Philippe Claudel (Dombasle-sur-Meurthe, 1962) has published in Spanish German Fantasy (five exquisitely crafted stories with a heartbreaking background that have traumas in 20th-century Germany as a common denominator. The French novelist and filmmaker, who was born and lives in the border region of Lorraine, explores the theme of memory, collective and individual.He believes that language is today hostage to speed and conceives of literature as a refuge to give time to thought.
At the end of the book, he explains to the reader that Germany attracts him but scares him, and that it serves as a mirror. What does she mean?
I think it is due to my geographical origin. I was born in Lorraine, near the German border. My generation was very marked by the three wars (the Franco-Prussian and the two world wars) that our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents told us about. Those familiar stories of wars with a powerful and close neighbor, geographically and culturally, but who was the main enemy in three conflicts, created in me that kind of fascination and at the same time repulsion towards a people with whom you feel close and who, at the same time, At the same time, it has tragically marked the history of your country and your family.
Is Germany, then, a fertile literary territory?
When I speak of a mirror, it is a way of saying that what happened in Germany can happen in other places, including my own country, of course. What clashes between the German example and Nazism is that this terrible event happened in a country of culture, philosophy, and music. The same German language produced masterpieces and was the instrument of Hitler. The language is neutral and sometimes some use it to subdue, incite hatred and lead to catastrophe. I am essentially a man of the 20th century and who believed at one point that we would go towards a total and definitive European unity, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR. Today, unfortunately, I see again a war on European soil, the rise of totalitarian regimes. Even in democratic countries, extremist parties are beginning to have more and more importance, like here the National Front (ultra-right) or La Francia Insumisa (radical left).
How do you see your role as a writer in this context?
I try to use words to give them meaning again in situations where the word is too fast. Today our political leaders, who take the floor, are somewhat victims of the speed of reaction, accelerated by social networks and the media, while thought requires time. Literature is precisely the place where you can take the time to think, to use words in a perhaps more reflective, deeper way, and invite readers to realize that the elaboration of a thought takes time. My latest books, like the one that has just appeared in France, Crépuscule , have the appearance of stories, fables or tales that take place in other times, but which fundamentally raise questions of today, especially Crépuscule , which reflects on the fabric of truth , how to fabricate a historical truth. For a few years we have been facing a factory of counter-truths, with leaders like Trump, Bolsonaro or Putin. As a novelist, I don't write articles, I don't take a public position, but I do long works that require time to be produced and read, so that the readers can also have the time to fabricate their thoughts.
German Fantasy is about the weight of memory.
What interests me is trying to understand how memory, both individual and collective, acts on our lives, on our life journey, how history affects us, how individuals are forced to adopt a position and define themselves. But the story does not last long, in any case the tragic story, and life goes on. It is about seeing how the memory of this tragic history will shape human destinies.
You talk about the incongruity of history and the role that people play, forced or by chance.
Yes, because when you are in a quiet moment in history, life is somewhat simple. On the contrary, when you have the misfortune to experience ferocious episodes, then you have to define yourself, as a human being, as a neighbor, as a citizen. That option often marks, also in the eyes of others. Your act endures and takes on a dimension of great importance. In moments of fracture in history, man is often faced with responsibilities that are sometimes too great for him, that surpass him and can crush him.
Are you skeptical about the idea of a nation, of a people, perhaps because of your contact with the reality of the war in your region?
Today the notion of nation is quite important in some European countries. Look at how Putin uses the notion of the people and the nation. I note that in some countries like mine, the notion of society or the people begins to fracture in the face of demands that are more corporatist, individual or community. For example, it is very difficult for me today to define what the French people or the French nation are. It seems to me that we are in a time of great fracturing. We live in a kind of mosaic. It is true that at one point in the 20th century, this notion of people and nation served certain political voices to lead countries to incandescence, to fire, to precipitate them against other nations.
