Live and Become a Arsène Lupin the 80's!

Philippe Jaenada powerfully back on the front of the stage (after Flora started strong with an award for his first book in 1997, I had just lost sight ...) by attacking the raging robber Bruno Sulak on the roads of France and Navarre in the early 80. Surprisingly remained in the shadow of Mesrine and other Spaggiari, this non-violent robber knows some rehabilitation to the public (at least the one who reads the book !) from the pen of Jaenada.

Mesrine had been entitled to a double film biopic, Spaggiari to a semi-comic adaptation with Jean-Paul Rouve, Sulak will have the right to his literary work. This is also perhaps more to his personality as it is told by the author, who dreamed in the last months of his life writing novels successfully. For Jaenada does not just here to recount the exploits of the man he has chosen hero. He says another time too. The one where non-violence still meant something and was not just a protest posture.

To do this, the author reviews Sulak life (and even those of his ancestors quickly) to explain how man has shaped how sometimes life fun of dirty tricks that are falling from the good, then the wrong side. And of course the damn lucky that occurs without warning and fled when we most need it. In fact, besides the mentioned robberies and detailed, it is mostly the rest of Sulak's life that interests Jaenada: its relation to authority, women, friendship, family, all that is scrutinized by 'seasoned eye of the author who makes a lot of comments both moved qu'hilarants throughout this fictionalized biography. This allows it to create beautiful moments that literature takes the reader on the steep slope of this great bandit finally too wise and too polite to the company retains as an icon, it preferred to keep the violent image Mesrine, more in line with what it hates.

And in the pages, we understand that the author fell in love with this colorful character and possessing a pretty incredible sympathy capital (after all, if I had known one of his robberies, I probably would not say the same thing!). Obviously, we can criticize the Jaenada feather fall sometimes in empathy that some deem excessive. But far from being achieved in a variation of Stockholm syndrome, the author seeks only to understand why the company has felt obliged to crush a man in this way, gangster yes, but honest and upright. The answer (it is for the reader to find and forge) is not mesmerized for Sulak cleverly taking into account a large proportion of the ins and outs underlying our current system.

In short, a book that literally devours and can illuminate an elegantly subdued light life too short of a complex man with societal ramifications (not to mention some exciting interludes Geopoliticians!) To better apprehend time many mocked today, but probably still has lessons for us.