“There’s so much madness and too much misery,” sang Jacques Higelin. And it is not Véronique Dassas who would say the opposite. In his test Chronicle of crazy times, the author denounces the warrior fury of men and the multiple injustices experienced by the most fragile. She recounts her love for culture, literature and writers, the only lifeline to not lose her head.
The title of the book is a tribute to the defunct journal crazy time, which Véronique Dassas directed for a long time. However, she did not want to bring together texts “from another age”, favoring above all her recent regular columns from the last five years of the alternative publication. Freedom. “I don’t like cold meats,” says the author, laughing. I wanted to talk about our time with causes that remain my leitmotif such as war, immigration and culture. »
” crazy time, what a time anyway! “says the 70-year-old essayist during an interview with The duty. Her eyes light up when she talks about her life in Quebec. “I arrived from France at the age of 24 in 1976, the year of the election of the Parti Québécois, a date that we do not forget. I then joined the journal’s team from 1977 to 1983, until the publication of the last issue. »
The native of Bordeaux then discovered a country in both intellectual and political effervescence. She says she discovered this French America a thousand leagues from what she could imagine. “I had the impression that we were going to make the revolution tomorrow. It was full of citizen and trade union committees. I experienced this period as years of training observing a society that immediately fascinated me and in which I was convinced that I could do anything. »
She then let herself be carried away by the whirlwind of the independentist intellectual milieu. Before this love at first sight with “those people who seemed to be fighting for something important” and who welcomed her with open arms, nationalism did not mean much to her. She joins their fight, explaining that she first became a sovereignist out of sympathy. “And that belief stayed with me for the rest of my life. »
The essayist briefly returns to the attempt to revive crazy time from the 1990s, but without success. “We tried to take over the review when left-wing political movements were in disrepair. We wanted to rebuild the left, find interesting ideas and theories with new bases. We haven’t really found them, ”she breathes.
I wanted to talk about our time with causes that remain my leitmotif such as war, immigration and culture
After a 12-year parenthesis spent in Italy, Dassas now intends to return to settle in Quebec in order to live close to his descendants, children and grandchildren. She says she is happy to be back in her corner, which she sees changed a lot, but where this philosophy of the possible remains. “We always live in crazy times, even if the craziness can vary a little, especially today,” she says.
Despite the years that have passed, with its share of disillusions and a weak sovereignist option, the essayist has lost none of his convictions and his verve, in particular to denounce the injustice or the demagoguery of the powerful. Thus, the first part of the book, divided by theme, addresses very contemporary subjects, such as the COVID-19 pandemic or the war in Ukraine.
“I am obviously not a specialist in conflicts or virology, but we have the right as human beings to express ourselves on issues that concern our future. Without saying anything, you don’t need to be an expert in geopolitics to talk about war either, since war is something serious. »
The bad guys on one side, the good guys on the other… Binary thought, very little for Dassas, who is more interested in the in-between, this zone of gray between black and white in which he is often good to dive into, she says. “The war in Ukraine, there is Russian propaganda, of course, but Western propaganda also exists. In the newspapers, on the radio or on television, it is the warmonger and the arms race that have the monopoly. The voices of pacifists are muffled. »
She also returns to some of her poignant columns, such as the one entitled The Shore of Monsters which focuses on the fate of migrants in the Mediterranean, which has become a marine cemetery for thousands of people in search of a better future. She also denounces the erection of walls, the “barricading” of international borders. “I am horrified to see all these horrible camps in Lesvos, in Libya, in Morocco or in Spain. People are crowded, hungry. They are beaten, tortured, women are raped. »
The second part is composed of portraits of writers met (or not) by the essayist, hence the title “Exercises of admiration” borrowed from a seminal work by Emil Cioran. There follow one another Philip Roth, Primo Levi, John Berger, Réjean Ducharme… Added to these are lesser known or anonymous figures for whom Véronique Dassas has a real love.
“I like discreet figures, because in my opinion, I think we talk too much. We live in a show society. We often talk to say nothing. I believe that the people who run away from all this useless chatter are the ones who are right. »