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poetry is a strange thing to the end that the world - Jean d'Ormesson / Reviews - Extracts

few years ago, Jean d'Ormesson published Another history of French literature (1) . This time, it presents another history of philosophy, so to say It is strange that at the end of the world (Robert Laffont, 2010). Now, draw a point clear. This book is not a novel though it bears the label, this is not a test. It is, in fact, a book of reflections in which the author takes large, and endless, impossible questions to answer: Where do we come from? Where are we going? What are we doing on earth? God is there?, Etc.. The author summons mathematicians, philosophers, scientists, writers ...

By the way ... it's a strange thing at the end of that title. It should be read in his ear ... with the intonations of "conversation". This is not a title speaking, but a title spoken. Let's play a little while, a few at the expense of the author, talker, a bit mischievous, which means to laugh and would fare with a full pirouette of mind.

"(...) Do you like me Pitche the next Jean d'Ormesson? Whose title, incidentally, is so wonderfully Ormesson (and stumbling). "It is strange that at the end of the world." Look, we're in serious subjects, but treated with wit. I wonder how this capacity to express such a large detachment of the vagaries of everyday life, was able to come to mind. By paying the gardener, perhaps. I see the scene for you. The brave man comes down the steps. It's sunny, and doubly: the star and writer, both of them, facing him, and they are held, and the other one, though somewhat remote kilometers, the same height. Maybe it's when John, stately as it should, has seen such a doe on the edge of the underbrush, the title in his head. (...) "Didier Jacob (2)

Seriously, Jean d'Ormesson takes the title of his book from a poem by Aragon entitled That life is worth , more specifically first of this poem: is a strange thing to the end that the world . Well! The Baron has not seen the track in his head, like a doe on the edge of the underbrush, but as a worm shining by Louis Aragon. That's the biter bit!. Who has a good sense of humor, too, a fine mind and a ready pen.

Back Cover

What is life and where is it? How the universe works? Why is there something instead of nothing? Mathematicians to the Greek philosophers, Einstein and quantum theory, through Newton and Darwin, now three thousand years men trying to answer these questions. History has accelerated for three or four centuries. We have entered the modern and postmodern age. Science, technology, the numbers have conquered the planet. It seems that reason has prevailed. It allowed men to replace the gods at the head of world affairs. Where are we today? God is relegated to the museum of the glories of foreign powers and deprived? Does life have a meaning or is it a parenthesis between two nothings? Is it permissible to expect anything beyond death? With the simplest words and clearer, with a rigorous mixed spirits, Jean d'Ormesson addresses these problems in a new way and to always tell the reader fabulous novel of the universe and man.

With the simplest words ... The author largely agrees. He told The Journal sound books, that his book is a kind of reflection on the world we live in and a romantic picture of the universe. It is a book that raises difficult questions with the utmost simplicity. I think he said that a ten year old child could very well read. Ah yes! The contents of the book is within reach of a child of ten ... It's something to be puzzled ... I rather think that by dint of wanting to "keep it simple," you end up fall into the simplistic. (3)

Some critics of the book

All critics agree that It is strange that at the end of the world is a good book, an interesting book, a pleasant reading, "easy"-a young ... could read with interest, at least in part. Each in its own way makes a favorable opinion. In the press review, one can identify the names of Tristan Savin (4) , Franz-Olivier Giesber t (5) , In Le Figaro, it noted that "Jean d'Ormesson confesses that he wrote this book to try to" reverse the trend and give chances to God that it is also impossible to prove that the failure -existence. " For my part, I chose the three critics who seem the most insightful. That of Julien Blanc-Gras, one of Roger-Pol Droit and that of Trinh Xuan Thuan, who set the tone in the fair.

It is strange that at the end of the world, by Julien Blanc-Gras

After his "other history of French literature", Jean d'Ormesson offers us its another story Philosophy, fast course through the ages of thought. "Where we come from? "Why is there something instead of nothing? "Academician seizes the eternal questions and we walk in Plato, Augustine, Kant, Nietzsche and others, with a few detours by Homer, the Bible and Darwin. It convenes science (Newton, Einstein, Planck and tutti quanti), which illuminates the philosophy part of the big bang for us on the shores of the infinite and unreachable. So it sometimes feels more at home than in Reeves Chateaubriand.

It is guided by our grandpa national literary. A bit rambling, but benevolent and malicious. It is less philosophical than the sum of a scholarly trip, sometimes a little catch-all, blending personal memories and historical digressions. D'Ormesson slaloms with the idea of God, rode around death, meditate on the mystery of a long time. He chose the posture of wonder, ecstatic about the miracle of small things simple and infinitely complex, such as light, life or thought, hanging, sometimes, a few splinters in his poetic picture of writing. We remain charmed by the loving look at the world. Buoyed by optimism a man who, in the twilight of his life, wrote: "I was lucky. I was born. " Julien Blanc-Gras (6)

The banality of the miracle, by Roger Pol Droit (extract from article)

Take questions. Choose simple, understandable by all but impossible to resolve. For example: does the world make sense? God is there? Why is there something rather than nothing? Leave aside the grave. Avoid like the plague concepts and references. Write as if one morning all that you fell over. Cut out these great questions in thin slices, coat a layer of universal history, sprinkle with a touch of Plato, Hegel, Darwin, add a dash of Heidegger, a hint of Max Planck. Name the all "novel" and take the ingenuous. Believe you take the recipe from Jean d'Ormesson. Yours will be missed. Because he plays him for real. Smart enough to be truly candid. Dummy enough to ring true. Boastful enough to thrill. So, even in his official role of rowdy, he finally charmed [...]. Roger-Pol Droit ( 7).

God, his life, his work, by Trinh Xuan Thuan (extract from article)

We believe today that there are some 13.7 billion years, an explosion explosive, the Big Bang gave birth to the universe, space and time. Then continued a relentless climb toward complexity. From the microscopic initial vacuum has woven an immense cosmic tapestry. Hundreds of billions of galaxies, each populated by hundreds of billions of stars, make up a fantastic ballet. Lost in a small corner of our galaxy, the Milky Way, a star called the Sun, receiving generous warmth of the eight planets that surround it. On one of them, the Earth, it has helped to awaken and sustain life. The man, made of stardust, appeared capable of wonder about the universe that spawned it.

All these events and adventures, all "novel" fabulous universe and man, Jean d'Ormesson tells us in his new book, halfway between the narrative and testing, so erudite and maliciously, in an elegant and always inimitable. As usual the author, the book escapes the conventions of genre fiction ¬. The plot of "novel", what the author calls "the thread of the labyrinth" - a reference perhaps to the many impasses to many cul-de-sac and multiple back-and-forth of science - here is the history of the universe: the big bang and after (the first chapter is titled "Let there be light!"). From astrophysics to neurobiology, physics, chemistry, through anthropology, primatology and geology, all the sciences work together tirelessly to develop and refine this great historical epic of 13.7 billion years, always beautiful and always mesmerizing. As for the characters, plus a cast of supporting high-flying - Plato, Aristotle, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Laplace, Darwin, Einstein and other scientists who have contributed in developing this epic adventure cosmic - both hold key roles: the first is God himself, nicknamed "Old [...]». Trinh Xuan Thuan (8)

Excerpts: It is strange that at the end of the world

Extract read by Jean d'Ormesson:

Stop running, stop for a moment, take two minutes to think a bit and answer a question among many others. Do you think the life, thought, language and writing were necessary for all eternity or do you On the contrary, that the life, thought, language and writing might not exist and never appear?

Extracts from the book (9)

Prologue - the thread of the labyrinth

One fine July morning, under a sun that banged hard, I wondered where we came from, where we were going and what we did on this earth. p.9

the dream of Old (p10)
over the maze

Where we come from? From afar. Behind me, there were rivers of semen and blood, mountains of corpses, a collective dream and dragged under strange skulls in descriptions of stone or marble, in books, most recently in machine and that we call the past, and streams, deserts, oceans are forgotten. (P.11)

The dream of Old
There was nothing (p.12)

over the maze

"Where we going? Who knows? Before me, there was ... what was it? Something else. Another thing that did not exist and that we call the future. Something different, and even very different - yet similar. Something else, but the same thing. And death. "(P.13)

the dream of Old
There was neither space nor time. There was another thing
. There was nothing. And nothing was everything. (P.16)

over the maze

Life is very gay. She is short, but long. He happens to be enchanting. We hate to leave. It is a valley of tears, and a valley of roses. In hac valle lacrimarum . In hac valle rosarum .

I laughed. The world amuses me. I love words, irony, skiing in the spring, courage, ribs covered with olive trees and sloping down towards the sea, admiration, insolence, bistros in the islands, the contradictions of life, work and do nothing, speed and hope, movies and Lubisch Cukor, Cary Grant, Gene Tierney, and Weaver Sigourey Keira Knightley. I was lucky. I knew born. I'm not complaining. I will die naturally. Meanwhile, I live.

Fools abound, the bores exaggerate and sometimes to poor types, a handful of selfish-I called selfish people who do not consider myself to slip from them. But many people really liked me. I liked some, and even when they did not like me or not asez for my taste, it was quite delicious. I did not cry about life. I was happy to be there. (P.17, p.18)

old's dream There was nothing. But everything was already in there.
And time and history were already hidden in the eternal. (P.19)

Have a good Sunday!

The book: It's a strange thing to the end that the world , Jean d'Ormesson, Robert Laffont, 2010, 318 pages.

___ [] (1) Jean d'Ormesson, Another history of French literature, Volume 1 and Volume 2, 1997 and 1998, Publishing NIL (Robert Laffont)

[] (2) Didier Jacob Goncourt is Houllebeccq who will this year , BibliObs, 06/06/2010. The article is here .

[] Oops! Huh! Houellebecq? Like so ... My criticism is almost ready, I'll book in an upcoming blog. In the meantime, hide your glasses!

[] (3) Listen to Jean d'Ormesson on Journal audio books, site selection booksellers by clicking here .
[] (4) Tristan Savin The strange world of Jean d'Ormesson, L'Express, 27/08/2010. To read the full article, click here .

[] (5) Franz-Olivier Giesbert, "It is strange that at the end of the World: Jean d'Ormesson man who" doubt in God ", Le Point, 26 / 09/2010. To read the full article, click here .

[] (6) Julien Blanc-Gras, It is strange that at the end of the world , evene.fr

[] (7) Roger-Pol Droit, Banality of miracle, The World of Books, 26/08/2010. To read the full article, click here .

[] (8) Trinh Xuan Thuan, a prominent scientist, decrypts the fabulous story of the origins of the world by Jean d'Ormesson, God, his life, his work , Le Figaro, 03/09/2010. To read the full article, click here .

[] (9) To browse the book, Robert Laffont (c), click here .