“Terminus Malaussene. Le cas Malaussene 2”, by Daniel Pennac, Gallimard, 448 p., €23, digital €17.
We were supposed to have lunch at Daniel Pennac’s in Paris, but his “tribe” election invaded the house a few days before Christmas. Here we are “fired, properly fired”. The writer looks outraged, but is amused to see himself kicked out. Head to the Italian restaurant on rue Pierre-Bayle, which is both his canteen and that of his famous character, Benjamin Malaussene: the latter is going to have lunch there with Loussa de Casamance, publisher, Senegalese specialist in Chinese literature and venerable old man (he fought at Monte Cassino in 1944, so yes, logic dictates that he retired, but why do you want Pennac to upset us? hurt?).
It’s funny, this impression of entering the decor, and seeing, as we have read, Pippo in the kitchen and Dany in the dining room, welcoming with warmth and a load of jokes the one they feed so often. If you squint a little, you’d swear you saw Malaussene’s dog, Julius, third of the name, in a corner of the restaurant, spreading its disgusting aroma. The regulars grab Pennac. He is a pillar of this 20e district which he has not left since his arrival in 1970, and which he has celebrated, from one volume to another in the series devoted to Malaussene, the district of Belleville with a fervor worthy of all the offices of the tourism. This is still the case, of course, in Terminus Malaussènethe new, eighth and theoretically final volume of the saga started in 1985 with To the happiness of the ogres (all his books have been published by Gallimard). Caution, however: Pennac had already done the trick of the “der des ders” in 1995 with Mr. Malaussenefourth volume.
But to start, perhaps we should remind the forgetful, the distracted or the youngest of what they are, these “malausseries” (dixit the author), sold around 5.5 million copies in France, and translated all over the world? In the previous volume, They lied to me (2017), first of the diptych The Malaussene Case of which this Terminus… is the continuation, the atrabilaire Alceste, writer attached to the “real truth” (said « vévé ») presented them in an unfriendly light: ” When I think (…) that throughout my adolescence, this character federated the lower world of pleasure literature! The darling of those years! Malaussene here, Malaussene there, there was no escaping it. It was every birthday present. Trendy parents recommended reading it to teachers. When Tobias and Mélimé [ses parents] didn’t tell me lies about our family’s history, my buddies bathed me with Malaussene, the ineffable scapegoat. »
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