“Station novel”, Philibert Humm

For the small group of regulars at the bar he frequents, he is “the adventurer”, author of a travel story which has made him a little famous. And like from bobo to hobothere is only a phonetic shift, the possibility of new railway adventures and renewed glory comes to him like a revelation, the idea of ​​becoming a railway vagabond in the hope of becoming in turn “the living incarnation of snub.” In the company of his faithful friend Simon, the narrator will abandon himself to the “delights of consented clandestinity” and be illegally “barouetted” on freight trains. Two beautiful specimens of the “blissful generation” discovering railway France and, above all, their own limits. Follower of a pinched humor à la Stephen Leacock, just like in Roman river (2022), the French Philibert Humm carbides in Station novel with irony, feigned preciousness and delusional footnotes. But if this formula still entertains, the reader senses that it is approaching its point of wear and tear.

Station novel

★★★

Philibert Humm, Éditions des Équateurs, Paris, 2024, 224 pages

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