Le rêve du philologue
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Biographie de l'auteur Björn Larsson was born in 1953; he is Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Lund in Sweden.Larsson has published several academic and technical volumes, ranging from a treatise on the use of French adjectives to an instruction book for deep-sea diving. He made his literary debut in 1980 with a collection of short stories, and his international breakthrough came in 1995 with Long John Silver, which has been successfully published in 13 countries. He has also received around ten international book awards. While university lecturing earns him his steady income, sailing is Björn Larsson’s real passion.
Résumé Nine short stories on the “joy of discovery” that reveal that science is not always a joy: a professor who feels sorry for the decline of French philology, a field to which he has devoted forty years of his life, a young girl from a well-off family who devotes herself to science and specializes in genetics in order to find answers to her existential questions, a linguist who finds refuge in generative grammar to escape the chaos that rules the world, an astronomer who worries about the discoveries that she will not have time to make during her life – are the heroes of the book that drifts in everyday normality. Still it is with slight irony that Björn Larsson sketches the portraits of these odd and comical scholars, using them as illustrations for a profound consideration on the place of humans in the universe.
Extraits “If one would need to sum up, point by point, the personality of virologist Birger Holmgren, the list wouldn’t be long:
separate one from the other, contrary to what happens too often.” “It’s true that to make his dream come true, he didn’t refuse himself the opportunity to be grumpy. But the question that one could ask, not without reason, was to know if one or two heart failures among his assistants were a modest enough price to pay for his dream.”
Critiques A beautiful and philosophic book about life’s most important questions. Suitable literature for everyone to reconsider life.The book can be seen as a particular insider’s view into an academic environment: the sciences, research, scientists, credit points and conferences. The author confronts science and its infrastructure, humans and truth, like asking, who’s the biggest of threm. Is science useful if it doesn’t serve humans? Can you love science and hate people? Why involve yourself too much? Where’s the sense of your life? Though all in all, it shows many of them in a very ironic and sometimes excessively negative light, it’s not just a critique of science and scientists. Each story is a tale asking quintessential questions of existence, life, truth, values; science serves as a good illustration. Each story is also about unexpected mysteries, accidents and miracles of life that make one think of divine providence. Though scientists are just ‘tools’ to depict the situations and ask philosophic questions – the author could have used representatives of other fields as an example - I find myself thinking about the ‘objectivity’ and independence of the author himself. His being passionate about the sea and sailing, he has been locked in the academic field not by passion, by financial reasons. Isn’t he seeing his former colleagues into too dark colours? On the other hand, it is also understandable: having such particular intellectuals as instruments for deep questions probably means the author can explore them better.
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Dernières nouvelles
| 9 décembre 2009 |
| Le prix du livre européen a couronné pour sa 3ème édition, dans la catégorie romans Gottland de Mariusz Szczgiel publié aux éditions Actes Sud et L’Europe pour les nuls de Sylvie Goulard publié aux éditions First. |
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3 novembre 2009 |
| Le jury du prix du livre européen s’est réuni à Bruxelles et a retenu quatre romans et quatre essais Les romans Ceux qui marchent dans les villes de Jean-François Dauven (Belgique) Courlande de Jean-Paul Kauffmann (France) Gottland de Marius Szczygiel (Pologne) Street without name, Kapka Kassabova (Bulgarie) Les essais Der Erste riss in der Mauer, Andreas Oplatka (Hongrie) La constitution européenne en vers, collectif de poètes belge (Belgique) Les empires coloniaux européens, Henri Wesseling (Pays-Bas) L’Europe pour les nuls, Sylvie Goulard (France) Le prix du livre européen sera remis le 9 décembre 2009 à 18h au Parlement européen à Bruxelles et sera suivi, à 20h30, d'une soirée théâtrale et musicale au Théâtre Varia. |
Lauréats 2009
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Roman Gottland de Mariusz Szczygiel , éditions Actes Sud.
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Essai L’Europe pour les nuls de Sylvie Goulard, éditions First |
Consultez la revue de presse
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Lauréat 2008
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Après-guerre, une histoire de l'Europe depuis 1945 |
| de Tony Judt |
Tony Judt nous convie à une étude fine et éclairée des principales évolutions politiques, économiques, sociales et culturelles, à l’échelle du continent ou du pays. Au total, c’est une sorte de biographie d’un continent qui s’efforce après un passé dramatique, de se reconstruire et de tracer de nouveau sa route. Les analyses de l’auteur Editions Armand Colin |
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