From Toulouse to China, the sunless years by Vincent Message
Vincent Message’s 4th novel, “The Years Without Sun”, is a story of family… and of confinement that takes place in Toulouse. The author will present it at Ombres Blanches on January 27.
His character from the “Years without the Sun” is called Elias Torres and partly resembles him because, like him, he is a writer. Regarding the profession, it is not quite the same choice: Vincent Message teaches comparative literature at the University of Paris 8 Saint-Denis while the narrator is a bookseller.
“When I decided to work in a bookstore, says Elias Torres, it was not only because writing does not nourish and that I waste away if I am deprived of reading, it was also to find myself like that, alone with them, alone with more books than I can read. “
Elias adores what he does, without idealizing his mission: “Independent bookseller, it can also be summed up like this: a life of throwing your back while handling boxes that are too heavy in a space that is too small. »Our special correspondent on the cultural front works in a small store located in the Arnaud-Bernard district. His boss, an old leftist who is approaching 70 years old, experienced the heated political battles of May-68 and after. In his place called Nisi In Angulo (“only in a corner”, in Latin), he succeeded in bringing together a group of regulars “the type to stand and read in the shelves, never leaving empty-handed”.
“To stand up straight, to take it, to endure”
In “The Years Without Sun”, Vincent Message excels at recounting the pangs of writing (which he nevertheless lives “in joy”) and the jubilation of reading. But his book does not stop there. He also evokes, as a central element, the recent double confinement and the psychological consequences it has had on the number of people, in particular in a family setting under severe strain. Because the walks on foot or by bike, along the Canal du Midi or on the banks of the Garonne, are not enough to lighten the weight that weighs on the shoulders of humans trapped in a meager perimeter.
The novelist completes the device with research that his character does on another period much darker than the one we have just lived, namely the years 535-536 when, for 18 months, the sun only shines intermittently, from Mexico. in China, undoubtedly following several volcanic eruptions. With the consequences of droughts and famines, all made even worse by the plague. Even if this is not always convincing, Vincent Message goes from the most depressing present to the distant past; from the history of the world, to that, intimate, of a small family of 4 people who try to “stand up straight, take it, endure” so that the boat “does not sink”. On a planet which is sheltering dangerously.