-01T07:56:12","slug":"cleopatra-and-frankenstein-comedy-masks-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/en\/literature\/cleopatra-and-frankenstein-comedy-masks-drama\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00abCleopatra and Frankenstein: comedy masks drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

First novel by English author Coco Mellors, Cleopatra and Frankenstein<\/em> was published in French this autumn, following its success in the English-speaking world. A book with a puzzling title, for a story made of paradoxes.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

It's 10:30 pm on New Year's Eve in New York when Cleo comes face to face with Frank in the elevator. They start chatting, the tone is bantering, the jokes fly and the attraction is mutual. While this novel opens with a scene worthy of a sentimental Christmas comedy, there's nothing romantic about the story of Cleo and Frank. Cleo is a broke college student whose visa is about to expire; Frank is twenty years older, has a lucrative advertising job and is an American citizen. They're as opposite as the book's enigmatic title suggests, but made of the same stuff: badly patched cracks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00abFrom the day of her wedding, when Frank had given her that blue orchid, dyed with poison ink, she should have guessed that he didn't understand her and never would.\u00bb<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The discomfort of being oneself<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Since this impromptu meeting, Cleo and Frank have never left each other's side, even marrying in the process. However, the fairy tale soon fades and the reader understands that Coco Mellors is not staging a comedy, but a drama. The drama of two unstable beings seeking to complete themselves. The drama of an age when excess is no longer a playground, but a gilded prison. With a light, offhand pen, the novelist unveils a gallery of extravagant, mocking and deeply flawed characters, all pursuing life's most delicate ambition: understanding and finding oneself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the love story of Cleo and Frank, Coco Mellors tells us about social relationships. Friendship, love at first sight, rivalry, jealousy, passion, the sometimes benevolent, sometimes toxic bonds, the author explores our society in the simplest, most lucid way possible: by dramatizing human relationships.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n