“I think like Bertrand Russell, I write like Vladimir Nabokov, and I speak like Christopher Hitchens.”
Playing fast and free with dates, the above modified Nabokov quote is in the spirit of what might have been expounded by Prétextat Tach, Nobel Prize winner for Literature and central character in Hygiene and the Assassin, Amélie Nothomb's first novel published in 1992 when the Belgium author was age twenty-six.
Hygiene and the Assassin is written in French, thus I'll refer to the first four unnamed journalists who come one at a time to interview the great author as Un, Deux, Trois and Quatre. Such interviews are unprecedented - sealed off as an urban hermit within his apartment for dozens of years, Prétextat Tach has never made a public appearance or granted anything close to an interview.
Un is in for a shock. He's under the impression eighty-three year old Prétextat Tach with a rare form of cartilage cancer and given two months to live will answer his questions cordially so he can simply transcribe his recording of the exchange with the dying Nobel Prize winner for his magazine.
True, he discovers a few facts from the fat old man confined to a wheelchair: his youthful writing habits, how he wrote all day, every day from age twenty-three to fifty-nine and surprise, surprise - how he hasn't written a word in the last twenty-three years; rather, his secretary has been feeding the publishers in more recent times with novels he wrote during his writing phase.
But then when Un presumes to have knowledge of the details of fiction and writing, and more specifically, Prétextat Tach's fiction (Un has read only a scant amount of the famous author's twenty-two published novels), the exchange quickly turns nasty then ends with Tach raging that Un is a vulgar, disrespectful, ill-mannered lout and demands he leave at once.
Deux fares even worse. He poses non-literary questions and Prétextat Tach talks about his eating, drinking and smoking habits along with his daily schedule. It quickly becomes obvious this old guy is a great novelist but he is also a disgusting, odious blob, a self-centered glutton, bigot, racist and misogynist. When Tach goes on about his diet and digestion in lurid detail, Deux runs from the premises only to vomit outside on the sidewalk.
Likewise with Trois, who begins by asking silly non-literary questions - Are you in favor of the Gulf War? Do you like young people? - and when the conversation does turn literary, Trois doesn't want to ask questions as much as debate the aesthetics of literature with Tach. The interview is cut short and Trios is given the bum's rush out the door.
Quatre's interview is much longer than the previous three, a discussion with Tach touching on intriguing topics like what it means to read, really read, a book and, if read correctly, how a book can change a reader. Also, what it means to be a writer and the pleasure a writer derives from the craft. But then when Prétextat Tach spouts off about his hatred for women, their ugliness, their filthiness, their base emotional natures, their hypocrisy, jealousy, nastiness and iniquity, Quatre shifts into challenge and debate mode and it isn't long before he is asked to leave.
Thus the stage is set for the novel's real drama. Compared with what follows, the Un, Deux, Trois, Quatre interviews are mere clown skits.
When Monsieur Tach sees his next journalist is a Mademoiselle he immediately demands she leave. She refuses, citing she was grated permission by Tach's secretary. Tach hurls insults - "you ugly insolent unfuckable little shit face." Mademoiselle looks at her watch and gives Tach exactly two minutes to apologize. He rants but when Mademoiselle opens the door to leave, Tach does indeed apologize. But that's not enough. Mademoiselle requires an apology phrased in appropriate language and spoken with feeling. Tach acquiesces.
Oh, Prétextat Tach - you, sir, have met your match. This Mademoiselle (many pages later, we learn her name is Nina) has done her homework - she's studied all of Tech's twenty-two novels in depth, knowing things like how many female characters in each novel; she's conducted extensive research on Tach's past - the Tech family was rich and lived in a country château, Tach growing up with a younger cousin named Léopoldine. Added to this, Nina refuses to take any guff and can give as good as she gets in all phases of argument. And she's extraordinarily well educated and articulate. What a gal!
Nina sets the ground rules: the interview will end when either she crawls on her hands and knees to the fat Nobel author or Prétextat Tach crawls on his hands and knees to her. Sound like the emotional stakes have been raised? You bet they have.
Getting down to analysis of Prétextat Tach's novels, observations are exchanges and accusations leveled. Then emotion kicks up into even higher gear when the conversation moves to hidden facts surrounding that country château and Tach's younger cousin, Léopoldine. As it becomes clear, Tach holds some mighty strong opinions regarding the transition from childhood to adolescence, opinions elucidated in the great writer's last, unfinished novel - Hygiene and the Assassin, a novel the author permitted to be published as is, without a formal ending.
Allow me to pause here to mention Amélie Nothomb has devoted many pages in her other novels to her own issues concerning growing out of childhood. And, as I understand, Amélie has something else in common with Tach - in addition to her list of published works, she has many unpublished novels stashed away.
Back on Nina's interview: yet again emotions flair and the dramatic vibe reaches fever pitch in the dance of Eros and Thanatos in the closing section. Here's a snip: "The novelist seemed to have attained the intellectual ecstasy of the scholar who after twenty years of research finally discovers the coherence of his system. His gaze was deconstructing some invisible absolute, while his greasy forehead pearled with moisture like a mucous membrane." And to think Amélie Nothomb wrote this novel at age twenty-five. Remarkable.
One last quote to catch the fire of the interaction between Nina and Tech: "I admire you. To be able to come up with a theory that is both so insane and so coherent is absolutely amazing. In the beginning I thought you were going to come with some banal macho rubbish. But I underestimated you. Your explanation is ridiculously exaggerated and subtle at the same time: women must simply be exterminated. Isn't that it?"
Ready for explosive drama? If so, Hygiene and the Assassin is your book. Highly, highly recommended.
Amélie Nothomb around age 25 when she wrote Hygiene and the Assassin
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