Virgil is a strange creature in every way (as we like them). He’s a publicist, but far from the caricature of the kind we like to leave at 99 francs. He earns a very good living, but has chosen to live in his own Paris, near the Gare du Nord, in a tenement building. That’s right. His parents, circus people, passed on to him a family model that is the antithesis of traditional patterns. And to maintain a kind of balance, Virgile likes to think that to succeed in life, you have to neither lose nor win.
“Virgil often thought of Marcus Aurelius. When he had won the battle against the Danube barbarians threatening Rome, it wasn’t happiness that had overwhelmed him, but despair. Victory is no comfort. Virgil was convinced of this: in life, we must strive not to lose and not to win at the same time. It’s a tricky business, given the powerful attraction of these two poles.” (p. 52)
One day, as he enters his small 2-room apartment in the 10th arrondissement, the red light on his answering machine flashes. The message tells him that Clara is leaving him: “It’s Clara. I’m sorry, but I’d rather call it a day. I’m leaving you, Virgil”. So that’s how life goes, it could be, except that he doesn’t know Clara. And Virgile, a habitual bachelor, isn’t exactly the type to forget the faces of the women in his life.
And so begins a long quest in which Virgil, the amnesiac master of the house, sets out to reconstruct his lack of memories, and to find the woman who decided to leave him, or even win her back.
Conclusion / This humorous, tongue-in-cheek novel is a quick read, and the reader’s attachment to Virgil’s colorful, over-the-top character is no small part of it. The only flaw is the book’s ending, which falls like a weak and unhappy cleaver. A book to be read during the summer, taking care to stop at page 167. A little disappointed.
Elisa Palmer
Cette publication est également disponible en : Français (French)
