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Vernon Subutex #1
Vernon Subutex 1
Qui est Vernon Subutex ? Une légende urbaine. Un ange déchu. Un disparu qui ne cesse de ressurgir. Le détenteur d’un secret. Le dernier témoin d’un monde disparu. L’ultime visage de notre comédie inhumaine. Notre fantôme à tous.
430 pages, Paperback
First published January 7, 2015
About the author
Virginie Despentes
36 books2,327 followersVirginie Despentes is a French writer, novelist and filmmaker, born in Nancy, Meurthe-et-Moselle. Her most famous novel, and film of the same name is Baise-moi, a contemporary example of the exploitation films genre known as rape and revenge films. Her most recent biographical, non-fiction work, King Kong Theory has also been translated into English, and recounts her experiences working within the French sex industry, and attendant infamy and praise associated with the aforementioned Baise-Moi.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,325 reviews
December 12, 2019
I LOVED this book – Virginie Despentes wrote a wonderfully mean, cutting-edge social novel that sheds light on contemporary French society, with a story full of vivid characters, but devoid of heroes, full of disparate voices, but creating an astonishing panorama. While I feel like I need to read parts II and III ASAP, I am also afraid of what will happen next, because this unsettling story viciously attacks its readers: I got angry, I was sad, I laughed, I was shocked, and I while I was glued to this book, I was also nervously moving on my seat the whole time.
Despentes’ protagonist and anti-hero Vernon Subutex (Subutex being the brand name for Buprenorphine, an opioid used to treat opioid addiction, chronic and acute pain) used to own a record store, “Revolver”, which was the place to be for an array of hipsters, slackers and music lovers of all spheres, among them Alex Bleach, who went on to become a major rock star. Due to the digital shift in the music industry, Vernon, now in his forties, loses his business and has to depend on his old friend Alex to pay his rent, until Alex dies of a a drug overdose. Broke and without a perspective, Vernon first lives with different acquaintances and then ends up on the streets of Paris, unaware that the internet is going wild to find him (#Subutex), because he owns the last recorded interview with the late Alex Bleach.
Vernon’s existence as a drifter allows Despentes to introduce all kinds of characters who reflect current societal discourse and different classes: There is a rich banker who likes to feel like a rebel, a divorcee who lost her son to drugs, we meet an unsuccessful director who married a rich heiress, a man who beats his wife, the daughter of a porn star who becomes a Muslim, there are right-wing conservatives who work at H&M, a beggar who is mourning her dog, a lonely woman desperate for love, and many more. It is impressive how Despentes switches between different perspectives and takes the reader into the heads of her characters, and with time, I really started to feel for Vernon, whose persona takes on a different, elevated meaning with the last paragraphs of the book.
With this book, Despentes questions the definition of success, on the individual and the societal level, and her way to do so is extremely powerful. Many newspaper reviews argued that the text is particularly fearless, and I would specify this and state that Despentes is not afraid to take on the perspective of people she strongly disagrees with and confront us with worldviews that she (and I) would classify as disgusting and wrong. Still, these people and their views exist, and these are the people who vote for the FN in France (or whatever they will call themselves in the future), the AfD in Germany and Trump in the US. It is very painful and aggravating to read those passionately delivered ideas, tendencies and justifications which, as Despentes' characters show, are not only rampant in the lower classes, but exist everywhere. Despentes is brilliant when she conveys the particular mixture of fear and hedonism that often lies at the core of hate.
What also struck me is that Despentes talks a lot about the gap between youthful ideas and how life plays out. Many of her characters do not seem to recognize themselves after 40, and Despentes masterfully spins the idea of (self-)alienation in all directions, an alienation that pervades society and leads to anger and/or depression. Whose fault is all this? Are the characters themselves to blame, their bad choices, capitalism, the SJW, god, destiny? How far will people go to find something to rely on, to fight their pain? We find different answers in this text, and at the same time, no answer at all (which might be sad, but also realistic).
Another aspect of the book that reviews here in Germany obviously can't live without is the discussion of Despentes, the person. Her movie "Baise-Moi" (no, that doesn't mean kiss me :-)) was banned for excessive sex and violence, she used to be a critic for porno movies, she worked as a prostitute etc. - I see that she had an interesting life, but don't fall for the commercial strategy that tries to sell Vernon's story in the light of transgression and scandal. It does not do justice to the book. More illuminating are the facts that Despentes likes Roxane Gay and Michel Houellebecq, and that she said:"A country that votes for Marine LePen suffers from depressive disorder. It's a death wish."
"Vernon Subutex" is a rare gem. I already ordered part II.
Despentes’ protagonist and anti-hero Vernon Subutex (Subutex being the brand name for Buprenorphine, an opioid used to treat opioid addiction, chronic and acute pain) used to own a record store, “Revolver”, which was the place to be for an array of hipsters, slackers and music lovers of all spheres, among them Alex Bleach, who went on to become a major rock star. Due to the digital shift in the music industry, Vernon, now in his forties, loses his business and has to depend on his old friend Alex to pay his rent, until Alex dies of a a drug overdose. Broke and without a perspective, Vernon first lives with different acquaintances and then ends up on the streets of Paris, unaware that the internet is going wild to find him (#Subutex), because he owns the last recorded interview with the late Alex Bleach.
Vernon’s existence as a drifter allows Despentes to introduce all kinds of characters who reflect current societal discourse and different classes: There is a rich banker who likes to feel like a rebel, a divorcee who lost her son to drugs, we meet an unsuccessful director who married a rich heiress, a man who beats his wife, the daughter of a porn star who becomes a Muslim, there are right-wing conservatives who work at H&M, a beggar who is mourning her dog, a lonely woman desperate for love, and many more. It is impressive how Despentes switches between different perspectives and takes the reader into the heads of her characters, and with time, I really started to feel for Vernon, whose persona takes on a different, elevated meaning with the last paragraphs of the book.
With this book, Despentes questions the definition of success, on the individual and the societal level, and her way to do so is extremely powerful. Many newspaper reviews argued that the text is particularly fearless, and I would specify this and state that Despentes is not afraid to take on the perspective of people she strongly disagrees with and confront us with worldviews that she (and I) would classify as disgusting and wrong. Still, these people and their views exist, and these are the people who vote for the FN in France (or whatever they will call themselves in the future), the AfD in Germany and Trump in the US. It is very painful and aggravating to read those passionately delivered ideas, tendencies and justifications which, as Despentes' characters show, are not only rampant in the lower classes, but exist everywhere. Despentes is brilliant when she conveys the particular mixture of fear and hedonism that often lies at the core of hate.
What also struck me is that Despentes talks a lot about the gap between youthful ideas and how life plays out. Many of her characters do not seem to recognize themselves after 40, and Despentes masterfully spins the idea of (self-)alienation in all directions, an alienation that pervades society and leads to anger and/or depression. Whose fault is all this? Are the characters themselves to blame, their bad choices, capitalism, the SJW, god, destiny? How far will people go to find something to rely on, to fight their pain? We find different answers in this text, and at the same time, no answer at all (which might be sad, but also realistic).
Another aspect of the book that reviews here in Germany obviously can't live without is the discussion of Despentes, the person. Her movie "Baise-Moi" (no, that doesn't mean kiss me :-)) was banned for excessive sex and violence, she used to be a critic for porno movies, she worked as a prostitute etc. - I see that she had an interesting life, but don't fall for the commercial strategy that tries to sell Vernon's story in the light of transgression and scandal. It does not do justice to the book. More illuminating are the facts that Despentes likes Roxane Gay and Michel Houellebecq, and that she said:"A country that votes for Marine LePen suffers from depressive disorder. It's a death wish."
"Vernon Subutex" is a rare gem. I already ordered part II.
March 6, 2016
Félicitations à Virginie Despentes, qui a enfin réussi à convaincre un éditeur probablement aussi génial que taré de baser une nouvelle publication sur sa seule véritable originalité en tant qu'écrivain : son procédé de 'digression protagoniste'.
Je m'explique : chez Despentes, on a toujours une narration qui dérive du fil principal de l'action, pour adopter l'espace de quelques pages la vie d'un personnage qui deviendra peut-être important, ou qui restera tout à fait anecdotique. Parfois c'est même un peu pénible, dans des romans où l'accent est mis sur l'intrigue, on pense : "mais je m'en fiche que Bernardo soit en train de manger des sushis, dis-moi plutôt ce qui se passe une fois que machine a pris l'identité de machine, etc".
Mais le premier tome de Vernon Subutex est entièrement basé sur ce procédé : le fil narratif (ici, l'histoire de la déchéance sociale de Vernon, associée à la recherche des documents sur Alex Bleach) est ténu, si ténu qu'il disparaît entièrement dans certains passages consacrés à des personnages éloignés de cette intrigue. Tout est donné au portrait, au portrait effectué par une narration compatissante ; le lecteur emporté peut même se croire dans une série d'auto-portraits.
De là à comparer le projet de Despentes à celui d'une Comédie humaine à la Balzac, il n'y a qu'un pas, que tous les critiques franchissent allègrement, comme de moutons, tout fiers qu'ils sont d'avoir capté les références légèrement insistantes, notamment à la fin du père Goriot. "Ouhlàlà je suis sur un banc et je regarde Paris". Vernon apparaît comme un Rastignac post-Goriot raté. "Despentes, la comédie inhumaine", nianiania. C'est un peu facile.
Il faudrait relire Balzac pour se rendre compte de la différence des projets : il analysait la société, dans une démarche qu'il voulait objective, scientifique ; elle la raconte comme elle la voit, avec pessimisme et une grosse dose de subjectivité. C'est pas forcément négatif ; c'est juste entièrement différent.
C'est ce qu'on peut retenir de Vernon Subutex : les personnages ont beau être décrits dans leurs contradictions et leur complexité, la narration, même en focalisation interne, contient une certaine dose d'ironie savamment distillée afin que le lecteur puisse distinguer facilement, sans trop se fouler, entre les bons personnages, et les mauvais. Les bons personnages, ceux qu'on appréciera avec elle, je vous le donne dans le mille, ce sont les laissés pour compte et les marginaux : le clochard, le trans, la trans, la pute, la clocharde, l'actrice porno, l'autre actrice porno, la fille de l'autre actrice porno, et la Hyène, bien sûr, qu'on est contents de retrouver après "Apocalypse bébé".
Et ensuite, les gens qui ont un boulot et une vie stable, et bien ne cherchez pas plus loin : ce sont tous des connards. Et particulièrement, des connasses, d'ailleurs. Marie-Claire qui fait la popotte, et Sylvie qui papote avec ses copines, et les deux qui pensent à avoir des enfants : haha ! Bande de cruches !... Autant pour une vision féministe....
Voilà pour la supposée "radiographie" de la société française à la Despentes : finalement, c'est pas bien compliqué. Vous êtes d'un côté de la barrière, ou de l'autre. Parlez-moi encore de "radiographie" ou de "justesse de la peinture", je n'y vois qu'une vision certes poétique, mais absolument manichéenne.
Un seul des portraits, je crois, sort un peu du lot : c'est celui de l'homme qui battait sa femme (Philippe ? C'était Philippe, son nom ?). Narration compatissante et pas trop facile : elle a réussi à me surprendre, mais c'est tout.
Malgré tout, ça se lit bien, on se laisse prendre dans l'histoire, ou plutôt, dans la non histoire et l'infini des historiques, au fur et à mesure des fils qui sont tendus, nous présentant de nouveaux éléments. On ne veut même pas particulièrement savoir ce qui arrivera à Vernon Subutex, parce que c'est mis sur le côté, que ce n'est pas le principal - tout comme, dans Apocalypse bébé, ce qui arrive à la jeune fille est subalterne, aux côtés des portraits de la Hyène et du personnage principal, et de ceux des personnages qui croiseront leur chemin. On veut juste plonger de nouveau dans ses étonnantes descriptions, juste pour le plaisir d'une lecture facile, un peu grossière oui, mais agréable.
A petites doses pour moi, quand même. J'ai déjà écrit ailleurs que le style un peu redondant, associé au name-dropping plus qu'insistant, me lassait considérablement par moments. Je finirai quand même la trilogie.
Je m'explique : chez Despentes, on a toujours une narration qui dérive du fil principal de l'action, pour adopter l'espace de quelques pages la vie d'un personnage qui deviendra peut-être important, ou qui restera tout à fait anecdotique. Parfois c'est même un peu pénible, dans des romans où l'accent est mis sur l'intrigue, on pense : "mais je m'en fiche que Bernardo soit en train de manger des sushis, dis-moi plutôt ce qui se passe une fois que machine a pris l'identité de machine, etc".
Mais le premier tome de Vernon Subutex est entièrement basé sur ce procédé : le fil narratif (ici, l'histoire de la déchéance sociale de Vernon, associée à la recherche des documents sur Alex Bleach) est ténu, si ténu qu'il disparaît entièrement dans certains passages consacrés à des personnages éloignés de cette intrigue. Tout est donné au portrait, au portrait effectué par une narration compatissante ; le lecteur emporté peut même se croire dans une série d'auto-portraits.
De là à comparer le projet de Despentes à celui d'une Comédie humaine à la Balzac, il n'y a qu'un pas, que tous les critiques franchissent allègrement, comme de moutons, tout fiers qu'ils sont d'avoir capté les références légèrement insistantes, notamment à la fin du père Goriot. "Ouhlàlà je suis sur un banc et je regarde Paris". Vernon apparaît comme un Rastignac post-Goriot raté. "Despentes, la comédie inhumaine", nianiania. C'est un peu facile.
Il faudrait relire Balzac pour se rendre compte de la différence des projets : il analysait la société, dans une démarche qu'il voulait objective, scientifique ; elle la raconte comme elle la voit, avec pessimisme et une grosse dose de subjectivité. C'est pas forcément négatif ; c'est juste entièrement différent.
C'est ce qu'on peut retenir de Vernon Subutex : les personnages ont beau être décrits dans leurs contradictions et leur complexité, la narration, même en focalisation interne, contient une certaine dose d'ironie savamment distillée afin que le lecteur puisse distinguer facilement, sans trop se fouler, entre les bons personnages, et les mauvais. Les bons personnages, ceux qu'on appréciera avec elle, je vous le donne dans le mille, ce sont les laissés pour compte et les marginaux : le clochard, le trans, la trans, la pute, la clocharde, l'actrice porno, l'autre actrice porno, la fille de l'autre actrice porno, et la Hyène, bien sûr, qu'on est contents de retrouver après "Apocalypse bébé".
Et ensuite, les gens qui ont un boulot et une vie stable, et bien ne cherchez pas plus loin : ce sont tous des connards. Et particulièrement, des connasses, d'ailleurs. Marie-Claire qui fait la popotte, et Sylvie qui papote avec ses copines, et les deux qui pensent à avoir des enfants : haha ! Bande de cruches !... Autant pour une vision féministe....
Voilà pour la supposée "radiographie" de la société française à la Despentes : finalement, c'est pas bien compliqué. Vous êtes d'un côté de la barrière, ou de l'autre. Parlez-moi encore de "radiographie" ou de "justesse de la peinture", je n'y vois qu'une vision certes poétique, mais absolument manichéenne.
Un seul des portraits, je crois, sort un peu du lot : c'est celui de l'homme qui battait sa femme (Philippe ? C'était Philippe, son nom ?). Narration compatissante et pas trop facile : elle a réussi à me surprendre, mais c'est tout.
Malgré tout, ça se lit bien, on se laisse prendre dans l'histoire, ou plutôt, dans la non histoire et l'infini des historiques, au fur et à mesure des fils qui sont tendus, nous présentant de nouveaux éléments. On ne veut même pas particulièrement savoir ce qui arrivera à Vernon Subutex, parce que c'est mis sur le côté, que ce n'est pas le principal - tout comme, dans Apocalypse bébé, ce qui arrive à la jeune fille est subalterne, aux côtés des portraits de la Hyène et du personnage principal, et de ceux des personnages qui croiseront leur chemin. On veut juste plonger de nouveau dans ses étonnantes descriptions, juste pour le plaisir d'une lecture facile, un peu grossière oui, mais agréable.
A petites doses pour moi, quand même. J'ai déjà écrit ailleurs que le style un peu redondant, associé au name-dropping plus qu'insistant, me lassait considérablement par moments. Je finirai quand même la trilogie.
April 23, 2019
“-No sabíamos que íbamos a cagarla hasta ese punto, ¿verdad?Vernon Subutex bien podría ser el nombre de una anfetamina, estimula el sistema nervioso y crea adicción. Si lo que quiere es que en su conciencia no reine más rey que la seguridad este no es su sitio.
-De haberlo sabido, ¿qué habría cambiado?”
Vernon Subutex es el nombre, ahora sí, de un cuarentón que tras haber regentado una tienda de discos durante más de veinte años se ha quedado en el paro y va dando tumbos de casa en casa de amigos y conocidos después de ser desahuciado por no poder hacer frente al alquiler que ya no puede pagarle una vieja estrella del rock que le ha hecho la mala faena de suicidarse. A cambio, el guapo y magnético cantante le ha dejado unas cintas grabadas a modo de testamento. Por ellas le están buscando. Nadie sabe qué contienen.
Vernon Subutex es también, claro está, la primera entrega de una trilogía, una novela de relatos...no, una novela de retratos de personajes de lo más variopinto. Todos se han enfrentado al fin de la fiesta, al fin de la libertad irreverente, al fin de la inocente seguridad, al fin de la juventud inconsciente.
“Hasta que te haces viejo no entiendes que la expresión «joder, cómo pasa el tiempo» es la que mejor resume de qué va todo esto.”Todos pertenecen al gremio de los perdedores, aunque algún imbécil todavía no lo sepa, aunque algún otro sea tan inocente como para no pensarlo siquiera (shhhhh, no le digan nada, shhhhh), aunque algún otro sea tan hijo de puta como para no creérselo; también los hay, los menos, que solo lo parecen, y no faltan aquellos a los que el momento les está esperando (¡que les llegue, por favor, que les llegue¡); algunos lo son desde que nacieron, aunque hayan conseguido llegar a lo más alto; otros se la pegan a base de ambición o por pura desidia o por grandísima estupidez o por puta mala suerte. Hay quien, en ese punto arrastrado de la sociedad, se siente orgulloso y libre (pero ¡joder, qué frío!); otros que creen haber alcanzado sus ambiciones o estar camino de ello (¿La cocaína? Yo controlo) también se sienten igual de libres y orgullosos (ains, pobres); y unos y otros se miran y se ríen, se ríen y se miran, y, mira tú por dónde, todos lo hacen por razones parecidas. Y ahí es donde nos sale a nosotros la sonrisa tristemente irónica y hasta alegremente cínica.
"Pasados los cuarenta, todo el mundo parece una ciudad bombardeada"
El punto fuerte de todo este tinglado es que da igual lo vulnerable o lo mal nacido que sea el personaje, Virgine Despentes se mete en su piel con una honradez admirable, con unas extraordinarias ganas, no de justificar, pero sí de comprender hasta lo jodidamente incomprensible. La mirada de Despentes nunca es de impiedad, ni siquiera acusatoria, y es fascinante la desfachatez con la que arrasa con tanto jardín, la libertad con la que se ríe de lo políticamente correcto, la valentía con la que aborda los tabúes y los pecados de la sociedad por muy inconfesables que sean. Mis más entusiastas gracias por ello.
En Vernon Subutex hay asco, miedo, drogas, rabia, muchas gilipolleces, muchas frustraciones, muchas decepciones, mucha música (pero mucha) y mucho sexo: sexo complicado, sexo desesperado, sexo servil y mucho de ese sexo que te confiere y te confirma la sensación de poder, de dominación, de deseos logrados, de estar en el lugar que es tuyo por naturaleza, la borrachera de poder, de ver el respeto en los ojos del otro, de ver el miedo.
Pero también hay sexo del mejor y hasta sexo por amor. Sí, también hay hueco para esa incomparable y extraordinaria alegría de encontrar a alguien que con su sola presencia consigue que “todo lo roto, doloroso o vulnerable” se esfume... aunque esto, muchas veces, también acabe en un dolor insoportable, ese tipo de dolor que únicamente nos deja en paz durante el breve instante que sigue al despertar.
Ah, y también te ríes.
April 11, 2018
This is my fourth book from the Man Booker International longlist, and if my friends in The Mookse and the Gripes group are typical, it is also the one which is dividing opinions the most. It is very much a book of its time and place - 21st Century Paris, and it is lively, fearless, funny and often tasteless.
Despentes has created a world of grotesque caricatures who embody the most extreme characteristics of our social-media-driven world. Like the people she satirises, her characters are frequently allowed to indulge in offensive rants. They are a hedonistic, narcissistic crowd in a world of sex and drugs and rock and roll.
What lifts the book is the character of the antihero Vernon. A 50 year old former record dealer, he is now unemployed and his closest friends have died. At the start of the book he is evicted from his flat carrying just a hastily packed rucksack. He charms his way into being accommodated by various casual friends and acquaintances, and a Facebook claim that he has a lost interview with a now dead singer makes him the subject of a search.
For me the second half of the book, in which Vernon finds himself on the street, is compulsive and very powerful and more than redeems the cheap sensationalism that pervades the first half. I am certainly glad that the MBI persuaded me to read it.
Despentes has created a world of grotesque caricatures who embody the most extreme characteristics of our social-media-driven world. Like the people she satirises, her characters are frequently allowed to indulge in offensive rants. They are a hedonistic, narcissistic crowd in a world of sex and drugs and rock and roll.
What lifts the book is the character of the antihero Vernon. A 50 year old former record dealer, he is now unemployed and his closest friends have died. At the start of the book he is evicted from his flat carrying just a hastily packed rucksack. He charms his way into being accommodated by various casual friends and acquaintances, and a Facebook claim that he has a lost interview with a now dead singer makes him the subject of a search.
For me the second half of the book, in which Vernon finds himself on the street, is compulsive and very powerful and more than redeems the cheap sensationalism that pervades the first half. I am certainly glad that the MBI persuaded me to read it.
January 30, 2019
Well, yes, Vernon. Let’s take a look at him. When you are familiar with circles such as Vernon’s, the guy will feel real to you. He did to me! He is a likeable guy. A guy who gets around with everyone. He’s aloof, he’s easy to talk to, he is good company. Vernon has a big plus to boot, he has beautiful blue eyes. People trust him just looking into those eyes. But when you get down to it, Vernon does not attract any real commitment from his friends because he has never given any true commitment in return. His friend Alex, rock star with guilt feelings from being extremely rich, is an exception as Alex feels he needs a worthy support project by paying Vernon’s rent for quite a few years. Made them both feel good.
When the long overdue bad times finally hit him, Vernon never shows any true sign that he is aware that he is in serious trouble. Actually, he does not truly consider he is in a rather perilous situation at all, simply because he does not yet realise the extent of it. Vernon is a guy who is still in an adolescent state of mind at age fifty. We all know a guy (or woman) like Vernon, as skipping maturity seems pretty common. Since he has never shown any real interest in anybody nor any commitment to a long relationship in all these years and neither taken any action to remedy it when the occasion occurred, he is in real trouble when his friend, the famous Alex, suddenly dies. So there goes Vernon’s apartment and there he starts his new life of being homeless and penniless. It is not too bad in the beginning. He starts out staying at numerous friends’ places, drifting from one place to the other. Interesting friends, musicians, models, transvestites, hookers turned business women, penniless and rich hangers-on, all ranging from nice to nasty, violent to demanding. People you recognize, whether you want or not. At least, they felt familiar to me and that was often quite hilarious, but also confrontational.
As could be expected, poor Vernon ends up badly in the end. Forced to live in the street, sleep on benches, he turns out to be a very inapt tramp. Luckily he is protected by a big fat woman, Olga, who tries to teach him the fine tricks of succesful begging. I loved Olga. Vernon could not have asked for a better friend in his dire situation. I cannot resist to put in a personal note on encountering Olga. Olga strongly reminded me of a woman who sat in front of my office building who had the same way in her approach to people passing by as Olga did. People gave her money because she hassled them outright. She made me laugh because she fired off the most outrageous insults to people when they were not paying up. That’s the way! I gave my tramp lady money once a week on a Thursday, the day I had agreed upon with her, just to have her quit calling out to me very morning. Still, it did not help, as she would ask me every day upon arrival if it was Thursday yet. This arrangement went on for a long time. Suddenly, she was gone. I hope she is alright.
As could be expected, Vernon spiralled down to serious disaster at the end of the book. I will refrain from giving any details, but it made me want to continue on book 2 of the Vernon Subutex trilogy.
It must be clear that I enjoyed reading Vernon Subutex. It’s not often that you read a book about a big city loser that is not depressing. I thought it a downright true to life story and often very hilarious. Really recommended!
When the long overdue bad times finally hit him, Vernon never shows any true sign that he is aware that he is in serious trouble. Actually, he does not truly consider he is in a rather perilous situation at all, simply because he does not yet realise the extent of it. Vernon is a guy who is still in an adolescent state of mind at age fifty. We all know a guy (or woman) like Vernon, as skipping maturity seems pretty common. Since he has never shown any real interest in anybody nor any commitment to a long relationship in all these years and neither taken any action to remedy it when the occasion occurred, he is in real trouble when his friend, the famous Alex, suddenly dies. So there goes Vernon’s apartment and there he starts his new life of being homeless and penniless. It is not too bad in the beginning. He starts out staying at numerous friends’ places, drifting from one place to the other. Interesting friends, musicians, models, transvestites, hookers turned business women, penniless and rich hangers-on, all ranging from nice to nasty, violent to demanding. People you recognize, whether you want or not. At least, they felt familiar to me and that was often quite hilarious, but also confrontational.
As could be expected, poor Vernon ends up badly in the end. Forced to live in the street, sleep on benches, he turns out to be a very inapt tramp. Luckily he is protected by a big fat woman, Olga, who tries to teach him the fine tricks of succesful begging. I loved Olga. Vernon could not have asked for a better friend in his dire situation. I cannot resist to put in a personal note on encountering Olga. Olga strongly reminded me of a woman who sat in front of my office building who had the same way in her approach to people passing by as Olga did. People gave her money because she hassled them outright. She made me laugh because she fired off the most outrageous insults to people when they were not paying up. That’s the way! I gave my tramp lady money once a week on a Thursday, the day I had agreed upon with her, just to have her quit calling out to me very morning. Still, it did not help, as she would ask me every day upon arrival if it was Thursday yet. This arrangement went on for a long time. Suddenly, she was gone. I hope she is alright.
As could be expected, Vernon spiralled down to serious disaster at the end of the book. I will refrain from giving any details, but it made me want to continue on book 2 of the Vernon Subutex trilogy.
It must be clear that I enjoyed reading Vernon Subutex. It’s not often that you read a book about a big city loser that is not depressing. I thought it a downright true to life story and often very hilarious. Really recommended!
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November 5, 2019Review of Vernon Subutex 1, 2 and 3.
Earlier in the year, I read a review of the first book in this series, and, as sometimes happens, the reviewer's negative experience made me perversely curious to read the book for myself. I'm grateful to him now for inadvertently pushing me towards a long reading adventure I might otherwise never have embarked on.
Part of my motivation to read Despentes' books was the sneaking suspicion that the reviewer's many valid-sounding points about language, style and restricted context might be due to him having read the book in English. I felt a strong urge to check how it played out in French.
At first glance, the narrative does seems to be concerned with a very narrow sample of Paris society: people who were involved in rock music in the eighties/nineties or in the making of X rated movies around the same period - though the story is set in the present. These are people who have addictions and unhealthy life styles, and who use a lot of slang containing an absolute multitude of swear words. Since there are a large number of such characters and all of their points of view are given one after another, the reader can feel overwhelmed and confused. I understood how the reviewer I mentioned earlier gave up half way through the first book of the series. I almost did too.
But the language drew me back in. It's difficult to explain how much fun it is to hear the characters speak. Not that there is much direct speech. No, the third person narration slides in and out of the characters' thoughts seamlessly so that each section is colored by the way the character concerned expresses herself/himself. All of them use the slang that is related to their particular milieu - and which depends also on the time they grew up in. The main character, fifty-year old Vernon Subutex, uses the expressions and slang of his time. Similarly with the other characters. Their ways of speaking match the time they grew up in whether they are eighteen or eighty. French slang is very colorful even if it uses far less variety of expression than more 'recherché' speech does. I believe there is room for both - in all cultures, and in the literature of all cultures.
And it wasn't only the language that drew me back to Despentes' series, it was also the portrait of Paris she paints. Not the typical picture, needless to say. This is the Paris of the outskirts, dingy apartments blocks, shuttered shops, underground corridors and forgotten railway sidings.
And the trees on the crest of the Buttes Chaument, and the Rosa Bonheur Café high above the city.
If the language and the setting had failed to captivate me, the content of the story would have seduced me in any case for the way it places certain aspects of contemporary life under the spotlight.
The main character, a former small record store owner, is typical of people you might find today in any city in the world, but certainly in France - an unemployed fifty year-old living in isolation in the big city: because his industry no longer exists, because he didn't put down roots when he should have, because he's at that age where several of his friends have died, because he no longer goes out since his welfare benefit was cut. It's all very believable to me - and I say that as someone who has lived in France for more than two decades. I've seen many record stores, video and dvd shops, tv and telephone providers, computer repair shops, etc, go out of business, and I've wondered where all those workers end up. Even the big record/video/technology stores like FNAC that still operate do a lot of web sales now and have reduced their personnel. Our online lives have changed the world in the space of a decade, and the casualties of that huge change need to be documented.
As I read on and met even more characters, I realised that the sample of society Despentes is examining isn't as narrow as I had at first thought. There's the woman who used to develop photos. No surprise that she is out of work in this age of digital photography. There's the former literature teacher who has become an alcoholic. No surprise there either - how do you teach Racine to teenagers who grew up on Game of Thrones and vampire movies. There's the pensioner who can barely afford to live on his pension. There's the man who beats his wife. There's the man who joins a Neo Nazi group and beats up homeless people. There's the daughter who reacts to her father's abandonment of his religion by converting to Islam. There's the daughter of a policeman who takes the law into her own hands.
And there's the film producer whose abuse of women triggers all the action in the narrative from before its beginning to beyond its ending.
Karmique.
Earlier in the year, I read a review of the first book in this series, and, as sometimes happens, the reviewer's negative experience made me perversely curious to read the book for myself. I'm grateful to him now for inadvertently pushing me towards a long reading adventure I might otherwise never have embarked on.
Part of my motivation to read Despentes' books was the sneaking suspicion that the reviewer's many valid-sounding points about language, style and restricted context might be due to him having read the book in English. I felt a strong urge to check how it played out in French.
At first glance, the narrative does seems to be concerned with a very narrow sample of Paris society: people who were involved in rock music in the eighties/nineties or in the making of X rated movies around the same period - though the story is set in the present. These are people who have addictions and unhealthy life styles, and who use a lot of slang containing an absolute multitude of swear words. Since there are a large number of such characters and all of their points of view are given one after another, the reader can feel overwhelmed and confused. I understood how the reviewer I mentioned earlier gave up half way through the first book of the series. I almost did too.
But the language drew me back in. It's difficult to explain how much fun it is to hear the characters speak. Not that there is much direct speech. No, the third person narration slides in and out of the characters' thoughts seamlessly so that each section is colored by the way the character concerned expresses herself/himself. All of them use the slang that is related to their particular milieu - and which depends also on the time they grew up in. The main character, fifty-year old Vernon Subutex, uses the expressions and slang of his time. Similarly with the other characters. Their ways of speaking match the time they grew up in whether they are eighteen or eighty. French slang is very colorful even if it uses far less variety of expression than more 'recherché' speech does. I believe there is room for both - in all cultures, and in the literature of all cultures.
And it wasn't only the language that drew me back to Despentes' series, it was also the portrait of Paris she paints. Not the typical picture, needless to say. This is the Paris of the outskirts, dingy apartments blocks, shuttered shops, underground corridors and forgotten railway sidings.
And the trees on the crest of the Buttes Chaument, and the Rosa Bonheur Café high above the city.
If the language and the setting had failed to captivate me, the content of the story would have seduced me in any case for the way it places certain aspects of contemporary life under the spotlight.
The main character, a former small record store owner, is typical of people you might find today in any city in the world, but certainly in France - an unemployed fifty year-old living in isolation in the big city: because his industry no longer exists, because he didn't put down roots when he should have, because he's at that age where several of his friends have died, because he no longer goes out since his welfare benefit was cut. It's all very believable to me - and I say that as someone who has lived in France for more than two decades. I've seen many record stores, video and dvd shops, tv and telephone providers, computer repair shops, etc, go out of business, and I've wondered where all those workers end up. Even the big record/video/technology stores like FNAC that still operate do a lot of web sales now and have reduced their personnel. Our online lives have changed the world in the space of a decade, and the casualties of that huge change need to be documented.
As I read on and met even more characters, I realised that the sample of society Despentes is examining isn't as narrow as I had at first thought. There's the woman who used to develop photos. No surprise that she is out of work in this age of digital photography. There's the former literature teacher who has become an alcoholic. No surprise there either - how do you teach Racine to teenagers who grew up on Game of Thrones and vampire movies. There's the pensioner who can barely afford to live on his pension. There's the man who beats his wife. There's the man who joins a Neo Nazi group and beats up homeless people. There's the daughter who reacts to her father's abandonment of his religion by converting to Islam. There's the daughter of a policeman who takes the law into her own hands.
And there's the film producer whose abuse of women triggers all the action in the narrative from before its beginning to beyond its ending.
Karmique.
July 7, 2020
VERNONAS!!!
Gal ne wholesome asmuo, bet wholesome knyga. Geriausia iš šiemet skaitytų!!! Vernonas ir užknisa, ir liūdina, ir žiauriai prajuokina.
Favoritas, skaitysiu dar ne kartą, kol mokėsiu mintinai.
Siužetas, kurį nusako anotacijos, - paprastas: jau toks nebejaunas ex-rokeris-hipis Vernonas prasiskolina, jį išmeta iš buto, jis bando apsistot tai pas vieną draugą, tai pas kitą, galiausiai paaiškėja, kad ne tiek jau daug tų draugų, nesvarbu, kiek su kuo kažkada tūsinta ir visokių patirčių patirta. Taip pat bando eiti per moteris - seniai pažįstamas, naujai pažįstamas. Galiausiai tampa benamiu.
Kas man (LABAI) patiko:
1. Struktūra: kiekvienam knygos skyriuj (jų keliolika) pasakojama vis iš kitos perspektyvos - žmonių, kurie anksčiau ar vėliau būna susiję su Vernono istorija. Kiekvienam skyriuj - vis kitas balsas, kitas stilius; tie skyriai / žmonės susiję per Vernoną, bet nėra jokio mechaniško linijų susiejimo (kaip Iñárritu filmuose, kur visi su visais susitinka, prasilenkia ir persidengia). Čia tiesiog - keliavimas per skirtingas perspektyvas. Ir labai gerai parašytas.
2. Paraštiniai žmonės - praktiškai visi ir visos, iš kurių taško pasakojama, - vienu ar kitu požiūriu outcastai. Vernonas - iš pradžių tiesiog nusenęs bohemščikas, paskui jau ir benamis. Jo draugai - kas smurtautojas (ir taip baugiai, bet tikrai parodytas - kaip muša žmoną, smurtauja prieš vaiką ir negali - ir nenori! - nieko su savim padaryti), kas buvusi pornožvaigždė, kas transseksualas, kas nenusisekusi žurnalistė, kas per asmeninę netektį visą gyvenimą negalėjusi perlipti senutė, vis dar kiekvienam žingsny gedinti mirusiojo, kas narkašnikas turtuolis. Nežinau, kaip Despentes tai padaro, bet net skaitydama/s bjauriausias vietas (man tokia buvo apie smurtautoją) patiri ne empatiją, ne užuojautą, bet kažkokį.. pažinimą. Suvoki, kaip, pagal kokią logiką randasi bjauriausi dalykai (gal ne gyvenime, bet bent tekste) - baimė, įtūžis, pasišlykštėjimas, žiaurumas, atbukimas. Bet nepradedi nei užjausti, nei "suprasti", kaip būna su visokiais heroizuojamais blogiečiais. Tiesiog matyti.
3. LT vertimas. Eina sau!! Neperskaičiau viso angliškai, bet kiek skaičiau, angliškai atrodė toks lyg įprastas - gal kad panašaus stiliaus tekstų nėra reta. Lietuviškai tai retoka, nebent pastarųjų metų Kmitos, Kulvinskaitės romanai su šnekamąja kalba. "Vernono" stilius - nuo gatvinio iki "prarastos jaunystės", nuo visiškai buitinio iki buitinio-pakylėto. Su visokiais rusiškais nerusiškais keiksmais, bjaurastim... kurie, kaip Ivaškevičiaus "Išvarymo" Vandalo kalboj, kelia ne pasibaisėjimą, bet vis stiprėjantį liūdesį. Knygos gale net apsiverkiau, ties pačiu paskutiniu sakiniu, net ne tiek dėl sakinio, kiek dėl visos užkeltos emocijų skalės.
Galbūt ne kiekvieno/s skaitytojo/s "arbatos puodukas", bet vis dėlto dažno gyvenimo bonkė ar stiklelis, šita knyga.
TL; DR: MYLIMIAUSIOS IŠTRAUKOS
Žurnalistė rašo knygą (relatable):
Šunys knygoj - atskira tema, čia vienas iš gyvų, mielų pvz:
Šitas toks jau visai ant padorumo ribos, bet labai žvengiau:
Čia apsinarkašinęs verslininkas diskotekoj:
Čia - viskas:
Gal ne wholesome asmuo, bet wholesome knyga. Geriausia iš šiemet skaitytų!!! Vernonas ir užknisa, ir liūdina, ir žiauriai prajuokina.
Favoritas, skaitysiu dar ne kartą, kol mokėsiu mintinai.
Siužetas, kurį nusako anotacijos, - paprastas: jau toks nebejaunas ex-rokeris-hipis Vernonas prasiskolina, jį išmeta iš buto, jis bando apsistot tai pas vieną draugą, tai pas kitą, galiausiai paaiškėja, kad ne tiek jau daug tų draugų, nesvarbu, kiek su kuo kažkada tūsinta ir visokių patirčių patirta. Taip pat bando eiti per moteris - seniai pažįstamas, naujai pažįstamas. Galiausiai tampa benamiu.
Kas man (LABAI) patiko:
1. Struktūra: kiekvienam knygos skyriuj (jų keliolika) pasakojama vis iš kitos perspektyvos - žmonių, kurie anksčiau ar vėliau būna susiję su Vernono istorija. Kiekvienam skyriuj - vis kitas balsas, kitas stilius; tie skyriai / žmonės susiję per Vernoną, bet nėra jokio mechaniško linijų susiejimo (kaip Iñárritu filmuose, kur visi su visais susitinka, prasilenkia ir persidengia). Čia tiesiog - keliavimas per skirtingas perspektyvas. Ir labai gerai parašytas.
2. Paraštiniai žmonės - praktiškai visi ir visos, iš kurių taško pasakojama, - vienu ar kitu požiūriu outcastai. Vernonas - iš pradžių tiesiog nusenęs bohemščikas, paskui jau ir benamis. Jo draugai - kas smurtautojas (ir taip baugiai, bet tikrai parodytas - kaip muša žmoną, smurtauja prieš vaiką ir negali - ir nenori! - nieko su savim padaryti), kas buvusi pornožvaigždė, kas transseksualas, kas nenusisekusi žurnalistė, kas per asmeninę netektį visą gyvenimą negalėjusi perlipti senutė, vis dar kiekvienam žingsny gedinti mirusiojo, kas narkašnikas turtuolis. Nežinau, kaip Despentes tai padaro, bet net skaitydama/s bjauriausias vietas (man tokia buvo apie smurtautoją) patiri ne empatiją, ne užuojautą, bet kažkokį.. pažinimą. Suvoki, kaip, pagal kokią logiką randasi bjauriausi dalykai (gal ne gyvenime, bet bent tekste) - baimė, įtūžis, pasišlykštėjimas, žiaurumas, atbukimas. Bet nepradedi nei užjausti, nei "suprasti", kaip būna su visokiais heroizuojamais blogiečiais. Tiesiog matyti.
3. LT vertimas. Eina sau!! Neperskaičiau viso angliškai, bet kiek skaičiau, angliškai atrodė toks lyg įprastas - gal kad panašaus stiliaus tekstų nėra reta. Lietuviškai tai retoka, nebent pastarųjų metų Kmitos, Kulvinskaitės romanai su šnekamąja kalba. "Vernono" stilius - nuo gatvinio iki "prarastos jaunystės", nuo visiškai buitinio iki buitinio-pakylėto. Su visokiais rusiškais nerusiškais keiksmais, bjaurastim... kurie, kaip Ivaškevičiaus "Išvarymo" Vandalo kalboj, kelia ne pasibaisėjimą, bet vis stiprėjantį liūdesį. Knygos gale net apsiverkiau, ties pačiu paskutiniu sakiniu, net ne tiek dėl sakinio, kiek dėl visos užkeltos emocijų skalės.
Galbūt ne kiekvieno/s skaitytojo/s "arbatos puodukas", bet vis dėlto dažno gyvenimo bonkė ar stiklelis, šita knyga.
TL; DR: MYLIMIAUSIOS IŠTRAUKOS
Jo urvely jauku. Sulaikęs kvėpavimą, čia gali išgyvent. Kiekvienam veiksmui Vernonas skiria kiek įmanoma mažiau jėgų. Mažiau valgo. Iš pradžių ėmė valgyt lengvesnius pietus. Kiniškus užpilamus makaronus. Nebeperka mėsos, nes baltymų reikia tik sportininkams. Iš esmės valgo tik ryžius. Užsiperka maišais po penkis kilogramus parduotuvėje "Tang Frères". Mažiau rūko: pirmą cizą atideda, antros ilgiau palaukia, išgėręs rytinę kavą pagalvoja, ar tikrai nori trečios. Bykus pasideda saugioj vietoj. Žino, kuriose vietose aplink jo namą žmonės išlenda parūkyt prie įėjimų į biurus, pats eidamas pro šalį trumpam sustoja, susirenka ilgiausius bykus. Jaučiasi kaip išblėsusi ugnis, kurios žarijos pūstelėjus vėjui kartais vėl įsiplieskia, bet niekad neįdega prakurų. (p. 23-24)
Žurnalistė rašo knygą (relatable):
Galiausiai iš apmaudo įsijungia wordą. Jau laikas būtų pradėt tą savo knygą. Paskui patikrina banko sąskaitos likutį, po vieną peržiūri visus mokėjimus, paskui metasi ieškot "God is My Co-Pilot" albumo, perskaito vieną komentarų mūšį tviteryje, nieko ten nesupranta, išsiburia svetainėj tarot.com, paskui prisimena, kad reikia išsiųst čekį už nuomą, užpildo ir įdeda į voką, kurio neužklijuoja, nes tingi ieškot agentūros adreso. Jos dėmesys - kaip kukurūzų spragėsio. Lidija vėl įsijungia wordo failą, ten tuščia. (p. 145)
Šunys knygoj - atskira tema, čia vienas iš gyvų, mielų pvz:
Vienintelė gyva būtybė, kuriai rūpi jo sielvartas, - šuo. Vernonas pabando dar labiau save nuliūdint kartodamas šią mintį, bet kalytės snukis toks juokingas, kad išspaudžia jam šypseną. Koletės snukis kaip klouno. Ji nušoka nuo sofos ir nuskuba prie durų, trypčioja prie pavadėlio žiūrėdama į jį, tarsi siūlytų pamišėlišką planą "davai išvesk mane pamatysi pasiausim bus zeba". (p. 81)
Šitas toks jau visai ant padorumo ribos, bet labai žvengiau:
Danielius tapo translyčiu. Perėjo iš M į V. Pamela ničnieko nežinojo apie šitą žodį, iki jos geriausia draugė Debora nusprendė tapt Danielium. [...] "Kam tau to reikia?" - "Noriu pabandyt. Turiu tatūškių. Filmavausi porno. Rūkiau kreką. Kodėl neturėčiau tapt biču?" Todėl, kad tai kas kita, prietranka tu... Niekas kasdien nesileidžia testosterono vien dėl naujų patirčių. Pamela iškart išpranašavo Deborai pragaro kančias žemėje: ligas, depresiją, sąžinės priekaištus, svetimumo jausmą... Nepamiršo ir etinių klausimų: bliamba, drauge miela, negi nežinai, kokie bičai durni? Tu rimtai nori, kad į tave žiūrėtų kaip vieną iš jų? (p. 157)
Čia apsinarkašinęs verslininkas diskotekoj:
Vernonas fantastiškas. Kiko sustaugia DJ REVOLVER IN DA HOUSE! Pats žino, kad apgailėtina; bybį dėjo, jis pas save namuose, daro ką nori. Nerealu, šitas čiūvas turi šeštą pojūtį. Jis prie vairo, erdvėlaivis atsiplėšia nuo žemės. Viskas susiję, žmonės jų kūnai šviesos muzika – viskas žiauriai susiję. Kiko prieina prie Vernono ir uždeda jam ant peties ranką. Eina nachui respektas už grojimą nerealiai taško tavo selekcija krištolinė. You're a bad bad badass motherfucker. Tikras žvėris. Kambary nieko netrūksta? Jei ko reiks, sakyk, gerai? Nori, sukergsiu su kuria nors čikita? Pas mane yra groję septyni šimtai pem tūkstančių bičų su pleilistais jie geriausiu atveju turėdavo stilių bet tu... You're a badass motherfucker. Tu pažėk į tas kekšytes, kas joms užplaukė nuo tavo saundo, tuoj bus grupinis svetainėj. Kiko patinka net Subutexo snukis. Subutexas ne drovus, jis paslaptingas. Iš pirmo žvilgsnio atrodė drovus. Kiko vemt verčia drovumas. Gaujiniai geziukai būna piktybiniai, bet bent garsiai rėkia. Nemyža į batą. Drovumas reiškia klastą. Vidurinė klasė, hipsterynas. Susireikšminę nuopisos. Už drovumo slepias kompleksai, o už kompleksų - išdavikas. Jei nori, kad tūsas neprasmirstų, reikia žiūrėt, ką įsileidi. Reikia atrankos. Buto priežiūra - kaip valstybės. Reikia atmušt nepageidaujamus, būt negailestingam, įsileist tik tuos, kurie moka gerai leisti laiką. Pats moku už tūsą, užtat atsirenku žmones. Šitas Vernonas neaiškus, kai tik pradėjo grot, iškart pasidarė kažkoks kitoks. Menininkas. Jis tipo menininkas. (p. 197-198)
Čia - viskas:
Aš esu arogantiška ir žiauriai pažeidžiama kalė, aš esu paauglys, prikaustytas prie neįgaliojo vežimėlio, aš esu jauna moteris, kuri vakarieniauja su savo tėvu, o jis manim labai did��iuojasi, aš esu nelegalas, kuris perlipo per spygliuotas vielas Meliloje, einu Avenue des Champs-Elysées alėja ir žinau, kad šitam mieste rasiu ko ieškau, aš esu karvė skerdykloj, aš esu slaugė, kuri nebegirdi ligonių riksmų, nes niekuo negali jiems padėt, aš esu imigrantas be dokumentų, kuris kas vakarą paima kreko už dešim eurų ir eina nelegaliai tvarkyt vieno restorano prie Château Rouge metro stoties, aš esu ilgalaikis bedarbis, kuris ką tik gavo darbą, aš esu narkotikų prekeivis, kuris myža iš baimės likus dešimčiai metrų iki patikros muitinėje, aš esu šem penkių metų kekšė, kuri džiaugias pasirodžius seniausiam nuolatiniam klientui. Aš esu medis, kurio plikas šakas drengia lietus, vežimėly rėkiantis vaikas, pavadėlį tampantis šuo, kalėjimo prižiūrėtoja, pavydinti kalinėms nerūpestingos kasdienybės, aš juodas debesis, fontanas, palikta sužadėtinė, peržiūrinėjanti ankstesnio gyvenimo nuotraukas, aš bomžas, kuris sėdi ant suoliuko aukštai ant kalvos Paryžiuje. (p. 348)
June 13, 2018
*4.5*
Well, I burned through this book like a crazy person. It has that frenetic, out of control feeling I got from reading Trainspotting back in the 90s. Vernon Subutex is a searing kaleidoscope of modern Paris, and not the romanticised version of chic bistro's, wine and moonlight cruising on the Seine.
There is no getting around that this book is written to be provocative, to emerge you in sub-cultures and mindsets of marginalised lifestyles you may be not want to inhabit. I did struggle with this in the opening chapters - a kind of culture shock of nonchalant drug-taking, obscure bands and indiscriminate sex. But then you start to warm to Subutex and take note of all the caustic, wry observations on modern life that are wedged into this book. I decided I was never going to get all the various French culture references but I think I decoded enough to have a grasp of what was being made fun of ( Gérard Depardieu ! looking at you there ).
Despentes writes so astonishingly well about people most of us would consider loathsome - wife abusers, right-wing extremists, skin-heads, - she gives them voice in this novel and it's always believable and nuanced. At one point I did feel overwhelmed with the revolving door of characters, and the vastness of the social decay she is taking aim at. But in the end I embraced the slightly chaotic nature of this novel.
Among other things it is the story of one man's slide into homelessness, how Despentes carries off this story arc without it feeling contrived or mawkish is quite a thing to behold. I have absolutely no idea what will happen to Vernon in subsequent volumes or if I will be able to keep the plot straight but that is almost beside the point. In the end it becomes impossible to not see yourself offering Vernon Subutex your own sofa.
Vernon Subutex though perhaps not for the faint of heart is one of the most urgent and provocative books I have read in a while and it's a portrait of modern life that feels refreshingly unvarnished.
(I don't think it's entirely possible for a non European reader to truly appreciate all this book has to offer, so I direct you to this review by my GR friend, Meike, whom I thank for introducing me to Vernon.)
Well, I burned through this book like a crazy person. It has that frenetic, out of control feeling I got from reading Trainspotting back in the 90s. Vernon Subutex is a searing kaleidoscope of modern Paris, and not the romanticised version of chic bistro's, wine and moonlight cruising on the Seine.
There is no getting around that this book is written to be provocative, to emerge you in sub-cultures and mindsets of marginalised lifestyles you may be not want to inhabit. I did struggle with this in the opening chapters - a kind of culture shock of nonchalant drug-taking, obscure bands and indiscriminate sex. But then you start to warm to Subutex and take note of all the caustic, wry observations on modern life that are wedged into this book. I decided I was never going to get all the various French culture references but I think I decoded enough to have a grasp of what was being made fun of ( Gérard Depardieu ! looking at you there ).
Despentes writes so astonishingly well about people most of us would consider loathsome - wife abusers, right-wing extremists, skin-heads, - she gives them voice in this novel and it's always believable and nuanced. At one point I did feel overwhelmed with the revolving door of characters, and the vastness of the social decay she is taking aim at. But in the end I embraced the slightly chaotic nature of this novel.
Among other things it is the story of one man's slide into homelessness, how Despentes carries off this story arc without it feeling contrived or mawkish is quite a thing to behold. I have absolutely no idea what will happen to Vernon in subsequent volumes or if I will be able to keep the plot straight but that is almost beside the point. In the end it becomes impossible to not see yourself offering Vernon Subutex your own sofa.
Vernon Subutex though perhaps not for the faint of heart is one of the most urgent and provocative books I have read in a while and it's a portrait of modern life that feels refreshingly unvarnished.
(I don't think it's entirely possible for a non European reader to truly appreciate all this book has to offer, so I direct you to this review by my GR friend, Meike, whom I thank for introducing me to Vernon.)
April 15, 2019
Die Geschichte, die durch Vernons Couchsurfing in Teil 1 eine sehr rasante Achterbahnfahrt bis zum Totalabsturz mit Obdachlosigkeit auf der Straße vollführte, macht zu Beginn in Band 2 eine nerfenzerfetzend kreischende Vollbremsung und kommt auch irgendwie fast 120 Seiten nicht mehr in die Puschen.
Die bereits eingeführten Protagonisten suchen Vernon, aber sonst passiert nichts, sie entwickeln sich nicht weiter und man erfährt auch lange Zeit keine neuen Facetten von ihnen. Bis auf eine Figur, die Hyäne, dümpelt der von der Autorin so perfekt aufgestellte Freundeskreis Vernons ganz schön lust- und ambitionslos dahin. Auch Vernon lernt auf seinem Weg auf der Straße infolge seiner Krankheit so gut wie keine neuen Leute kennen, die ihm Impulse geben könnten.
Schon wollte ich ein bisschen am sanft aufkeimenden Frust verzweifeln, da bringt die schon erwähnte Hyäne Schwung in die Kiste, indem sie zuerst Alex Bleachs Bänder stiehlt und diese anschließend dem Grüppchen rund um Vernon vorspielt.
Was hier dem Leser angedeutet wird, ist atemberaubend. Möglicherweise gab es einen vom Ungustl Dopalet inszenierten Doppelmord. Chapeau, Frau Despentes, so eine Wendung im Plot hätte ich nicht erwartet. Sehr Cool!
Nach diesem Wendepunkt nimmt die Story unentwegt an Fahrt auf. Die Freunde organisieren sich, helfen Vernon und seinen obdachlosen Schicksalsgenossen und ein paar versuchen sich sogar mit total wahnwitzigen Aktionen an Dopalet zu rächen. Die Clique, die in Teil 1 Vernon nicht länger in ihren Wohnungen dulden wollte, wächst sehr stark zusammen Freundschaften werden erneuert und vertieft. Vernon wird zuerst der Sandlerkönig beziehungsweise Sandlerguru des Pariser Sommers und feiert weiter einen unentwegten Aufstieg.
So liebe ich Geschichten. War der erste Band der Reihe noch von grenzenlosem Zynismus geprägt, so blitzt nun so etwas wie ein bisschen Hoffnung und Menschlichkeit in dem von Despentes konzipierten Universum auf. Die Leutchen sind zwar noch immer zynisch und böse, aber sie entwickeln sich zum Besseren- Herrlich!
Fazit: Eine großartige Reihe, ich bin schon so gespannt auf Teil 3. Strengerweise muss ich aber mit Bedauern ein Sternchen abziehen, da es mehr als 120 Seiten Beschleunigung brauchte, bis sich der Roman wieder in gewohnter Despentes Rasanz und Qualität bewegt. Das war mir um eine Nuance zu schaumgebremst.
Die bereits eingeführten Protagonisten suchen Vernon, aber sonst passiert nichts, sie entwickeln sich nicht weiter und man erfährt auch lange Zeit keine neuen Facetten von ihnen. Bis auf eine Figur, die Hyäne, dümpelt der von der Autorin so perfekt aufgestellte Freundeskreis Vernons ganz schön lust- und ambitionslos dahin. Auch Vernon lernt auf seinem Weg auf der Straße infolge seiner Krankheit so gut wie keine neuen Leute kennen, die ihm Impulse geben könnten.
Schon wollte ich ein bisschen am sanft aufkeimenden Frust verzweifeln, da bringt die schon erwähnte Hyäne Schwung in die Kiste, indem sie zuerst Alex Bleachs Bänder stiehlt und diese anschließend dem Grüppchen rund um Vernon vorspielt.
Was hier dem Leser angedeutet wird, ist atemberaubend. Möglicherweise gab es einen vom Ungustl Dopalet inszenierten Doppelmord. Chapeau, Frau Despentes, so eine Wendung im Plot hätte ich nicht erwartet. Sehr Cool!
Nach diesem Wendepunkt nimmt die Story unentwegt an Fahrt auf. Die Freunde organisieren sich, helfen Vernon und seinen obdachlosen Schicksalsgenossen und ein paar versuchen sich sogar mit total wahnwitzigen Aktionen an Dopalet zu rächen. Die Clique, die in Teil 1 Vernon nicht länger in ihren Wohnungen dulden wollte, wächst sehr stark zusammen Freundschaften werden erneuert und vertieft. Vernon wird zuerst der Sandlerkönig beziehungsweise Sandlerguru des Pariser Sommers und feiert weiter einen unentwegten Aufstieg.
So liebe ich Geschichten. War der erste Band der Reihe noch von grenzenlosem Zynismus geprägt, so blitzt nun so etwas wie ein bisschen Hoffnung und Menschlichkeit in dem von Despentes konzipierten Universum auf. Die Leutchen sind zwar noch immer zynisch und böse, aber sie entwickeln sich zum Besseren- Herrlich!
Fazit: Eine großartige Reihe, ich bin schon so gespannt auf Teil 3. Strengerweise muss ich aber mit Bedauern ein Sternchen abziehen, da es mehr als 120 Seiten Beschleunigung brauchte, bis sich der Roman wieder in gewohnter Despentes Rasanz und Qualität bewegt. Das war mir um eine Nuance zu schaumgebremst.
January 14, 2019
Im Zentrum dieses sehr zynischen Einblicks in die französische Gesellschaft steht Vernon Subutex, ehemals Inhaber eines Plattenlandens, den als Technologieverlierer der Internet-Onlinehandel aus seinem Job und seiner Kernkompetenz gefegt hat. Nun ist seine Expertise nicht mehr nützlich, er wird durch die Umstände zu wenig brauchbarem Menschenschrott, eine Weile hält er sich noch durch die Sozialhilfe über Wasser, aber irgendwann ist auch damit Schluss, er verliert diese und damit auch postwendend seine Wohnung.
Durch diese Plotwendung erzeugt die Autorin Virginie Despentes einen guten, gleichsam zwangsläufigen Überblick über unterschiedliche Prototypen der französischen Gesellschaft mit ihren Lebenskonzepten und Schicksalen, denn aus der Not heraus mit einer hanebüchenen Ausrede auf den Lippen quartiert sich Vernon kurzfristig bei sehr vielen seiner Kumpels aus seinem ehemaligen riesigen Freundeskreis ein. Um niemanden zu sehr zu strapazieren und auch durch sehr dumme Aktionen von Vernon, sind diese „Notschlafstellen" nur Intermezzi beziehungsweise Übergangslösungen und machen den Roman dadurch zwar nicht zum Road-trip, denn Vernon besitzt kein Auto, sondern zum innerstädtischen Pflasterspektakel.
Sehr viele von Vernons Freunden haben sich seit den alten unbeschwerten Zeiten von Sex, Drugs and Rockn‘ Roll in Vernons Plattenladen enorm verändert. Viele laufen entweder ihrer verlorenen Jugend nach, haben sich selbst verraten, oder sind gestorben wie die Fliegen, einige haben ihren sich in der Teenagerzeit abzeichnenden Arschlochcharakter einfach noch um ein Vielfaches vertieft, manche sind in ihrer jugendlichen Unruhe und Suche nach sich selbst noch immer steckengeblieben und haben sich verloren. Wie bei einem Kaleidoskop zeichnet Despentes die unterschiedlichen Archetypen des intellektuellen Mittelstands: Der erfolgreiche Sänger Alex, der an seinem Ruhm zerbrach und gestorben ist, der rechte nationalistische wenig erfolgreiche Drehbuchautor Xavier, der eine reiche Frau geheiratet hat, die ihn verachtet, eine Online Reputationsmanagerin, genannt die Hyäne, die in Wahrheit ja nur die geschönte Bezeichnung einer Schmutzkübelcampagnisiererin verkörpert, zwei ehemalige Pornodarstellerinnen, wobei eine es geschafft hat und die andere auch schon gestorben ist, Sylvie eine Frau die Vernon im Gegenzug für ein warmes Bett gebumst hat, und die nach Vernons Laufpass zu einem Facebook Racheengel mutiert, ein sehr erfolgreicher Filmproduzent, Gaelle, die sich noch immer bei wohlhabenden Irren durchschnorrt und Vernon mitzieht und so weiter und so fort.
Die Autorin fährt ein Potpourri des Zynismus auf, in dem wie beiläufig viele moderne Themen gestreift und durchphilosophiert werden, Sex, Porno, Drogen, Ehe, Familie, Politik, Links und Rechts, der Sozialstaat, neue Technologien, Wohlstandsverlierer, Kapitalismus, Reichtum, Hedonismus, Egoismus, Tierliebe, Eifersucht, Wahnsinn, ... Alle diese einerseits zeitlosen als auch in der Sicht der modernen Welt neuartigen Ausprägungen des Menschlichen werden aufgefahren. Keine Figur – nicht mal Vernon - ist wirklich sympathisch alle tragen eine gehörige Arschlochkomponente zur Schau.
In ihrem Zynismus der Misanthropie erinnert mich die Autorin frappant an …. na an wen? - an einen handwerklich besseren und moderneren Houellebecq, der nicht vor 20 Jahren in seiner schriftstellerischen Entwicklung steckengeblieben ist, einfach sorgfältiger recherchiert, sich keine so sagenhaften technologischen und logischen Schnitzer leistet und der nicht ausschließlich seinem Sexismus und dem Faible für Skandale frönt. Das ist insofern sehr witzig kurios, da man meinen könnte, Houelle wäre in diesem Fall in den Geist und den Körper einer Frau geschlüpft. Stellt Euch das mal praktisch vor, das wäre wirklich die Hölle für ihn! 😂😂😂
„Sie hat nie verstanden, was junge Mädchen daran finden, mit älteren Männern zu schlafen. […]„Männer ihres Alters stoßen sie ab, ihre Eier hängen herab wie sklerotische Schildkrötenköpfe. Sie könnte kotzen, wenn sie sie anfassen muss."
„Internet ist für Eltern so, als würde man dir dein Kind rauben, noch bevor es lesen kann.“
„Er steht hier und kauft ein, anstatt zu arbeiten, weil Madame nicht will, dass man sie für ein Dienstmädchen hält, aber die dreckigen Faulenzer von Kanaken hängen draußen rum, ohne einen Finger krumm zu machen. […] Zusammen mit den Arbeitslosen, denen die Stütze in den Arsch geschoben wird, sitzen sie den ganzen Tag im Cafe, während ihre Weiber schuften. Die machen nicht nur alles im Haus, ohne zu jammern, und gehen arbeiten, um ihre Kerle durchzufüttern, sie müssen sich auch noch einen Schleier umhängen, um ihre Unterwerfung zu demonstrieren. Das ist doch Psychoterror! Alles nur, damit der französische Mann merkt, dass er nichts mehr wert ist.“
Alle Figuren sind detailgetreu tiefgründig mitsamt ihrer Geschichte und den Einstellungen zum Leben entwickelt und irgendwie miteinander verwoben. Man hat das Gefühl, Paris ist nicht viel mehr als ein kleines Dorf, vor allem was Vernons Kohorte betrifft. Das letzte Interview des berühmten Sängers Alex, das in Vernons Besitz sein soll, spielt auch eine Rolle, warum sich so viele Menschen mit diesem Verlierer überhaupt abgeben wollen. Am Ende des ersten Teils ist Vernon ganz unten, nämlich nicht nur ohne Wohnung sondern richtig obdachlos draußen auf der Straße angekommen und kann auch von dort einen Bericht über den Zustand dieser französischen Subkultur abgeben.
Fazit: Ich persönlich bin sehr begeistert, muss aber anmerken, dass dies nicht unbedingt ein Werk für alle ist, denn es ist beinharter Tobak. Wer Zynismus, Bösartigkeit, Menschenfeindlichkeit und grenzenlosen Pessimismus bezüglich der Gesellschaft schwer erträgt, sollte die Finger davon lassen. Denn zumindest im ersten Teil hat die Autorin jeden Funken der Hoffnung mit der Perfidie einer Göttin in ihrem fiktiven bitterbösen selbstkonzipierten Mirkoversum namens Paris ausgeblasen. Wundervoll, genial, großartig und absolut lesenswert. Für mich schon im Jänner ein erstes Highlight des Buchjahres.
Ich will auf jeden Fall unbedingt wissen, wie es weitergeht!!!!
Durch diese Plotwendung erzeugt die Autorin Virginie Despentes einen guten, gleichsam zwangsläufigen Überblick über unterschiedliche Prototypen der französischen Gesellschaft mit ihren Lebenskonzepten und Schicksalen, denn aus der Not heraus mit einer hanebüchenen Ausrede auf den Lippen quartiert sich Vernon kurzfristig bei sehr vielen seiner Kumpels aus seinem ehemaligen riesigen Freundeskreis ein. Um niemanden zu sehr zu strapazieren und auch durch sehr dumme Aktionen von Vernon, sind diese „Notschlafstellen" nur Intermezzi beziehungsweise Übergangslösungen und machen den Roman dadurch zwar nicht zum Road-trip, denn Vernon besitzt kein Auto, sondern zum innerstädtischen Pflasterspektakel.
Sehr viele von Vernons Freunden haben sich seit den alten unbeschwerten Zeiten von Sex, Drugs and Rockn‘ Roll in Vernons Plattenladen enorm verändert. Viele laufen entweder ihrer verlorenen Jugend nach, haben sich selbst verraten, oder sind gestorben wie die Fliegen, einige haben ihren sich in der Teenagerzeit abzeichnenden Arschlochcharakter einfach noch um ein Vielfaches vertieft, manche sind in ihrer jugendlichen Unruhe und Suche nach sich selbst noch immer steckengeblieben und haben sich verloren. Wie bei einem Kaleidoskop zeichnet Despentes die unterschiedlichen Archetypen des intellektuellen Mittelstands: Der erfolgreiche Sänger Alex, der an seinem Ruhm zerbrach und gestorben ist, der rechte nationalistische wenig erfolgreiche Drehbuchautor Xavier, der eine reiche Frau geheiratet hat, die ihn verachtet, eine Online Reputationsmanagerin, genannt die Hyäne, die in Wahrheit ja nur die geschönte Bezeichnung einer Schmutzkübelcampagnisiererin verkörpert, zwei ehemalige Pornodarstellerinnen, wobei eine es geschafft hat und die andere auch schon gestorben ist, Sylvie eine Frau die Vernon im Gegenzug für ein warmes Bett gebumst hat, und die nach Vernons Laufpass zu einem Facebook Racheengel mutiert, ein sehr erfolgreicher Filmproduzent, Gaelle, die sich noch immer bei wohlhabenden Irren durchschnorrt und Vernon mitzieht und so weiter und so fort.
Die Autorin fährt ein Potpourri des Zynismus auf, in dem wie beiläufig viele moderne Themen gestreift und durchphilosophiert werden, Sex, Porno, Drogen, Ehe, Familie, Politik, Links und Rechts, der Sozialstaat, neue Technologien, Wohlstandsverlierer, Kapitalismus, Reichtum, Hedonismus, Egoismus, Tierliebe, Eifersucht, Wahnsinn, ... Alle diese einerseits zeitlosen als auch in der Sicht der modernen Welt neuartigen Ausprägungen des Menschlichen werden aufgefahren. Keine Figur – nicht mal Vernon - ist wirklich sympathisch alle tragen eine gehörige Arschlochkomponente zur Schau.
In ihrem Zynismus der Misanthropie erinnert mich die Autorin frappant an …. na an wen? - an einen handwerklich besseren und moderneren Houellebecq, der nicht vor 20 Jahren in seiner schriftstellerischen Entwicklung steckengeblieben ist, einfach sorgfältiger recherchiert, sich keine so sagenhaften technologischen und logischen Schnitzer leistet und der nicht ausschließlich seinem Sexismus und dem Faible für Skandale frönt. Das ist insofern sehr witzig kurios, da man meinen könnte, Houelle wäre in diesem Fall in den Geist und den Körper einer Frau geschlüpft. Stellt Euch das mal praktisch vor, das wäre wirklich die Hölle für ihn! 😂😂😂
„Sie hat nie verstanden, was junge Mädchen daran finden, mit älteren Männern zu schlafen. […]„Männer ihres Alters stoßen sie ab, ihre Eier hängen herab wie sklerotische Schildkrötenköpfe. Sie könnte kotzen, wenn sie sie anfassen muss."
„Internet ist für Eltern so, als würde man dir dein Kind rauben, noch bevor es lesen kann.“
„Er steht hier und kauft ein, anstatt zu arbeiten, weil Madame nicht will, dass man sie für ein Dienstmädchen hält, aber die dreckigen Faulenzer von Kanaken hängen draußen rum, ohne einen Finger krumm zu machen. […] Zusammen mit den Arbeitslosen, denen die Stütze in den Arsch geschoben wird, sitzen sie den ganzen Tag im Cafe, während ihre Weiber schuften. Die machen nicht nur alles im Haus, ohne zu jammern, und gehen arbeiten, um ihre Kerle durchzufüttern, sie müssen sich auch noch einen Schleier umhängen, um ihre Unterwerfung zu demonstrieren. Das ist doch Psychoterror! Alles nur, damit der französische Mann merkt, dass er nichts mehr wert ist.“
Alle Figuren sind detailgetreu tiefgründig mitsamt ihrer Geschichte und den Einstellungen zum Leben entwickelt und irgendwie miteinander verwoben. Man hat das Gefühl, Paris ist nicht viel mehr als ein kleines Dorf, vor allem was Vernons Kohorte betrifft. Das letzte Interview des berühmten Sängers Alex, das in Vernons Besitz sein soll, spielt auch eine Rolle, warum sich so viele Menschen mit diesem Verlierer überhaupt abgeben wollen. Am Ende des ersten Teils ist Vernon ganz unten, nämlich nicht nur ohne Wohnung sondern richtig obdachlos draußen auf der Straße angekommen und kann auch von dort einen Bericht über den Zustand dieser französischen Subkultur abgeben.
Fazit: Ich persönlich bin sehr begeistert, muss aber anmerken, dass dies nicht unbedingt ein Werk für alle ist, denn es ist beinharter Tobak. Wer Zynismus, Bösartigkeit, Menschenfeindlichkeit und grenzenlosen Pessimismus bezüglich der Gesellschaft schwer erträgt, sollte die Finger davon lassen. Denn zumindest im ersten Teil hat die Autorin jeden Funken der Hoffnung mit der Perfidie einer Göttin in ihrem fiktiven bitterbösen selbstkonzipierten Mirkoversum namens Paris ausgeblasen. Wundervoll, genial, großartig und absolut lesenswert. Für mich schon im Jänner ein erstes Highlight des Buchjahres.
Ich will auf jeden Fall unbedingt wissen, wie es weitergeht!!!!
July 7, 2020
4.5/5
Vernonas Subutexas yra tai, kuo norėtume būti. Vernonas Subutexas yra tai, kuo tapę savęs nekęstume. Į jį žiūrėti tiek malonu, kiek malonu žvelgti į avariją kelyje - raukomės, aikčiojame, užgniaužia kvapą, bet nusukti akių neįmanoma, net jei žinai, kad ilgai spoksoti būtų nepadoru. Jis tas benamis stotyje, nuo kurio kvapo riečia nosį. Jis tas didžėjus, kurio skoniui norėtume įtikti ir kurio grojama muzika, rodos, tobulai dera prie to, ką tą akimirką išgyvename. Subutexas yra narkotikas. Subutexas yra vaistas, kuriuo gydomi narkomanai. Jis viskas, bet tuo pačiu jis ir niekas. Ir neaišku, kuo būti blogiau.
Jau senokai kita knyga man sukėlė tiek jausmų ir emocijų, kiek kad šioji. Turiu tiek daug minčių, jaučiuosi tokia plėšoma į skirtingas puses. Ir ne, aš ne apie seksą, ne apie narkotikus, ne apie smurtą - tokie dalykai manęs negąsdina, nešiurpina, nešokiruoja. Bet negaliu neįspėti - pasimatymas su Vernonu ir jo gyvenimo palydovais nėra lengvas, o dažniausiai dar ir šiek tiek kamuojantis, energetiškai vampyriškas. Nes knygoje tiek daug to, ką esame pratę atmesti kaip visuomenės paribius. Tiek daug žmonių, kurių nepažįsti. Tiek daug minima grupių, kurias turėsi googlinti - kad ir kaip mylėtum muziką, kad ir kiek apie ją žinotum. Stumtis per naujų veidų, vardų ir gyvenimų jūrą kartais atrodo per sunku, kad būtų verta - ypač jei bandai sugauti kiekvieną siūlo galą. Bet jei leidi sau tiesiog mėgautis procesu, o ypač vertimu, kuris uždaužo realistiškumu ir organiškumu, jautiesi bene dvigubai apdovanotas - tiek Virginie Despantes, tiek Pauliaus Jevsejevo. Pauliui norėčiau paskirti atskirą padėką - šis vertėjas tekstui suteikia tokį kvėpavimą, jog jautiesi su Vernonu sėdintis, gulintis, miegantis, valgantis, besimylintis, žlungantis, triumfuojantis. Vernonas tampa balsu galvoje. Žmogumi šalia. Koks tai vertėjo, redaktoriaus ir leidyklos triumfas!
Ir nors visada lieku tik pavydinti žmonėms, kurie klauso audioknygų, kai pati joms susikaupti negaliu, beveik būčiau pasiruošusi šią paklausyti įgarsintą tinkamo "vokalo" (ar net skirtingų balsų kiekvienam skyriui, kiekvienam pasakotojui) - koks tai gyvas, koks sklandus, koks kinematografiškas, plaukiantis tekstas. Bet plaukia ne kaip vanduo - oi ne. Jis limpa, graužia akis, ištepa. Jis tirštas, klampus. Tačiau tai - dalis malonumo. To makabriško, keisto, truputį nepadoraus ir neleistino. Spoksojimo į katastrofą.
Vernonas Subutexas yra tai, kuo norėtume būti. Vernonas Subutexas yra tai, kuo tapę savęs nekęstume. Į jį žiūrėti tiek malonu, kiek malonu žvelgti į avariją kelyje - raukomės, aikčiojame, užgniaužia kvapą, bet nusukti akių neįmanoma, net jei žinai, kad ilgai spoksoti būtų nepadoru. Jis tas benamis stotyje, nuo kurio kvapo riečia nosį. Jis tas didžėjus, kurio skoniui norėtume įtikti ir kurio grojama muzika, rodos, tobulai dera prie to, ką tą akimirką išgyvename. Subutexas yra narkotikas. Subutexas yra vaistas, kuriuo gydomi narkomanai. Jis viskas, bet tuo pačiu jis ir niekas. Ir neaišku, kuo būti blogiau.
Jau senokai kita knyga man sukėlė tiek jausmų ir emocijų, kiek kad šioji. Turiu tiek daug minčių, jaučiuosi tokia plėšoma į skirtingas puses. Ir ne, aš ne apie seksą, ne apie narkotikus, ne apie smurtą - tokie dalykai manęs negąsdina, nešiurpina, nešokiruoja. Bet negaliu neįspėti - pasimatymas su Vernonu ir jo gyvenimo palydovais nėra lengvas, o dažniausiai dar ir šiek tiek kamuojantis, energetiškai vampyriškas. Nes knygoje tiek daug to, ką esame pratę atmesti kaip visuomenės paribius. Tiek daug žmonių, kurių nepažįsti. Tiek daug minima grupių, kurias turėsi googlinti - kad ir kaip mylėtum muziką, kad ir kiek apie ją žinotum. Stumtis per naujų veidų, vardų ir gyvenimų jūrą kartais atrodo per sunku, kad būtų verta - ypač jei bandai sugauti kiekvieną siūlo galą. Bet jei leidi sau tiesiog mėgautis procesu, o ypač vertimu, kuris uždaužo realistiškumu ir organiškumu, jautiesi bene dvigubai apdovanotas - tiek Virginie Despantes, tiek Pauliaus Jevsejevo. Pauliui norėčiau paskirti atskirą padėką - šis vertėjas tekstui suteikia tokį kvėpavimą, jog jautiesi su Vernonu sėdintis, gulintis, miegantis, valgantis, besimylintis, žlungantis, triumfuojantis. Vernonas tampa balsu galvoje. Žmogumi šalia. Koks tai vertėjo, redaktoriaus ir leidyklos triumfas!
Ir nors visada lieku tik pavydinti žmonėms, kurie klauso audioknygų, kai pati joms susikaupti negaliu, beveik būčiau pasiruošusi šią paklausyti įgarsintą tinkamo "vokalo" (ar net skirtingų balsų kiekvienam skyriui, kiekvienam pasakotojui) - koks tai gyvas, koks sklandus, koks kinematografiškas, plaukiantis tekstas. Bet plaukia ne kaip vanduo - oi ne. Jis limpa, graužia akis, ištepa. Jis tirštas, klampus. Tačiau tai - dalis malonumo. To makabriško, keisto, truputį nepadoraus ir neleistino. Spoksojimo į katastrofą.
July 7, 2024
I don't have much to add to the many fine reviews I see here of this excellent novel. I agree with the warm words about Virginie Despentes's extraordinary ability to get inside the heads of all these people society would rather pretend didn't exist: the trans girl, the National Front supporter, the guy who hits his wife, the retired porn star, the teenager who has revolted against her father to find peace in Islam, the predatory lesbian, the middle-aged guy whose job has disappeared and finds himself out on the street begging for his next meal. Like all the people who've read her in the original, I'm amazed by her razor-sharp, foul-mouthed, up-to-the-minute Parisian street French.
Just one thing: if you haven't already seen the 2019 TV series, check it out. They've taken a few liberties with the story, but the characters are exactly the same as they are in the book. Romain Duris, always a fine actor, outdoes himself in the title role, and the supporting cast isn't far behind.
Just one thing: if you haven't already seen the 2019 TV series, check it out. They've taken a few liberties with the story, but the characters are exactly the same as they are in the book. Romain Duris, always a fine actor, outdoes himself in the title role, and the supporting cast isn't far behind.
March 8, 2021
Vernon Subutex is a mosaic of utterly fascinating characters living on the margins of society deep in a mid-aughts Paris. Virginie Despentes' (pronounced DEH-PONT) writing reminds me of a more feminist version of Christopher Brookmyre or Irvine Welsh minus all the scots dialogue and heroin. Cocaine seems to be the drug of choice for her characters.
The most impressive thing for me is just how great Despentes is at getting into her characters' heads, and honestly portraying so many perspectives. The story itself is relatively thin, Vernon Subutex, recently homeless, has some videos containing the last will and testament of his recently deceased rockstar friend. Vernon is trying to leverage these videos to help him get back on his feet, and in the meantime he's couch surfing around Paris. There are a dizzying amount of characters all interacting with one another that get caught up in trying to obtain these videos for one reason or another, and we get to live in their shoes for a little while.
If you're fascinated with interesting characters, you're going to have a blast with this one.
The most impressive thing for me is just how great Despentes is at getting into her characters' heads, and honestly portraying so many perspectives. The story itself is relatively thin, Vernon Subutex, recently homeless, has some videos containing the last will and testament of his recently deceased rockstar friend. Vernon is trying to leverage these videos to help him get back on his feet, and in the meantime he's couch surfing around Paris. There are a dizzying amount of characters all interacting with one another that get caught up in trying to obtain these videos for one reason or another, and we get to live in their shoes for a little while.
If you're fascinated with interesting characters, you're going to have a blast with this one.
June 7, 2024
Despentes writes like a woman about women and like a man about men, but she can also switch perspectives and write like a woman about men and like a man about women. That's what makes her special: You believe everything she says.
And the cosmos of characters in "Vernon Subutex" continues to grow, while at the same time it is a pleasure to see the old faces again. Because despite or perhaps because of their fallibilities, you sympathise with all the lost souls, the ageing marginal figures, the almost unteachable extremes. They are former beacons that are about to burn out, but which flare up one last time that summer in the park, Vernon's living room. This premonition of impending doom varnishes all the moral lapses and social inadequacies with a quiet melancholy that spreads like a lengthening shadow.
The plot remains the same - it is once again about the legacy of singer Alex Bleach and his connection to porn star Vodka Satana, who also died. Although it is no longer as incidental as in the first volume, the focus is once again on the characters and the cross-section of French society they represent.
And Vernon Subutex? He becomes the enlightened one, the guru, the substitute Jesus. He is a magnet whose power of attraction nobody can resist, no matter how hard he or she tries.
"Vernon Subutex" is a pleasure to read. Fortunately, there is still volume three.
And the cosmos of characters in "Vernon Subutex" continues to grow, while at the same time it is a pleasure to see the old faces again. Because despite or perhaps because of their fallibilities, you sympathise with all the lost souls, the ageing marginal figures, the almost unteachable extremes. They are former beacons that are about to burn out, but which flare up one last time that summer in the park, Vernon's living room. This premonition of impending doom varnishes all the moral lapses and social inadequacies with a quiet melancholy that spreads like a lengthening shadow.
The plot remains the same - it is once again about the legacy of singer Alex Bleach and his connection to porn star Vodka Satana, who also died. Although it is no longer as incidental as in the first volume, the focus is once again on the characters and the cross-section of French society they represent.
And Vernon Subutex? He becomes the enlightened one, the guru, the substitute Jesus. He is a magnet whose power of attraction nobody can resist, no matter how hard he or she tries.
"Vernon Subutex" is a pleasure to read. Fortunately, there is still volume three.
May 1, 2024
Diese Reihe ist für mich ein Phänomen. Es gibt so viele Punkte, die ich sonst bei einem Buch als negativ empfinden würde. Im Grunde kaum Handlung. Ständig wechselnde Ich-Erzähler und dabei eine Figur selbstverliebter als die andere. Eigentlich alles Arschlöcher, wenn ich ehrlich bin. Die Leute haben alle einen zentralen Fixpunkt: Vernon Subutex. Sie zelebrieren nach außen Lebensfreude in Form von Musik, Drogen und Sex. Aber jede Figur huldigt dem Individualismus und grenzt sich durch den durchgängig sarkastischen Unterton des Romans von allen Anderen ab. Ein erbärmlicher Haufen, diese Figurenschau der Autorin, die wohl ein Abbild der französischen Gesellschaft darstellen soll. Der Misanthrop in mir ist vollständig zufrieden mit der Lektüre, das eigene Gesellschaftsbild mehr als bestätigt und die Freude, in der langweiligen Provinz zu leben, übergroß. Another brick in the wall. Eine herausragende Reihe, die im Laufe der Jahre immer besser in Erinnerung bleibt. Daher nachträgliche Aufwertung auf 5 Sterne.
May 1, 2024
Das Leben des Vernon Subutex spiegelte sich auch in meinem Lesevergnügen wider: beides war die reinste Achterbahnfahrt, wobei es am Ende gegenläufig verlief. Mit Vernon ging es bergab, und ich konnte zum Schluss immer mehr Gefallen an diesem gefeierten Roman finden. Zuvor war ich sogar mal kurz vor dem Abbruch. Aber zum Glück hatte ich mich durch den Mittelteil durchgebissen, denn dies ist schon ein sehr außergewöhnliches Werk. Mit nichts zu vergleichen, was ich schon mal gelesen habe.
Der Einstieg mit der Vorstellung des ehemaligen Plattenladenbesitzers und Musikers Vernon Subutex (ein Pseudonym) war noch sehr eingängig, doch dann beschreibt Despentes immer mehr Weggefährten, die aufgrund von Unfällen, Selbstmorden oder Drogen ihr Leben gelassen hatten. Da merkte ich schon, dass Vernons Leben in der Pariser Subkultur in den vergangenen 30 Jahren sehr ereignisreich war. Sex, Drugs and Rock'n'Roll hört sich so nach erstrebenswerten Spaß und Freiheit an. Aber die Autorin nimmt mir als spießigen Hetero jegliche Illusion vom ungebundenen Leben im Untergrund, denn wirklich alle Personen, die in den ersten beiden Dritteln des Buchs die Wege von Vernon kreuzen, sind bemitleidenswerte Kreaturen, die an ihrem Hass auf sich, Paris und die ganze Welt zu ersticken drohen. Dieses Buch ist wie ein Überdruckventil. Ständig wird Dampf abgelassen, so wie man es in den sozialen Medien kennt.
Es gibt zwar eine Erzählstimme, doch die ist im Grunde kein Erzähler aus dem Off, sondern immer wieder die einzelnen Personen, die ihre Lebensgeschichten und -ansichten der Leserschaft mitteilen: vulgär, derb, sexistisch, polemisch, zynisch, misanthropisch, verachtend. Das Buch ist wie ein Roadtrip, nur ohne Auto und vorbeiziehenden Landschaften. Mehr ein Metrotrip, der zum Couchsurfing in Paris mutiert. Vernons ehemaliger Bandkollege Alex Bleach ist tot. Er beglich jahrelang die Lebenshaltungskosten für Vernon, nachdem dieser vor 10 Jahren seinen Plattenladen schließen musste. Und bevor Vernon zum Clochard wird, kommt er auf die glorreiche Idee, seine große Sammlung an losen Bekannten über Facebook zu kontaktieren und durch die Couchs der Exfreund/innen zu surfen. Mit den Frauen schläft er, mit den Männern säuft und kifft er, bis die Masche nicht mehr zieht und er auf der Straße landet.
Das Buch hat keine wesentlich fortschreitenden Handlung, sondern besteht in erster Linie aus den Erinnerungen der Personen, die Vernon trifft. Ganz lose ist Vernons Geschichte an die Memoiren der Anderen angehängt und am Ende fragte ich mich, ob ich nicht mehr über die Anderen erfahren hatte, als über das Leben des Vernon Subutex selbst.
Probleme macht mir vor allem der Mittelteil, in dem offensichtlich die Autorin ihre eigenen Erfahrungen aus dem Rotlichtmilieu ihren Charakteren mitgibt. Da wird in alle Löcher gefickt und abgespritzt, was das Zeug hält. Too much information running through my brain, too much information driving me insane. Die Figuren waren mir da allesamt zu abgedreht, quasi ausschließlich Menschen am Rande oder in der Unterwelt des Lebens. Sollte das das angepriesene gesellschaftliche Gesamtbild Frankreichs sein? Porno, Koks und Alkohol? Das änderte sich zum Glück im letzten Drittel mit dem Auftreten einer größeren Bandbreite von gesellschaftlichen Schichten, wie z.B. eines arabisch stämmigen Professors und seiner zum Islam konvertierten Tochter, deren mittlerweile verstorbene Mutter aber auch Pornos drehte. Oder der Türsteher Patrice, der seine häusliche Gewalt nicht in den Griff bekommt.
Ein Buch, das nicht leicht zu lesen war, trotz der dynamisch, kurzgehaltenen Sprache. Ein Buch, welches Wasser auf die Mühlen aller Menschenhasser ist. Ein zutiefst deprimierendes Buch über Menschen, mit denen ich allesamt eigentlich nichts zu tun haben möchte. Ein Buch aber auch mit viel Wahrheit für mich, der gerne diese Bereiche des Lebens ausblenden möchte. Ein Buch, das solche Emotionen in mir auslöst, muss aber auch gut geschrieben sein. Und das ist es.
Nachtrag: Ein Buch, das auch nach fünf Jahren noch in tiefer, positiver Erinnerung bleibt und daher eine nachträgliche Aufwertung auf 5 Sterne bekommt.
Der Einstieg mit der Vorstellung des ehemaligen Plattenladenbesitzers und Musikers Vernon Subutex (ein Pseudonym) war noch sehr eingängig, doch dann beschreibt Despentes immer mehr Weggefährten, die aufgrund von Unfällen, Selbstmorden oder Drogen ihr Leben gelassen hatten. Da merkte ich schon, dass Vernons Leben in der Pariser Subkultur in den vergangenen 30 Jahren sehr ereignisreich war. Sex, Drugs and Rock'n'Roll hört sich so nach erstrebenswerten Spaß und Freiheit an. Aber die Autorin nimmt mir als spießigen Hetero jegliche Illusion vom ungebundenen Leben im Untergrund, denn wirklich alle Personen, die in den ersten beiden Dritteln des Buchs die Wege von Vernon kreuzen, sind bemitleidenswerte Kreaturen, die an ihrem Hass auf sich, Paris und die ganze Welt zu ersticken drohen. Dieses Buch ist wie ein Überdruckventil. Ständig wird Dampf abgelassen, so wie man es in den sozialen Medien kennt.
Es gibt zwar eine Erzählstimme, doch die ist im Grunde kein Erzähler aus dem Off, sondern immer wieder die einzelnen Personen, die ihre Lebensgeschichten und -ansichten der Leserschaft mitteilen: vulgär, derb, sexistisch, polemisch, zynisch, misanthropisch, verachtend. Das Buch ist wie ein Roadtrip, nur ohne Auto und vorbeiziehenden Landschaften. Mehr ein Metrotrip, der zum Couchsurfing in Paris mutiert. Vernons ehemaliger Bandkollege Alex Bleach ist tot. Er beglich jahrelang die Lebenshaltungskosten für Vernon, nachdem dieser vor 10 Jahren seinen Plattenladen schließen musste. Und bevor Vernon zum Clochard wird, kommt er auf die glorreiche Idee, seine große Sammlung an losen Bekannten über Facebook zu kontaktieren und durch die Couchs der Exfreund/innen zu surfen. Mit den Frauen schläft er, mit den Männern säuft und kifft er, bis die Masche nicht mehr zieht und er auf der Straße landet.
Das Buch hat keine wesentlich fortschreitenden Handlung, sondern besteht in erster Linie aus den Erinnerungen der Personen, die Vernon trifft. Ganz lose ist Vernons Geschichte an die Memoiren der Anderen angehängt und am Ende fragte ich mich, ob ich nicht mehr über die Anderen erfahren hatte, als über das Leben des Vernon Subutex selbst.
Probleme macht mir vor allem der Mittelteil, in dem offensichtlich die Autorin ihre eigenen Erfahrungen aus dem Rotlichtmilieu ihren Charakteren mitgibt. Da wird in alle Löcher gefickt und abgespritzt, was das Zeug hält. Too much information running through my brain, too much information driving me insane. Die Figuren waren mir da allesamt zu abgedreht, quasi ausschließlich Menschen am Rande oder in der Unterwelt des Lebens. Sollte das das angepriesene gesellschaftliche Gesamtbild Frankreichs sein? Porno, Koks und Alkohol? Das änderte sich zum Glück im letzten Drittel mit dem Auftreten einer größeren Bandbreite von gesellschaftlichen Schichten, wie z.B. eines arabisch stämmigen Professors und seiner zum Islam konvertierten Tochter, deren mittlerweile verstorbene Mutter aber auch Pornos drehte. Oder der Türsteher Patrice, der seine häusliche Gewalt nicht in den Griff bekommt.
Ein Buch, das nicht leicht zu lesen war, trotz der dynamisch, kurzgehaltenen Sprache. Ein Buch, welches Wasser auf die Mühlen aller Menschenhasser ist. Ein zutiefst deprimierendes Buch über Menschen, mit denen ich allesamt eigentlich nichts zu tun haben möchte. Ein Buch aber auch mit viel Wahrheit für mich, der gerne diese Bereiche des Lebens ausblenden möchte. Ein Buch, das solche Emotionen in mir auslöst, muss aber auch gut geschrieben sein. Und das ist es.
Nachtrag: Ein Buch, das auch nach fünf Jahren noch in tiefer, positiver Erinnerung bleibt und daher eine nachträgliche Aufwertung auf 5 Sterne bekommt.
April 23, 2020
If you are a lover of the movie Magnolia (I think it is my favourite movie), then I imagine you are going to enjoy reading about Vernon Subutex. This is a story of modern day France told in picaresque fashion using an array of characters whose lives cross paths as they deal with their own personal demons and circumstances. It is not a happy story, but it is completely engrossing: it is raw, sometimes painful to read.
The eponymous Vernon Subutex used to run a record store (the book is full of references to bands and music, particularly punk rock) called Revolver. One of his customers was Alex Bleach who went on to become famous. When we meet Vernon, he has lost his business and is down on his luck. He is fortunate, however, that Alex has been paying his rent. Then Alex dies. Importantly, before he dies, Alex records some tapes of him interviewing himself.
As Vernon now has nowhere to live (he can't afford the rent himself), he is cast on the mercy of friends whose sofas he can borrow. This gives Despentes the opportunity to explore a range of social situations in France as Vernon moves from one person to another each of whom is dealing with issues such as a tendency to violence, racist views about who should or should not live in France and sexual identity (plus others). As interest in Alex’s tapes grows, other characters are introduced including a lesbian investigator called the Hyena who uses social media to take people down (for a fee, of course!) and is hired to track down the tapes. Social media is significant throughout the book - Vernon will go without food, but he will not easily give up his subscription to his internet provider (partly for the porn, but also for his continued connection to his world).
Many of the characters are connected by their pasts. It is very impressive to watch the way Despentes manages all these connections and keeps control over who knows who and when we learn about that. About halfway through the book, I realised I was getting a bit confused and I had to go back and draw myself a picture showing who was connected to whom (I may have missed some!).
This is part one of a trilogy and whilst it builds to a dramatic conclusion (note that the first question the police ask when arriving at the scene of an assault is the race of the attacker), it also leaves a lot open and I, for one, am very keen to read the next part. The book is filled with black humour, political commentary and dark tragedy. It is set in France and it is about France. But it also manages to hold up a mirror, several mirrors in fact, that it asks us to look into. They are like fairground mirrors - when you look into them, you see a distorted version of yourself or your society, but this book asks you to consider how much is distortion and how much is an accurate reflection.
The eponymous Vernon Subutex used to run a record store (the book is full of references to bands and music, particularly punk rock) called Revolver. One of his customers was Alex Bleach who went on to become famous. When we meet Vernon, he has lost his business and is down on his luck. He is fortunate, however, that Alex has been paying his rent. Then Alex dies. Importantly, before he dies, Alex records some tapes of him interviewing himself.
As Vernon now has nowhere to live (he can't afford the rent himself), he is cast on the mercy of friends whose sofas he can borrow. This gives Despentes the opportunity to explore a range of social situations in France as Vernon moves from one person to another each of whom is dealing with issues such as a tendency to violence, racist views about who should or should not live in France and sexual identity (plus others). As interest in Alex’s tapes grows, other characters are introduced including a lesbian investigator called the Hyena who uses social media to take people down (for a fee, of course!) and is hired to track down the tapes. Social media is significant throughout the book - Vernon will go without food, but he will not easily give up his subscription to his internet provider (partly for the porn, but also for his continued connection to his world).
Many of the characters are connected by their pasts. It is very impressive to watch the way Despentes manages all these connections and keeps control over who knows who and when we learn about that. About halfway through the book, I realised I was getting a bit confused and I had to go back and draw myself a picture showing who was connected to whom (I may have missed some!).
This is part one of a trilogy and whilst it builds to a dramatic conclusion (note that the first question the police ask when arriving at the scene of an assault is the race of the attacker), it also leaves a lot open and I, for one, am very keen to read the next part. The book is filled with black humour, political commentary and dark tragedy. It is set in France and it is about France. But it also manages to hold up a mirror, several mirrors in fact, that it asks us to look into. They are like fairground mirrors - when you look into them, you see a distorted version of yourself or your society, but this book asks you to consider how much is distortion and how much is an accurate reflection.
April 13, 2018
Inexplicably shortlisted for the MBI, but thanks to Amazon for giving me a full refund on the grounds of 'offensiveness to literature'.
She uses young people’s words, says them without yet knowing how ridiculous they are. She says “swear down”, she says “on fleek”, she says “bae”, and he recognises the fervent foolishness of people who feel the need to put the same expressions in every sentence.
While not a big fan generally, one advantage of the Kindle is that one can easily read previews of books before deciding whether to purchase and read on.
I would strongly recommend doing so for Vernon Subutex, 1 because this is a love/hate sort of book (I was going to say marmite but the comparison is unfair on my favourite spread): if you enjoy the first chapter then you will likely love the book that results, and indeed find yourself eagerly awaiting Part 2. I would point you to the reviews of two of my favourite Goodreaders:
Meike https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
and
Neil https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
as well as the rave review by the always-worth-reading Eileen Battersby in the Irish Times https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/bo...
.......
If on the other hand, like this reader, your heart sinks at character descriptions like:
Séverine was tall and hyper – so hyper she could be exhausting – she had legs that went on forever, she looked like a Parisian rich bitch, the sort of girl who can wear a sheepskin jacket and make it look cool. She grabbed life by the balls, there was nothing she could not do around the house, even changing a tyre on the hard shoulder did not faze her, she was the sort of rich brat who was used to sorting things out herself and never complaining.
and commentary on modern society like:
He would glance at the headlines. But he spent most of his time on porn sites. He doesn’t want to think about the crisis, about Islam, climate change, fracking, ill-treated orang-utans, about Romanians getting chucked off buses.
then do yourself a favour and stop, as it only gets worse - much, much worse.
Now the one part of the novel that I did enjoy was the character whose job is to provide a social media lynching on request for people's enemies and rivals, and I do know my review is about to fall into this trap:
Inciting a media lynching is much easier than generating a positive buzz – she claims that she knows how to do both, but cruelty makes for better clickbait in this day and age. A man who breaks things is a man who makes himself heard – it is crucial to adopt a male persona when trashing someone. The only sound that soothes the savage breast of the lunatics who haunt the corridors of the web is the splintering sound of a warder breaking a prisoner’s bones. Three rave reviews for some T.V. pilot and people start to suspect they’re being manipulated, thirty vicious comments and no-one thinks to question it. The casual browser can pat himself on the back and think “I wasn’t born yesterday”, but he has already passed on the message as intended. Scorn is as contagious as scabies.
but nevertheless.....
Borumil Hrabal, in Too Loud a Solitude, said (in Michael Henry Heim's translation
This is a book where a character might be described to another as She’s such a fucking skank, I’d rather bone a blow-up doll. One rather sympthasied that when Sylvie described her friends to Vernon, he stopped her, palm thrust forward, singing “Stop! In the name of love”
or the local supermarket subject to the sophisticated observational comedy that:
His local Monoprix is run by fuckwits. It never fails: they wait until the place is full of customers and then tell the staff to stack the shelves. Doing their utmost to ensure it is impossible to manoeuvre a shopping trolley. They could stock the shelves in the morning before they open, they could do it when business is slack. No, they prefer to do it at peak hours: stack three palettes across the aisle, make it as difficult as possible for the cretinous customers to do their shopping. All the retrograde fucking packaging winds him up.
Apparently the novel was translated by Frank Wynne, although given most adverbs and adjectives are drawn from a narrow list of profanities (the above are mild examples) I suspect it didn't take him long. There was also a surprising number of missing punctuation, misspellings, missing or added words, suggesting the proof reader rather struggled to tell what was deliberately badly written and what was simply a typo.
And one key issue I have is a significant disagreement with Eileen Battersby's review which includes the line
This book is of course on the Man Booker International longlist which made me, as a member of the shadow jury, contractually obliged to read on. This is book 11/13 for me and the first 10 impressed me with both their diversity and their high quality. This one, to be fair, scores well on the 1st count, in part by being a glaring exception to the 2nd.
And the other advantage of the Kindle - that I could easily delete this book. Had I the physical copy, I would feel slightly, but only slightly, uneasy about throwing it in the bin.
She uses young people’s words, says them without yet knowing how ridiculous they are. She says “swear down”, she says “on fleek”, she says “bae”, and he recognises the fervent foolishness of people who feel the need to put the same expressions in every sentence.
While not a big fan generally, one advantage of the Kindle is that one can easily read previews of books before deciding whether to purchase and read on.
I would strongly recommend doing so for Vernon Subutex, 1 because this is a love/hate sort of book (I was going to say marmite but the comparison is unfair on my favourite spread): if you enjoy the first chapter then you will likely love the book that results, and indeed find yourself eagerly awaiting Part 2. I would point you to the reviews of two of my favourite Goodreaders:
Meike https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
and
Neil https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
as well as the rave review by the always-worth-reading Eileen Battersby in the Irish Times https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/bo...
.......
If on the other hand, like this reader, your heart sinks at character descriptions like:
Séverine was tall and hyper – so hyper she could be exhausting – she had legs that went on forever, she looked like a Parisian rich bitch, the sort of girl who can wear a sheepskin jacket and make it look cool. She grabbed life by the balls, there was nothing she could not do around the house, even changing a tyre on the hard shoulder did not faze her, she was the sort of rich brat who was used to sorting things out herself and never complaining.
and commentary on modern society like:
He would glance at the headlines. But he spent most of his time on porn sites. He doesn’t want to think about the crisis, about Islam, climate change, fracking, ill-treated orang-utans, about Romanians getting chucked off buses.
then do yourself a favour and stop, as it only gets worse - much, much worse.
Now the one part of the novel that I did enjoy was the character whose job is to provide a social media lynching on request for people's enemies and rivals, and I do know my review is about to fall into this trap:
Inciting a media lynching is much easier than generating a positive buzz – she claims that she knows how to do both, but cruelty makes for better clickbait in this day and age. A man who breaks things is a man who makes himself heard – it is crucial to adopt a male persona when trashing someone. The only sound that soothes the savage breast of the lunatics who haunt the corridors of the web is the splintering sound of a warder breaking a prisoner’s bones. Three rave reviews for some T.V. pilot and people start to suspect they’re being manipulated, thirty vicious comments and no-one thinks to question it. The casual browser can pat himself on the back and think “I wasn’t born yesterday”, but he has already passed on the message as intended. Scorn is as contagious as scabies.
but nevertheless.....
Borumil Hrabal, in Too Loud a Solitude, said (in Michael Henry Heim's translation
When I read, I don't really read; I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop, or I sip it like a liqueur until the thought dissolves in me like alcohol, infusing brain and heart and coursing on through the veins to the root of each blood vessel.Here I found myself wanting to spit out most of the sentences, and to reach urgently for a bottle of mouthwash.
This is a book where a character might be described to another as She’s such a fucking skank, I’d rather bone a blow-up doll. One rather sympthasied that when Sylvie described her friends to Vernon, he stopped her, palm thrust forward, singing “Stop! In the name of love”
or the local supermarket subject to the sophisticated observational comedy that:
His local Monoprix is run by fuckwits. It never fails: they wait until the place is full of customers and then tell the staff to stack the shelves. Doing their utmost to ensure it is impossible to manoeuvre a shopping trolley. They could stock the shelves in the morning before they open, they could do it when business is slack. No, they prefer to do it at peak hours: stack three palettes across the aisle, make it as difficult as possible for the cretinous customers to do their shopping. All the retrograde fucking packaging winds him up.
Apparently the novel was translated by Frank Wynne, although given most adverbs and adjectives are drawn from a narrow list of profanities (the above are mild examples) I suspect it didn't take him long. There was also a surprising number of missing punctuation, misspellings, missing or added words, suggesting the proof reader rather struggled to tell what was deliberately badly written and what was simply a typo.
And one key issue I have is a significant disagreement with Eileen Battersby's review which includes the line
Welcome to 21st-century France, it could as easily be anywhere but the outrageously gifted film-maker and writer extraordinaire, Virginie Despentes, has set her epic social satire in Paris, specifically in the chaotic shark pool inhabited by screen writers, social media groupies, porn stars, failed musicians, random misfits and a controversial dead icon. Bold and sophisticated, this thrilling, magnificently audacious picaresque is about France and is also about all of us.Except it isn't - it really isn't. The cast of character is largely drawn from a narrow social set that represents a tiny minority of the actual population but which is significantly overrepresented in literature and the arts.
This book is of course on the Man Booker International longlist which made me, as a member of the shadow jury, contractually obliged to read on. This is book 11/13 for me and the first 10 impressed me with both their diversity and their high quality. This one, to be fair, scores well on the 1st count, in part by being a glaring exception to the 2nd.
And the other advantage of the Kindle - that I could easily delete this book. Had I the physical copy, I would feel slightly, but only slightly, uneasy about throwing it in the bin.
December 7, 2018
While I was in the middle of Vernon Subutex One, a book called Destroy All Monsters: The Last Rock Novel appeared in my Goodreads feed. (Thanks Kris.) Vernon Subutex has a strong claim to that subtitle too. In English it's so far been pigeonholed as translated literary fiction about the state of modern life / Western Europe / France / Paris (depending how specific you think its types are), and its Booker International shortlisting cements this - but just as much as being a perceptive take on contemporary society and politics, it faces up to the mythology and glitter of rock and indie as things that belong to the past and the middle-aged, that mass youth culture now has other foci, and many 20th century rock legends and their hangers-on are dead, or suited and booted with sensible jobs and nuclear families, or Peter Pans (of various genders) with levels of financial security ranging from the pampered, to the destitute like the titular former record-shop owner. So Vernon Subutex is also a book / series for people who love reading about the faded glamour of music scenes, and who don't follow translation prizes. It is so much on point about the pop-culture of different age groups that I still can't believe it was first published in 2015 and hadn't just been written a few months ago, as voters tired of - the obviously unmentioned - Macron, from the politics to the fashion (my note says about one female character's wardrobe "man-repeller Cos type clothing as favoured on Mumsnet" although I didn't record the page number that would have helped in quoting Despentes' own description). It would probably also be of interest to those who've enjoyed British topical political novels like Sam Byers' Perfidious Albion, as a similar bulletin from across the Channel.
It's a cartoonish, slangy satire in a 1990s style, but its caricatures are sharper, its characterisation deeper and the observations more true than in 90% of that stuff. I felt as if Despentes had lived as most of these people (and met the rest). It somehow romanticises less than most music books, whilst still being as cool as the best of them. (The blurb's cheesy wording doesn't reflect the understanding of subcultures inside the book, nor is it even wholly accurate about the plot.) It may be told via multiple characters, like a lot of 2010s literary fiction, but it's in close third-person rather than first, and the present-day story progresses chronologically. As long as you can deal with a lot of characters having equal importance, it's more straightforwardly readable and less experimental than might be expected from its current positioning in English. It didn't feel like anything that would be on one of those longlists. It was a bunking-off, guilty-pleasure kind of book I might read instead of anything I *should*. Except the writing, especially the inner life of most characters, is way too good and too convincing for any so-called guilt to come into it. People are just atypical enough to be convincing, for instance, Vernon weirdly finds coke relaxing.
There were a handful of things that perhaps could have been handled better - although as this is only part one of a trilogy, there's plenty of scope for further developments in later books. Recently-deceased rock star Alex Bleach - videos of whom are the novel's mcguffin - was black, yet there's nothing about him as a black artist, or how his stage name, and his cultural positioning identical to that of a white rock star relate to that (the name must be a comment in itself), and his social circle doesn't seem to include any other black people - his friends who appear in the book seem to be mostly white, with a few middle-eastern /Muslim. The novel's observation of political change references the growing acceptability of the far right, especially among the young, for instance, a biography of Bleach is probably "too middle-class hipster for the baby fascists of her generation". I'm not sure whether it's meant to be a close reflection of contemporary Paris or about a slightly different fictional version, just a little more dystopian from the reality where you can still find a homeless person sleeping in your app-hired electric car - but if it's the former, it doesn't have anything about a similar growth in socialist and far-left politics. The character I found least convincing was Patrice, a recently-separated domestic violence perpetrator who puts up the sofa-surfing Vernon for a while. It's possible I'm relying too much on stuff from psychology textbooks in this, but I also haven't knowingly met anyone who contradicts the idea that the high level of self-awareness and honesty, and lack of grandiosity, displayed by Patrice wouldn't co-exist long-term alongside his severely abusive behaviour, because if he were really that aware - and he's not written like someone kidding himself - he would have been able to reform himself more. He would have worked better written in distant third-person, with some of the insights into his behaviour coming from an omniscient narrator rather than from his own thoughts.
I occasionally had doubts about the 5-star rating; it started out as a book I wished I could have written, then at times it was too much, too much like eating some once-favourite treat I didn't now love as much as I used to, and for a while I only read 50 pages every few days. But towards the end, I was impressed with almost everything from the depiction of Vernon's decay (the specifics of which has unfortunately become blended in my memory with the later stages of the fall from prosperity of the title character in 19th-century Polish novel Marta, which I finished a few days later) to the aptness of references such as crap right-wing scriptwriter Xavier's interest in Pierre Drieu la Rochelle - whose politics were similar to those of Subutex's far-right characters and whose most famous work The Fire Within is somewhat echoed in the wanderings and descent of Vernon.
The French original of Vernon Subutex is packed with Parisian slang which was essentially untranslatable to English, as mentioned in this interview with translator Frank Wynne. Something has, in a way, been lost in translation, but, whilst never overegging it, Wynne has produced an English version in a register recognisable and credible, alongside all the reference-dropping (like the character who stole CDs using the method she saw in Christiane F) to anyone who used to read the British music press while it was still decent, and who remembers the work of punkish younger novelists of the 1990s - and as the focal characters are now in their 40s and 50s, Vernon reckons that if someone still listens to Tricky that probably means they're okay, this is a great fit for their heyday, people like the former rock girlfriend who reckons that if the menopause is as tough as they say, she might go back on hard drugs. The novel's interest in understanding all sides, humanising all characters equally, whether they are homeless or far right or trans or devoutly muslim or an ex-porn star or a comfortable middle-class straight couple with kids, is also perhaps more characteristic of this generation's attitudes than of Millenials and Gen Z, of people formed by a different time, when the tail-end of the post-war consensus, and post-modernism, was the order of the day. The trilogy has been compared by its French fans to the work of Zola and Balzac - two writers I've still not read; in the last few months, I've been finding this to be a major gap due to their influence on the classic Polish literature I've been reading - and now on Vernon Subutex.
I would love to see a review of Subutex by Nick Lezard, quondam book critic and writer of columns on middle-aged, middle-class poverty and near-homelessness in the New Statesman - although maybe he'd find it uncomfortably close to the bone, as Vernon's inertia, probably masking low-grade depression, is similar. From the poignant and ruthless years of attrition of a record collection once thought a permanent part of one's identity, as it's listed for eBay sale to buy basic consumables like food, to the weird gulf between who you know and the state of your own life, and the sort of welfare-state fails that left-leaning Brits like to think still don't happen on the Continent, and material artefacts of the rise and fall of personal circumstances like "the goose-down quilt he'd been lugging around since he was 30", Despentes is doing her absolute damndest to get it through to comfortable liberal readers that this stuff isn't nearly as far away from them as they'd like to think: even if you haven't started falling through the safety net, it probably is happening to someone of your acquaintance, and even to people you once admired.
And unlike so many commentators of this age, writing about and for their peers, there's also respect not dismissiveness, just as much for anyone else in the fast-moving cynical entertainment world of this book, for the younger generation on its own terms, here via a venial film director: his own daughter got it into her head to be a "YouTube Beauty Vlogger"… to his shock he discovered a universe of young girls who know exactly how to pose for a camera, how to frame a shot, and how to upload "make-up tutorials" that get up to 56 million hits when filmed in their bedrooms. He realised he was missing a trick, that he needed someone in his office to scour the web for new trends. This is typical of the way a lot is packed in: two characters' perspectives are elucidated simultaneously, whilst saying something kind of soundbitey about the present and moving the story forward. The buzz of every minute of being a twentysomething in the capital who knows quite a few of the right people, while trying to meet more, is vividly alive in the story of up and coming music writer Lydia Bazooka and it made memories of 00s East London flash before my eyes.
I've never read Despentes before (or especially wanted to before I first heard about Vernon Subutex) but vaguely knew of her by repute since Baise-Moi. As a result of enjoying VS1, have looked at a few interviews and other books of hers. Wynne described her as "ornery" and she seems even more so now that her non-fiction writings don't fit with the prevailing trends in late-2010s feminism, especially among younger women who are reacting against the prevalence of online porn (concern about internet porn is referenced here by an ex-porn-star character's idly daft book idea) - and her apparent advocacy of political lesbianism in one interview seemed to puzzle a young journalist. (Apologies if I misinterpreted this reporter.) Her most consciously transgressive move in this book is possibly an FTM character who transitions for somewhat non-standard reasons. Vernon Subutex himself may be a straight man, and the book's characters of various sexualities and genders, so it's not lesbian-focused like some of her earlier work, but there are a number of countercultural lesbian characters, one of whom also appears in Apocalypse Bébé. The sexuality of the formidable homeless Olga is unstated, but she reminded me of a more realist version of the Dog Woman in Jeanette Winterson's Sexing the Cherry.
About a month ago in the Times, an article by Laura Freeman asked Is there a great Brexit novel?. My impression is that most literary 'Brexit novels' already published are going for easy wins with a Remainer audience, and are therefore low on social and political complexity. Freeman described something along the lines of what I hoped to read - but which will evidently take longer than two and a half years to emerge, perhaps much longer:
How would Dickens, Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn, Gissing and Orwell have dealt with Project Fear, enemies of the people, the end of experts and the modern Circumlocution Office that is the Department for Exiting the European Union? ... There is something distasteful about that Welsh novelist — a personification of smuggery — in Cusk’s Kudos, repeating the old canard about prospectless leavers being “turkeys voting for Christmas”. A Dickens or an Orwell would ask: “Why vote leave? Why remain?” Today’s novelist howls: “Why, why, why?”
Despentes is not responding to a single political earthquake as are Brits writing about Brexit, or Americans about the Trump presidency, but to shifting trends. She gives considerably more space to one side of aggressively polarised politics than the other (the side on which her audience is less likely to be found, I assume) - but she comes closer to presenting an equivalent panorama of views and characters than anything of which I'm currently aware in English, other than perhaps Byers.
Needless to say, I am looking forward to the next instalment (its character list has already been useful while reading part one) and hope it maintains the momentum and quality of the first. In presenting (Even if reading over this post, as with many of my other 5-star reviews, makes me wonder if liking a book this much results in a fannish babble unlikely to convince others, because some works you simply *get* beyond anything that can be justified with quotes - or you don't.)
It's a cartoonish, slangy satire in a 1990s style, but its caricatures are sharper, its characterisation deeper and the observations more true than in 90% of that stuff. I felt as if Despentes had lived as most of these people (and met the rest). It somehow romanticises less than most music books, whilst still being as cool as the best of them. (The blurb's cheesy wording doesn't reflect the understanding of subcultures inside the book, nor is it even wholly accurate about the plot.) It may be told via multiple characters, like a lot of 2010s literary fiction, but it's in close third-person rather than first, and the present-day story progresses chronologically. As long as you can deal with a lot of characters having equal importance, it's more straightforwardly readable and less experimental than might be expected from its current positioning in English. It didn't feel like anything that would be on one of those longlists. It was a bunking-off, guilty-pleasure kind of book I might read instead of anything I *should*. Except the writing, especially the inner life of most characters, is way too good and too convincing for any so-called guilt to come into it. People are just atypical enough to be convincing, for instance, Vernon weirdly finds coke relaxing.
There were a handful of things that perhaps could have been handled better - although as this is only part one of a trilogy, there's plenty of scope for further developments in later books. Recently-deceased rock star Alex Bleach - videos of whom are the novel's mcguffin - was black, yet there's nothing about him as a black artist, or how his stage name, and his cultural positioning identical to that of a white rock star relate to that (the name must be a comment in itself), and his social circle doesn't seem to include any other black people - his friends who appear in the book seem to be mostly white, with a few middle-eastern /Muslim. The novel's observation of political change references the growing acceptability of the far right, especially among the young, for instance, a biography of Bleach is probably "too middle-class hipster for the baby fascists of her generation". I'm not sure whether it's meant to be a close reflection of contemporary Paris or about a slightly different fictional version, just a little more dystopian from the reality where you can still find a homeless person sleeping in your app-hired electric car - but if it's the former, it doesn't have anything about a similar growth in socialist and far-left politics. The character I found least convincing was Patrice, a recently-separated domestic violence perpetrator who puts up the sofa-surfing Vernon for a while. It's possible I'm relying too much on stuff from psychology textbooks in this, but I also haven't knowingly met anyone who contradicts the idea that the high level of self-awareness and honesty, and lack of grandiosity, displayed by Patrice wouldn't co-exist long-term alongside his severely abusive behaviour, because if he were really that aware - and he's not written like someone kidding himself - he would have been able to reform himself more. He would have worked better written in distant third-person, with some of the insights into his behaviour coming from an omniscient narrator rather than from his own thoughts.
I occasionally had doubts about the 5-star rating; it started out as a book I wished I could have written, then at times it was too much, too much like eating some once-favourite treat I didn't now love as much as I used to, and for a while I only read 50 pages every few days. But towards the end, I was impressed with almost everything from the depiction of Vernon's decay (the specifics of which has unfortunately become blended in my memory with the later stages of the fall from prosperity of the title character in 19th-century Polish novel Marta, which I finished a few days later) to the aptness of references such as crap right-wing scriptwriter Xavier's interest in Pierre Drieu la Rochelle - whose politics were similar to those of Subutex's far-right characters and whose most famous work The Fire Within is somewhat echoed in the wanderings and descent of Vernon.
The French original of Vernon Subutex is packed with Parisian slang which was essentially untranslatable to English, as mentioned in this interview with translator Frank Wynne. Something has, in a way, been lost in translation, but, whilst never overegging it, Wynne has produced an English version in a register recognisable and credible, alongside all the reference-dropping (like the character who stole CDs using the method she saw in Christiane F) to anyone who used to read the British music press while it was still decent, and who remembers the work of punkish younger novelists of the 1990s - and as the focal characters are now in their 40s and 50s, Vernon reckons that if someone still listens to Tricky that probably means they're okay, this is a great fit for their heyday, people like the former rock girlfriend who reckons that if the menopause is as tough as they say, she might go back on hard drugs. The novel's interest in understanding all sides, humanising all characters equally, whether they are homeless or far right or trans or devoutly muslim or an ex-porn star or a comfortable middle-class straight couple with kids, is also perhaps more characteristic of this generation's attitudes than of Millenials and Gen Z, of people formed by a different time, when the tail-end of the post-war consensus, and post-modernism, was the order of the day. The trilogy has been compared by its French fans to the work of Zola and Balzac - two writers I've still not read; in the last few months, I've been finding this to be a major gap due to their influence on the classic Polish literature I've been reading - and now on Vernon Subutex.
I would love to see a review of Subutex by Nick Lezard, quondam book critic and writer of columns on middle-aged, middle-class poverty and near-homelessness in the New Statesman - although maybe he'd find it uncomfortably close to the bone, as Vernon's inertia, probably masking low-grade depression, is similar. From the poignant and ruthless years of attrition of a record collection once thought a permanent part of one's identity, as it's listed for eBay sale to buy basic consumables like food, to the weird gulf between who you know and the state of your own life, and the sort of welfare-state fails that left-leaning Brits like to think still don't happen on the Continent, and material artefacts of the rise and fall of personal circumstances like "the goose-down quilt he'd been lugging around since he was 30", Despentes is doing her absolute damndest to get it through to comfortable liberal readers that this stuff isn't nearly as far away from them as they'd like to think: even if you haven't started falling through the safety net, it probably is happening to someone of your acquaintance, and even to people you once admired.
And unlike so many commentators of this age, writing about and for their peers, there's also respect not dismissiveness, just as much for anyone else in the fast-moving cynical entertainment world of this book, for the younger generation on its own terms, here via a venial film director: his own daughter got it into her head to be a "YouTube Beauty Vlogger"… to his shock he discovered a universe of young girls who know exactly how to pose for a camera, how to frame a shot, and how to upload "make-up tutorials" that get up to 56 million hits when filmed in their bedrooms. He realised he was missing a trick, that he needed someone in his office to scour the web for new trends. This is typical of the way a lot is packed in: two characters' perspectives are elucidated simultaneously, whilst saying something kind of soundbitey about the present and moving the story forward. The buzz of every minute of being a twentysomething in the capital who knows quite a few of the right people, while trying to meet more, is vividly alive in the story of up and coming music writer Lydia Bazooka and it made memories of 00s East London flash before my eyes.
I've never read Despentes before (or especially wanted to before I first heard about Vernon Subutex) but vaguely knew of her by repute since Baise-Moi. As a result of enjoying VS1, have looked at a few interviews and other books of hers. Wynne described her as "ornery" and she seems even more so now that her non-fiction writings don't fit with the prevailing trends in late-2010s feminism, especially among younger women who are reacting against the prevalence of online porn (concern about internet porn is referenced here by an ex-porn-star character's idly daft book idea) - and her apparent advocacy of political lesbianism in one interview seemed to puzzle a young journalist. (Apologies if I misinterpreted this reporter.) Her most consciously transgressive move in this book is possibly an FTM character who transitions for somewhat non-standard reasons. Vernon Subutex himself may be a straight man, and the book's characters of various sexualities and genders, so it's not lesbian-focused like some of her earlier work, but there are a number of countercultural lesbian characters, one of whom also appears in Apocalypse Bébé. The sexuality of the formidable homeless Olga is unstated, but she reminded me of a more realist version of the Dog Woman in Jeanette Winterson's Sexing the Cherry.
About a month ago in the Times, an article by Laura Freeman asked Is there a great Brexit novel?. My impression is that most literary 'Brexit novels' already published are going for easy wins with a Remainer audience, and are therefore low on social and political complexity. Freeman described something along the lines of what I hoped to read - but which will evidently take longer than two and a half years to emerge, perhaps much longer:
How would Dickens, Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn, Gissing and Orwell have dealt with Project Fear, enemies of the people, the end of experts and the modern Circumlocution Office that is the Department for Exiting the European Union? ... There is something distasteful about that Welsh novelist — a personification of smuggery — in Cusk’s Kudos, repeating the old canard about prospectless leavers being “turkeys voting for Christmas”. A Dickens or an Orwell would ask: “Why vote leave? Why remain?” Today’s novelist howls: “Why, why, why?”
Despentes is not responding to a single political earthquake as are Brits writing about Brexit, or Americans about the Trump presidency, but to shifting trends. She gives considerably more space to one side of aggressively polarised politics than the other (the side on which her audience is less likely to be found, I assume) - but she comes closer to presenting an equivalent panorama of views and characters than anything of which I'm currently aware in English, other than perhaps Byers.
Needless to say, I am looking forward to the next instalment (its character list has already been useful while reading part one) and hope it maintains the momentum and quality of the first. In presenting (Even if reading over this post, as with many of my other 5-star reviews, makes me wonder if liking a book this much results in a fannish babble unlikely to convince others, because some works you simply *get* beyond anything that can be justified with quotes - or you don't.)
October 8, 2020
This wasn't a regular book reading experience. This was like moving very fast through many rooms that happened to be other people's heads. Like in "Being John Malkovich" - you get into some folks minds and you see the world through their eyes, their egos and life experiences. And it's never comfy to become this rich bitch, this nazi boy, this sexist guy, this internet troll. But in a way this was... fun... this voyeuristic ride. And this was funny. In a way.
Vernon himself is a key, an ignition in a chain of accidents/non accidents and I guess in the end we will get to see how this snake of a story bites its own tail. Vernon's a car crash of a person and this book is a total freak show. I'm bringing popcorn to this crime scene, I wanna see what happens next, I wanna see how.
Special thanks goes to translator of this madhouse to Lithuanian. Paulius Jevsejevas FTW!!!
Vernon himself is a key, an ignition in a chain of accidents/non accidents and I guess in the end we will get to see how this snake of a story bites its own tail. Vernon's a car crash of a person and this book is a total freak show. I'm bringing popcorn to this crime scene, I wanna see what happens next, I wanna see how.
Special thanks goes to translator of this madhouse to Lithuanian. Paulius Jevsejevas FTW!!!
August 18, 2020
Pradžiai duodu penkias, pažiūrėsiu ar atlaikys laiko testą. Bet kažkaip, kuo daugiau galvoju apie knygą, tuo labiau patinka.
https://knyguziurkes.wordpress.com/20...
https://knyguziurkes.wordpress.com/20...
June 21, 2020
Πρέπει να είναι τρομερά κολακευτικό αλλά και τρομερά δύσκολο να σε συγκρίνουν με τον Michel Houellebecq. Κάτι έχει πάει πάρα πολύ καλά ή πάρα πολύ λάθος. Στην περίπτωση της Despentes συμβαίνει το πρώτο. Μεταφράστηκε πρόσφατα στα ελληνικά το πρώτο μέρος της τριλογίας της με τίτλο Βερνόν Σουμπουτέξ, όπου ένας υπερβολικά κουλ ιδιοκτήτης δισκάδικου αφού κλείνει το κατάστημά του (επειδή ποιος αγοράζει πια δίσκους;), στηρίζεται στους πολλούς γάλλους μεσοαστούς φίλους που έκανε όλα αυτά τα χρόνια. Όταν πεθαίνει η βασική του πηγή εσόδων, ο πασίγνωστος ροκ σταρ Αλέξ Μπλιτς, αναγκάζεται να μένει από καναπέ σε καναπέ, να λέει ψέματα, ακόμα και να βρεθεί στο δρόμο προκειμένου να επιβιώσει. Παρελαύνουν πάρα πολλοί χαρακτήρες από τις σελίδες του πρώτου τόμου, διανοούμενοι, οικογενειάρχες, εντερπρενέρς, άτομα όλων των σεξουαλικών προσανατολισμών, άλλοι ισλαμοφοβικοί, άλλοι μισογύνηδες, κανένας τους πολίτικαλλυ κορρεκτ. Κι εδώ εξαντλούνται οι ομοιότητες με τον Houellebecq. Αν και οι δύο συγγραφείς θέλουν να σοκάρουν και να ασκήσουν σοβαρή κοινωνική κριτική, η Despantes βλέπει τους ήρωές της με μια μεγαλύτερη συμπάθεια, προσπαθεί να δικαιολογήσει τις πράξεις τους και τις σκέψεις τους, επιφυλάσσει γι’ αυτούς μια τρυφερότητα που σπάνια συναντάμε στον Ουελμπέκ. Και οι δύο πολύ συνειδητοποιημένα προκαλούν τους αναγνώστες τους, και την γαλλική κοινωνία ακόμα περισσότερο, ωστόσο η Despantes αν και δεν φτάνει σε μισανθρωπισμό τον γάλλο συγγραφέα, σίγουρα δεν αφήνει τη σκέψη της να καταδυθεί στα απύθμενα βάθη του στοχασμού του Houellebecq. Το βιβλίο είναι τρομερά απολαυστικό, σύγχρονο και σκληρό, με ήρωες αληθινούς γεμάτους οργή, όπως και η συγγραφές του που στέκεται απέναντι σε όλα, στον σεξισμό, την ομοφοβία, την αστική τάξη, την θρησκεία.
Περισσότερα εδώ:
http://skra-punk.com/2020/06/21/ta-pe...
Περισσότερα εδώ:
http://skra-punk.com/2020/06/21/ta-pe...
July 19, 2020
5/5
Neatrodo teisinga šį romaną apibūdinti tik kaip knygą, nes tai veikiau visa apimanti patirtis. Tokia, kurios ilgai nepamiršiu, nes kūriniai, turintys tokį išskirtinį braižą ir atmosferą pasitaiko itin retai. Tokia, po kurios vis dar sunku atsigauti, nes nesijaučiu iki galo atsisveikinusi su Vernono pasauliu. Kad ir koks jis chaotiškas, purvinas ir pykdantis, nenoriu jo palikti, nors tas noras ir gerokai mazochistiškas. Nenoriu nusisukti ir nebegyventi tame kultūrų, pažiūrų, nuomonių, kvapų ir spalvų katile, į kurį V. Despentes panardina taip meistriškai, natūraliai ir nepamirštamai, kad knyga be jokių abejonių kopia į geriausių perskaitytų šiemet sąrašą.
Apie kūrinio siužetą galima pasiskaityti ant knygos nugarėlės, todėl čia nesivarginsiu, o ir manau, kad ši knyga duoda kur kas daugiau, nei žadama jos anotacijoje. Šiame pasaulyje sutiksite ir ne itin sėkmingus režisierius, karjeros siekiančius žurnalistus, buvusias porno aktores ir muzikantus, kurių gyvenimai, net jei ir kardinaliai skirtingi, yra susieti dėka Vernono Subutexo. Itin išmintinga struktūra, kiekviename skyriuje supažindinanti su nauju veikėju ir leidžianti pažinti patį įvairiausią Paryžių – jis dažniausiai kur kas labiau tamsus ir klampus nei blizgantis ir žavus, jame atsiduoda alhokoliu, dauguma personažų yra save įsimylėję egoistai, visiškai nepatikimi pasakotojai, istoriją visuomet pateikiantys piešdami save geriausiomis spalvomis. Čia netyla apkalbos, pagieža ir neapykanta, o akis į akį neapsieinama be perdėto mandagumo. Čia vis susimąstoma apie bėgančius metus – labai subtilus motyvas, tik parodantis, kaip Vernonas, o ir didžioji dalis jo jau senstančių draugų, niekaip negali susitaikyti su savo neišvengiamu likimu būti nebenorimais ir nusibodusiais. Čia daugybė kultūros – nuo muzikos, kuri tampa atskiru veikėju ir padeda pildyti personažų portretus, iki Paryžiaus gatvių, kuriančių visapusišką peizažą. Kūrinyje tiek daug nedidelių, tačiau be galo iškalbingų detalių, ir neabejoju, kad jų visų nesugaudžiau, todėl tikiu, kad knyga rankose atsidurs dar bent kartą. Nes ji viena iš tų, kurioje kaskart gali atrasti vis daugiau.
Nors sunku su veikėjais tapatintis ir būtų labai lengva pradėti juos teisti ar jiems moralizuoti, tas noras dingsta, kai esi užliūliuotas kiekvieno jų visišku išpildymu, o personažų be galo tvirtas įsitikinimas savo tiesa nori nenori priverčia jais savotiškai žavėtis ir neapsimesti teisuoliu, geriau už visus išmanančiu gyvenimą. Tų tiesų čia niekas ir neperša – kiekvienas veikėjas turi jas savas ir tvirtas, nesvarbu, ar tai būtų susiję su sėkme, pinigais, grožiu, šeima ar tikėjimu. Per veikėjus autorė sugeba paliesti pačias įvairiausias, jautriausias ir aktualiausias šių dienų temas, tačiau tai daro ne moralizuodama ar rodydama, koks yra teisingas ar neteisingas kelias, ir taip palieka skaitytojui absoliutų malonumą aiškintis ir klausinėti pačiam, nors kartais tai tampa net fiziškai nejauku ir tamsu.
Ir žinoma, vertimas. Paulius Jevsejevas atliko nežmonišką darbą – sugebėjo priversti skaitytoją jausti, kad vertimas yra absoliučiai autentiškas ir nereikalavęs daug pastangų, o tai tik rodo, kad tų pastangų čia įdėta be galo daug. Labai retai pasitaiko tokių tekstų, kurių tiesa ir kalba nė akimirkai neabejoji. Žinau, kad būtent dėl tokio talentingo lietuvių kalbos pasitelkimo istorijai perteikti šis kūrinys dar ilgai nepaliks. Todėl imkit ir skaitykit, jei norit sudrumsti kasdienybę ir susinepatoginti, pykti, gailėtis, šlykštėtis, juoktis ir galiausiai vis vien šiek tiek žavėtis. Bus nepamirštama ir labai verta.
Neatrodo teisinga šį romaną apibūdinti tik kaip knygą, nes tai veikiau visa apimanti patirtis. Tokia, kurios ilgai nepamiršiu, nes kūriniai, turintys tokį išskirtinį braižą ir atmosferą pasitaiko itin retai. Tokia, po kurios vis dar sunku atsigauti, nes nesijaučiu iki galo atsisveikinusi su Vernono pasauliu. Kad ir koks jis chaotiškas, purvinas ir pykdantis, nenoriu jo palikti, nors tas noras ir gerokai mazochistiškas. Nenoriu nusisukti ir nebegyventi tame kultūrų, pažiūrų, nuomonių, kvapų ir spalvų katile, į kurį V. Despentes panardina taip meistriškai, natūraliai ir nepamirštamai, kad knyga be jokių abejonių kopia į geriausių perskaitytų šiemet sąrašą.
Apie kūrinio siužetą galima pasiskaityti ant knygos nugarėlės, todėl čia nesivarginsiu, o ir manau, kad ši knyga duoda kur kas daugiau, nei žadama jos anotacijoje. Šiame pasaulyje sutiksite ir ne itin sėkmingus režisierius, karjeros siekiančius žurnalistus, buvusias porno aktores ir muzikantus, kurių gyvenimai, net jei ir kardinaliai skirtingi, yra susieti dėka Vernono Subutexo. Itin išmintinga struktūra, kiekviename skyriuje supažindinanti su nauju veikėju ir leidžianti pažinti patį įvairiausią Paryžių – jis dažniausiai kur kas labiau tamsus ir klampus nei blizgantis ir žavus, jame atsiduoda alhokoliu, dauguma personažų yra save įsimylėję egoistai, visiškai nepatikimi pasakotojai, istoriją visuomet pateikiantys piešdami save geriausiomis spalvomis. Čia netyla apkalbos, pagieža ir neapykanta, o akis į akį neapsieinama be perdėto mandagumo. Čia vis susimąstoma apie bėgančius metus – labai subtilus motyvas, tik parodantis, kaip Vernonas, o ir didžioji dalis jo jau senstančių draugų, niekaip negali susitaikyti su savo neišvengiamu likimu būti nebenorimais ir nusibodusiais. Čia daugybė kultūros – nuo muzikos, kuri tampa atskiru veikėju ir padeda pildyti personažų portretus, iki Paryžiaus gatvių, kuriančių visapusišką peizažą. Kūrinyje tiek daug nedidelių, tačiau be galo iškalbingų detalių, ir neabejoju, kad jų visų nesugaudžiau, todėl tikiu, kad knyga rankose atsidurs dar bent kartą. Nes ji viena iš tų, kurioje kaskart gali atrasti vis daugiau.
Nors sunku su veikėjais tapatintis ir būtų labai lengva pradėti juos teisti ar jiems moralizuoti, tas noras dingsta, kai esi užliūliuotas kiekvieno jų visišku išpildymu, o personažų be galo tvirtas įsitikinimas savo tiesa nori nenori priverčia jais savotiškai žavėtis ir neapsimesti teisuoliu, geriau už visus išmanančiu gyvenimą. Tų tiesų čia niekas ir neperša – kiekvienas veikėjas turi jas savas ir tvirtas, nesvarbu, ar tai būtų susiję su sėkme, pinigais, grožiu, šeima ar tikėjimu. Per veikėjus autorė sugeba paliesti pačias įvairiausias, jautriausias ir aktualiausias šių dienų temas, tačiau tai daro ne moralizuodama ar rodydama, koks yra teisingas ar neteisingas kelias, ir taip palieka skaitytojui absoliutų malonumą aiškintis ir klausinėti pačiam, nors kartais tai tampa net fiziškai nejauku ir tamsu.
Ir žinoma, vertimas. Paulius Jevsejevas atliko nežmonišką darbą – sugebėjo priversti skaitytoją jausti, kad vertimas yra absoliučiai autentiškas ir nereikalavęs daug pastangų, o tai tik rodo, kad tų pastangų čia įdėta be galo daug. Labai retai pasitaiko tokių tekstų, kurių tiesa ir kalba nė akimirkai neabejoji. Žinau, kad būtent dėl tokio talentingo lietuvių kalbos pasitelkimo istorijai perteikti šis kūrinys dar ilgai nepaliks. Todėl imkit ir skaitykit, jei norit sudrumsti kasdienybę ir susinepatoginti, pykti, gailėtis, šlykštėtis, juoktis ir galiausiai vis vien šiek tiek žavėtis. Bus nepamirštama ir labai verta.
May 31, 2024
Despentes's novel is not about the story, but about the characters. These are loosely linked and held together by the death of the singer Alexandre Bleach and his legacy - his last recordings, which he gave to his friend Vernon Subutex. But the actual action takes place in the minds and dialogues of the characters, each of whom represents a certain type: the transsexual Brazilian model, the former porn actress, the snobbish stockbroker, the Arab woman loyal to Islam, the cunning lesbian, the hysterical ex-girlfriend, the ex-Hells Angel who beats up women, the broken mother of a drug addict. And they diagnose the Paris of 2015, society, the music and entertainment industry and ultimately humanity from their limited perspective.
Despentes exaggerates reality so that satire always shines through, making the almost consistently politically incorrect inner monologues and dialogues consumable. For example, Xavier's tirade of hatred is reminiscent of that of the butcher in Gaspard Noé's "Seul contre tous", the arrogant superficiality of the yuppie Kiko is reminiscent of Bret Easton Ellis' Patrick Bateman and the sworn, ageing drug community as a collective is similar to the one in "Trainspotting".
And Vernon Subutex? Everyone knows him, people like him, women fall for him. He kicks off the novel at the beginning, then becomes a marginal figure in favour of focusing on the other characters. But he is always present and gains contour precisely because of the increasing distance. He is the trickster, the prankster, the anti-hero. He drinks, breaks hearts, has his own broken and is homeless. Despite this, he has retained his style and decency and (nearly) always finds shelter with friends. He gets into people's hearts through the back door before making off again.
Despentes shows the abundance of individuals and reflects the symptomatic emptiness in them. An emptiness that is filled with drugs, sex, regret, hatred, nostalgia and the longing for love. It is an unvarnished portrait of society, in whose ugliness a vague tenderness shimmers through again and again - these are the people, they can't just be someone else. It is a hypnotic kaleidoscope that makes you laugh and makes you angry and reminds you, despite everything, that things go on even when they don't.
Despentes exaggerates reality so that satire always shines through, making the almost consistently politically incorrect inner monologues and dialogues consumable. For example, Xavier's tirade of hatred is reminiscent of that of the butcher in Gaspard Noé's "Seul contre tous", the arrogant superficiality of the yuppie Kiko is reminiscent of Bret Easton Ellis' Patrick Bateman and the sworn, ageing drug community as a collective is similar to the one in "Trainspotting".
And Vernon Subutex? Everyone knows him, people like him, women fall for him. He kicks off the novel at the beginning, then becomes a marginal figure in favour of focusing on the other characters. But he is always present and gains contour precisely because of the increasing distance. He is the trickster, the prankster, the anti-hero. He drinks, breaks hearts, has his own broken and is homeless. Despite this, he has retained his style and decency and (nearly) always finds shelter with friends. He gets into people's hearts through the back door before making off again.
Despentes shows the abundance of individuals and reflects the symptomatic emptiness in them. An emptiness that is filled with drugs, sex, regret, hatred, nostalgia and the longing for love. It is an unvarnished portrait of society, in whose ugliness a vague tenderness shimmers through again and again - these are the people, they can't just be someone else. It is a hypnotic kaleidoscope that makes you laugh and makes you angry and reminds you, despite everything, that things go on even when they don't.
July 22, 2020
Knygą ėmiau perskaičiusi interviu su vertėju. Žinojau, kad ne mano tema, ne mano stilius. Abejojau, ar man patiks, bet skaityti skatino smalsumas. Šis jausmas nenuvylė. Tai pasakojimas apie man visiškai svetimą pasaulį, apie kurio egzistavimą tik nutuokiu, bet iš arčiau pažinti neturiu jokio noro. Vis dėlto jis įtraukė, užbūrė, sukrėtė. Tokios patirties priežastis - kalba ir personažų atsiskleidimas per ją. Daugybė vulgarybių, neretai man, paprastam miesčioniui, sunkiai suvokiamo slengo, bet kartu ritmikos, savotiškos poezijos, skirtingiems personažams skirtingo minties ir vaizdo skleidimosi. Būtent tai knygą daro Literatūra iš diddžiosios raidės. Už įspūdingą vertimą didžiausia padėka vertėjui Pauliui Jevsejevui.
June 5, 2018
Avis à chaud : Compte-rendu au vitriol d'une longue descente annoncée, qui ne manque pas pour autant d'une fraternelle humanité. Un beau nuancier de caractères, dommage qu'ils n'accèdent pas à un autre stade que celui de caractères, justement. Un amical tribut à la culture rock, aussi.
Quelque chose qui me remue dans l'odyssée nomade de Vernon, en cavale d'appartement en appartement, dans un premier temps sans intégrer sa condition de sans-abri.
Contribution à la Playlist de Vernon :
L'Europe - Noir Désir
Quelque chose qui me remue dans l'odyssée nomade de Vernon, en cavale d'appartement en appartement, dans un premier temps sans intégrer sa condition de sans-abri.
Contribution à la Playlist de Vernon :
L'Europe - Noir Désir
March 14, 2018
Drogen und Sex und Sex und Drogen und Drogen und Sex…nach ca. 150 Seiten dieses hochgelobten Werkes fragt man sich als geneigter Leser, ob das wirklich das Buch ist, über das angeblich ganz Frankreich diskutiert und das uns endlich alles erklärt über den Aufstieg des "Front National" und die gesellschaftliche Realität im Nachbarland. Und dann: Drogen und Sex.
Als habe es das noch nie gegeben, präsentiert Virginie Despentes in der ersten Hälfte ihres Romans ein Gemisch aus Zynikern und sich extrem hart gebenden Angehörigen der Pariser Szene zwischen Rock- und Popstars, Filmemachern und solchen, die es gern werden oder sein möchten, Drehbuchautoren und Pornosternchen. Mittendrin: Vernon Subutex, einst Besitzer eines Plattenladens, einst Mitglied einer in Insider-Kreisen angesehenen Punkrock-Band, einst Liebling der In-Crowd - wenn auch immer nur am Rande stehend - , jetzt eindeutig auf dem absteigenden Ast, seit er den Laden schließen musste und ihm so langsam die Ersparnisse ausgehen. Als sein alter Kumpel Alex stirbt - derjenige der alten Clique, der es schließlich zu Ruhm und Reichtum gebracht hat, wenn auch als „Schnulzensänger“ diffamiert – ist es auch dieses Ereignis, das Vernon abstürzen und vom Weg abkommen lässt. Er driftet durch Paris, von einem Freund zum nächsten, von einer verflossenen Affäre in eine weitere, doch hält es ihn nirgends lang. Schließlich landet er wirklich und wahrhaftig auf der Straße und macht dadurch die Bekanntschaft von Menschen, denen materiell alles abhanden gekommen ist, denen gar nichts anderes mehr übrigbleibt, als ihre Würde und ihren Stolz als letzte Währung einzusetzen. Und er macht schließlich die Erfahrung, daß selbst in der dicksten Krise noch Freundschaft zu finden und wieder zu entdecken ist.
Virginie Despentes hat ihre Erzählung vom Leben des Vernon Subutex auf drei Teile angelegt, man darf als Leser also davon ausgehen, daß ihr Antiheld noch durch manche Krise stolpern, in manches Loch fallen wird. Dieser erste Teil legt Spuren, führt Charaktere ein und lässt uns den Helden….ja was? Näher kennen lernen? Kaum. Eher lernen wir ein manchmal schwer zu entwirrendes Knäuel unterschiedlicher Stimmen und Personen kennen, die alle irgendwie in Bezug zu Vernon stehen. Alte Freunde, auch Feinde – manchmal ist das eine vom andern kaum zu unterscheiden – verflossene Lieben und neue Bekannte, aber auch eine ganze Reihe von Menschen, die grundlegend nur an anderen Interesse zeigen, wenn diese ihnen zu irgendetwas nützlich sind. Vernon Subutex bleibt dabei als eigenständige Figur seltsam blass, was sich schließlich aber mehr und mehr auch als sein Charakter entpuppt: Ein zwar von allen als cool angesehener Typ, aber eben ein Seitensteher, eher ein Beobachter denn ein Macher, eher ein Kommentator als der Kerl, der die Tanzfläche rockt. Leider macht ihn das dann eben auch zu keiner wirklich aufregenden oder auch nur tieferes Interesse weckenden Figur.
Auf den ersten 80 Seiten führt Vernon uns in seine Welt ein, eine Welt des Old School, analoger Musik (die in einem kaum abreißenden Strom des name droppings am Leser vorbeirauscht), krachender Gitarren, kühler Biere, knarrender Lederwesten, fetter Joints und einer unerschütterlichen antibürgerlichen Attitüde. Er teilt uns auch gleich mit, daß ihm vollkommen klar ist, wie retro er ist und daß Typen wie er eben eigentlich nicht mehr angesagt sind. Stimmt. Vor allem dann nicht, wenn sie in Tonfall und dem was sie zu erzählen haben den unendlich vielen bereits veröffentlichten Geschichten über genau diese Typen nichts hinzuzufügen haben.
Dafür ist Vernon aber umgeben von einer Vielzahl mehr oder weniger aufregender und interessanter Figuren. Leider dauert es, bis sich Text (und Autorin?) trauen, allzu ausgetretene Pfade zu verlassen und Eigenes zu wagen. So liest man sich in der ersten Hälfte des Buches durch eine zunehmend langweilende Aneinanderreihung von Drogen- und Sexexzessen. Und auch diese wirken weder stilistisch noch inhaltlich originell oder gar innovativ. Mal wähnt man sich in einem frühen Roman von Philippe Djian, dem Despentes in der Beschreibung eines leger-lässigen Lebensstils nacheifert, den Djian zu Beginn der 80er Jahre allerdings mit einer Post-Punk-Resignation zu kombinieren wusste, die etwas wirklich eigenes heraufbeschwor. Dann wieder erinnern die Monologe des zunehmend von einer erzählenden Person zur nächsten Erzählstimme springenden Textes mal an Michel Houellebecq, mal an Mathias Énard, mal an Jérôme Leroy, der 2011 in Frankreich großen Erfolg mit seiner Innenschau des Front National, LE BLOC (dt.: DER BLOCK. Hamburg, 2017), hatte. Die Einzelstimmen des Chors, der uns eine Menge über Paris, die französische Schickeria, deren Drogenkonsum und polygamen Sitten, wenig jedoch über das Leben des Vernon Subutex zu berichten weiß, verdichten sich immer mehr zu einem düsteren und wenig hoffnungsvollen Gesellschaftsbild.
Ein seltsamer Text, der lange mäandert, sich unsicher zu sein scheint, was er eigentlich will, worum es ihm geht, um wen es sich dreht. Erst im letzten Drittel festigt sich das, beginnt das, was da am Leser vorbeizieht, zu fesseln, will man plötzlich doch wissen, wie es mit diesen Figuren weitergeht. Und doch ist dies von allem zu viel: Zu viele Stimmen, zu viele Themen, zu viele Perspektiven – und der Fokus letztlich zu eng, der Horizont zu begrenzt, die behauptete „Gesellschaft“ zu einseitig beschrieben. Doch wenn man das Buch dann nach ziemlich genau 400 Seiten schließt, vibriert es doch leise nach und man ertappt sich dabei, nach dem Erscheinungsdatum des 2. Bandes zu schielen. Da will man dann doch wissen, wie es weitergeht mit Vernon Subutex, seinen Freunden, den Feinden und jenen, die eher an der Peripherie des Romans agieren und trotzdem Wesentliches zu diesem vielstimmigen Panoptikum der verrücktesten Figuren beitragen. Ein Roman, der als Einzelwerk durchwachsen in Erinnerung bleiben, aber vielleicht einmal als Auftakt eines umfassenderen Werks Meriten erringen wird.
Als habe es das noch nie gegeben, präsentiert Virginie Despentes in der ersten Hälfte ihres Romans ein Gemisch aus Zynikern und sich extrem hart gebenden Angehörigen der Pariser Szene zwischen Rock- und Popstars, Filmemachern und solchen, die es gern werden oder sein möchten, Drehbuchautoren und Pornosternchen. Mittendrin: Vernon Subutex, einst Besitzer eines Plattenladens, einst Mitglied einer in Insider-Kreisen angesehenen Punkrock-Band, einst Liebling der In-Crowd - wenn auch immer nur am Rande stehend - , jetzt eindeutig auf dem absteigenden Ast, seit er den Laden schließen musste und ihm so langsam die Ersparnisse ausgehen. Als sein alter Kumpel Alex stirbt - derjenige der alten Clique, der es schließlich zu Ruhm und Reichtum gebracht hat, wenn auch als „Schnulzensänger“ diffamiert – ist es auch dieses Ereignis, das Vernon abstürzen und vom Weg abkommen lässt. Er driftet durch Paris, von einem Freund zum nächsten, von einer verflossenen Affäre in eine weitere, doch hält es ihn nirgends lang. Schließlich landet er wirklich und wahrhaftig auf der Straße und macht dadurch die Bekanntschaft von Menschen, denen materiell alles abhanden gekommen ist, denen gar nichts anderes mehr übrigbleibt, als ihre Würde und ihren Stolz als letzte Währung einzusetzen. Und er macht schließlich die Erfahrung, daß selbst in der dicksten Krise noch Freundschaft zu finden und wieder zu entdecken ist.
Virginie Despentes hat ihre Erzählung vom Leben des Vernon Subutex auf drei Teile angelegt, man darf als Leser also davon ausgehen, daß ihr Antiheld noch durch manche Krise stolpern, in manches Loch fallen wird. Dieser erste Teil legt Spuren, führt Charaktere ein und lässt uns den Helden….ja was? Näher kennen lernen? Kaum. Eher lernen wir ein manchmal schwer zu entwirrendes Knäuel unterschiedlicher Stimmen und Personen kennen, die alle irgendwie in Bezug zu Vernon stehen. Alte Freunde, auch Feinde – manchmal ist das eine vom andern kaum zu unterscheiden – verflossene Lieben und neue Bekannte, aber auch eine ganze Reihe von Menschen, die grundlegend nur an anderen Interesse zeigen, wenn diese ihnen zu irgendetwas nützlich sind. Vernon Subutex bleibt dabei als eigenständige Figur seltsam blass, was sich schließlich aber mehr und mehr auch als sein Charakter entpuppt: Ein zwar von allen als cool angesehener Typ, aber eben ein Seitensteher, eher ein Beobachter denn ein Macher, eher ein Kommentator als der Kerl, der die Tanzfläche rockt. Leider macht ihn das dann eben auch zu keiner wirklich aufregenden oder auch nur tieferes Interesse weckenden Figur.
Auf den ersten 80 Seiten führt Vernon uns in seine Welt ein, eine Welt des Old School, analoger Musik (die in einem kaum abreißenden Strom des name droppings am Leser vorbeirauscht), krachender Gitarren, kühler Biere, knarrender Lederwesten, fetter Joints und einer unerschütterlichen antibürgerlichen Attitüde. Er teilt uns auch gleich mit, daß ihm vollkommen klar ist, wie retro er ist und daß Typen wie er eben eigentlich nicht mehr angesagt sind. Stimmt. Vor allem dann nicht, wenn sie in Tonfall und dem was sie zu erzählen haben den unendlich vielen bereits veröffentlichten Geschichten über genau diese Typen nichts hinzuzufügen haben.
Dafür ist Vernon aber umgeben von einer Vielzahl mehr oder weniger aufregender und interessanter Figuren. Leider dauert es, bis sich Text (und Autorin?) trauen, allzu ausgetretene Pfade zu verlassen und Eigenes zu wagen. So liest man sich in der ersten Hälfte des Buches durch eine zunehmend langweilende Aneinanderreihung von Drogen- und Sexexzessen. Und auch diese wirken weder stilistisch noch inhaltlich originell oder gar innovativ. Mal wähnt man sich in einem frühen Roman von Philippe Djian, dem Despentes in der Beschreibung eines leger-lässigen Lebensstils nacheifert, den Djian zu Beginn der 80er Jahre allerdings mit einer Post-Punk-Resignation zu kombinieren wusste, die etwas wirklich eigenes heraufbeschwor. Dann wieder erinnern die Monologe des zunehmend von einer erzählenden Person zur nächsten Erzählstimme springenden Textes mal an Michel Houellebecq, mal an Mathias Énard, mal an Jérôme Leroy, der 2011 in Frankreich großen Erfolg mit seiner Innenschau des Front National, LE BLOC (dt.: DER BLOCK. Hamburg, 2017), hatte. Die Einzelstimmen des Chors, der uns eine Menge über Paris, die französische Schickeria, deren Drogenkonsum und polygamen Sitten, wenig jedoch über das Leben des Vernon Subutex zu berichten weiß, verdichten sich immer mehr zu einem düsteren und wenig hoffnungsvollen Gesellschaftsbild.
Ein seltsamer Text, der lange mäandert, sich unsicher zu sein scheint, was er eigentlich will, worum es ihm geht, um wen es sich dreht. Erst im letzten Drittel festigt sich das, beginnt das, was da am Leser vorbeizieht, zu fesseln, will man plötzlich doch wissen, wie es mit diesen Figuren weitergeht. Und doch ist dies von allem zu viel: Zu viele Stimmen, zu viele Themen, zu viele Perspektiven – und der Fokus letztlich zu eng, der Horizont zu begrenzt, die behauptete „Gesellschaft“ zu einseitig beschrieben. Doch wenn man das Buch dann nach ziemlich genau 400 Seiten schließt, vibriert es doch leise nach und man ertappt sich dabei, nach dem Erscheinungsdatum des 2. Bandes zu schielen. Da will man dann doch wissen, wie es weitergeht mit Vernon Subutex, seinen Freunden, den Feinden und jenen, die eher an der Peripherie des Romans agieren und trotzdem Wesentliches zu diesem vielstimmigen Panoptikum der verrücktesten Figuren beitragen. Ein Roman, der als Einzelwerk durchwachsen in Erinnerung bleiben, aber vielleicht einmal als Auftakt eines umfassenderen Werks Meriten erringen wird.
July 31, 2020
Ši knyga man būtų nurovus stogą, kai buvau 15-20 m. (tada Radek John "Memento" afigienai (!) patiko, "Traukinių žymėjimas" jau gerokai mažesnį, bet įspūdį paliko), o dabar - įdomu sužinot, kaip baigsis, todėl skaitysiu kitas dalis (jei bus išleistos), bet be wow. Senstu, ką padarysi, tenka pripažinti... nebestebina jau pasaulyje daug kas ir šokiruota būnu vis rečiau.
April 21, 2018
How this book wrestled itself onto the Man Booker International Prize short list for 2018 is something of a mystery.
Don’t come looking for beautiful prose, don’t come looking for subtlety, don’t expect too much human empathy.
What you do get is a callous, selfish, remorselessly pessimistic view of people.
I am very pleased to have read Vernon Subutex.
Had I not known the gender of the author I couldn’t have guessed it; and in this respect- Virginie Despentes’s ability to write alternately from male and female perspectives was impressive.
Writing about the descent from relative material security, all the way down to the gutter, is not new,
Knut Hamsen’s Hunger was first published in 1895. The sense of a downward spiral is captured in the person of Vernon.
What is the book about?
Hedonism, narcissism, sexism, adventurism, alcoholism, eroticism bohemianism, amoralism.
The currency is sex.... and drugs and rock ‘n roll.
Hairdressing salons
Record shops
Nightclubs, of course.
There’s no place for straightforward sex.
It’s feral. Some guys indulge and live in the moment, some women too. Self interest is paramount; but emotion does show itself- it comes out in drunken incoherent rants.
Facebook (appropriately) is referenced- multiple aliases, and the duplicity that we are all now aware of (if we weren’t before).
Everybody’s using; everybody’s hustling.
The underling storyline nods in the direction of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.
The hunt for a mystical, lost, forgotten film and interview with Alex Bleach evokes the search for the eponymous film Infinite Jest in the Wallace classic.
There are numerous superb character names, among them Lydia Bazooka, Pamela Kant, Vodka Satana.
Vernon Subutex is also funny, though it feels wrong to laugh.
French beggars it would seem acquire feline companions to help their appeal for donations, the premise being
it’s easier to drug a cat than it is to learn guitar”(36).
Of a man sized up with contempt, his waistcoat the colour of dysentery(63)
Vernon Subutex is a book populated by people exhibiting the worst human character traits; it’s a book written in an “in-your-face” style that reflects that demographic.
The crude, unambiguous, writing style was a good and welcome contrast to the more cerebral, refined, study of human interaction which has become my normal literary staple.
Don’t come looking for beautiful prose, don’t come looking for subtlety, don’t expect too much human empathy.
What you do get is a callous, selfish, remorselessly pessimistic view of people.
I am very pleased to have read Vernon Subutex.
Had I not known the gender of the author I couldn’t have guessed it; and in this respect- Virginie Despentes’s ability to write alternately from male and female perspectives was impressive.
Writing about the descent from relative material security, all the way down to the gutter, is not new,
Knut Hamsen’s Hunger was first published in 1895. The sense of a downward spiral is captured in the person of Vernon.
What is the book about?
Hedonism, narcissism, sexism, adventurism, alcoholism, eroticism bohemianism, amoralism.
The currency is sex.... and drugs and rock ‘n roll.
Hairdressing salons
Record shops
Nightclubs, of course.
There’s no place for straightforward sex.
It’s feral. Some guys indulge and live in the moment, some women too. Self interest is paramount; but emotion does show itself- it comes out in drunken incoherent rants.
Facebook (appropriately) is referenced- multiple aliases, and the duplicity that we are all now aware of (if we weren’t before).
Everybody’s using; everybody’s hustling.
The underling storyline nods in the direction of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.
The hunt for a mystical, lost, forgotten film and interview with Alex Bleach evokes the search for the eponymous film Infinite Jest in the Wallace classic.
There are numerous superb character names, among them Lydia Bazooka, Pamela Kant, Vodka Satana.
Vernon Subutex is also funny, though it feels wrong to laugh.
French beggars it would seem acquire feline companions to help their appeal for donations, the premise being
it’s easier to drug a cat than it is to learn guitar”(36).
Of a man sized up with contempt, his waistcoat the colour of dysentery(63)
Vernon Subutex is a book populated by people exhibiting the worst human character traits; it’s a book written in an “in-your-face” style that reflects that demographic.
The crude, unambiguous, writing style was a good and welcome contrast to the more cerebral, refined, study of human interaction which has become my normal literary staple.
December 29, 2019
I wish my reviewing mojo were working because this is such a special book, so vivid and zesty and keenly observed, that it deserves a thorough review.
Sadly, I just don't have the time or the energy for that right now, so suffice to say that this is a wonderful read, that Despentes' mastery of different voices, her ability to evoke the humanity in everyone, no matter how loathsome their opinions may be, is remarkable, and just by following the fate of one rather hapless middle-aged man and the curious mystery that begins to twine around him without his knowledge, she draws a portrait of Paris and French society in the modern era that feels both finely-etched and genuinely expansive.
I've just acquired the sequel and can hardly wait to read it. If it's even half as good as the first book, I'll be happy.
Sadly, I just don't have the time or the energy for that right now, so suffice to say that this is a wonderful read, that Despentes' mastery of different voices, her ability to evoke the humanity in everyone, no matter how loathsome their opinions may be, is remarkable, and just by following the fate of one rather hapless middle-aged man and the curious mystery that begins to twine around him without his knowledge, she draws a portrait of Paris and French society in the modern era that feels both finely-etched and genuinely expansive.
I've just acquired the sequel and can hardly wait to read it. If it's even half as good as the first book, I'll be happy.
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