Graphic Novel about Rimbaud, Verlaine and many more...

As promised and planned last year, my reading plan for 2026 - and maybe a bit longer - is to focus on classic books and authors. And when I am not reading works from the carefully curated list, I may do extra documentation work, discovering new titles and writers of interest. So far, I am enjoying the experience, and I have a lot of reviews ready for the next weeks.

My source of inspiration for new discoveries are as diverse as my interests. A graphic novel about the friendships and inimities among the group of symbolist writers led me to Germain Nouveau, that I was not familiar with until now (but instantly added on my list).

Les Illuminés by Jean Dytar and Laurent-Frédéric Bollée is built around the quest for a lost manuscript by Nouveau but touches upon topics dear to rebelious writers like Rimbaud and Verlaine and the relationship between art and life. The text is minimal, but the graphic part is generous, each page following three different timelines, in warm tones. 

The topics raised my interest, while the graphic kept me interested. Additionally, I have some extra reading that may lead me to discovering new works and authors. 

The quest continues...

Rating: 3.5 stars

Steglitz by Inès Bayard translated into German by Theresa Benkert

Steglitz is a part of Berlin I always enjoy spending time exploring. Caught between the equally middle-class Charlottenburg and the much fancier Zehlendorf, it breathes bourgeoisie: modernist architecture, shopping avenue, large busy streets, better dressed people compared to other parts of the city.

In Steglitz Kafka spent his last months, between 1923 and 1924, together with Dora Diamant, before being hospitalized in a sanatorium. 

Steglitz, where the action of the homonymous novel by French-born, Berlin based Inès Bayard takes place, is a place of routine, night secrets and delusion. Leni Müller, the wife of a successful architect, Ivan, recently assigned a project in Prora, the former Nazi summer resort in the island of Rügen, is a person of many habits. Not talking too much, walking her routines every day, a dedicated quiet housewife.

But, in a Kafkian vein, things start happening and the quiet Leni is violently pushed out of her mental comfort zone. She will end up almost homeless, working in pub in exchange of accommodation, leaving her husband and returning in her marital home as a complete alienated stranger. 

I may confess the book took a turn I didn´t expect it, as I was expecting a very bourgeois novel. The challenge of surprise accepted, I felt however that the actual timeline the action is taking part is too long, compared to the intensity of the facts and episodes accounted for. 

I had access to the book in the German version, translated from French by Theresa Benkert. 

The cover, as many books published in Germany, is an excellent visual interpretation of the book.

Rating: 3.5 stars