Are you more of Goncourt? Renaudot? This week is literature fashion week. The results have fallen: while the brilliant Jean-Paul Dubois succeeds Nicolas Mathieu for the Goncourt prize with his novel Tous les hommes n'habent le monde dans le monde dans le monde alike , Sylvain Tesson wins, to the all, the Renaudot with its Snow Panther . Which one should you read first? We help you decide between them
A funny and nostalgic Goncourt
Once upon a time ... The Goncourt Prize . It is to literature what the 3 stars are to Michelin . A literary Grail which allows an average of 300,000 novels to be sold in a few months. Since 1903, ten venerable writers ( Bernard Pivot , Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, etc.) have met every year to dedicate the best book of the year directly from the Drouant restaurant . A time considered to be aging, Goncourt has regained its coolness . Proof in support: the very rock'n'roll Virginie Despentes is now part of the academy which had the audacity to reward the very conversational Chanson Douce by young Leïla Slimani or Au revoir up there by Pierre Lemaître .
Who is that ?
Author of fifteen novels including the hilarious and cult Are you kidding Mr. Tanner? and the sumptuous Une vie française , the discreet and modest Jean-Paul Dubois does not demerit his Goncourt. If he swears with each publication that he will no longer write a novel, the former journalist can not help but regularly draw new little treasures, for our greatest pleasure!
The pitch
On the day of Barack Obama's election , Paul Hansen is locked up in the Montreal Penitentiary (don't ask why, it almost doesn't matter). It is with Horton, a Hells Angel phobic of mice and hairdressing sessions, that he shares his cell. In this tiny enclosure, Paul revives his dead by probing his memories with his wife Winona, his dog Nouk or his pastor father. A way for the grieving man to restore a semblance of happiness ...
A contemplative Renaudot
Once upon a time ... the Renaudot Prize . The LOL version of the literary prizes: the Renaudot is above all the story of a gang of journalists who died of boredom and hunger while awaiting the results of the Prix Goncourt ! And when your stomach is growling, what better idea than to create your own literary prize, a sort of big anti-Goncourt joke? “ Come on, we're going to crown a funny book ”, cried one of the journalists in 1926. But the best jokes are the shortest and against all odds the Renaudot is quickly established as the formidable competitor of his elder brother, big bro Goncourt . The proof, he will be the first to consecrate Louis-Ferdinand Céline.
Who is that ?
Once is not custom, the jury of Renaudot continues the little last minute jokes: while he was not even in the list, it is Sylvain Tesson and his Snow Panther who succeeds Valérie Manteau for Le sillon . Fans of this traveling writer can rub their hands because, no bad surprises, this novel is pure Shard.
The pitch
After the forests of Siberia , this time it is at the top of Tibet that the sender takes us alongside Vincent Munier , an animal photographer. On the program: -35 ° C, 5000 meters of altitude, a hope and an infinite expectation to see appearing the most beautiful and the rarest of the endangered panthers. Quietly, we impatiently accompany these men motivated by a perhaps vain quest ...
Verdict
This year, two rooms two atmospheres for these Grail of literary prizes.
Certainly The snow leopard Sylvain Tesson is a magnificent shipping philosophical impulses, to the lively pen and breathtaking scenery. Certainly, this literary journey resonates like an ode to wild nature in all its splendor and complexity.
But our hearts balance for the total novel of Jean-Paul Dubois which will follow you long after its reading. By exploring with humor and nostalgia the soul of a closed and sad man, the Goncourt crowns this year a masterpiece of sparkling humanity, overwhelming melancholy and comforting hope. To play you.
All men do not inhabit the world in the same way by Jean-Paul Dubois, Éditions de l'Olivier
The Snow Panther by Sylvain Tesson, Gallimard
Also discover: An almost normal family: the thriller to devour by the fireside
