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  • Today, "Paris" by Yann Moix published on August 31, 2022 by Éditions Grasset.

Christian Dorsan, novelist, blogger and contributor to the reading group

20 Minutes

Books, Paris by Yann Moix, published on August 31, 2022 by Éditions Grasset.


His favorite quote:

The tramp, like the writer, is doomed to public loathing: they make the codes waver, cause discomfort, disturb the comforts.

They embody a certain closeness to death;

the former live it, the latter say it.

Both look at her.


Why this book?

  • Because as the author states, this book is

    Yann Moix's "draft": his first steps in a capital that he does not hesitate to shout down: "Paris was a city of rubble, red rubbish, 'gesticulating bones – unquiet faces'.

  • Because this novel is part of an autobiography

    in several volumes, where the staging of the author in his throes oscillates between tragicomic and arrogance.

    We do not know if it is the desire to be famous or the desire to conquer women that most motivates the polemicist, but in both areas, the genesis of Moix is ​​destitute: unable to seduce, hesitant to write.

    Only self-satisfaction saves this apprentice writer from a mediocrity that he describes in great detail.

    Fortunately, the whimsical Delphin Draf, his mentor, sheds light on this story.

  • Because Yann Moix perfectly masters the past simple,

    past tense and abuses the imperfect subjunctive.

    Resolutely classic style that contrasts with a rather dark lexical field (there is a plethora of “filth, dirty”) or libertine (same for “masturbation, sex”) in order to describe a contemporary environment that wants to be miserable.

    We feel a desire to count in the literary world under an egocentric pen but often really pleasant to read.


The essentials in 2 minutes

The plot.

Yann Moix recounts his "rise to the capital", between sexual misery, desire for glory, chronicle of difficult beginnings until the submission of the manuscript of his first novel to publishers.

Characters.

Yann Moix, apprentice author, the whimsical Delphin Darch, the depressed Garabédian, inaccessible girls, the literary world and… Knobelspiess.

Places.

Paris.

The time.

1980s.

The author.

Yann Moix, writer, journalist, polemicist and controversial figure, won the

Transfuge

Prize for Best French Novel for this latest book.

This book has been read with

curiosity to know who is behind the polemics.

Finally, one wonders if Yann Moix does not like to be hated in order to gain fame, the portrait he draws of himself is not flattering and ready to smile more than he intrigues.

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