Between fiction and fiction: the assassin found in Emmanuel Carrère's novel



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Romand, in 1996, after the crime Source: AFP

Jean-Claude Romand was a fake doctor who had killed his family and was famous for the book The Opponent of the French Author. unanswered questions

Narrate to survive Narrate to live Narrate to survive. And out of this narration, emptiness, nonsense. Jean-Claude Romand is, in addition to a murderer, a narrator. His case goes beyond all literary limits. A dark trinity coincided in him: author, protagonist and, of course, narrator. A man invented a life and, when he could no longer support the plausibility of the plot, he murdered his closest readers, his own family. French justice ruled that Jean-Claude Romand, the man who had killed his children, his wife and his parents in 1993, had been released under electronic surveillance.
L & # 39; opponent, by Emmanuel Carrère, inspired by this mbadacre, is one of the great fiction novels of the 20th century. This text is not just a chronicle about Romand's crime and an exercise aimed at understanding what drives a psyche towards the abyss of terror.
L & # 39; opponent it is a philosophical and literary reflection on the power and necessity of narrative as a coherent text through which men endow their lives with meaning.

In 2015, the possibility that Romand, sentenced to life imprisonment, was released was released. the nation consulted Carrère, at the Hay Festival in Segovia, what he would decide to do if this scenario came true: "I do not have contact with him, he comes out of prison, I do not Will not wait, but I could meet him ". Parole came four years later thanks to the decision of the Bourges Court of Appeal. "For my clients, it's a big disappointment and a great pain, they feel that everything is over for Romand, whereas for them this will never happen," said the brothers' lawyer and uncles of the victims.

Shortly after the publication of a complex clbadification book,
I'm alive and you're dead. A trip in the spirit of Philip K. Dick, where Carrère draws parallels between the sci-fi master and his own life, the mbadacre occurs: "On the morning of Saturday, January 9, 1993, while Jean-Claude Romand killed his wife and children attended the I went to an educational meeting at the school of Gabriel, our eldest son, Gabriel was five years old, the age of Antoine Romand, and then we went to eat with my parents and Romand went to his family's home, which he killed after lunch. ", Begins
L & # 39; opponent, published in 2000. How much fiction do we include in our own lives? How much are we fooling ourselves to make our frustration less unbearable? How much damage do we do with this story? After the murder of his family, Roland attempted suicide with barbiturates who kept him doped during the fire of his house, a fire caused by him, another staging, another frustrated narrative .

The opponent is a masterpiece born of an obsession. Carrère was ready to dive again in the mind of a narrator, but this time in a more damaging spirit than Dick. For months, he sought a way to access the testimony of this man who had convinced his entire environment that he was a researcher at the World Health Organization, although he did Never finished his doctor career. Finally, Carrere wrote him a letter: "I write to you moved by an unhealthy curiosity or by the taste of sensationalism." What you have done is, in my opinion, not the work of an ordinary criminal nor that of a madman. but that of a man pushed to the bottom by ways that surpbad it, and it is these terrible forces that I would like to show in action. "

Three months after receiving Carrère's letter in prison and three psychiatric reports, Romand accepted the writer's request and began an exchange of letters and then an exchange in person. Juan Villoro, in The Utility of Desire, praises the work of Carrère: "Maybe [Romand] He realized that his whole adult life had been an autobiographical novel, a strangely empty and unwritten novel that had to be filled with meaning.

This time, it was he who looked for the novelist. "Writers give meaning to the lives of anonymous characters, anti-heroes, people ignored by the mainstream media, people without power or influence." intelligible its own story, and more than with lawyers to make it understandable to the world, "writes Carrère.

Carrère confessed last year that he had a creative block and that he would return to the cinema in 2019 through documentary. Those who have learned and have been inspired by
L & # 39; opponent they are waiting for a reflection from the French author after liberation – and a new chapter to write – from Romand.

New questions arise around this murderer, but even more so with
L & # 39; opponent, a literary museum with which Leila Guerriero inaugurates her recent book
Opus Gelber: Portrait of a pianist: "I thought that writing this story could only be a crime or a prayer."

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