In "What we've been better," Jean-Paul Enthoven revisits a nostalgia tinged with bitterness of his stays at the palace in Marrakech Zahia, during which he crossed "the line of demarcation between the end of the youth of the rest of life." In this novel of disillusionment, he paints a beautiful portrait of a glorious place, the Zahia and all those who have lived since the actress Talita Getty, the "high priestess of the religion of risk" which had the hosts Marlon Brando, Maurice Ronet and Alain Delon, until the current owner, the philosopher Lewis (double literary BHL).
magical Riad with multiple patios and terraces, Zahia has everything a paradise: the narrator, invited by his friend Lewis is tasted luxury, peace and pleasure among the happy fews Dillet that constitute the "court" of the masters places. But if Zahia is a paradise, a paradise lost, or at least corroded by time. For the narrator, time of recklessness seems over.
keen observer of his contemporaries, the narrator on the threshold of old age probe his feelings and sifts through his memories. And if the novel takes its title from the "Sentimental Education" by Flaubert, he also borrows its irony. As well as anti-hero Flaubert cast a wry eye on their youth in calling it "better" a series of failures and unfulfilled desires, the narrator comes to regard as futile the sweetest moments of his life.
If "What we've had better" was a brilliant gallery of portraits of the intelligentsia who wallows in luxury while in two steps misery rumbles, this novel could annoy or even disgusting, but pen both serious fresh and always stylish with Enthoven makes this review quite moving a desperate Casanova, once the festival ended, finds himself alone with himself.
"What we've been better" by Jean-Paul Enthoven, Grasset, 2008, 220 pages, € 15.90.
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