Two atmospheres at the start of the afternoon of the second day of Printemps de Bourges, the current music festival, which continues until April 24. In the lower town, Juliette Armanet rehearses one of her hits, The last day of disco, in view of the evening show under the big top. Fifteen minutes on foot in the old town, Michel Houellebecq, the author of Elementary particles waits, seated, in profile, on a small platform, for his audience to settle down.
Some 120 people responded to the banquet hall of the Palais Jacques Coeur, a 15th century building. Probably the most influential writer of his generation, surrounded by three companion-narrators, waits a good quarter of an hour, while DJ and producer Traumer’s electro intensifies.
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Then his accomplices take turns reciting the poems. The spectators, in the half-light, wait religiously for the moment when Houellebecq finally brings the microphone to his lips, still seated. He launches out, in his muffled and monotonous voice: “My existence is in your hands / I’m not really human / I would like a murky existence / An existence like a pond” (extract of Show yourself, my friend, my double).
The staging is minimalist. During the one-hour show, the novelist will get up, in front of the monumental fireplace, to approach a microphone on foot and deliver his texts when his turn comes. His deliciously awkward postures are there, like when he tucks his head a little into his askew shoulders or puts his index finger on his lower lip. For the texts, we are at his place, between morbid wandering, decrepitude of the couple or brackish tertiary sector.
The music goes from hovering electro to more martial rhythms to represent the movement of a train (poem the TGV Atlantique glided through the night with terrifying efficiency).
The sound architect Traumer, at the back of the room, unrolls his soundtrack, punctuating the stanzas with melancholy strings or disturbing brass. The show has its fans. “I am very moved, very touched, his poetry, these are my bedside books, and there, read by the master himself, it is quite extraordinary”confides to AFP Anne-Laure, 51, a resident of the region.
Others are more dubious. “It was interesting, good overall, but the musical effects are quite repetitive”, comments Xavier, 25, who came with friends from Paris. The author of the possibility of an island had already performed in 2000 in Bourges with Bertrand Burgalat (reputed artist/producer) and his musicians, as an extension of a necessarily offbeat beach tour.
This time, it all started with a young admirer, Victorien Bornéat, who became the creator and co-director of the show. In 2019, the latter created a podcast, asking his “friends to choose a poem by Houellebecq” before saving them. “It was a little thing in my room that was not intended to resonate outside my circle of friends.“, he explains to AFP. Then comes the idea of “to do public readings in a nightclub, a place that echoes the work of Houellebecq, like Extension of the field of struggle“. When he talks to the writer about it for rights issues, “the discussion starts and there, he says that he wants to go back on stage”.
A first version of the show was therefore presented last winter at the Rex Club in Paris. “Many people told us at the Rex Club that it was quite liturgical, we tried to further support this dimension for the banquet hall of the Palais Jacques Coeur and its 15th century architecture”adds the creator. “What is interesting in working with Houellebecq is his way of inviting people to read his poems: he does not like it to be said with a lot of emphasis”he said.