French Literature
3 total works
Suicide cannot be read as simply another novel-it is, in a sense, the author's own oblique, public suicide note, a unique meditation on this most extreme of refusals. Presenting itself as an investigation into the suicide of a close friend-perhaps real, perhaps fictional-more than twenty years earlier, Leve gives us, little by little, a striking portrait of a man, with all his talents and flaws, who chose to reject his life, and all the people who loved him, in favor of oblivion. Gradually, through Leve's casually obsessive, pointillist, beautiful ruminations, we come to know a stoic, sensible, thoughtful man who bears more than a slight psychological resemblance to Leve himself. But Suicide is more than just a compendium of memories of an old friend; it is a near-exhaustive catalog of the ramifications and effects of the act of suicide, and a unique and melancholy farewell to life.
"Originally published in French as Oeuvres by P.O.L diteur, Paris, 2002."
In his second "novel," Newspaper, the acclaimed writer, photographer, and artist Edouard Levé made perhaps his most radical attempt to remove himself from his own work. Made up of fictionalized newspaper articles, arranged according to broad sections—some familiar, some not—Newspaper gives us a tour of the modern world as reported by its supposedly impartial chroniclers. Much of this "news" is quite sad, some is funny, but the whole serves as a gory parody of the way we have been taught to see our lives and the lives of our fellow human beings.