The latest offering from novelist Marie-Hélène Lafon, 2020 Renaudot prize for Son’s story, is not strictly speaking a biography of the painter Paul Cézanne (1839-1906). The work, which can be read in one go, is rather a personal and evocative story, the fruit of thirty years of observation of the works of the solitary and relentlessly dissatisfied artist. By focusing her attention on those who knew him (his family, his friends), the French writer draws a rural and quite touching portrait of the man whom Picasso called “the father of us all”. For example, we discover the complex relationship that Cézanne had with his father, an artisan hat maker and founder of a lucrative banking institution. The latter dreamed of his son taking over the business, unfortunately for the father, but so much the better for art lovers, destiny wanted it otherwise. Subtitled “Red roofs on the blue sea”, words by Cézanne taken from a correspondence with his friend Pissarro, dated July 2, 1876, the book benefits from lively and embodied writing.
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