In "Survival library", published by the Observatory, Frédéric Beigbeder unveils a top 50 of his favorite works, echoing our times.

From Colette to Brest Easton Ellis, he defends literary works and refuses "sanitization" in the name of "woke" culture.

INTERVIEW

Take a step back from reality and look at the world as it is.

Frédéric Beigbeder pays tribute to his favorite literary works in his new book

Survival Library

, published by Éditions de l'Observatoire, Wednesday.

It draws up a "literary pantheon" of often insolent, classic or recent novels, to read or reread.

Works that resonate with our time, according to the author, who in his preface criticizes "woke culture" which "corrects and censors".

"Do not try to correct the past, to sanitize exhibitions, films, books, records because we will live in a boring world", he warns on Europe 1.

Colette, Molière, Thomas Mann ...

In a top 50 guided by "the freedom, the style, the quest for beauty, the emotion", the author and literary critic places at the top of the list

The pure and the impure

of Colette, published in 1932, of which he finds a current resonance. "This title intrigued me. The pure and the impure is a bit like the war we find ourselves in today. Between two camps which are ultimately within us," he explains. At the time, the work caused a scandal. "Colette was a victim of cancel culture in the year of the publication of the text. She has the innocence of refusing to choose between vice and virtue. And I find that it feels good", underlines Frédéric Beigbeder.

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In his pantheon, we find another work unleashing passions:

American Psycho, 

by Bret Easton Ellis.

"There are unbearable characters and the novel is a mirror. We must be able to look at the world as it is. What I do not understand is the process which consists in sanitizing works of art, it is blind to the world, ”says the author.

Then mingle Molière, Beauvoir, Thomas Mann and the collaborationist writer Jacques Chardonne, whom Frédéric Beigbeder describes as a "political bastard" while defending "the contrast between the serious mistakes made and the simplicity and purity of his style".

"He speaks very nicely about women and love. That's what's crazy," says the author.

"It leads me to think that you really have to distinguish the work of the artist."

A "Proustian" philosophy

A philosophy which is inspired by Marcel Proust, distinguishing the "social self" from the "inner self" which writes the book.

"As a literary critic, I do not want to have to make inquiries into the criminal record of each author. I am rather there to judge the text," he recalls.

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A fight that he recalls in his preface, denouncing "the empire of good".

"For the moment in France, the situation is less serious than in the United States", he underlines.

"What is scary is that we are recovering American fashions with 5 or 10 years late, so now is the time to worry and alert people by telling them not to judge artists on other thing that their job. "

“Don't be offended by a literary work. Literary works may be there to shock you, and that's fine,” he concludes.