In mid-18th century New York, Eben Adams, a young painter, despairs of his life and his talent. One Christmas Eve, as snow falls over the city, he has a mysterious encounter with Jennie, a child who is strangely alone in Central Park, and who sings to him a short and enigmatic song only seven sentences long.

Adams paints a portrait of this child who has become a woman. Is she really the child he met in the park? Is she a ghost or a fantasy? Where do we draw the line between dream and reality, truth and fiction? To what story do the figures painted by the artist belong? From painting to painting, the narrative takes on the unique, enchanted charm of a kind of winter and summer fairy tale with which Forrest extends and continues his work, in search for the perfect story. Forest writes beautifully about the power of art, its magic, its ability to revive hope despite everything. Perhaps that’s why Et Personne ne sait offers so much solace.

“Moi j’ai toujours aimé les histoires auxquelles je ne comprenais rien. Les très savantes ou les très simples, souvent les plus simples demeurent plus obscures que les plus savantes. C’est pourquoi, quoiqu’en disent certains, elles leur sont supérieures. J’ai fini par l’accepter et par avouer ma préférence pour elles. Dans les histoires compliquées, j’aime ce qu’elles ont de simples et ce qui les rend pareilles aux histoires simples dans ce qu’elles ont de plus compliqué. De livre en livre, je cherche désormais l’histoire la plus simple. Je l’appelle parfois l’histoire parfaite. Elle ressemble à un conte plutôt qu’à un roman. A une chanson, comme celles que chantent les enfants. Ils ignorent d’où elle vient. Ils ignorent qui la leur a apprise. Ils ne se soucient pas de ce qu’elle veut dire. il leur suffit qu’elle les accompagne dans la nuit, sept petites phrases qui sonnent seulement dans le noir de la nuit, quand la neige déjà étouffe leur pas, tandis qu’à cloche-pied ils parcourent le chemin qui les mènera de la Terre jusqu’au ciel, de l’Enfer jusqu’au Paradis. Ou bien l’inverse. Avec les images qui les illustrent, sept petites phrases toutes simples auxquelles il faudrait être assez sage pour ne rien ajouter.

[“I’ve always loved stories I couldn’t understand. The very sophisticated or the very simple, often the simplest, remain more obscure than the most sophisticated. That’s why, no matter what some people say, they are superior. I’ve come to accept this and confess my preference for them. In sophisticated stories, I like what makes them simple, and what makes them alike simple stories in their most sophisticated aspects. From book to book, I search for the simplest story. Sometimes I call it the perfect story. It’s more like a fairy tale than a novel. A song, like the ones children sing. They don’t know where it came from. They don’t know who taught it to them. They don’t care what it means. All they need is for it to accompany them into the night, seven little phrases that ring out only in the dark of night, when the snow is already muffling their footsteps, as they limp along the path that will take them from earth to heaven, from hell to paradise. Or the other way around. Along with the pictures that illustrate them, seven simple sentences to which you should be wise enough not to add anything.”]

Et personne ne sait, Philippe Forrest, éditions Gallimard

Miriam Bridenne

After almost two decades of working in publishing, and a few round trips between Paris and New York, Miriam has decided to settle down at Albertine to do what she enjoys most: recommending books she loves. Somehow this also includes taking bizarre pictures for Albertine's social media outlets.

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