Marceline Bodier, bookstagrammer And contributor from the 20 Minutes Books reading group, recommends “La quinte geste” fromEstelle Tolliac whom she interviewed. His new novel was published on April 9, 2024 by Éditions Forgotten Dreams.
His favorite quote:
“ They are there. I know it. They won’t let us go. In my folded arm Destiny sleeps. She tenderly squeezes her little fist around my finger. Against her is the heartwood rattle that I carved for her. Still, the screaming. I see the fire. I sense the rage. »
Why this book?
- Because it’s general literature in fantasy clothes: “the continent” is not ours, but it is populated by humans larger than life. To tell the truth, I had already walked through this setting and so have you, since it is the one created by Estelle Tolliac, the first winner of the Prize 20 minutes of the novel in 2020. This time, I discovered new secrets, as much like a child amazed at finding a country that she had thought she had lost, as like a reading fanatic who finally had her dose. An experience that I recommend without reservation!
- Because man, woman, it’s not mine to tell you who Ysèle is: it’s up to you to form your own idea by discovering this character, before he (she?) tells us who she (he?) is. I will only tell you that this refers to the idea that sexual ambiguity does not come so much from the person of whom we do not know whether they are man or woman, as from the person who faces them and projects their desires onto them. And you will easily recognize that it is a universal reflection, terribly human… and infinitely disturbing, as is this reading.
- Because it’s the story of Eagle and Jerisbee: love, power, betrayals, and more. It is also that of the most sought-after baby in the world: the last living heiress of a powerful line of women, the Guernanantes. And this world is a continent on which the thirst for conquest of a particularly cruel patriarchal people, the Antharites, reigns. The result is five gestures, five legends which take place in an atmosphere of adventure and struggle between the worst brutality and the most refined culture. Can you guess who will win? Okay, but wait until you see how!
Estelle Tolliac, we are pleased to find the people and the world that we discovered with Black and Moon And Moon Blue, and it was about time, because we missed them! What good does it do for an author to imagine an imaginary world that resembles ours, but deviates from it in multiple ways?
Creating a world from A to Z, as I did with the Continent, is for me an infinite and exhilarating space of freedom. There is an almost childish pleasure in exercising one’s omnipotence in a world of which we have imagined all the codes, the limits, the possibilities. In addition, as the Continent is ultimately a fairly restricted space where even the inhabitants do not know all the borders, this allows me to increase my “playing field” with each new novel. For me, although writing projects more anchored in reality are on my mind, it is more difficult to write in a realistic vein than in the imagination, because then, I never stop asking myself a thousand and one questions on the plausibility of this or that detail. At least on the Continent, I am an undisputed demiurge. It’s quite nice!
Your characters blur the lines between masculine and feminine in many ways. How is your novel feminist?
It is true that in The Quinte Gesture, I really accentuated my thinking around genres. I constructed this choral novel in five branches which evoke for me a star-shaped motif. Thus, I can multiply the characters, particularly female, and work according to a prism aesthetic, a play of reflections. Each woman in my novel is a unique woman and shows the full diversity of female destinies, characters, trajectories: we meet women of all ages, from all social classes. It’s important for me to show non-stereotypical women. A brand new character who could be described in modern terms as “gender-fluid” shows that when it comes to gender, existing rules are often just conventions, facts of society. They push the other protagonists (and I hope also the readers) to question what we consider obvious in our representations.
When the book ends, we cannot believe that we will never know the future of the protagonists of whom you have nevertheless completed a “gesture”, a cycle of legends. Do you have any plans?
I admit that, now that I have created the foundations of the Continent, I really want to go back and explore this abundant universe, which also has mysteries in store for me! And then, we can’t leave some of the characters in The Quinte Gesture on the threshold of their destiny: too many thrilling adventures await them for me to leave them in the shadows and silence for long. It will be a moral duty for me to quickly propose a sequel to the adventures of these paper beings who have become dear to me. And guess what? It’s already written!
The essentials in 2 minutes
The plot. “A baby born to a legendary people, hunted by a cruel people, protected by a spiritual people.” I know perfectly well that I am paraphrasing the legend of Excalibur, sword “forged by a God, announced by a mage, found by a king”. But history deserves it: it is that of O’haï, Destiny.
Characters. When a novel unknowingly prepares you to burst into tears upon reading these simple words, “Well… he’s your father,” what can you add? Estelle Tolliac perfectly masters the art of making us believe in the existence of the creatures of her imagination, and to live, love and die with them.
Places. “And he said: ‘To the north, the silver peaks of the Pelléas mountains. To the east, the carmine waters of Red Lake. To the south, the brilliant green of the Salavielle forest. To the west, the black waters of the Ganeid Ocean.” » “He” is a song… that of the world where you are going to live your next parallel life.
The time. The five “gestures” go from the 336th closure (group of years) of the Sileal era to the 353rd, and even to the depths of the ages with a legend within the legend, that of the people of Guernanor. With a timeless moment of grace suspended between two abysses, that of the first days of a hidden love…
The author. Estelle Tolliac is well known to readers of 20 minutes, who discovered her with us in 2020 when she won the first Novel Prize 20 minutes. She returns with a new cycle of legends in the world which won over the jury chaired by Maxime Chattam. Finally !
This book was read with superlative feelings that make me wish I had Estelle Tolliac’s talent to invent a word to match the rapture into which she plunges us. Subtle style, sense of construction, page-turning story… it smells like a bestseller!
To buy this book on Amazon
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