The heroic ones

Roman on Competition Through thirteen narratives of surprisingly restrained intensity, in a brilliant, tamed style - not an ounce of fat -, with a tone that admirably alternates rhythms and breaths and that drags the reader into its race, Guy Lagorce opens the doors for us to hells and kingdoms unknown to us. Sport (but do we really need to say 'sport', or struggle, or war, or trial and ordeal, or - oh Nietzsche! - the superhuman?) is first experienced with the extreme demand of inner adventures. Lagorce is there. His heroes are there. Readers, we are there: it is no longer a matter of being voyeurs but, men or women, the mad reitters of this war. The initiates, in thirteen trials, in thirteen new stories, at the Mystery. So, a question arises: why, in Lagorce, this madness of effort and challenge, of victory and will? An obvious answer when you close his book: because his heroes, on the stadiums, the rings and other places of infinite pain and wild joy, still pay in full, in our century that gives up, their quest for the impossible. Always, until the uncertain dawn, they continue, teeth clenched, to struggle with the Angel. Guy Laroche Julliard Edition