How can we tell through writing what happened during that terrible night of November 13, 2015, when Paris was the target of the worst terrorist attacks in its history? With Terraces or our long kiss so long delayeda choral story, Laurent Gaudé wanted to embrace this event in all its horror, but also in its humanity.
“There are moments like that, which are not very numerous and which unfortunately are not often very happy, where suddenly there is a “we” that appears,” explains the writer in an interview. It is often in times of trial and misfortune that this “we” is felt. That night, we had the same fears, the same reflexes, we made the same phone calls. During the most tragic hours of uncertainty, I think Paris was seized as a whole, in fact. »
PHOTO LEONARDO CÉNDAMO, PROVIDED BY ACTES SUD
Laurent Gaudé
Thus, even if some individualities emerge in this story – for example a couple of lovers, two sisters, rescue workers, nurses, panicked parents – the voice used to tell the story is collective.
And I must say that it works. Laurent Gaudé captures this irruption of violence into the daily life of such a lively city well. You had to be there to feel the fear, the panic, the incomprehension, the pain, the mutual aid, and chance wanted me to be in Paris that evening, in the heart of the 11e borough, where most of the shootings took place.
It was an unusually beautiful and mild evening for the month of November, Parisians were taking advantage of it before winter. I was on the sidewalk with the anxious families who were waiting for their loved ones stuck at the Bataclan, while we heard Kalashnikov shots. What struck me then was the youth of the victims and the killers, in a deliberate attack on the pleasure of living. “It’s true that in the choice of a performance hall and terraces, everyone could recognize themselves. It’s something we do all the time, not just in Paris, but drinking on the terrace of a café is life. It felt like we were being hit in our DNA, almost. »
Directed by Denis Marleau and Stéphanie Jasmin
The book Terraces is dedicated “to all those who felt Parisian that evening”, but also to the directors Stéphanie Jasmin and Denis Marleau, who will adapt the text for the stage at the La Colline theater, directed by Wajdi Mouawad, in May in Paris. Laurent Gaudé discovered the work of Denis Marleau in Avignon when he was a teenager, and they worked together a few years ago for the adaptation of his novel The Blue Tiger of the Euphrates at Quat’Sous, with Emmanuel Schwartz in the lead role. In fact, it will be a double bill at La Colline, where we will present Terraces And The blue tiger of the Euphrates in two rooms.
Interestingly, the writing of Terraces was done at the same time as the theatrical project, Denis Marleau receiving the pages as Laurent Gaudé wrote, which influenced certain details of his book.
“I found it too stupid that Emmanuel Schwartz couldn’t play in Terraceswhile he will be in the next room to The blue tiger of the Euphrates. I said to Denis: we couldn’t imagine a system where Emmanuel would do both shows? So I had the idea of a character who arrives at the very end, the disaster man, the one who cleans up the Bataclan. This character was written for Emmanuel, because it will allow him to go out, change and interpret the character at the end of Terraces. »
And for those who are interested in the play, there is a good chance that it will be presented in Montreal in the fall, confides the author.
The writer of disaster
Laurent Gaudé has already written about the hurricane Katrina in New Orleans (Hurricane2010), on the earthquake in Haiti (Dancing shadows2015) and now on the attacks of November 13, which makes him say that he is a “disaster writer”.
This is because Laurent Gaudé believes in the consoling power of literature. “I’m not talking about my personal case, I’m not pretentious enough for that, but as a reader, when you are moved by a book, when you recognize something through a character, not only does it give the impression that the author hit his target, but I also find that it brings a kind of consolation, of humanity, as if knowing that others have experienced the same thing, thought the same thing, consoles us because of be on earth. There is that in writing. »
In a way, he adds, this book is a tribute and a song, in the ancient sense of the term.
Returning to these events, singing them, in the sense that ancient tragedy sings of misfortune, is a way of consoling ourselves for these losses, these wounds collectively.
Laurent Gaudé
This is also why he did not do interviews with victims, because he wanted to move away from documentary writing, and maintain a certain freedom as a writer. “But as a man, in relation to this event, what strikes me the most is the relationship with time. For us who were not injured or lost loved ones, time has passed, and it is normal that it is so, life has resumed. It’s been nine years. By writing the monologue of the parents, the voice of the wounded, of those who have lost loved ones, I measured the extent to which time has probably not passed, because nine years is nothing. There is this kind of injustice for those for whom everything has stopped, and it must be an additional pain to see that the world has returned to normal. »
The writer, who often says he struggles to find the titles of his books, writing long lists of ideas, says he immediately knew that this one was going to be called Terraces. “Because I find that this is what most accurately concentrates this sweetness of life and at the same time, what I find quite beautiful, even if it is painful, is that in the French language, the word terrace is never far from the word terrace, and maybe that’s what we learned that night. »
Terraces or our long kiss so long delayed
South Acts
144 pages