INTERVIEW

NUM asked author Thierry Gagnon a few questions to find out more about his fantastic novel, La mud.

Is La mud for all readers?

Mud is a novel that doesn't follow the usual rules of fiction, which may turn out to be a sweet surprise for some or a source of confusion and frustration for others. It is also a story that contains disturbing images, often horrific, sometimes sexual, but which are described in a language that is intended to be as beautiful and poetic as possible. Some will find this experience fascinating and while others may come back shaken. For informed readers!

Who are the main characters?

The main character, the narrator through whom we discover the story, is a young man who lives on a plain of mud. There is also his neighbor, an inarticulate being who lives in a pit he dug in the mud and who has a kind of friendship with the narrator. They are surrounded "  others  »Men they ignore or hate, depending on the moment. Later, the narrator encounters birds with stone plumage and  "  shadows  »To feminine forms.  You will notice that the characters do not have proper names. Also know that everyone is naked, it is still raining on the mud valley, and that our narrator has never seen the sun.

You describe La mud as a novel "  dreamlike  ". What does that mean ?

Word "  dreamlike  "Means"  which evokes the dream  ". La Boue is a novel strongly inspired, among others, by the work of Boris Vian and Franz Kafka. As Vian and Kafka dressed their surrealist stories with places, objects and people taken from the real world, the narrator of La Boue describes a minimalist fantasy world where almost everything is limited to mud, rain, mountains and the body.  -  as well as some other concepts that I let you discover. Despite these limitations, there is a thematically rich story full of twists and turns.

Sometimes in reading The Mud we are no longer sure what is true and what is not. What is going on ?

The story of La Boue describes a sort of dream, a superb nightmare, a state of mind. It's a story that, like a series of Russian dolls, moves from one level of consciousness to another, some more abstract, others deceptively similar. Like a diver exploring the bottom of the ocean, the narrator goes from level to level, sometimes deeper towards the mud, sometimes towards the surface, in search of a pearl of truth in cloudy waters.

Like in the movie "  Inception [1]  We can find ourselves in a dream nested in other dreams. The transition from one of these dreams to the other is not always clear or logical, and the narrator is not always aware of the level of consciousness they are in. The reality of these levels of consciousness is not always based on the same rules, and the situations found there are sometimes contradictory, but everything that happens there represents an important milestone in the evolution of the character.

The narrator is dissatisfied and searches for meaning in his life, but not always in the right places. Because he is not ready to face all that is hidden in him, several obstacles and occlusions can mask events that have happened to him. Just like the anguish, horror and discomfort that reading this book can produce in the reader, this confusion is part of the experience and should be enjoyed as such, in the Zen way, as some cooks can. use a bitter zest to garnish a dish.

What was the writing process that led to such a novel? Were you under the influence?

To the surprise of many people who have read The Mud , I have never used drugs in my life (or alcohol or coffee for that matter.) I would say I managed to listen. of my unconscious and to respect it.

I was 21  years when I started writing this book and 25  years, in  1996, when I finished the last chapter. During this time, I was fascinated by the interpretation of dreams as well as the aggressive poetry of song lyrics from Trash Metal bands like Slayer, Metallica and Celtic Frost. It was also for me a period of intense questioning and deconstruction / reconstruction of the scales of values that had been instilled in me.

One day, I wrote the sentences "  Far away, in the distance pierces the long-awaited ray of sunshine through the clouds. Sitting on my mound of mud, shivering in the fine rain, I watch the others move about before this promise of unexpected sweetness.  Intrigued by the universe suggested by these lines, I continued to add sentences, curious to see where this image would take me.

I had set myself the goal of writing with the greatest candor the images that came to my mind, without judging them, with the only constraint that each action should move the story forward. Some of my experiences in poetry came into the book, such as empty chapters and more abstract texts when the narrator sinks into unconsciousness. I then saw emerging under my pen (in fact my keyboard) a flood of metaphors and symbols which, by their spontaneity, offered a depth of complex and fascinating interpretation.

Are there other inspirations behind La mud ?

During my youth, I had been intrigued by the novel La Nausée by Jean-Paul Sartre, which I imagined as a series of nameless horrors. When I finally read it, I was surprised by the absence of guts and piles of corpses in this (excellent) story of an intellectual in the throes of an existential crisis. Later, when I started La Boue , I tapped into the feeling of discomfort that the title La Nausée had inspired in me before reading it. What I hadn't understood at the time was that Sartre's themes would also influence my writing, my narrator having to deal with the absurdity of his existence.

The ruthless world of La Mud , its mass grave and its refuge tree also owe a debt to the fantastic Ananké cycle of the Bob series.  Morane. These cruel, clean-written books are legendary among Bob Morane fans.

The courage to write such a story without fear and without modesty, was inspired in me by the work of San-Antonio (The old woman who walked in the sea),  Chester Brown (Ed the Happy Clown, The Playboy, I never loved you), as well as by my artist and musician buddy, Jef Tremblay, who created some very bizarre and personal music and comics under the name "  Shadow of error  ".

What is the significance of the mud, the bird, the shadows or the neighbor?

Just as the narrator searches for meaning in his life, it is highly likely that the reader will seek meaning in his reading of La Boue. Anyone who reads La Boue will find their own interpretation and emotions there. Personally, I detect several themes in his images, such as the existentialist emptiness, the relationship to religion, the absence of the father, the fear of the other and of sex, fantasies and pornography, depression, and the fascination of the morbid. But these are only personal interpretations of a complex thematic tapestry of which I myself do not have all the keys.

Each time I reread this book, I detect new nuances, new senses that I can project into it. In the end, I know above all that any interpretation that I could make of it will always be incomplete and personal, as for each of the readers.

Why does the story end this way? What is the deeper meaning of the story?

When I was writing La Boue , I had the impression of declining an equation whose solution remained to be defined, as if my initial sentences ("  Far away ...  ») Represented the parameters of an emotional algorithm which had to be declined sentence by sentence, through several iterative cycles, in a narrative spiral which was to lead to a conclusion that I hoped was positive.

When I got to the end of the book, I tried for a long time to impose a happy ending, but each time the result seemed wrong and ridiculous to me. All of these results had a tasteless aftertaste that I didn't like. So I ended up writing down what felt like the natural conclusion to the events that had preceded it, no matter if it was what I hoped for or not.

Horrified by the result, but proud of my stylistic achievement, I wondered for several years whether it was desirable to publish such a book. What would such a dark and atypical story bring to the reader if it could not point to a solution? Was it better to hide everything and move on?

After long reflections, I came to the conclusion that La Boue represents a descent into hell of a man who tried to find in the morbid a truth to the absurdity of existence. The fact that he only found his own destruction there is a warning that this path is barren and should not be taken except as a thought exercise. As a matter of fact, after having made this journey, I am now more able to accept to go towards more positive paths in my own life and to leave aside the fascination of the morbid. The testimony of several readers also seems to point in this direction.

Since then, I have been surprised to discover that there is an expression among English speakers called "  mud nostalgia  ”(In French in the text) which means a desire to return to a more primitive, simpler, and depraved mode. In the end, this notion describes La Boue well , it seems to me.

Ultimately, La Boue is a message sent to myself by my unconscious. Over 20  years after having finally written the end, this story continues to make me think and question me about its deeper meaning. I believe that, despite appearances, he can have a positive impact, if only because he carries a warning in his heart.

[1] Inception, (Origins), C. Nolan, with L. DiCaprio, K. Watanabe, J. Gordon-Levitt, M.Cotillard, E.Page, United States, 2010, science fiction, 148 minutes.