The unpublished diary of Philippe Lejeune within the private notebooks of André Pézard, his uncle and godfather, writer of the cult e book on the Nice Conflict, The remainder of us in Vauquois.
Hailed as a masterpiece and reissued a number of occasions, We others in Vauquois, 1915-1916, by André Pézard, is likely one of the strongest and most shifting accounts of the Nice Conflict. However nobody knew the entire archives and trench notebooks of the writer behind the e book, except for… Philippe Lejeune who led the investigation with ardour. “I wished to inform right here a double story,” he explains, “firstly that of the writing of the e book itself, a “genetic” research of the author’s work, but additionally the non-public journey that was for me the exploration of the André Pézard assortment on the Nationwide Archives. André Pézard was my godfather, my mom’s first cousin, a powerful man, an awesome specialist in Dante. I went to interview him regarding our shared household historical past in 1981, with out saying a phrase regarding his struggle, and with out asking him regarding The remainder of us in Vauquois, which I hadn’t learn! My diary recounts my late conversion, my love at first sight, then the gradual discovery of the notebooks, drafts and correspondence rising from the bins, the dazzlement earlier than his artwork, however above all of the emotion earlier than the observe of the supreme worth revealed by the struggle: friendship. »
This “regret” of Philippe Lejeune, who devotes his life as a researcher to autobiography, genetics and odd writing, offers start to considered one of his most private books, a delicate and dizzying exploration. It would enthuse its devoted, in addition to historians and fans of archives and self-writing.
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“Autobiography lesson”, by Philippe Artières (on-line Could 21, 2024).
Since L’autobiographie en France (1971) then Le pacte autobiographique (1975), Philippe Lejeune has made writing within the first particular person, broadly despised till then, a professional literature, now taught in excessive faculties and labored on in universities. The originality of this vital work lies within the extraordinary inventiveness of the researcher and his energy of discovery. With this research of André Pézard’s story, We Others in Vauquois, hailed as a masterpiece by Jean Norton Cru upon its publication in 1918, Philippe Lejeune presents us a formidable investigation, each scholarly and erudite, beneficiant and shifting.
