{"id":515112,"date":"2022-12-27T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-27T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/?p=515112"},"modified":"2023-01-18T09:40:08","modified_gmt":"2023-01-18T08:40:08","slug":"simon-liberati-the-least-rock-performance-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/en\/literature\/simon-liberati-the-least-rock-performance-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Simon Liberati, the least rock performance of the year?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Performance<\/em> tells the story of a writer in decline, hired to write the script for a series about the Rolling Stones. But the narrator loses his way, mixing the setbacks of his married life with his research. The sixties<\/em> finally buried?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

When one of the writers best known for tackling the most subversive subjects of this century takes on the Rolling Stones, we can expect a true literary performance, already acclaimed in 2022 with the Prix Renaudot. The author, Simon Liberati, is a journalist by trade, and well acquainted with the dark world that fiction has been trying to portray for almost fifty years. In Performance<\/em>, in which the author presents his literary double, a septuagenarian writer in need of inspiration, who is asked to cover an episode in the life of the Stones and turn it into a series. The climax of the series is the death of Brian Jones in 1969. It's a job that won't be easy, as the hero soon comes up against the realities of present-day life...<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rolling stone<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The book alternates between historical scenes, re-enactments planned by the narrator and marital episodes between the latter and Esther, a 23-year-old she-devil whom the writer tries to keep by his side. Only, the protagonist is an old man, incontinent, lost in an XXIst century.th<\/sup> century, which no longer opens the same doors for him as it did in his youth. Add to this the blank page syndrome he suffers from, and it's clear that chronicling the life of the band won't be easy for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If this starting point has already been seen a thousand times, it could have been used to offer a behind-the-scenes rereading of London in those years: which the book does, a little. But above all, the author could have proposed a real \u00abrock\u00bb language. In the present work, the style is limited to long-winded sentences and anecdotes about an old earl trying to keep his latest companion, who happens to be his ex-wife's daughter, close to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00abEven at the end of his rope, Brian Jones remained a ruthless, vivacious little brute, a fighting dog, a rolling stone. We shouldn't forget that, the 1960s were much more violent and destructive than today.\u00bb<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A less complicated relationship than that of the group members<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The relationship between the narrator and Esther is, however, quite beautiful. Of course, their romance suffers from the trope of the old scholar \u00abeducating\u00bb his muse with verses and literature from centuries past, but, what can you say, you can't remake Germanopratin writers. In fact, this romance plays out much better than that of the rock band members, who are portrayed as rutting beasts exchanging drugs and girlfriends with equal ease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n