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Catherine Mory, at her home in the Paris suburbs, December 16, 2019. Tirthankar Chanda / RFI
On the occasion of the end-of-year celebrations, the Arénes editions put literature in the spotlight by publishing the rich hours of French literature in the form of a comic strip. Through images that are divided between caricature and realism, the work takes hold of the life and work of the most emblematic writers of the literary corpus of France.
The history of French comic book literature. Many have dreamed of it, they have done it. They are called Catherine Mory and Philippe Bercovici. The first is a French teacher in college and a professor of culture and communication in higher education. Philippe Bercovici is a cartoonist, with around a hundred albums to his credit.
The two authors are unconditional lovers of French literature. As a French teacher, Catherine Mory has been practicing authors and works for many years. " My favorite authors are undoubtedly Montaigne and Victor Hugo ", she likes to repeat. She also likes to recount her teaching experience of her favorite authors: “ Victor Hugo's narration is very effective. The students are really stuck when I make them read Les Misérables . It's magic ! "
As for his co-author, however Spirou a specialist he is, he is not insensitive to the otherwise serious and grandiose history of French literature, as evidenced by the empathy with which he draws writers, mixing the caricature to his taste for embodied realism.
The big and the little story
Born from the collaboration of these two accomplices, L'Incroyable Histoire de la Littoral Française is a true graphic novel. The authors have chosen to tell five centuries of French literary history through the lives and works of the thirty greatest French-language writers, from the 16th to the 20th century, from Rabelais to Camus, including Corneille, Racine, Molière , Voltaire, Hugo, Rimbaud, Proust and Sartre, to name a few.
What makes this quasi-encyclopedic trip particularly "enjoyable" is the choice that the authors have made to bring readers into the great story through the door of the little story, through colorful anecdotes and often little known about the lives of writers.
Hugo turned the tables. Baudelaire liked to dye his hair green. Few people know these details. Who therefore still remembers that Pascal had invented the first calculator or that La Fontaine had written rude tales. Probably the most touching anecdote of the album is drawn from the life of Albert Camus. Coming from a poor family in colonial Algeria, the author of L'Étranger and La Peste had been able to continue his education thanks to the insistence of his teacher, a certain Louis Germain, with his family who wanted that he started working at the age of 14 like his brother. Thirty years later, speaking before the Swedish Academy at the award ceremony for the Nobel Prize for Literature that the latter had just awarded him, it was to his former teacher Louis Germain that Camus dedicated his award. Proof that the anecdotes are not just a story, but they are " significant " and " give meaning to the journey of a life ", as Catherine Mory recalls.
Sailing between big and small history, The incredible history of French literature tells, learns and entertains.
The incredible history of French literature , by Catherine Mory and Philippe Bercovici. BD Arenas, 289 pages, 22.90 euros.