Broken Destiny

"Charlotte has learned to read his name on a grave." Thus begins the story by David Foenkinos devoted to Charlotte Salomon, an unjustly neglected artist, died in deportation.
Exist curses? This is what we can believe in discovering the tragic fate that strikes mostly women of this lineage: suicide succeed, misfortunes are linked.
Before the denunciation which lead to the death camp, Charlotte, who has always drawn, will launch headlong, as if she already knew the terrible fate that awaits him in a painting and colorful summarizing his life .
I love David Foenkinos I have read some novels. But, hearing the critics present his latest work as a kind of prose poem, I had a doubt: was I going to enjoy this kind of writing? Yet the author himself spoke enthusiastically about this artist before his book, no one knew. This is a subject that interests me. I liked, for example, the discovery of Séraphine Louis, in the spotlight since this tribute, in this beautiful city I visited last year. I therefore venture to open the copy lent me my sister. Surprise: it had the excellent idea to stick all types of documents: family photos, identity, reproductions oeuvres, to visualize what we are reading.
Immediately, I am caught by the style of David Foenkinos. It has nothing to do with poetry even in prose. These are just short sentences (I hate those periods in which kilometer emberlificotent me some authors.) They are crisp, clear, it simply has to by going online after each point.
From the beginning, it plunges us into Charlotte terrible life. From time to time he stops to give us a reflection or a personal comment: "I discovered LOEUVRE Charlotte. By sheer chance. I did not know what I would see. I had lunch with a friend who worked in a museum. She said you should go see the exhibition. That's all she said. "He tells the people he met, their reactions, the welcome he received.
Sometimes it is a revelation, "Charlotte consults Dr. Moridis. His office is in the center of Villefranche-sur-Mer. He gets in a room of his apartment. Kika, her daughter, born in 1941, still lives there. After the death of her parents, she returned to settle there. When I tried to contact her I could not imagine that. It has kept intact the cabinet. Thanks to her, I was able to cross the stage in 1940. Walking through my novel. "He visits the inn« The beautiful dawn ", whose patron opened for Charlotte the number one room, where she painted frantically:" Here I am in ecstasy before the wall of a shabby room. " "The Hermitage", the beautiful house Ottilie Moore, an American philanthropist who hosted Charlotte and her grandparents and encouraged to paint, was destroyed. In its place stands a prestigious residence. When the author addresses one of the occupying "Hello madam, I am a writer," she gets mad, "No, do not stay! And then the guard will not let you go! Go, you have nothing to do here! "
David Foenkinos enters the life of Charlotte Salomon. Looks like he lives at his side. It traces so its joys, sorrows, discoveries, his humiliation, love, loss, grief, fear. His novel was for me at the same time dazzling and painful. I could not read it in one sitting. I had to get out regularly, to recover from the emotion that gripped my heart, swallow this ball that was blocking my throat. I only regret that in the interviews he has given, and I listened to before I read, the author has revealed far too many aspects of his book. After finished, I went to visit Charlotte works on the Internet. All do not like, I hope that after this mas testimony that deserved the Goncourt and the Renaudot high school students will have someone good idea to organize an exhibition that allows us to discover the canvases "for real".
Yes, I loved this novel that touched me, disturbed, upset and I highly recommend.