The governor of Antipodia

All the adventure! Discovering a work that, far from the down-to-earth, takes you across the oceans of perception. From a genre which, without being fantastic, is elsewhere; which, without being surreal, cloudy; which, without being a tribute, takes his side 'Robinson'; which, without falling into the 'normality', successively takes the trappings of a comedy of manners, a psychological drama, a personal drama, collective and even metaphysical 'The set an undeniable success long into fleet the mind of the reader once conquered the last page; which more than offset a narrative style (alternating chapters in the first person for each character) in the long repetitive, without ever becoming boring, do not worry.

Two main characters succeed at the helm for most of the voyage that constitutes the novel: François Lejodic 'or' Jodic ', mechanic and handyman-how who fled Britain after a love affair thwarted by social classes ; and Albert Paulmier of Franville 'or' Govt 'because it is the governor of this small island the heir of a noble lineage and diplomat weaned from milder assignments after a troubled business around Southeast Asia triptych loss, (too ) girls and hotel room 'One chose Antipodia, the other is punished there: a homecoming and a ban. A third person intrudes surreptitiously in this setting, Moses, Indian Ocean Fisherman thrown overboard by an unscrupulous captain '

The great intelligence of Jean-Luc Coatalem is not to be left-driven coarse strings too classic pattern of 'the disruptive element that arises in a ground universe and set'. Better than that, he plays these codes brilliantly. Even once on the island, Moses maintains an abstract and euphemistic link with the other two characters. And certainly not a spoken link. The imbalance of Antipodia 'ie the two contradictory poles embodied by Jodic and Govt' did not wait for the man of the islands in the biblical name to set in motion, to make him flying increasingly hard his characters. Moses is only knockout, deus ex machina falling on the beam already too narrow and unstable which evolved somehow the two guards of the island. An island whose purpose is administrative simple: a human relay in the galaxy of French Southern and Antarctic Territories (TAAF). An island that hides its true purpose.

Two guards of an island, so, waiting for a possible emergency to perform, but unable to replace any defective tag. Two guards of a supposed island serve as pantry, but they quickly become the true food. In these absurd moors drunk wind, humidity, memories and worthlessness, the two characters choke gradually. But differently.

The first of them, Jodic, gets drunk and stifles freedom on this island which he roams the hills, escarpments; it boosts the reva-reva, hallucinogenic plant that gradually embraces the logic, metaphysics, the thought of the island, its absurdity. Drink of freedom blows of reva-reva on the rocks, forget the social confinement which he suffered in Brest, surpass the physical containment which he suffered during a mission in Antarctica. On Antipodia, containment is opening, opening to the all: Nature, Hope, Dream, the fantasy. The Swedish actress in pornographic films only available to these two men forcibly removed from the opposite sex as sexual practice and appears Jodic episodic, sporadic; she calls in nature, taking away all resistance, recalling his animal nature. Choking instinctual.

The second, Govt, choking confinement, stunted, not pertaining to his Browning and the family motto: 'I will maintain.' Failing gradually to maintain Jodic in his dreary lap, failing to maintain the superiority of his rank and upbringing, failing to maintain the balance of the island, failing to maintain itself. Where Jodic surrenders psychologically Govt makes them physically. Gradually unable to move properly, it adopts a defensive posture. He made his days a bulwark against the cold, against Jodic, against his past. Choking rational.

Jodic, instead, adopted an offensive posture: he throws himself headlong into this island, eventually becomes the first and only true living; even more, it becomes a 'native'. A spirit. A defender. A guardian of the temple, unless this is the tomb. Of these two much more complex postures' and carriers to Think as they seem, Jean-Luc Coatalem chooses to detail the factual logic to not fall into the awkward conceptual essay. Again, it takes greater good. It gains in clarity and readability. The characters are affirmed in their madness. They argue in this iridescent and shimmering backdrop to the fine weather, volcanic and dragging the rest of the (bad) time: a cruel and magnified Antipodia, a goddess of both maternal and vengeful, creative and destructive.

Antipodia is undoubtedly the essence of the book. Barely concealed allusion to St. Helena Napoleon Bonaparte (geography is full of historical references to the Empire), it is unpredictable, impetuous, a place of exile from which we will not restart; as if the die was cast from the start, as if the reader was just a sordid pleasure contemplate the slow decay of things and beings cope with the forces of nature, the Earth, the Existing, until to perceive all the wheels until forget the whole society to not see more than the Essential, the Earth turning on itself, and see Antipodia the center of all things, their beginning and end. Time is the enemy because it is on an eternal Antipodia. Eternal return always.

Eternal return for the reader too, which probably will not miss, once completed the first reading, to return a few months or years later, in order to draw as many other reflections that open book never seems close.

TM