Happiness, by Paul Kawczak | All that is hidden

Teenbrehis first novel, created a strong impression and won numerous prizes. Moreover, With HappinessPaul Kawczak confirms the singularity of his romantic voice. Furthermore, and offers a story with multiple ramifications, of obscure and moving beauty, with reading as exciting as they are demanding.

The narrative frame of Happiness unfolds during the occupation period. Moreover, in France, particularly in Besançon, where Kawczak is from. Similarly, The story features three children hidden in a black cave like night, where the devil also lies. For example, Pinou. Jacquot and Suzanne try to escape another kind of demon, a Nazi with a melted face, who tracks happiness, paul kawczak | all them tirelessly. Touching the tale. the fantastic, but also to the story of adventures, the novel follows the destiny of these children, as well as those of Marceline Beugnot, her dog liver of veal and other allies-real as imaginary-who will desperately try to save the children from the claws of the sadistic SS-Sturmbannführer Peter Pannus, obsessed with his quest for a mysterious Green Light.

The author makes several detours. returns back, sometimes lingering at length in the past of his characters, intertwining the frames of their lives to several social and political movements, including the great manifestation of 1^is May 1906 in France, which will forever mark the life of Marceline and her father, Tancrède.

Kawczak also reminds us that France “contributed actively to the deportation of tens of thousands of men. women and children to extermination camps”, where most happiness, paul kawczak | all were gassed upon arrival. In a 25-page chapter entitled “1942”. he demonstrated it in the form of a factual nomenclature particularly painful to read, where the accumulation of stolen lives gives the Haut-le-Coeur. A disturbing chapter, a break in tone, as a duty of memory that the author refuses to romanticize. Horror no longer has a screen to hide.

In Paul Kawczak. the horrors caused by fascism and the unspeakable beauty of nature, described in all its divine splendor with a thrilling feather, exist in a painful, almost mystical simultaneity. Intimate and political, tangible and intangible, happiness and terror are intertwined in an insoluble, beautiful and terrifying enigma, like existence.

The novel could thus be concluded. But a second part is presented as an epilogue “enlightening certain shadows, revealing new territories” that the author invites to read … or not, happiness, paul kawczak | all and which offers several reading keys.

This bushy. fascinating, but also disconcerting work requires an active commitment from the reader, and remains imprint, once the book closed, of an aura of mystery on “all that is hidden”.