What would have been the destiny of Martin Hill if he had been chosen to interpret the role of Harry Potter? David Foenkinos tells in this new novel the story – fictitious – of the one who could have been the interpreter of the most famous wizard in cinema.
Posted at 6:00 p.m.
“It is rare that one has access to one’s opposite destiny in this way; our single road offers not the slightest access to paths we do not travel,” he wrote. And this miraculous trajectory that he could have had, the young Martin is exposed to throughout his youth, while that of the “Other” is experienced in the spotlight. Haunted by this feeling of having failed his life, the boy misses his own, isolating himself and locking himself in this failure. Admittedly, this feeling is pushed to the extreme; the author of Henry Pick Mystery turns Martin’s life into a tragedy, multiplying the dramas in his life. But his irresistible pen still manages to make us smile through the succession of misfortunes that strike the poor boy.
We will surely resent him for beating his hero, but he will have at least succeeded in showing us that it is perhaps never too late to take his life in hand. And this, even if we are now more than ever subject to the dictatorship of the happiness of others – or at least, of their so-called happiness on social networks – and that we only look at one side. of the medal.
Number two
David Foenkinos
Gallimard
240 pages