Le Procès-Verbal
{{short description|1963 novel by J. M. G. Le Clézio}}
{{Infobox book |
| name = The Interrogation
| title_orig = Le Procès-Verbal
| translator = Daphne Woodward
| image = File:TheInterrogation.jpg
| caption = First UK edition
| author = J. M. G. Le Clézio
| illustrator =
| cover_artist = Jonathan Nicholl
| country = France
| language = French
| series =
| subject =
| genre =
| publisher = Gallimard
Hamish Hamilton (UK)
Atheneum (US)
| pub_date = 1963
| english_pub_date = 1964
| isbn =
| oclc= 27088925
| preceded_by =
| followed_by = Le Jour où Beaumont fit connaissance avec sa douleur
}}
Le Procès-Verbal (English title: The Interrogation) is the debut novel of French Nobel laureate writer J. M. G. Le Clézio, about a troubled man named Adam Pollo who "struggles to contextualize what he sees" and "to negotiate often disturbing ideas while simultaneously navigating through, for him, life’s absurdity and emptiness".{{cite web|url=http://www.bookslut.com/fiction/2009_01_014006.php|title=The Interrogation by J. M. G. Le Clézio, translated by Daphne Woodward|last=|first=|date=2009-01-01|publisher=John Madera fiction|access-date=2009-02-09}}
In 2022, the novel was included on the "Big Jubilee Read" list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, selected to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2Ynpj933DJ2YG5nsMS6fn8k/a-literary-celebration-of-queen-elizabeth-iis-record-breaking-reign|title=The Big Jubilee Read: A literary celebration of Queen Elizabeth II's record-breaking reign|website=BBC|date=17 April 2022|access-date=14 July 2022}}
Subject
{{Section rewrite|date=January 2024}}
The novel is about Adam Pollo, a loner man who had been marginalized from society. His long hair and his beard make him appear a beggar. Pollo is a former student who suffers from amnesia. He does not know whether he was perhaps a deserter from the army or if he has escaped from a psychiatric ward. Le Clézio wrote:
{{quote|[He] was trying to remember something pertaining to what happened ten years ago: maybe a phrase, maybe a tell-tale sign from the army, maybe a name or a place which would indicate just when it occurred and waiting, waiting (thinking, thinking) to come up with where it might have happened.{{cite web |url= http://www.comptoirlitteraire.com/uploads/2007/07/leclezio.doc|title= Jean-Marie-Gabriel LE CLÉZIO (France)"Le procès-verbal " |accessdate=2009-01-25 |publisher=comptoirlitteraire|year=2007|language=French|quote=il «essayait de se souvenir de quelque chose qui le rattachait aux dix années d’avant : une phrase, un tic militaire, un nom de lieu qui lui indiquerait à coup sûr quel avait été son emploi du temps, et, enfin, enfin, plus tard, d’où il arrivait }}}} He breaks into an empty seaside villa. He visits the town at rare intervals and as briefly as his scant purchases (of cigarettes, biscuits, or even beer) require. Soon, lack of human contact affects him like a drug and he experiences other modes of being: through a dog's or rat’s eyes, states of heightened consciousness which build up into a terrifying world of glaring hallucinatory experience. Then Adam addresses a small crowd in the town. His unnerving rhetoric ends in his arrest and commitment to an asylum. And there the interrogation begins.
Awards
- Written when Le Clézio was 23, this novel was shortlisted for the prix Goncourt.
- Received the prix Renaudot in 1963.
- Considered in the final stage for the Prix Formentor.{{cite web |url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article4914891.ece |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110616093525/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article4914891.ece |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 16, 2011 |title=Le Proces-Verbal |accessdate=2008-11-04 |last=Sturrock |first=John |date= January 9, 1964|publisher=The Times Literary Supplement |quote= "Both ...novels, one by Mario Vargas Llosa... the other by a young Anglo-Frenchman, were concerned in the final stages of the judging for the Prix Formentor last May, La Ciudad y los Perros (The Time of the Hero) narrowly failing to win the prize" }}
Publication history
Seven editions published between 1988 and 2004 in 4 languages and held by 766 libraries worldwide.{{cite web|url=http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n50-39803 |title=Most widely held works by J.-M. G Le Clézio |accessdate=15 December 2008 |publisher=OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.|year=2008}}
See also
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
{{J. M. G. Le Clézio}}
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Category:Éditions Gallimard books