Chloé Delaume’s book is the story of a reminiscence. It goes back in time to shatter an oppressive past. Its virulence has the power of a cry. A true leitmotif of the novel, the metaphor of the hourglass spreads, branches out: it draws the central and traumatic figure of a “sedimentary” father and of a “child of silt”. Neither pathos nor complacency. But the attempt, as an adult, to answer the questioning of a child, an attempt made possible by a certain sweetness of irony. Everything passes through the prism of a singular language, overflowing with inventions. The style is excessive, sometimes terse, sometimes abysmal. The words jostle each other, become invasive, until they give an impression of fusion.
