Première version du monde by Esther Tellermann (review)

This multivocal prose work, a dystopian "long récitatif" (139), poetically lays bare certain shortcomings of contemporary society. Its three parts eloquently situate us in an unsettling present, where the narrator and unnamed speakers recount their actions and worldview. The generally liquid beauty of this dreamlike portrait of collective forgetting incorporates formal experimentation and intermittent shifts in tone. Techniques such as prose blocks that incorporate ellipses, space used to separate paragraphs, and frequent lower-case first letters blend with deadpan critique of gender roles and sex drives, of humankind's "atroces convulsions" that "un chant plus aride et brûlant" might counterbalance "pour renaître mieux" (139, 140). Monologues are typically framed as conversations with a "Docteur," a device that weds male and female figures' somewhat deposition-like first-person confessions with responses that imply greater sophistication, distance, and awareness while remaining tinged with despondency and aiming to avoid mere binaries. The Joycean confessional bursts suggest cynical self-interest and detachment as a disturbing norm, implicitly asking whether we are not all in some way seeking "une façon singulière de disparaître" (10). Countless sections stand out for the richness of the prose, the world-weary yearning of the imagery, the veracity of the overall critique. This is a "récit" (front cover subtitle) both of its time and to which one can return to make new discoveries, a modern-day "qui suis-je" (62). A main thread is people at war with themselves: by turns abject, disoriented, unsure, or troubling in their excessive and unseemly self-assurance. The narrator argues for making a brand new start, wondering aloud whether we are living in the "première version" of the world and might yet be able to follow its "dérives" toward "une seconde version" (140). The ebb and flow of these "dérives," including the narrator's presence within them and interest in addressing us, is central: "Peut-être je voulais simplement étirer ma phrase vers vous, parer à notre insuffisance, ou bien trouver une langue neuve qui trouverait d'autres usages" (88). The author, a specialist in literature and in psycho-analysis, merges her long experience as a critic, commentator, and poet with an acid gaze and trenchant insights. Surprising as well as vivid passages abound. Tellermann evokes ancient worlds, wars of recent history, widespread criminal mindsets, questionable social types, sexual inclinations, the cellphone age, and the moral as well as environmental "conséquences de nos actes" (122). The narrator lambastes those who "[ne] songe[nt] qu'à jouir" (134), contrasting this impulse with a desire to "garder espoir" (100), "cueillir des étoiles [...] à rebours des déterminations" (62), better grasp "la condition humaine" (122), and envision a paradigm shift. Readers who welcome musically fluid poetic insights, inventive approaches to novelistic form, and apt if darkly caustic social commentary will likely enjoy this book.