The Brooklyn Follies, extract, « X marks the spot »

Cet extrait de The Brooklyn Follies n'est autre que l'épilogue du livre. Intitulé « X marks the spot », il rassemble les diverses déclinaisons de cette formule qui traverse tout le roman - Images de la croix du condamné à mort et des Twin Towers ciblées par les avions kamikazes, mais aussi images d'innocence retrouvée et d'adéquation au monde et aux autres.

Ce dernier chapitre s'ouvre sur le rêve fou de Nathan, d'écrire, sur commande, dans le cadre de Bios Unlimited ; un projet fou qui témoigne de son appétit de vivre, alors qu'il est encore sur son lit d'hôpital, et du caractère précieux de chaque individu et de l'histoire qui lui est propre.

En ramenant Nathan à la vie, Paul Auster réhabilite l'homme et réaffirme la valeur intrinsèque de l'individu. Un parallèle peut être fait entre le discours de Nathan et ceux d'Emerson et de Thoreau en ce qu'il met en lumière à la fois cette part de divin que possède en lui chaque individu et la capacité de celui-ci à se créer son propre univers... jusqu'à ce que, comme à la toute fin du roman, la mort le fauche, arbitrairement, au détour d'une rue.

The results of the final blood test came in just after midnight. It was too late to discharge me from the hospital, so I stayed on until morning, feverishly planning the structure of my new company as I watched the exhausted Javier Rodriguez doze in the opposite bed. I thought of various names that would capture the spirit of the work that lay before me, and in the end I hit upon the neutral but descriptive Bios Unlimited. About an hour after that, I decided that my first move would be to contact Bette Dombrowski in Chicago and ask her if she would be interested in commissioning me to write a biography of her ex-husband. It seemed appropriate that the first book in the collection should be about Harry.

Then they let me go. I stepped out into the cool morning air, and I felt so glad to be alive, I wanted to scream. Overhead, the sky was the bluest of pure deep blues. If I walked quickly enough, I would be able to get to Carroll Street before Joyce left for work. We should sit down in the kitchen and have a cup of coffee together, watching the kids run around like chipmunks as their mothers got them ready for school. Then I would walk Joyce to the subway, put my arms around her, and kiss her good-bye.

It was eight o'clock when I stepped out onto the street, eight o'clock on the morning of September 11, 2001 - just forty-six minutes before the first plane crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Just two hours after that, the smoke of three thousand incinerated bodies would drift over toward Brooklyn and come pouring down on us in a white cloud of ashes and death.

But for now it was still eight o'clock, and as I walked along the avenue under that brilliant blue shy, I was happy, my friends, as happy as any man who had ever lived.

Paul Auster, The Brooklyn Follies, p. 303-304.

Pour citer cette ressource :

"The Brooklyn Follies, extract, « X marks the spot »", La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), octobre 2009. Consulté le 25/04/2024. URL: https://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/litterature/litterature-americaine/dossier-paul-auster/the-brooklyn-follies-extract-x-marks-the-spot-