This latest novel by Miano is surprising its regular readers. Indeed, it is as if the author had decided or agreed to move slightly from its pedestal to be more in tune with the immediate concerns of ordinary people. His earlier novels were traced along a line philosophical and existential, which is not totally absent in this one, but there appears in the background. Writing even more abundantly bathed in music, seems less ... how can I say? aggressive? I mean is that his lyrics had something striking in form and substance, we felt that the author had something to say and that he who had no valid arguments had no incentive to stop for anything. As women mentioned in the novel, including Akasha who I closest to the author, it might seem far a "warrior", an "amazon" or just a woman who showed she had claws to defend themselves, which could scare away those who would stop this fighting spirit displayed.
In Blues for Elise , Leonora Miano seems more overtly sensitive. She has several paintings of women, the tables prepared so that both enlighten others to their reflections. Women with multiple injuries: family, social, emotional ..., women who do asked the man to life than love, than to be loved as what. First there is the group of girls called the "Bigger than life " and composed of four young women: Akasha Amahoro Malaika and Shale. Each with his style, his physique, his personality. There are also some of their relatives: Estelle, the sister of Shale. Elise and their mother. Fanny, their aunt, sister Elise. Amidst these paintings of women, that of a young man, Baptiste, alias Bogus, the son of Fanny. All with their lives to wear, to invent or reinvent.
Leonora Miano announced at the outset: it shows in his Blues for Elise of "Afropéen (ne) s" not in search of family allowances, as is usually the reproach made to immigrants in France, especially blacks. Their whole being that does not tend toward a goal: love.
A small sample not randomly selected, you will understand why:
"Her voice enveloped him. The man was a master of words. Ah, the magic of his word ... He spoke of past lives in which their souls had walked. They were with each other, one to another since life appeared. He said the constellations they lived in spirit and whose dusky skin jealously imprisoned splendor, told of the lost paradise, the blades to win soon, by dint of love " . ( Blues for Elise, page 31)
So why this clip? Not just because it is right in the very subject of the book, love, but because we can hear the echo of the previous titles of the author: "Constellations", "shine", "blades", as if to stand out with them.
Leonora Miano, Blues for Elise , Editions Plon, October 2010, 206 pages. 18 euros. An invitation to love.
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