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Amélie Nothomb: "I have a close bond with my sister"

2022-09-24T04:16:28.776Z


In her new novel, The Book of Sisters, Amélie Nothomb, as often, talks to us about a serious subject with lightness. “Allergic to lamentations”, she makes the life of Tristane, a precocious and unloved little girl by her parents, who maintains a close relationship with her sister, a...


Miss Figaro.

– Are you as attached to your sister as your heroine to hers?


Amelie Nothomb

.

I maintain a close bond with my sister.

But it was important to me not to talk about it autobiographically, it would have been too embarrassing.

However, wanting to deal with this subject, I found another bias.

A friend told me that she had what we call fortress parents, that is, parents who fell in love with each other to the point of not realizing that they had children.

I wondered what could have saved this friend, and it occurred to me that she would have needed a sister who would have loved her as we love my sister and me...

Read alsoAmélie Nothomb: "My funeral will be a wonderful ceremony"

So you wanted to talk about how two loves, that of parents and that of sisters, compete?


Indeed, and we see that they are not at all loves of the same nature.

I'm not trying to devalue that of the parents, they are very happy that way, but we see that it blinds them: they lose the sense of the world around them.

While the love between the sisters is not at all a love that cuts them off from the world, on the contrary.

Having lived and continuing to live a fusional love with my sister, I see that it has never isolated us, any more than it has prevented us from living and still living very great love stories.

We don't confide in everything, but in the event of a sentimental drama, that's where the sister comes in and can help the other...

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The Sisters' Book, by Amélie Nothomb, Albin Michel Editions, 198 p., €18.90.

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In truth, your novel tells us about a family tragedy…


I think all families are tragedies.

What do Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus tell us, if not the family?

It shapes our first apprehension of things, our character... I had very good parents, but I have people around me with parents who fall under what could be called a huge casting error, and that interested in seeing how to build in such conditions.

Hence the character of Tristane and her intimate tragedy when she hears, one day, her mother declaring that she is “dull”.

I think we've all had a day when we've found ourselves endowed with a characteristic that we remain prisoners of sometimes ten years, sometimes twenty years, sometimes all our lives.

Words have the power we give them, as Tristane's sister says, and I

Amélie Nothomb's collection

Tintin in America

: this Hergé album played a founding role in my life, because it is the book in which I learned to read on my own. 

The Picture of Dorian Gray

, by Oscar Wilde, is my bedside book.

I reread this novel every year, which continues to fascinate me. 

Martin Eden

, by Jack London: I hadn't read it until this summer.

I was dazzled and still am shocked by the discovery of this masterpiece. 

Something to tell you

, by Carole Fives: I really liked this back-to-school book, I could describe it as a staggering version of Rebecca.

Your novel is also a declaration of love for rock music…


In the 1980s, I fell in love with rock music – normal, I was old enough – and it's a passion that I have kept.

I like to go to rock concerts and especially metal concerts, the variety of rock that I prefer.

If I could have chosen my gift, I would have been a rock singer.

Unfortunately, I missed my life, I'm just a writer!

The Sisters' Book

, by Amélie Nothomb, Éditions Albin Michel, 198 p., €18.90.

Source: lefigaro

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