Et moi, je vis toujours by Jean D'Ormesson (review)

A historical novel generally focuses on one personality or a specific era. D'Ormesson's posthumously published work spans millenniums, beginning in the Lascaux caves and ending in 2017, the year of the Académicien's demise. It is a bold and exhilarating undertaking, but not without bumps and unevenness. The 39 chapters, chronologically arranged, are narrated by some 30 different voices. It begins with a surprisingly eloquent caveman describing fire, wolves, and the first attempts at pictorial representation. Later we hear Alexander the Great's stable boy, Ronsard's Hélène, a sailor on the Pinta, a mistress of Napoléon, an American astronaut, just to name a few. D'Ormesson is at his best when he allows individuals, some recognizable, others entirely fictional, to recreate or comment on the achievements of humanity. The successive narrators are reincarnations of an eternal je: "Tantôt homme, tantôt femme, je suis, vous l'avez deviné, je suis l'espèce humaine et son histoire dans le temps. Ma voix n'est pas ma voix, c'est la voix de chacun" (42). Occasionally history itself narrates. This is less interesting and tends to have a catalog effect—listings of scientists, inventors, artists, and thinkers through the ages. While the erudition is impressive, the wit, irony, and drama that spark the other narrations are absent. Particularly delightful are the chapters on French language and letters from the Renaissance to Chateaubriand, which hold the central and longest space in this overview. These chapters have titles we have all read before—"Triomphe d'une langue," "Le génie et la gloire," "Un miracle,""Une Europe française"—but it is the author's sincerity rather than nostalgia or chauvinism that comes through. Take for example the great seventeenth-century authors. They are seen through the eyes of the waitress at the La Pomme de Pin restaurant where the men regularly dined, laughed, and argued. She manages to humanize these icons. La Fontaine asks her to call him Jean, and she tells us: "Je n'ai jamais osé. Mais j'aurais bien fait, s'il avait insisté, un bout de chemin avec lui" (149). And having been given a complimentary ticket by Molière to Le malade imaginaire, she witnesses his last performance and states simply: "Comédien et martyr, il meurt sur la scène. Il a cinquante et un ans" (157). D'Ormesson's last novel is an autobiography, as the title indicates, and inventively that of history itself. At the same time, it is his own last testament filled with wisdom, playfulness, poetry, and love for all life. The 92-year-old author seems to close the novel with his own voice, as well as history's, concerning the trajectory that has been chronicled: "Le peu que j'en ai lu ne m'a pas enchanté. Quelle idée de vouloir retracer tant d'espérances et d'échecs [...]. Il est trop tard pour corriger ce qui devrait être corrigé. Ne me jugez pas trop sévèrement" (280). This book has enough to make you ponder and appreciate history, as well as cherish the author's optimism, civility, and inspirational prose.