Autoportrait (2005)

Levé, Édouard. Autoportrait. Dalkey Archive Press, 2012.

Lorin Stein, editor of The Paris Review, posted an excerpt of his translation of Levé's Autoportrait in the Spring 2011 issue. The title of the fragment is taken from the book itself: "When I look at a strawberry, I think of a tongue." I remember being struck by both the clever title and the power of the analog of strawberry and tongue. So I read the rest of the translation and ordered a copy. The paperback is a humble production: scarcely bigger than my hand; black and white cover; 112 pages of text with wide-berthed margins; no chapters, no section breaks, no paragraphs. Each page a wall of justified text. The sentences are quicksand, however, and I found myself unable to stop reading the little book, sinking ever deeper into Levé's portrait. A writer, artist, and photographer, Levé has a keen eye for detail, the ability to plumb the depths of the most mundane situations. His honesty and introspective aptitude would impress Socrates and Freud. There is no real order or flow to the endless declarative statements, yet, like a well done collage, the effect works. Sadly, this able artist took his own life ten days after he delivered the manuscript of his final novel, Suicide, to his editor. Three years earlier, in Autoportrait, we can see foreshadowing: "Because I am funny people think I'm happy"; "I sometimes feel like an impostor without knowing why, as if a shadow falls over me and I can't make it go away"; "Maybe I'm writing this book so I won't have to talk anymore." Yet, that humorous side is on display, too: "I cannot remember a single game of Monopoly that didn't end with all the players sick of it"; "Hearing someone whistle annoys me, especially with vibrato." It is a striking reminder of the complexity and fragility of human consciousness.