Benoît Duteurtre
Encyclopedia
Benoît Duteurtre is a French novelist and essayist, born in 1960. He is also a musical critic, musician, producer and host of a radio show about music. He spends his time between Paris
, New York and Normandy
.
, Seine-Maritime
, Normandy
, where he spent his first years. He is the son of Jean-Claude Duteurtre and Marie-Claire Georges. He is also the great-grandson of the French president René Coty
. He attended Saint-Joseph, a catholic educational institution in le Havre. Duteurtre began to write at an early age. At fifteen, he presented his firsts texts to Armand Salacrou
, a French dramatist established in le Havre, who encouraged him to pursue his efforts. Le Havre, a heavily-destroyed city during World War II
and rebuilt in the structural classicism style will often reappear in Duteurtre's later works.
. In 1977, Benoît began musicology studies at the university of Rouen
, France. That same year, he met Karlheinz Stockhausen
and, a year later, Iannis Xenakis
. In 1979, Benoît Duteurtre studied for a month with György Ligeti
, whose musical theory later had a strong influence in his life. He graduated with a license in Musicology.
a text called Nuit (Night); Beckett later convinced Duteurtre to publish it in La Revue des Editions de Minuit. At the time, Duteurtre lived in Paris, occasionally playing piano at the French music festival Le Printemps de Bourges, at the Théâtre des Amandiers, a theater in Nanterre
(in the Paris suburbs), or in a pop music French hit called Paris Latino. After that, he worked as a pollster, as a seller in a bazaar and worked as an accompanist in dance courses. He also wrote articles for the French Playboy
magazine.
In 1991, Benoît Duteurtre became music advisor for the Lyon
Biennal of French music, and started to host a radio show about music.
L'amoureux malgré lui (1989) started a social study followed by Tout doit disparaître (1992). In this novel Duteurtre relates some personal experiences from his activities as a journalist and music critic. He sent this novel to Guy Debord
, who returned a friendly letter with these words ”Il vous a suffi de voir le même siècle et sa sorte d'art, vous l'avez ressenti justement” (you only needed to see the same century and its kind of art, you felt it precisely).
Tout doit disparaître also revealed some Duteurtre's questions about contemporary music, especially wondering about what happened to French classical music in the late 20th century and why European contemporary music is unable to attract a large audience. These ideas would later be thoroughly developed in his essay Requiem pour une avant-garde.
Duteurtre discovered New York
in 1990 and was charmed. This experience improved his understanding of the behavior of France towards the USA. In 1993, he helped to revive the French musical collection Solfège (DuSeuil).
published an article comparing Duteurtre to Robert Faurisson
, a revisionist
. Duteurtre sued the newspaper and won. Le Monde was forced to publish Duteurtre's answer. Supports came from several French newspapers and magazines (Le Point
, Le Monde de la Musique, Diapason) and from the International Herald Tribune
newspaper.
Though the criticism of the work and the influence of Pierre Boulez
as a composer is one of the main component of this essay, Duteurtre also put forward the problem of France's current nostalgia for its artistic leadership during the Belle Epoque in the late 19th-early 20th century. This idea will reappear later in some of these novels.
and Duteurtre created an association Musique Nouvelle en Liberté (New Music in Liberty) to promote new composers.
In 1996, Duteurtre published the novel Gaieté parisienne, about the Paris gay
community. The novel also portrayed an almost 30-year-old man worried by the from now on known-pattern of his own life. Drôle de temps, a series of six short stories published in 1997 received the Prix de l'Académie Française (French Academy award). Milan Kundera
was seduced and wrote a friendly article which concurs with another fan of Duteurtre, Philippe Muray
, on important ideas about the role of a writer in the modern world.
In 1999 was published the novel Les malentendus, which details a series of crossed courses involving a young Arab immigrant in France, a company head woman, a young man who had graduated from Science-po
, and a disabled gay middle-aged man. In 2001 the novel Le Voyage en France was awarded the Prix Médicis
(Medicis award). In this last novel a young American, fond of the late 19th-early 20th century France discovers the modern France and in the same time, interlinked, the course of a middle-age man spending his life between euphoria and depression.
Service Clientèle (2003) is a series of short chapters related to commercial or technical assistances of companies selling cellulars, flight ticket and Internet connexions. This last work was kindly noted by François Taillandier
in the French newspaper L'Humanité
. La Rebelle was published in 2004 and portrays a female TV show host, left leaning but nevertheless careerist and the plot which involves her, a young Egypt-born gay computer engineer, an old swindler and a big French company CEO.
Jérôme Savary
's music-hall comedy Viva l’Opéra-Comique, whose texts were written by Duteurtre was premiered at Théâtre national de l'Opéra-Comique, Paris, in March 2004.
In 2005, La petite fille et la cigarette ( The Little Girl And the Cigarette ) was published, describing the horrible and slow chains of events by which a state employee will switch from a rather quiet life to the most horrible situation.
Duteurtre's novel Chemin de fer was published in 2006 and tells the story of a fifty-year-old woman divided between her career in Paris and her love for a small old-fashioned countryside house in the mountains. This latest novel is also a reflection about the evolution of our society and the so-called progress people have to adapt.
He also writes for the French literature magazine L'Atelier du Roman with authors like Milan Kundera
and Michel Houellebecq
. In April 2007 he wrote in this magazine an article for the death birthday of Philippe Muray, titled Muray est une fête (Muray is a feast).
In his last novel "La cité heureuse", published in August 2007, a big company (in French La Compagnie) acquired a whole city and turned it to a cultural theme park. Its inhabitants work as activity leaders. One of them, a TV series scriptwriter tries to adapt to this new life. Also published in 2007 "Ma belle époque", a collection of texts issued in different French newspapers, compose what Duteurtre thinks to be like a self-portrait of himself.
, a French public radio. He is also a member of the publisher Editions Denoël's reading committee. His books have been translated in fifteen languages.
Duteurtre works with the actress Fanny Ardant
on Véronique, an operetta from André Messager
for January 2008.
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, New York and Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
.
Early life and family
Benoît Duteurtre was born in Sainte-AdresseSainte-Adresse
Sainte-Adresse is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France.-Geography:A coastal suburb situated some northwest of Le Havre city centre, at the junction of the D147 and the D940...
, Seine-Maritime
Seine-Maritime
Seine-Maritime is a French department in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France. It is situated on the northern coast of France, at the mouth of the Seine, and includes the cities of Rouen and Le Havre...
, Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
, where he spent his first years. He is the son of Jean-Claude Duteurtre and Marie-Claire Georges. He is also the great-grandson of the French president René Coty
René Coty
René Jules Gustave Coty was President of France from 1954 to 1959. He was the second and last president under the French Fourth Republic.-Early life and politics:...
. He attended Saint-Joseph, a catholic educational institution in le Havre. Duteurtre began to write at an early age. At fifteen, he presented his firsts texts to Armand Salacrou
Armand Salacrou
Armand Camille Salacrou was a French dramatist.He was born in Rouen, but spent most of his childhood at Le Havre, and moved to Paris in 1917. His first works show the influence of the Surrealists....
, a French dramatist established in le Havre, who encouraged him to pursue his efforts. Le Havre, a heavily-destroyed city during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and rebuilt in the structural classicism style will often reappear in Duteurtre's later works.
Music background
At the age of sixteen, Benoît Duteurtre was fascinated with modern music, especially the work of Pierre BoulezPierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
. In 1977, Benoît began musicology studies at the university of Rouen
Rouen
Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...
, France. That same year, he met Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
and, a year later, Iannis Xenakis
Iannis Xenakis
Iannis Xenakis was a Romanian-born Greek ethnic, naturalized French composer, music theorist, and architect-engineer. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers...
. In 1979, Benoît Duteurtre studied for a month with György Ligeti
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...
, whose musical theory later had a strong influence in his life. He graduated with a license in Musicology.
Life in the early '80s
However, Benoît Duteurtre also kept writing. In 1982, he sent Samuel BeckettSamuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
a text called Nuit (Night); Beckett later convinced Duteurtre to publish it in La Revue des Editions de Minuit. At the time, Duteurtre lived in Paris, occasionally playing piano at the French music festival Le Printemps de Bourges, at the Théâtre des Amandiers, a theater in Nanterre
Nanterre
Nanterre is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located west of the center of Paris.Nanterre is the capital of the Hauts-de-Seine department as well as the seat of the Arrondissement of Nanterre....
(in the Paris suburbs), or in a pop music French hit called Paris Latino. After that, he worked as a pollster, as a seller in a bazaar and worked as an accompanist in dance courses. He also wrote articles for the French Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
magazine.
The first novels and the early '90s
Duteurtre's first novel, Sommeil Perdu, is about a depressed young man leaving his hometown to live in Paris. It was published in 1985, when Duteurtre was a journalist writing for several French newspapers. In 1987, he published his second novel, Les Vaches (completed and renamed A propos des vaches in 2000), which presents the life of a boy growing between his school year in Le Havre and his holidays in the French mountains. The magazine L'infini also published some of his short stories.In 1991, Benoît Duteurtre became music advisor for the Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
Biennal of French music, and started to host a radio show about music.
L'amoureux malgré lui (1989) started a social study followed by Tout doit disparaître (1992). In this novel Duteurtre relates some personal experiences from his activities as a journalist and music critic. He sent this novel to Guy Debord
Guy Debord
Guy Ernest Debord was a French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker, member of the Letterist International, founder of a Letterist faction, and founding member of the Situationist International . He was also briefly a member of Socialisme ou Barbarie.-Early Life:Guy Debord was born in Paris in 1931...
, who returned a friendly letter with these words ”Il vous a suffi de voir le même siècle et sa sorte d'art, vous l'avez ressenti justement” (you only needed to see the same century and its kind of art, you felt it precisely).
Tout doit disparaître also revealed some Duteurtre's questions about contemporary music, especially wondering about what happened to French classical music in the late 20th century and why European contemporary music is unable to attract a large audience. These ideas would later be thoroughly developed in his essay Requiem pour une avant-garde.
Duteurtre discovered New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
in 1990 and was charmed. This experience improved his understanding of the behavior of France towards the USA. In 1993, he helped to revive the French musical collection Solfège (DuSeuil).
Requiem pour une avant-garde
Requiem pour une avant-garde, an essay published in 1995 analyzing and criticizing the institutionalization of contemporary music in France, triggered fierce critics from some French newspapers. A journalist for the well-known French newspaper Le MondeLe Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
published an article comparing Duteurtre to Robert Faurisson
Robert Faurisson
Robert Faurisson is a French academic who is a Holocaust denier. Faurisson generated much controversy with a number of articles, published in the Journal of Historical Review and elsewhere, as well as various letters he has sent to French newspapers , which deny various aspects of the Holocaust,...
, a revisionist
Historical revisionism
In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of orthodox views on evidence, motivations, and decision-making processes surrounding a historical event...
. Duteurtre sued the newspaper and won. Le Monde was forced to publish Duteurtre's answer. Supports came from several French newspapers and magazines (Le Point
Le Point
Le Point is a French weekly news magazine. It was founded in 1972 by a group of journalists who had, one year earlier, left the editorial team of L'Express, which was then owned by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, a député of the Parti Radical...
, Le Monde de la Musique, Diapason) and from the International Herald Tribune
International Herald Tribune
The International Herald Tribune is a widely read English language international newspaper. It combines the resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times and is printed at 38 sites throughout the world, for sale in more than 160 countries and territories...
newspaper.
Though the criticism of the work and the influence of Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
as a composer is one of the main component of this essay, Duteurtre also put forward the problem of France's current nostalgia for its artistic leadership during the Belle Epoque in the late 19th-early 20th century. This idea will reappear later in some of these novels.
Late '90s works
In 1995, Marcel LandowskiMarcel Landowski
Marcel François Paul Landowski was a French composer, biographer and arts administrator.Born at Pont-l'Abbé, Finistère, Brittany, he was the son of French sculptor Paul Landowski and great-grandson of the composer Henri Vieuxtemps.As an infant he showed early musical promise, and studied piano...
and Duteurtre created an association Musique Nouvelle en Liberté (New Music in Liberty) to promote new composers.
In 1996, Duteurtre published the novel Gaieté parisienne, about the Paris gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
community. The novel also portrayed an almost 30-year-old man worried by the from now on known-pattern of his own life. Drôle de temps, a series of six short stories published in 1997 received the Prix de l'Académie Française (French Academy award). Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera , born 1 April 1929, is a writer of Czech origin who has lived in exile in France since 1975, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1981. He is best known as the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, and The Joke. Kundera has written in...
was seduced and wrote a friendly article which concurs with another fan of Duteurtre, Philippe Muray
Philippe Muray
Philippe Muray , was a French essayist and novelist. Although none of his works has yet been translated into English, Muray is considered one of the most influential thinkers of his generation...
, on important ideas about the role of a writer in the modern world.
In 1999 was published the novel Les malentendus, which details a series of crossed courses involving a young Arab immigrant in France, a company head woman, a young man who had graduated from Science-po
École Libre des Sciences Politiques
École Libre des Sciences Politiques , often referred to as the École des Sciences Politiques or simply Sciences Po was created in Paris in February 1872 by a group of European intellectuals, politicians and businessmen, which included Hippolyte Taine, Ernest Renan, Albert Sorel, Pierre Paul...
, and a disabled gay middle-aged man. In 2001 the novel Le Voyage en France was awarded the Prix Médicis
Prix Médicis
The Prix Médicis is a French literary award given each year in November. It was founded in 1958 by Gala Barbisan and Jean-Pierre Giraudoux. It is awarded to an author whose "fame does not yet match his talent."...
(Medicis award). In this last novel a young American, fond of the late 19th-early 20th century France discovers the modern France and in the same time, interlinked, the course of a middle-age man spending his life between euphoria and depression.
Service Clientèle (2003) is a series of short chapters related to commercial or technical assistances of companies selling cellulars, flight ticket and Internet connexions. This last work was kindly noted by François Taillandier
François Taillandier
François Taillandier is a French writer portraying the French contemporary society.-Life:Henri Vernes, creator of Bob Morane, fired a passion the 12-year-old Taillandier was not going to give up....
in the French newspaper L'Humanité
L'Humanité
L'Humanité , formerly the daily newspaper linked to the French Communist Party , was founded in 1904 by Jean Jaurès, a leader of the French Section of the Workers' International...
. La Rebelle was published in 2004 and portrays a female TV show host, left leaning but nevertheless careerist and the plot which involves her, a young Egypt-born gay computer engineer, an old swindler and a big French company CEO.
Jérôme Savary
Jérôme Savary
Jérôme Savary is a French theater director and actor. His work has democratized and widened the appeal of musical theater in France, drawing together and blending such genres as opera, operetta, and musical comedy.- Biography :...
's music-hall comedy Viva l’Opéra-Comique, whose texts were written by Duteurtre was premiered at Théâtre national de l'Opéra-Comique, Paris, in March 2004.
In 2005, La petite fille et la cigarette ( The Little Girl And the Cigarette ) was published, describing the horrible and slow chains of events by which a state employee will switch from a rather quiet life to the most horrible situation.
Duteurtre's novel Chemin de fer was published in 2006 and tells the story of a fifty-year-old woman divided between her career in Paris and her love for a small old-fashioned countryside house in the mountains. This latest novel is also a reflection about the evolution of our society and the so-called progress people have to adapt.
He also writes for the French literature magazine L'Atelier du Roman with authors like Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera , born 1 April 1929, is a writer of Czech origin who has lived in exile in France since 1975, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1981. He is best known as the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, and The Joke. Kundera has written in...
and Michel Houellebecq
Michel Houellebecq
Michel Houellebecq , born Michel Thomas, 26 February 1958—or 1956 —on the French island of Réunion, is a controversial and award-winning French author, filmmaker and poet. To admirers he is a writer in the tradition of literary provocation that reaches back to the Marquis de Sade and Baudelaire;...
. In April 2007 he wrote in this magazine an article for the death birthday of Philippe Muray, titled Muray est une fête (Muray is a feast).
In his last novel "La cité heureuse", published in August 2007, a big company (in French La Compagnie) acquired a whole city and turned it to a cultural theme park. Its inhabitants work as activity leaders. One of them, a TV series scriptwriter tries to adapt to this new life. Also published in 2007 "Ma belle époque", a collection of texts issued in different French newspapers, compose what Duteurtre thinks to be like a self-portrait of himself.
Present times
Benoît Duteurtre is currently a journalist writing for several French newspapers as Marianne, le Figaro and Paris-Match and presents a radio show producer for France MusiqueFrance Musique
France Musique is a French public radio station devoted to music, including classical music and jazz. France Musique was created in 1954 as Chaîne Haute-Fidélité then renamed 1958 as France IV Haute Fidélité, then RTF Haute Fidélité in 1963, and finally France Musique in same year...
, a French public radio. He is also a member of the publisher Editions Denoël's reading committee. His books have been translated in fifteen languages.
Duteurtre works with the actress Fanny Ardant
Fanny Ardant
Fanny Marguerite Judith Ardant is a French actress. She has appeared in more than fifty motion pictures since 1976. Ardant won the César Award for Best Actress in 1997 for her performance in Pédale douce.-Early life:...
on Véronique, an operetta from André Messager
André Messager
André Charles Prosper Messager , was a French composer, organist, pianist, conductor and administrator. His stage compositions included ballets and 30 opéra comiques and operettas, among which Véronique, had lasting success, with Les p'tites Michu and Monsieur Beaucaire also enjoying international...
for January 2008.
Novels
- (1985) Sommeil Perdu
- (1987) Les vaches
- (1989) L'amoureux malgré lui
- (1992) Tout doit disparaître
- (1996) Gaieté parisienne
- (1997) Drôle de temps
- (1999) Les malentendus
- (2000) À propos des vaches
- (2000) Les belles lettres
- (2001) Le voyage en France
- (2003) Service Clientèle
- (2004) La Rebelle
- (2005) La petite fille et la cigarette
- (2006) Chemin de fer
- (2007) Ma belle époque
Essays
- (1995) Requiem pour une avant-garde
- (1997) L'opérette en France
- (2002) Le grand embouteillage
Papers and short stories in
- Revues Minuit
- L'Infini
- L'Atelier du roman
- Nouvelle revue française
- Le débat
- Revue des deux mondes
- NRV
- Commentaire
Common books under the direction of Duteurtre
- (1991) 150 ans de musique française
- (2002) Un siècle d'Opéra
- (2003) Paris, capitale de la musique, 1850–1950
- (2003) André Messager