It saves this soon to save themselves. Chantal Thomas assumes his part of subjectivity in its relation to the world. It retains its life and the ephemeral, as she holds on to life the secondary. In Farewell, my queen (prix Femina, 2002), she was interested in the feelings of passion of a reader to Marie-Antoinette. In The Exchange of princesses (2013), she revealed two children married for political reasons. Characters transparent pledged to the darkness, she has decided to come out of the dustbin of History. The novelist today brings together his columns published during four years, once per month, from 2014 to 2018, in the newspaper Sud-Ouest. Found his artistic process and his personal universe. We meet writers, landscapes, moments, places, anonymous, and even a mother swimmer. Because everything here speaks of time, of the gaze, of beauty. For the love of the seasons.
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She lives as she travels, new eyes resting on each little fact. Chantal Thomas cites Notes from the bedside of the poet of japanese Sei Shonagon. The lady-in-waiting at the imperial court, in the Eleventh century, provides a list of "things that don't do that move" : "A boat whose sail is hoisted. The age of people. Spring, summer, autumn and winter. "Chantal Thomas's sets, in all their freedom, moments of grace fleeting. We find authors admired (Barthes, Casanova, Hemingway, Sandeel) and places loved (Arcachon, New York, Kyoto). Chantal Thomas is concerned above all the anesthesia sensations. Outside, we see nothing ; to the interior, we saw nothing. The writer seeks the "vibration" of things in all things. Time passes and does not pass. Diderot gives us a tip : "My friends, keep your old friends. "
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Accept her wrinkles and feel free
Chantal Thomas, in a restaurant on the cours Saleya in Nice. © Private Collection/DRCafé live is a celebration of life. The pleasures are many. Enjoy snow crab in the tasty flesh in Canada ; to greet the daffodils in Central Park ; a look at her mother and crawler in the water ; scanning the paintings of Picasso and Hockney ; discover Sade in a boarding school in bordeaux, listening to Verdi at the opera, and then spinning in a yellow cab ; delve into the past and learn that it can be great to renounce the ambition of power ; accepting his wrinkles and feel free. Read, simply. Wonderful passage on Rousseau, whose Reveries du promeneur solitaire discover and rediscover the infinite. Chantal Thomas evokes the relations between Descartes and christina of Sweden, Voltaire, and Frederick of Prussia, Diderot and Catherine II. It analyses the relationship between the writers and the powerful. The lesson is simple : the intellectuals would do better to keep away from the palace.
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Chantal Thomas writes : "I wanted the books and the world. "She makes a tribute to Jacques Henri Lartigue. His photos capture the movement and lightness. In a chapter on the marshal de Richelieu, grandnephew of the cardinal and great libertine, she quotes this sentence belonging to him : "It had for system that the pain solves nothing, it is madness to engage. "We must live by so not to do, in our old days, the same observation as the princess Palatine, sister-in-law of Louis XIV :' I have cropped the wings. "Chantal Thomas is a intellectual and carnal. She walks to Washington Square Park. There was a time where there are drugs and where there revolted. The time has changed. Everywhere, signs to prohibit, prevent, restrict, warn. In his collection of chronicles, dedicated to moments of happiness, Chantal Thomas reminds us of one simple thing : it is not forbidden to live.
Café live , Chantal Thomas, Threshold, 200 pages, € 17
