The first weekend of the Banquet of the book, it is both the morning and evening, riding with the dawn, and reading night under the big tent, facing the abbey of Lagrasse, excerpts from his account of the crossing Europe on a bike, On the Road of the Danube river (Shoreline area), which was awarded the prix Nicolas Bouvier. Emmanuel Ruben does not just write the bike. He lives it. And the sharing : he has experienced with fans of the literary activity of Lagrasse, 25th the name, a bike ride in the Corbières region of twenty miles, on asphalt, at all levels (there are even electric bikes to rent) and safe.
The bike of Jean-Michel Mariou (key man of the association Mark-Page) opens the path and the sweep vehicle follows, with the provisions. But above all, the writer involves reading, for breaks welcome in this heat. Unexpected success of this new activity called “Gruppetto” : the two sessions have displayed more than full ! As The Point of this week says, the bike has odds, writers, cyclists would be going to “pre-empt” the walkers. “This is not a novelty that this relationship between cycling and literature, since Alfred Jarry, recalls Emmanuel Ruben, but the bike is developing more and more, especially with the european cycle routes. And then the bike is… more fun, while walking, in the relation to the literature, will more self. “
An epic story of the underground Danube in Paris at the grand river in central Europe
Ruben is experimenting with these rides cyclists that will be the feature of the eleventh edition of the meetings of the Maison Julien Gracq, (he leads), from the month of September : under the new title “Preferences” (one of a collection of Gracq), they invite us to ” Read the river Loire with bike “. But rest assured, the absolute majority given in the masculine form in this type of strolling is not reflected in the 25 guests of the festival, which respect the parity, he says.
In his book, the writer tells of the 48 days of his epic cyclist taken the place of the Danube (Paris 19th), on the river whose name it bears, and in particular the hours spent racing down or up the hills of the capital. Child, it was the competition, and if it is finished with the sporting achievements, has taken care of you can stay 10 miles away from Home Gracq, which ensures a minimum of bike per day, even in the field can no longer be flat !
the literature was also an experience almost cyclist on the page, since Reuben, novelist, wrote the 600 pages of the Danube river with a velocity which surprised him more : the heart was prepared in 80 days (it is literary up to the figures quoted) and the whole thing took two years. “The relationship between writing and cycling are endurance, sacrifice, but also the velocity,” he says. Among the texts that the participants in the “Gruppetto” have listened to, read by the writer, there was Blondin, of Philippe Bordas, Eric Fottorino, but still the Albert Londres and Jacques Reda. And, of course, Gracq. An extract of drop caps, and other Literature to the stomach :
” from the moment there is a literary public (that is to say, since there is a body of literature), the drive, placed it in front of a variety of writers and works, reacts in two ways : by a taste and an opinion. Placed head-to-head with a text, the same click inside that plays within us, without rule and without reason, to encounter a being that is going to happen to him : he “loves” or he “doesn’t like”, it is, or it is not, in his case, he has, or has not, within the pages of this feeling of lightness, of freedom jettisoned yet caught up to measure, that one could compare to the feel of the stayer sucked into the whirlpool of his coach ; and, indeed, in the case of a conjunction happy, we can say that the player sticks to the work, just fill second the exact capacity of the mold air dug by its rapidity voracious, form with it the wind equal of turned pages this block of speed-oiled machine, without failure, the memory of which, when the last page came brutally “cut the gas”, leaves us stunned, a little wavering on our momentum, as in the throes of a beginning of nausea and this feeling so particular to the “legs of cotton”. “
“No half-measures for Gracq , it is necessary that the drive to be the nose in the handlebars”
The ‘file metaphor and Ruben commented :” The stayer, it is the reader who adheres to it, or not. There is no half-measure for Gracq, it is necessary that the drive to be the nose in the handlebar. “
The writer and geographer, is back to train with its monocoque carbon Gir”s in his bag. Nothing to do with the Pégasus German to its european route, including the final, in Parliament, is a pinnacle that left the listeners of the festival is breathtaking to read of a Saturday night. Emmanuel Reuben has booked the epilogue to readers silent, those who, between the Orbieu of the Corbières and the Loire valley of Gracq, the follow On the Road of the Danube river…
