In this journal, I share the readings that have marked me, inspired me, nourished me. Today, I am talking about Alessandro Baricco's novel: Silk. As short as it is incisive, it delivers an adventure at the edge of the world, full of poetry.

Silk is the story of a small businessman from a village in the Ardèche region of France in the 19th century, who is entrusted with its destiny.

Lavilledieu where it all begins

We are in Lavilledieu, a few kilometers from Montélimar, at the foot of the Monts d'Ardèche, in the middle of the century. The author tells us that Flaubert is writing Salammbô and that Abraham Lincoln is at war on the other side of the Atlantic.

In the shade of the white mulberry trees of the Ardèche, Lavilledieu is experiencing a crisis. For centuries, the Ardèche, like the neighboring Cévennes, has prospered thanks to sericulture - the culture of silk. 

"Baldabiou was the man who, twenty years earlier, had arrived in the town, walked right up to the mayor's office, entered it unannounced, placed a dusk-colored silk scarf on his desk, and asked him
- Do you know what this is?
- Women's business.
- Mistake. Men's business: money."

Old silkworm farm near Anduze, photo credit Isabelle Blanchemain

The origins of silk in the Ardèche

Let's go back a few centuries. In 1558 (1571 according to sources), Olivier de Serres bought the Pradel estate, a large agricultural estate in the Ardèche. If his name rings a bell, you have probably already read it on a street sign: he is considered by many to be the father of French agronomy. From the old ruined mill of the estate, he made a magnanerie - a silkworm farm. He took advantage of his brother's relationship with King Henri IV - Jean de Serres was his historiographer - and obtained a budget from the king. Having obtained a budget from the king, he had 20,000 mulberry trees planted in the Tuileries: from then on Paris would raise its own silk and keep the kingdom's gold within its walls. But this is another story.

"we must go even more, to the kingdom of the rising sun."

We are in the nineteenth century, a flourishing period for the Ardèche, which was then the third largest department in France in terms of agricultural income thanks to silkworm breeding. The industry had been well established for two hundred years and there were very large mulberry farms and plantations in the surrounding communes - notably Rosière and Berrias . When suddenly an unstoppable crisis occurs: the pebrine is among us. A contagious and hereditary disease, it wreaks havoc and decimates in a few years the farms of all Europe. The only solution: find silkworm eggs that have not been contaminated.
Egypt and the Middle East are affected, and there are even cases in India: it is necessary to go even further, to the kingdom of the rising sun.

The adventure of a man

At the heart of this novel, there is Hervé Joncour: a local businessman who is living limply in a loveless marriage, when he is entrusted with the future of the community by the village notables. To go to Japan, to undertake this crazy journey of several thousand kilometers, to bring back healthy eggs and thus save the community's farms. 

"Hervé Joncour was thirty-two years old.
He bought, and he sold.
Silkworms."

Alessandro Baricco, a rhythmic and minimalist style

Without revealing the plot any further, let's focus on Alessandro's style. For this novel is far from being an agronomy essay. It is above all a breathtaking adventure, told in its greatest simplicity and whose numerous ellipses leave all freedom to the imagination of the reader. 

A contemporary Italian writer, Alessandro presents with Silk a concentrate of what he does best:

• writing (a Médicis prize for his first novel)
• narration (he founded a school of narration in Turin) 
• music (he has a degree in music)

I enjoyed reading this book primarily for its pace. Great adventures often have a linear narrative with a climax: the crucial moment when the hero reaches the end of his adventure. This is not the case with Silk. Here, the rhythm is circular: the journey repeats itself, the exotic stages in the steppes of Central Asia repeat themselves, the furtive meeting with the one who haunts him never ends and is completed in fragments.

Medieval village of Shirakawa mentioned in H. Joncour's trip, photo credit peaceful-jp-scenery

This novel is a story of waiting that reads like a cyclical and jerky score. The sentences are short. The dialogues are reduced to the bare essentials. The descriptions are minimalist and yet, they are more than enough to unfold in our imagination, a whole universe.

"- And where exactly is this Japan?"
Baldabiou raised his rush cane in the air and pointed it over the rooftops of St. Augustus.
- That way, always straight ahead.
He said.
- Until the end of the world."

Léa Petitjean