entertaining and unsettling novel that becomes a dull start to the year, as is often the aftermath of excessive celebration. We deport in the year 1039, in Arles, a Wednesday afternoon. There is intense heat. A young shoemaker, eight deniers in his shoes, goes to the dock which houses gardeners, the butcher, the fishmonger. After purchasing this appropriate for a delicious meal, he goes home when the faint voice calls. A man, neither young nor old, offered him a red umbrella, indicating that this object was invented by the Chinese for centuries. A week later, the merchant and shoemaker meet again, begin a conversation about the usefulness of umbrellas during the summer. The narrator buys the red umbrella and to support him, the dealer gives him a book that should open until ten days later. The shoemaker goes home, the book in his shoes, the red umbrella in hand.
The lapse of time, events will rush. The shoemaker realizes that the book says all he has lived the last ten days. Mystification which it would have happened at a time when the life of a human, even honest, not worth Tripet. Gradually, as the daily hassles beset the young man, he writes in the book, thinking and divert the course of time and, more daring, try to confuse historical facts. Prodigy book, every desire fulfilled the artisan, which will make it suspect in the eyes of his peers, who accuse him of witchcraft. Removed in an ox cart by superstitious country folk, exiled from the kingdom of Provence, we find him at Pisa, in the year 1178. He became a wealthy merchant of fabrics, so rich that it will divest its profits. The first day of each month, he will hold a banquet to benefit the needy at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, loaned by the Hospitaller Order. He discovered that altruism does not exist, its good deed disturbing to the authorities, companies are sharing power. 'The institution most irritated by this case was the bishopric of Pisa. "Manhandled, tried before the court in the city, it will be cleared through the dubious curiosity of the Archbishop then-Ubaldo Lanfranchi. Once again, the book will speak on his behalf. With the connivance of the captain of a galley, our trader will flee from Pisa. In Genoa, where he fled, he manages the business prosperous. He admitted that his years Genoese be among the sweetest. Years will turn into decades and then centuries ... In 1491, her blissful slumber will be interrupted: a February morning, a stranger steal the book. A note slipped under her door she will see you at an inn on the wharf.
We address the most intense part of the life of the former cobbler. The obvious intent of the book to steal the lead Amerigo Vespucci. Man wants to thwart the plans of a man named Christoff Corombo who plans to sail to India. It is sufficient that the regulator of the book writes a note to thwart the plans of the browser. After futile wrangling, the character will have no choice but to obey the orders of Vespucci: it must accompany Corombo to India. Crossing of the most exciting, Francis Malka using true basics of adventures he dresses popularized fanciful stories. Juggling with the avatars of past centuries, the narrator in the ledger a hypothetical future that only he manipulates. Back from a perilous journey, always thank you to the blackmail of Vespucci, he agreed to write a letter of recognition that will give him years later. Meanwhile, it has recovered the book he used "sparingly," has crossed the centuries. In 1893, our hero lives in Vienna, he is in love with a certain Sophie, maid of honor at an Archduchess. Ambitious, it is a title of nobility which will honor her lover. Sophie married the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. We know the tragic end of the couple.
strange story, strange book which, like a faithful dog, acquiesces to the wishes of his master. Having an independent existence, but also its obverse and reverse, he bristled whenever its buyer inadvertently interfere in a situation unlikely. The book starts cataclysms that nobody can control. Who wrote the book? What draws allegorical precept does the story of a hazardous life? What happened to the book when the shoemaker invariably returns to its original state? Is it a tribute to all the books which, through the centuries, have survived the ravages of their detractors? Human and books are doomed to live and die together? In collusion with the memory investigator, as an extension, we believe the film Fahrenheit 451, directed by François Truffaut . So many questions, sometimes obscure, asked by Francis Malka. Is it important to identify an answer, the novel has charmed us, asked. The author himself, he escaped the grasp of the magic book, the narrative down the perils of a man returned to what it was. The moral would it unable to escape his destiny, as dramatic or emotional as it is? The impression remains that the book is akin to the dream of Don Quixote lost in the conquest of itself ... Read
to challenge a new year included in the book of universal time and enjoy two fables: the manuscript by the shoemaker, that narrated by Francis Malka. Double originality!
Drowning seller's umbrellas, Francis Malka
Editions Hurtubise, Montreal, 2010, 267 pages
Dominique Blondeau - dominblondeau@yahoo.fr 
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