During a train journey from Paris to Rome, a passenger questions his existence, his choices, before resigning himself to mediocrity. Léon Delmont, 45, is a successful man. However, he is suffocating with a cantankerous wife and four children who are ...
During a train journey from Paris to Rome, a passenger questions his existence, his choices, before resigning himself to mediocrity. Léon Delmont, 45, is a successful man. However, he is suffocating with a cantankerous wife and four children who are strangers to him. While he is going to Rome, as he does every month, he thinks back to his mistress, the beautiful Roman, Cécile, whom he intends to finally bring to Paris so that they can live together openly. So he has made a decision. But the fatigue of the third-class journey and the memories of many other journeys made alone, with his wife or with Cécile, will gradually change this decision. With La Modification, awarded the Prix Renaudot in 1957, Michel Butor succeeds in the challenge of telling the story of the upheaval of a life inside a compartment, in the space of twenty hours. The extremely original, neo-realist style, shared between the present of the train journey, the immediate past and the near future, characteristic of the Nouveau roman, is particularly remarkable for the use of the second person plural: "You are still numb from the cold humidity that gripped you when you left the carriage". Delmont is not the only one to emerge from this closed-door situation "modified": the reader, directly challenged by the author, remains captivated. --Céline Darner
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