Francois Begoteau. “The permanent couple is often missing from literature”

Madame Figaro. – What was the source of inspiration for this novel?
Francois Begoteau. – I started from this feeling, from this observation, that a certain modality of love was missing from literature, cinema, stories in general, while it is perhaps the most common modality in life. What I would call a lasting couple. Even today, there are many couples who spend decades side by side, married or not, and separated only by the disappearance of one. I think, for example, about those couples who were friends of my parents, who lived a quiet love, a gentle companionship without serious conflicts. The bet from the title is that this really is love.

You intended to express love that was both ordinary and extraordinary at the same time.
It is, and in fact it is quite common, although less common than when divorce was rare. But making what seems ordinary to us strange again is perhaps my main literary option. I don’t know anything in life that can’t be weird, interesting, and beautiful as long as we try to recreate it well. The apple stands out in the big picture. Because it is well fixed.

People whose primary desire is to harm no one and move forward in life as best they can, and together, if it’s less difficult, move me

Francois Begoteau

For you, choosing to tell this story to two people from the lower middle class is not a political gesture?
By seeing politics in everything, we end up emptying the word. But yes, there definitely is.” forms policy “. By writing this way or that way, the author positions himself in the prevailing aesthetic divisions. Bringing literature into ordinary life is no small gesture. But it is above all a matter of temperament. The so-called ordinary life is familiar to me. We all have a sensuous background, mine is the Pays de Loire, the middle class from the peasantry. These people. These people, whose primary desire is to harm no one and move forward in life as much as possible, and if it is less difficult, move me together.

It is a very short text that covers the area of ​​cohabitation. What did you have in mind in terms of rhythm and structure?
My concern, of course, was to cover fifty years, but I wanted it to happen. naturally “, without mentioning the ellipses, without explaining the passage of years “.three years later… “. I wanted time to be the main agent of this story, and to work indirectly, subtly, with implication, as it does in our lives. The idea was to avoid dramatic climaxes and maintain an even tone, both distant and sympathetic. I also always knew the book was going to be short. I only saw him like that. Perhaps brevity is the stylistic equivalent of modesty. We are with people of few words. the book should also be sparing with words. This is my way of supporting Jeanne and Jacques.

loveby François Bégaudeau, Éditions Verticales, 96 p., €14.50.