In his new book, the author gives us snapshots exalting the imaginary journey.
You’re writing a book about New York, a city you’ve never been to and where you don’t want to go… Isn’t that a bit strange?
I never thought of myself as a potential traveler and only flew for the first time in 2008. I have refused to go to New York several times, and at other times it does not couldn’t happen. Since I decided on this literary project ten years ago, to tell my New York, the one I have in mind, the one I have made for myself, I know that I will not go. First because I’m afraid of being disappointed and I prefer that the secrets of this incredible city are not violated by reality, and then because I no longer want to discover a place that I would like too much . At 71, I wouldn’t have the time to find new habits there. The genius of New York is in my head, it’s the absolute elsewhere.
You define New York as THE city. What is so fascinating about it for you?
My personal mythology does not push me towards Tokyo or Moscow. On the other hand, so many small pebbles lead me to this city that I discovered as a child in my CE2 class, with an emblematic engraving representing its Skyline. The dream began like this. Then, everything settled down, everything became legendary with Bob Dylan’s 45 rpm cover, Blowin’in the wind, the photo of James Dean, collar raised in the driving rain in the streets of New York. The word America made my generation dream. “I want to have it and I will have it” sang Joe Dassin. New York is the city standing, as Céline wrote. Everything is extreme and sharp, a harshness mixed with refuges of sweetness and wonder.
This book is nourished by writers, photographers, filmmakers who made you discover New York. And above all, there is the figure of Woody Allen…
His image is unfortunately a little tarnished, but creatively he is the quintessential New York filmmaker. I learned about New York with its films. Especially since it was reassuring, so you could be ugly, bespectacled… and attractive! Thanks to him ! And then, this permanent concern, this touching egocentrism, and this machine-gun joke humor seems to me to reveal the ambiguities of New York quite well, there is in this city, apparently sure of itself, an intrinsic feverishness. It’s always more elegant to be worried when you’re the biggest!
It’s a paradox for a minimalist writer, as you like to define yourself, to write about the gigantic…
It is inevitably very tempting to look for the small in the gigantic. Literature plays with reality without ever being confused with it. It was quite jubilant to write this book during confinement, to get up early in my house in Normandy and to tell myself that at the same time I was in New York. And then I always find it delightful to write against the tide, to take the time to slow down and contemplate in a time when everyone wants to go fast. There is nothing voluntary in my approach, that’s what I have to say. I sincerely believe that the people I touch are the ones I need to touch. I write about what I love and as I get older, I don’t feel made for bitterness, I like happy nostalgia, a little mocking tenderness.
A motionless journey
Philippe Delerm invites us to a fantasy and mythological visit of New York City. Throughout these minimalist chronicles, we come across Paul Auster and Charles Dickens, Bob Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel, Georges Simenon and Central Park, Harlem and Manhattan…
Philippe Delerm knows New York like the back of his hand, without ever having set foot there, and he draws a more powerful reality than any tourist guide would do, thereby proving that the most successful trips are perhaps those that we do motionless, dreaming.
–
–
–
