Literature: "The most secret memory of men", a turning point for French letters
The cover of the book “The most secret memory of men”.
© RFI
Text by: Sabine Cessou Follow
4 min
Critically acclaimed and selected for four of the most prestigious literary prizes of the season (Goncourt, Médicis, Renaudot and Fémina), Mbougar Sarr's novel, out of category, marks a turning point in French-speaking literary production.
He hands down the challenge he sets for himself.
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The criticism of this book, a literary attack, is it possible? A priori, we hesitate. Because the bomb posed by
Mbougar Sarr, a young Senegalese novelist
, threatens between the lines and by intervening personage to assassinate, by mystical means, any detractor who would not be up to the task. Relief: praise is required, with regard to a text which marks a fundamental break in the so-called “French-speaking” letters.
There will be, clearly, a before and an after
The most secret memory of men
. This closed book, we can remain skeptical about the motive of the whole story - a disturbance desired by the author, which encourages in-depth reflection. The novel refuses ready-to-wear, quickly read, quickly discarded. Rather, he aspires to haute couture, that art of unique pieces that are difficult to forget.
The intrigue being only a pretext, the only certainty which leaves this reading is that it will be complicated, from now on, to list "
another little shit novel
", or "
the good little books which one expected from. them
”, as the author writes when speaking of his elders.
We will also have to question ourselves, like "
journalists and critics, who no longer evaluated books but listed them, endorsing the idea that all books are equal, that the subjectivity of taste constitutes the sole criterion. of distinction and that there are no bad books, only books that we have not liked
”.
Mirror games between reality and fiction
The novel, a declaration of love for literature which knows how to not remain “intellectual”, sets the bar very high. "
A large book does not talk about anything
", we learn on page 49. A very risky bet, which Mbougar Sarr takes up hands down. Carried by a powerful breath, it proves it by 445 pages: yes, it is well made for that, to write, to intertwine narrative threads, to extract the juice of life and to deliver flashes, especially on the theme of love . Example: “
And every day, his proximity gave me the same happiness and the same pain. She was a living wound in me and I loved to rekindle her. I didn't want her to become a scar. I wanted her to burn alive, forever.
"
In this super-constructed but straightforward drawer-front novel, without the architecture weighing heavily, a certain TC Elimane motivates an in-depth investigation by a young writer. Author of only one work which caused a scandal because accused of plagiarism, Elimane does not allow himself to be identified. No more than Yambo Ouologuem, author of
Le Devoir de violence
(1968) to which Mbougar Sarr refers, by transforming this book into the
Labyrinth of the Inhuman
, fictitiously written in 1938. We start from reality and go into fiction. Who is Siga D., this character of a mistress woman who does not let herself be told? It is believed to detect the writer Ken Bugul, but the connection is of little importance.
You can also play riddles with a Congolese author, a friend of the narrator.
Son Mwanza Mujila?
It doesn't matter, again.
In fact, the whole novel revolves around an evanescent shadow: a man of few friends, withdrawn into his silence, crushed by criticism and pre-war racism.
In short, a genius too dark to be allowed to excel.
This hollow reflection on
literature
does not fall into the usual pitfalls of our time: here, no binary thought or posture of lamentation, but many areas of gray, on the contrary, even in the plunge into history colonial.
And a vital momentum so strong that nothing can reduce this writing or its author to a question of identity.
A parable on the meaning of literature
Who to compare Mbougar Sarr to? He quotes Bolano and Borges, but brings to mind Milan Kundera, for the interweaving of human destinies in great history. His tour de force: that there is almost nothing on the bottom of the book about which it is so much question,
The labyrinth of the human being
, is part of his parable. His novel deals with the destiny of a work, of certain works which sometimes only suffers, the controversy prevailing over their subject or their scope. Everything becomes clear, if we come back to Bolano's quote at the beginning of the novel: "
And one day the Work dies, as all things die, as the Sun will be extinguished, and the Earth, and the Solar System. and the Galaxy and the most secret memory of men
”.
In his own way, Mbougar Sarr has made a clean sweep.
Fortunately for him, because the weight would be heavy to carry, he is not quite alone in his field at the level of requirement that he sets for himself.
Chigozie Obioma, prodigy son of Nigeria, at the age of 35 multiplies the master strokes with his Igbo tragedies,
The Fishermen
(Booker Prize 2015)
and
The prayer of the birds
(Buchet-Chastel, 2020).
Brilliant novels which also lay bare the human soul and touch on the universal.
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