What is the weather like in the land of writers?
Rather cold according to Fabienne Alice.
In a charming little book entitled
Le Goût de l'hiver
, the author lists some thirty texts, poems and tales by writers that the season has inspired.
” READ ALSO – Life in relief, by Philippe Delerm: the bias of small things
“La Neige” appeared in Le Figaro on January 17, 1867. Under the pen of Zola, Paris, the
“black city”
put on a white robe. Here she is
“very young and very chaste”
. A century later, in
Paris is a
Hemingway party, here she is wrapped up in the warmth of the fireplaces, under a
“wonderful” light.
Not far from there, at Delerm, in Beaumontel, poetry resounds in the street.
"We always have the heart which beats when the snow announces itself in light petals."
So is she so sweet this season? Not for everyone, no.
In Dickens, the icy wind has
"prolonged moaning"
, its noise is like the
"thunder of avalanches",
while in Maupassant, the cold is
"painful as a wound"
.
Beware of these pretty pearls falling from the sky.
They can be cruel… but also spiritual!
Gao Xingjian sees in the white calm
“a piece of land in paradise”
and Nietzsche, through the voice of Zarathustra, a Christic parable.
“I look forward to the bright sky rising, the gray-bearded winter sky, the white-headed old man.”
A delightfully timeless collection.
Texts chosen by Fabienne Alice, Mercure de France, 128 p., €8.50.