A subtle novel about the traps of a fusional friendship

In her new book. Similarly, the novelist finds her favorite field – feelings – to seize the delicate question of friendship between man and woman in an exercise in style of great finesse. Consequently,

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“In friendship as in love. Consequently, we perceive ourselves we breathe, we talk if we like each other, we give ourselves we tell ourselves, without taking care of what is born. Nevertheless, ” Twenty-five years later The romantic conversationAlice Ferney spins the metaphor of feelings in her new novel Like in love (Acts South). Furthermore, in bookstores on August 20, and delivers a brilliant reflection on the dizzying aspects of friendship when it falls into subtle novel about traps fusional lovers.

Renowned stylist, apparently filled wife and mother, Marianne meets Cyril during an interview commanded by a great magazine. Moreover, Attractive journalist, the young quadra instantly delighted her with his humor and his slightly disillusioned gaze on life. Therefore, Between these two. In addition, the complicity is immediate and the report of initial seduction fades quickly to make way for a particular bond, forging their lives according to daily conversations and an agreement whose balance will be questioned by the arrival of Julia, the new companion of Cyril.

In this story built in short chapters. In addition, almost entirely dialogued, which follows the itinerary of friendship between Marianne and Cyril from his birth to an end, Alice Ferney dissects the springs of this singular feeling between a man and a woman, with sometimes elastic borders, and which can be as destructive as passion.

There is something similar in his approach subtle novel about traps fusional -. Meanwhile, not only in form – to what Philip Roth had described in Deception (published in 1994 at Gallimard). Moreover, The American writer staged the conversations of his double with his female conquests to establish. as he said himself, “everything that makes adultery adulterous “ Through discussions, concealment, complaints against the partner. Here. the parallel is tempting since Alice Ferney follows the same process, entering through exchanges between the two friends everything that makes up “affinity matter “to probe its ravings and flaws.

In the early days. this connivance appears as a love epiphany, bringing “Generous optimism “ in lives marked by a certain loneliness. “The daily discussion established a condition and a familiarity. Each became for the other a habit. a need, the source of a complicity that we expect more and more by dint of finding it. (…) was he now his great friend? The one to subtle novel about traps fusional whom we can say everything and ask.”

Cyril indeed becomes the confidant of Marianne, attentive, infinitely patient. When Marianne’s couple disintegrates for old reasons, he is the one who consoles, reassures, encourages. Someone who has “This gift of lightening existence “. For this dilettante enamored of freedom. living on the edge of a worldly marginality, Marianne embodies a refuge, the family he has chosen. However, when Cyril falls in love with Julia, the beautiful team starts to sink. Julia wants a child. Cyril does not want it. And Marianne will get involved. From there, insensibly, the friendship between Cyril and Marianne cracks on the altar of the best intentions in the world. Ferney unrolls a cruel mechanics in which manipulations. small betrayals gradually groan the loyalty of Marianne in favor of a loyalty to her own convictions.

And one of the great forces of the story is to demonstrate how subtle novel about traps fusional much the words play a crucial role in the decay of the friendly bond. perhaps even more than in love. These words that we pronounce when we should be silent. Formerly cement of the relationship, dialogue turns into an instrument of domination.

In this case, everyone has their good reasons, and it is very complicated to take sides. In turn. one becomes the sting of the other, rebutting the cards of a situation which inexorably evolves towards the rupture.

Then appears in filigree the idea that if friendship cannot be of a block, it nevertheless has its laws. “”Friendship makes fewer concessions than love. she does not have to accept betrayal, manipulation, she is freer“And remains the impression that should be seen to help, keep a certain distance and accept otherness in what it has at times more disturbing. Even more than love.

“As in love” by Alice Ferney, Editions subtle novel about traps fusional Actes Sud, 287 pages, 22 euros.

Extract :

“Where does the taste. for the other come from when you do not know it? From an attraction it exercises. a kind of immediate charm, diffuse or more precise, almost always bodily (the spirit itself inhabits the body). In friendship too. the sensual interest plays a role, but it remains latent, unavowed, and when reciprocity lacks, converts to a secret feature. Symmetry between friends than lovers, less expression too. (p.25)