Philippe Jaenada makes no secret of it: he used artificial intelligence for L’inconnue du quai de Javel. In his new novel, published in August by Flammarion and in the running for the Prix Goncourt, the writer asks ChatGPT and Claude what dries faster: the paving stones or the hair? Some answers are disconcerting. He recounts them from page 237 to page 240, with his sense of formula and humor.
We ask him what he thinks of the Thélyson Orélien affair, which is shaking up the small literary world these days. According to him, did his Canadian-Haitian counterpart use artificial intelligence to write his novel It Was That or Die? “We’ve met several times since the start of the school year, Thélyson is extremely friendly,” he simply replies. He prefers to keep his opinion to himself but gives us his opinion on AI:
“She will never be human, by definition. She will never be able to write a book with her heart, her soul, her memories, her unique vision of things, people and the world. »
Sense of observation and parentheses
No need for an artificial intelligence detector to confirm that L’inconnue du quai de Javel is the fruit of a human pen (in every sense of the word). We find everything that makes up the style of the 62-year-old writer: the story of bygone periods, the sense of observation, the attention paid to small things, the taste for anecdotes, the abundant digressions, and parentheses which open without us always knowing when they will close.
These parentheses annoy some readers, who tell him so. This was “a problem” for Philippe Jaenada, for a while. It’s no longer one today: “It’s my natural way of writing. » If he took it easy on the parentheses, it would be less him. It is his trademark, the charm of his prose, and it attracts a loyal readership.
We meet Philippe Jaenada at Bistro Lafayette, in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. This is his HQ. His routine. This homebody spends an hour there twice every day when he is not on promotion or at a book fair. We had never set foot there before, but we never discovered it. The place is familiar to us: the author described it in his novels. He wrote that he has his designated stool there. It’s not literature: he points us to the seat in front of the counter.
Small Jaenada circuits
The pub has become a pilgrimage stop for its readers. "One day, people from Bayonne came here and said to me: 'We've been in Paris for three days, it's the end of our tour, we're happy to see that you're on this stool. We went to the locations of all your books: where Pauline Dubuisson killed Félix Bailly, in front of the hotel where Kaki jumped out of the window...' They go on little tours,' says the writer, touched that these Bayonne residents tried to find the settings of the dramas he narrated in La petite femme and La déinvolteur est une bien belle chose.
Since Sulak, published in 2013, Philippe Jaenada has specialized in the exploration of news items. He sees them as “a door to enter people’s lives, to approach their humanity”. He develops:
“It allows you to reach intimacy, drama, nastiness, avarice, passion, pain, joys, and that’s what interests me. What I don't like about news stories is the timing of the crimes. Rage, stupidity, hatred, violence, thank you very much. »
Maigret and miscellaneous facts
In L'inconnue du quai de Javel, the door opens to reveal Louise Canot, found dead on the night of September 6 to 7, 1949 at the address mentioned in the title of the novel. She was 29 years old. The crime has not been solved. Case closed. So the author conducts his investigation and gives his hypothesis. “As I was looking for something “à la Maigret”, I needed a culprit, I had to find him. If at the end Maigret simply goes home shrugging his shoulders, we're a little disappointed...", believes the one who reread the investigations of Simenon's hero, transforming him into a complicit figure, haunting the pages of the book.
If he chose this specific news item, it is above all because it serves as a “red thread” to which themes reflecting an era can be added. “It had everything I needed,” says the writer. Which lists:
“These Bretons sent at 16, all alone, to Paris, in the big city. Half fell into the nets of the Pigalle marlous. The other half managed as best they could. There is also abortion, contraception. And lighter things, like the painters' community in the ending Montparnasse. »
The 528 pages scroll, moving back and forth between post-war France and today. They tell what is gone and what persists. Philippe Jaenada denies any nostalgia. “When we don’t feel any, it can come across as a kind of fatalism but, for me, it’s not pejorative. What moves me, fascinates me, are human beings, and also time. I like to see its passage, that is to say, I like things or places that have remained more or less intact as much as those that have disappeared. I am trying to make a sort of inventory, very modestly, I am not a historian. »
Le Monde called him a “clerk of the passing of time”. He liked this formula. What touches him, with his latest book, is to have extricated Louise Cansot from the oblivion into which she had fallen. “Now, when I walk around, I see her face everywhere, in bookstores, in newspapers… I am strangely, stupidly perhaps, happy for her. »
Le Goncourt, “like a game”
When we talk to him about his posterity, he is cautious. “Glory” doesn’t interest him. But it does not displease him to think that he could “continue to exist a little, to “speak” again” once he has disappeared: “I who am so concerned, moved, by the passage of time, it does not leave me insensitive to tell myself that people will be able to read what I wrote after my death. »
Being on the first list of the Prix Goncourt gives him “pleasure”. This is the second time this has happened to him after Casualness is a Very Beautiful Thing two years ago. “It’s a kind of game. Like a race,” confides the inveterate racer. “If we don’t win, too bad. If we win, that’s great. There is recognition from the literary community and this means that the book will be read by a lot of people. And, incidentally, it must be recognized, it is the assurance of being materially peaceful for a moment, to write. It's down to earth, but money is a real problem when you're writing. Because it takes time, a lot. And time…”
