El palacio de invierno

by Roger Grenier, Guillermo Lledó (Translator)

Raymond, regordete con su disfraz de Polichinelle, se levanta dando tumbos. Cintas al viento, sube al escenario, aplaudido, aclamado. Vuelve a abrir el piano, se sienta. Comienza con su one-step favorito, que acompaña con onomatopeyas: - Tra-la la la la la-la la la la-tra la la la... Es solo una melodía de moda, un eslogan del año 1923. Pero Lydia y todos los que están allí, ¿serán capaces, dentro de diez años, dentro de veinte años o dentro de treinta, serán capaces, si todavía están vivos, de oír este aire saltando sin llorar su juventud, y sin ver al pobre Raymond? De nuevo Casadebat que les hizo bailar, en el Palacio de Invierno, tras la salida de la orquesta... "Una novela que los amantes de las novelas pueden comprar sin recelo y leer sin perplejidad" (Robert Kanters, Le Literary Figaro).

303 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Roger Grenier was a French writer, journalist and radio animator. He was Regent of the Collège de ’Pataphysique.

In his youth he lived in Pau, where his mother opened a shop selling glasses. During the war, Roger Grenier attended Gaston Bachelard's classes at the Sorbonne before actively participating in 1944 in the liberation of Paris. He joined Albert Camus in the newspaper "Combat" then in "France Soir". Journalist, he followed post-war trials which inspired his first essay in 1949 "Le Rôle d'accusé". Radio animator, writer for television and cinema, member of the Gallimard board, he is recipient of the "Grand prix de l'Académie française" awarded to him in 1985 for his whole work, more than thirty works at that moment, novels, including two best-sellers "Le Palais d'hiver" of 1965 and "Ciné-roman", Prix Femina in 1972, essays and memoirs. He is best known in the United States for his work "The Difficulty of Being a Dog" (Les larmes d'Ulysse), translated by Alice Kaplan. He is still writing and is a busy conference attendee, speaking about his works, literature, Gallimard, or his friends: Albert Camus and Brassaï.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Seingalt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roger Grenier is almost certainly my favorite living French writer (not that I've read all that many, not, good God, that I've ever wanted to read all that many). But as a rule Grenier's books are immediately seductive, immediately compelling, and Le Palais d'hiver, ostensibly about a woman who believes her musical vocation to have been unjustly frustrated, is no exception.

Part of what I like is Grenier's spare language, his wistfulness, his wit. His books, often, like this one, about the small city of Pau in southwestern France, prompt a good deal of reflection, of reverie, and they fill me with the longing--for what I can't really say, for things I've never had, at any rate--that my everyday routine, my work, and the insensitivity it takes to get by ordinarily conspire to keep so far beneath the surface I don't realize I even have it in me. And then reading a book like Le Palais d'hiver is all it takes for it to come powerfully to the fore. I'm not sure I'm making any sense, or that anyone will ever read this review (which may be just as well), but I'd still like to leave this token of my gratitude to Grenier.