Three weeks ago, I went to visit my parents. I had just arrived when my father told me he had something for me. He descended to the cellar before recovering with a smile, a few leaves yellowed, shriveled, damaged. The remains of my first novel, missing for years, probably washed out brownish Ourthe after one of the many and devastating floods that struck at regular intervals on my childhood village, natural punishments of human carelessness. Eight pages in my hand. Silence. Pad of paper recycled, such as that offered each year at Christmas by an intruder. Transferred mustard. Devoured by mice - one page is also half illegible, it is clear traces of teeth of rodents. Stupor, silence. But no sadness. When we thought the disappearance, no matter the state as it is a return. My first novel.
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Title:
Massacre 'BBhirmingham - B are both crossed and, as misspelled, underline the prominent fictionality of the text. The seemingly misplaced apostrophe is already a business Schmidtienne disengagement agreements which itself increases the derealization of narrative.
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fall of 1990, I was nine. In my head, a film school is on the hill beside the church. We arrive at the parking lot, I go out with my mother and I headed for the stairs, down below, the building where the classes. Several teachers from surrounding communities are cooling their heels in the cold. Strike. No classes. Childcare is guarded by the lady who taught me to read. The following days, I take with me one of my two typewriters. I had one of my mother, gray, 70s style. I had my father, black, retro style. That one I liked best and that I took with me. I do not remember the brand, but still the buttons, ribbon, roll, sound it made, in the sense it referred to the fingers.
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Introduction:
Entitled "trial", it induces in the reader at first a feeling of familiarity - we're in a detective novel, the courtroom is a Most of the basic set - and then wonder, or destabilization, since it is quickly evident that the instructor is the author himself and the person is not considered one of the criminals which we were promised the hunt, but some of his friends JS. The indictment is severe: JS is a dirty cheater. There are two witnesses: the JVH explains why the so-called JS claimed that once the ball was returned into the goal so that he, JVH, goalkeeper and he knew full well that the 'was picked before it crosses the line, and then the FA that exposes a classic case of class of class: JS turns, it takes the worksheet to copy before claiming the teacher who understood that something was afoot that FA is copied. The Judge concludes with a pronunciamento. He takes control, swear not to be a dictator - in contrast to JS - promises freedom of expression and action, banning the fights and surprise attacks to stop the database. He appoints the Prime Minister JVH, FA Chief of Police, a B army chief and a Q treasurer.
There is no doubt that this is a ferocious parody the judicial institution and actual trials : There is no defense, no jury, and not deliberate, rather than justice, he concludes with a grandiose statement, demagogic press already being deceptive. Some see a snap or rather a savage critic of the U.S. Constitution and its promises of laissez-faire, laissez-passer, but also statements pacifists and isolationists who punctuated the speeches of many candidates for president - you know what came of it. Other commentators, less US-centric, see in the figure of the JVH JVH ², therefore, is JVHH, that is to say JHVH. This religious interpretation is further strengthened by metaphorically presenting the character as guardian supposed to preserve the virginity of his goal and decide who can enter into his breast / St. In this context, we can see JS as the inversion of Saint Jerome (SJ / JS). It is known that the inversion is a characteristic Satanic less known is that St. Jerome who translated HYLLA in Lucifer. This shows that through the use of a handful of names, the author manages to make such a complex chain of theological referents. The meaning of FA is much less clear: some want to see a nod to the English Football Association but this interpretation is strikingly out of step with the generally accepted theories. It should be clear that none of these avenues of analysis are mutually exclusive. Polysemy seems to be a fundamental characteristic of this text.
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was an elementary school in a village of fewer than a thousand inhabitants. We were a small fifty six years of teaching, there were only three teachers who took care of each two levels at time, in the same class. These days of strike, only those whose parents could not take care during the day were improvised in the present study. We were probably a dozen sitting on old desks, which all but there had already been replaced throughout the country. Wood varnished mahogany brown, groove for pencils, hole for the ink bottle and, this time, my typewriter. The others were playing I do not know what, without making any noise or without being overbearing. Maybe with cars or GI Joe on the floor, mosaic paving '50 red and yellow tiles. On the dais before the green table, a desk where Mrs. N. watching us.
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action
The first page consists mostly of short and punchy dialogues. Commissioner phone to a killer that he proposed "A ¢ ¢ ø25 miles POUNDS STERLING-" to kill the brothers Jhon. The assassin is honored and promise to leave the next day in New York to eliminate them. The chapter ends with a plus-later on the plane "dry mysterious about this famous later, the author remains silent.
The theme of parody of the law, justice is always present: although we know it is probably criminal, the fact that the Commissioner wants to kill Jhon by an assassin under contract can not that shock and disturb the reader. The commissioner is he a thug or is it to encourage us to rethink our notions of Western-centrist agenda and institutions as guarantors of an elusive freedom and protecting the property? It seems obvious that this second perspective is much richer.
Note also the complex work of the author on the layout. Many letters have been half barred, strange symbols dot the course of the dialogue, only half of the sheet is used and the exclamation points give a rhythm-martialo own musical to be chanted.
The next page is only half full. But where the former was divided in half horizontally, it is vertically, probably indicating that the commissioner first passive / lie - it was not him who was going to do the dirty work - gets under way and Taking Action / rises. We do not know what happened in New York, but the brothers are Jhon Now in Britain, and the police are fed up. We just found the car of the bandits in "a ditch, èaua) of around NOTHINGAM! . As shown typographically, panic seized the agent which can wonder if it is able to maintain order. Once there, they discover an Opel Kadett (strange car bandits international dimension - again the author plays with the conventions and clichés of the detective), a submachine gun empty and lifeless body of Munro Jhon, whose rivalry with his brother Loui was proverbial. The scene ends with the top of the fifth page: Commissioner gives the order to prevent the criminal. But if the criminal is not he, who is he? Again, no answer.
The fifth page is another break in the visual rhythm of the text is still only fifty percent of the available area but whose arrangement is very sophisticated. The top is a band gap which corresponds to the bottom a band full of text. In between, a division between white and black of the story: seven-second gap, then an invisible line and body text, justified on the left. Undoubtedly, the page presents the appearance of a head taken from the top of the shoulders. That of the corpse-Munro? Celle, taunting the police, Louisiana, the alleged assassin? The Commissioner's - we'll see - Ponder? That of the author, who insists on a subliminal level so we do not forget that the murderer and the avenger, the agent of disorder and the guarantor of the balance, it's him? Or that, we will pay the player?
In the car back to the office, the Commissioner is considering the difficulty of his task. Many of his colleagues would leave, but he already sees the premium brand that would entail such a blow. The officer does not work for the common good, but for the glory and money, we are told so. And if it's too risky, he prefers to let the thugs run. In the same vein, we must give importance to the narrator's intervention which might seem trivial: "But lecommissaire should stop spending because the car stopped outside the headquarters of SCOTLAND-¥ ARD. The police station is seen as a place where not only can but also should be stopped to think. He is also obvious that what at first would be just a typographical chaos makes sense: spending means both to think and spend - Commissioner already imagined what he would do with his bonus, and financial constraints determine what the police - and this is reinforced by the symbol of Japanese Yen used by the author in the word Scotland Yard.
return to the post is short: we phoned him to tell him that the brothers Jhon were seen in Glasgow. By taxi, it rushes to "'s airport."
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I threw myself into my business novel with great enthusiasm and an idea I thought was fairly accurate what I intended to do: the story of an English policeman - my favorite country - launched on the trail of a dreaded gang of criminals. There must have been shooting and car chases. There was no need longer. My friend J. and half-Dutch, half-Irish (he said), mythomaniac large (I am not sure if I met a bigger since) claimed that he was going on a trip to Paris on following month (or two or six months later, he could not remember ever exactly) and he would bring my manuscript to publishers. It was called the snot-nose, the only guy I know who have succeeded, while he was a guard (well, they said koe '), without pressure, to clear the ball by hand into his own goal. He also claimed that there was a hole in the wall of his room through which he could see the neighbor do things. I went to him several times, there was no hole. By cons, above his bed, the poster of an old ship which nineteenth according to him, at this precise moment, his uncle was navigating.
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The sixth page is the most damaged by gluttony mice. I must say it is very good, lighter, and therefore very different from the rest of the book - unfortunately we know only what it contained. The commissioner is trying to buy a plane ticket to Glasgow. The lady in charge of the sale exclaims: "But he's gone and been unhappy perssonage 45 MINUTES! . Our hero / anti-hero (at this stage of the narration, we look for the second, ultra-modern assumption but who really knows?) Does not remove: "But how is possible! I'm commissioner SCOTLAND-ARD ¥ $! . The woman concluded philosophically: " I find it impossibled do the impossible for you! . It's a great and subtle illustration of the police who believes in his omnipotence: that God, nothing can stop it and is missing a plane is no bad pun, a return to Earth a drop in position in which the law demiurge had scandalously bet. It is always for the author to question the assumptions and values of western-state cosmology. And then, perhaps more humble (but for how long?), The Commissioner went to the station. Experts agree that a scene is then played absurd between him and the train controller around his custody or not a ticket in order, but the bites prevent us from being formal about it.
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I remember being particularly excited about writing my scene prosecution car, but it is part of what has disappeared. Between the mouse holes and leaves that have made the trunk, I find it very difficult to make sense of such a project.
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The last page saved water takes place in a unnamed city (probably Glasgow, but the pace hitherto printed, Londonderry why not?). The car of the brothers Jhon stormed into a street and killing passers-by with machine guns. The commissioner is tired, his inspector too. The escalation is uncontrollable. The time has come to mobilize. But in this book, unanimity never lasts and that was always direct forks. While the commissioner, for the second time, exclaims that they must have, the inspector said: "I want to believe you, Commissioner." The response was scathing: "whys at earlier you do not believe me. " Is it possible we try to explain that the Commissioner's obsession was shared by one of his body, or even that it was purely fictitious and imaginary? This attack has really been signed by Jhon? Nothing in the text no reason to say so and we may even doubt, if their taste in cars is constant, how a vehicle of a class Kadett may come rushing into any street at all? Moreover, at earlier / before + wind probably indicates that the Commissioner was the wind, spoke to say nothing and that the sentence does not end with a question mark illustrates the insulation among her colleagues and the opportunity he needed a special event - the massacre - to motivate the troops. Is he behind it? More simply, some experts see the illustration in this passage that the prophets often speak their own and do not thank you once we admit the truth of their theories. Somewhere between these two poles of analysis, we emphasize that the author, eleven years before the fact, had already predicted the response to September 11. Much insight is breathtaking.
Beyond these academic theories, the text, it is rich index, does not leave a clear track. One may regret the disappearance of what comprised the rest of this undoubted magnum opus. The only certainties are those that we serve as a conclusion: everything is in the title. 'Massacre' BBhirmingham "is a book of disorder, real / unreal, crazy experience on syntax, typography and layout, it destroys our world to build a new one where the writer is king. There was no massacre in Birmingham nor is there aa BBhirmingham: this paradox is the key to the codex presented here. His inconsistencies are consistent. His insanity is reason. His world is ours, but we do not know yet.
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