Ce qui est perdu

by Vincent Delecroix

Il existe plusieurs moyens de se remettre d'une rupture. Le meilleur, incontestablement, est d'écrire une biographie de Kierkegaard, un philosophe mélancolique qui n'eut qu'un seul amour, le perdit volontairement et ne cessa, dès lors, de lui parler à travers ses livres. On peut aussi conduire un minibus rempli de touristes danois. Ou aller chez le coiffeur, mais pas n'importe lequel : un coiffeur érudit, pudique, si possible peintre. Ou encore raconter des histoires pour conjurer la perte et se débarrasser des spectres. En essayant de retrouver ce qui est perdu, on apprendra en outre : pourquoi il y a des épis de maïs grillés trop salés à la station La Chapelle, comment un chat noir peut devenir blanc, comment égarer sa femme en forêt, comment on devient lanceur de javelot, pourquoi il est nécessaire de se faire couper les cheveux quand on a l'âme en peine, quelle conduite adopter quand on se jette de la tour Eiffel, pourquoi le Triton a finalement abandonné Agnès, pourquoi on écrit des livres, pourquoi un célibataire est nécessairement condamné à la ruine financière, ce qu'est la Loi Schéhérazade, et bien d'autres chose encore.

160 pages, Paperback

First published August 31, 2006

About the author

Vincent Delecroix is a French philosopher and novelist, a specialist in Søren Kierkegaard, on whom he wrote his doctoral thesis.

He has published ten works of philosophy and eight works of fiction. He is a professor at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. He received the Valéry Larbaud Prize in 2007 for the novel Ce qui est perdu and the Grand Prize for Literature of the French Academy in 2008 for the novel Tombeau d’Achille. Small Boat, Helen Stevenson’s translation of his novel Naufrage (2023), was selected for the International Booker Prize 2025.

Reviews

[Pascale · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first read this novel when it came out, and breathed a sigh of relief when it charmed me just as much on revisiting. In common with a lot of literary fiction published in France since 2000, this novel relies heavily on irony, but underneath the irony there is a layer of genuine melancholy I find quite touching. The book runs more or less as a breathless monologue by a narrator named Vincent who is forever reporting to various friends and relatives his conversations with others. His only theme is his heartbreak at being left by his girlfriend, to whom he futilely hopes to dedicate his biography of Kierkegaard, more with a view to teaching her a lesson than with the expectation she will be awed and reconsider. Because of his obsession with Kierkegaard, whom he sees as a kindred soul, Vincent has leant a little Danish and earns a "living" by driving around Danish tourists in Paris and acting as companion to a widowed Danish gentleman who makes a annual pilgrimage to the French capital. Some of Vincent's interlocutors are his non-committal barber Abel and Abel's repeat customer Séverin, but also his own father and brother, both successful men who see Vincent as a bit of a wimp and can't wait for him to take himself in hand and DO something. The novel ends with a purple piece in which Vincent chases after Monsieur Møller's pet cat who has made his escape in the gardens of Versailles, eventually to come face to face with the Danish girl he has been ignoring since the beginning because of his self-absorption. A clever book about the dangers of over-intellectualizing grief.

[Httpdavid · Rating 1 out of 5]

J'ai comme l'impression que Vincent Delecroix a écrit ce livre juste pour écrire un livre... et rien d'autre. Dommage...

[Alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

On peut penser que la fixette du protagoniste pour le philosophe danois va rendre la lecture du livre difficile mais pas du tout.
L’auteur nous retranscrit les jours et semaines que vit le protagoniste après une rupture amoureuse. Les émotions vécues et les souvenirs partagés avec son coiffeur sont très bien exprimés, touchantes et retranscrivent bien les états d’âme dont fait face quelqu’un face à la perte et ce deuil. On est curieux de suivre l’évolution du deuil du personnage, de découvrir d’autres de ses anecdotes, de ses introspections , les histoires des autres personnages.
Un livre léger qui se lit très facilement et dont je garderai un excellent souvenir.

[Patrice Albertus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decu