Avec les fées

2024 book by Sylvain Tesson
978-2-38284-371-0

Avec les fées (lit. 'With the Fairies') is a 2024 travel book by the French writer Sylvain Tesson. It covers a sailing trip along the Atlantic coast, from Spain to Scotland.

Synopsis

Avec les fées is a travel book about a trip Sylvain Tesson took along the Atlantic coast for three months, visiting the Celtic nations. He was accompanied by his friends Arnaud Humann and Benoît Lettéron on a 15 metres long Breton sailboat. The trip departed from Gijón in northwestern Spain at the start of summer. It continued through Brittany in France and across the English Channel to Cornwall, Wales, Isle of Man, Ireland and finally Scotland. The crew periodically disembarked to explore the surroundings on foot or bicycle. Tesson describes the landscapes they passed through and relates them to local legends.

Reception

Éditions des Équateurs published Avec les fées on 10 January 2024.[1] Le Parisien's Grégory Plouviez wrote that Tesson's descriptions of landscapes is unmatched and that he presents a "tender and poetic" worldview.[1] Plouviez wrote that the frequency of quotable sentences and "miraculous" aphorisms varies with different chapters, comparing the shifts in the book to high and low tides.[1] In Paris Match, Marie-Laure Delorme wrote that the book is about the possibility "to dialogue with magnificence" as a way to escape the unsympathetic aspects of contemporary society.[2] She wrote that one of the strongest passages is about a meeting with a disabled ex-military and highlighted the occasional presence of ironic humour.[2] Delorme placed Tesson's storytelling "between immanence and transcendence", combining "flight and fixedness" to make the reader focus fully on worldly splendor.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c Plouviez, Grégory (10 January 2024). "'Avec les fées' : que vaut le dernier livre de Sylvain Tesson ?". Le Parisien (in French). Retrieved 25 January 2024.
  2. ^ a b c Delorme, Marie-Laure (7 January 2024). "Sylvain Tesson... la mer, la nuit, le vent : 'Avec les fées', la critique". Paris Match (in French). Retrieved 25 January 2024.

Further reading

  • La Rochefoucauld, Louis-Henri de (10 January 2024). "Les fées, ses détracteurs, l'Académie française… Les confidences de Sylvain Tesson". L'Express (in French). Retrieved 25 January 2024.
  • La Rochefoucauld, Louis-Henri de (16 January 2024). "Que vaut 'Avec les fées', le nouveau roman de Sylvain Tesson ?". Ouest-France (in French). Retrieved 25 January 2024.
  • Maulin, Olivier (19 January 2024). "Littérature : 'Avec les fées' de Sylvain Tesson, le baladin du monde occidental". Valeurs actuelles (in French). Retrieved 25 January 2024.
  • Ono-dit-Biot, Christophe (18 January 2024). "Exclusif. Les extraits du voyage de Sylvain Tesson au pays des fées". Le Point (in French). Retrieved 25 January 2024.
  • Ungemuth, Nicolas (12 January 2024). "L'odyssée celtique de Sylvain Tesson: 'Mes voyages me servent à prouver que le mystère existe encore'". Le Figaro Magazine (in French). Retrieved 25 January 2024.

External links

  • Publisher's website (in French)