Le pont de Bezons par Jean Rolin

Abstract

Reviewed by: Le pont de Bezons par Jean Rolin Warren Motte Rolin, Jean. Le pont de Bezons. P.O.L, 2020. ISBN 978-2-8180-4911-2. Pp. 238. When Jean Rolin decides to walk along the Seine from Melun to Mantes, he knows that his project is a bit absurd and quirky. He is further aware that the site he has chosen as the pivotal point of that project seems utterly arbitrary. His commitment thereto is nevertheless unshakable: "Heureux celui qui a vu le jour se lever sur le pont de Bezons" (9). Throughout his career, Rolin has indulged his taste for places that other people typically overlook: neglected, insignificant, and largely undefined sites on the margins of things. He returns again and again to those places, most particularly in books such as Zones (1995), Traverses (1999), La clôture (2002), Terminal Frigo (2005), and Savannah (2015). In this most recent book, he draws our attention to the culture of those disregarded spaces, to the way that their eclectic character puts conventional ways of imagining culture into question. Here, Gustave Caillebotte's house rubs elbows with a Buffalo Grill; one is in conversation both with the local mailman and with Madame de Sévigné; one's thoughts turn to René Char, then to Britney Spears, and back again. Rolin reflects upon ornithology, and the plight of Syrian refugees, and the phenomenon of the gilets jaunes. He observes a cemetery caretaker reading a thick volume, and imagines it to be War and Peace, but no, it is a book by Joël Dicker. He invites us to visit fields of lettuce and disaffected military installations. He offers us glimpses of his own family history, some of them not conspicuously flattering. His tone is melancholic and nostalgic—even though he [End Page 262] recognizes that the past he imagines is largely fantasized. The rhythm of the book is that of walking. In itself, such a feature is not new. One thinks for instance of certain Romantic poets, or of contemporary figures from Jacques Réda to Jacques Roubaud. Neither is the concern for marginal space absolutely original, for surely Rolin owes something to previous experiments, like Julio Cortázar and Carol Dunlop's Les autonautes de la cosmoroute, ou un voyage intemporel Paris-Marseille (1983) or François Maspero's Les passagers du Roissy-Express (1990). Rolin's book shines most brightly by virtue of its style. He writes an extraordinary sentence, long and consciously dilatory, beautifully constructed, consistently beguiling. One could point to any page of this book in support of that claim, but here is an example, chosen among many others: "Inévitablement, en marchant le long des berges de la Seine, outre qu'il est très rare que survienne un événement quelconque, ou même une simple rencontre, à moins de l'avoir suscitée, on retombe de loin en loin sur des spectacles identiques à quelques détails près, dont l'un des plus courants est celui d'un convoyeur à bande transportant au-dessus du quai ou du chemin de halage des céréales en vrac ou d'autres marchandises moins nobles, telles que des matériaux de construction" (74). Writing like that is something special; it deserves not only to be read, but to be celebrated. Warren Motte University of Colorado Boulder Copyright © 2021 American Association of Teachers of French