Literary masterpieces, modest scribblers, scribblers or great writers… Without forgetting the publishers more or less on the spot, Philippe Delestre brings them all together in a new album full of humor and love: “La Vie des Books “. Which, of course, is not always easy!
Lysiane Ganousse – Today at 15:23
He decided to draw what he doesn’t know how to do. “It is therefore not the subjects that are lacking, it must be recognized! Enough to fuel an entire career as a press cartoonist, including more than four decades on the front page of our newspaper.
But Philippe Delestre does not know how to write. He’s the one who says it… “So not having the means to be a writer, I draw them. Abundantly! Even making it the subject of his brand new album, “La vie des livres” which, barely out of print, will land on the stands… of Livre sur la Place. Couldn’t be more relevant.
The ego weighed down with beautiful feathers
Because in the absence of writing, the designer frequented them very regularly, novelists, great authors or scribblers.
If only as a reader, with a tenderness and/or admiration for Maurice Genevoix (“who writes marvelously well”), for Gionot (“whom I prefer to Pagnol, because his characters are nicer”), or Camus again.
But he also approached them as a simple neighbor on the signing tables. Where he was able to observe to and fro of these people of feather who, paradoxically, sometimes had the leaden ego. “In any case oversized. Unlike a Marcel Aymé reputed to speak very little. So much so that one day, at a trade show, a lady approached. “I bet with my friend to make you say at least four words”, she announces to him. Writer’s response: “You lost!” »
In short, Delestre enjoys this little world where geniuses and cliques come together, and sometimes unforgettable masterpieces to which he refers with humor. A wave approaching the beach is told to mute it when the summer visitor devours “The Silence of the Sea”; a scholar discovers the hump of literature after having received a blow… from L’Assommoir. Tops and Flops, as the subtitle of his album suggests.
Paper is sacred
The literary critic pulls out his gun, the clerk doesn’t know whether to dip his pen in honey or gall, and Flaubert is delivered by dump trucks like tuna on the arrival of the fishing boat. As for the editor, he pulls out his ax to make sure that his author will write short… This world of paper, under Delestre’s pencil, is both ferociously funny and ridiculously ferocious.
About paper, precisely, since this is the material from which Delestre’s humor and the work of all these writers are made, what future would the designer be ready to prophesy for it?
“I just refuse to believe in its end. It’s something sacred for me, even if I upload one of my drawings on social networks every day. It’s very simple: I can’t imagine spending a day without even leafing through a book. And even virgin, a page can delight me, for its softness under the fingers which venture to caress it! “The weight of the words, the caress of the paper…
“The life of books – highs and lows”, by Philippe Delestre; at Food Editions, €18; (present at Le Livre sur la place on September 8 on the Est Républicain stand; on September 9 and 10 on the Hall du Livre stand).
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