Antoine Compagnon - 155 - Alain Elkann Interviews

[Music] welcome to the Alan elkan interviews an unprecedented window into the minds of some of the most well-known and respected figures of the last 25 years so we are here to move in Paris with Miss Antoine companion who has been appointed in February 2022 and he has been investedly elected on May 20th French academician Francais as we all know she is a professor at the college de France he is Professor since 1985 at Columbia University of French literature and now he has been recently appointed writer in Residence at Museum of the Louvre where we are now and we are in the Islamic wing of the museum has been built not so long ago and we will talk about Professor companion about his life about his true work his story in his life and now this new Venture I mean two new Ventures together Academy francaise one side of the sand move the other side of the sand so you just have a bridge across the bridge exactly exactly and the Louvre is exactly midpoint between my home on the right Bank of the Sun and my office at the Collision Falls so for many years I've been walking through the courtyard on the road which is really on my way and now since the decision was made that I would be a writer in a residence at the law I stopped not every day but twice three times a week on my way and now it's even closer to the academy francaise there are the best views on the institute on the cupola The Institute is from the gallery company on the the second floor of the Greek length they say you started by the Egyptian collection you will not imagine that later in your life you would be a kid now as he dance in this Museum right no not at all what does it mean for you to do this thing what do you have to do why why did I accept so first when I was a child a boy for a couple of years we lived in Paris in the late 1950s early 1960s and I was in Middle School years earlier and so in the class of CCM which is Middle School the program was Antiquity Greek and Egyptian but we started with Egypt always so we were taken to the loop and I came to the Louvre with my mother and my sister but remember this was a very small move we just saw the entrance to that Wing which was there was no pyramid there was there was no pyramid the other side was the Ministry of Finance the whole side Underwood River this it was a small Louvre and also it was 1950s early 1960s it was before tourism took over so it was empty the Louvre was still empty at the time the Louvre used to be a place where you would give appointments you just I mean if you read the jeet's diary on his way from Ute to the Cartier he would make a stop at the roof not every day but almost every day it was on his way you would come in and out and just check one painting or one sculpture a piece and now the room has changed the Louvre is completely well it's the only one of that scale it's huge I mean the only one that can be compared to the Louvre is the most populated Museum in New York because there is also an Egyptian Wing in London the National Gallery it's only paintings and then you go to the British museum so the Louvre has a combination which is uh unique the size of the Louvre compared to the Metropolitan Museum in New York even if the Metropolitan is quite Universal and it's French and the difference between the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum in New York is that the lure is more popular when you go to the Met there's a more of the census when Elite that goes to the Metropolitan Museum in New York no visitor who comes to Paris will not come to the Louvre which makes it the State Museum yes somehow private even if it's highly subsidized by the city it's a private Museum yes the Louvre is a national museum and one cannot forget a huge difference also is that the Louvre is not only a museum it's a palace so people also come to visit the Kings the history of the Kings yes one of the discoveries for everybody for me when the new Loop was opened was the underground the the medieval Lou it was a discovery for the archaeologists nobody knew that you would find under the Louvre were moats and dungeon and is still very impressive I mean each time I come I want to go to see the the medieval Louvre it's never finished the Louvre is an example of an architecture that will never be finished it's always in progress always in construction it is what does it mean what do you have to do when they contacted me which was in late all I was still in New York it was appealing to be a right advising as a little because of the connection in my life in the history of Paris but then what should I do what was the point what do you do so what are you going to do you have to write so we decided we discussed what I would do and the menu or the formula that we decided was that I would hide twice a week to short it's like a blog like a conical of the Louvre it will be about 700 800 characters with a photograph that I take with my phone because it's not a professional photograph but I it's really a Chronicle on the life of the Louvre why did you decide to start our interview here in the Islamic week do you have a special attachment to this place not in front of La joconda yes not in front of the summer we're not in front of the main we decided to come here because it's generally a very quiet place today it's very busy because we are it's already almost summer and there are a lot of visitors but I've been here during the winter and I was alone in this circle so this is a sort of Circle of meditation in the Islamic Wing when people can come and we cannot forget that a visit to the Louvre you walk miles in the Louvre if you go from One Wing to the other from the Napoleon the third Apartments to the Mona Lisa it's a long walk yeah maybe people visit what they like or what they are competent no some come when Egypt orders come from well they all go to the Mona Lisa they all go they all go but of course there are homes in Duluth that are always empty if you go and see we will not go because it's really the other end but if you go to the Pusa home which is one of the most and who was a fanatic of Busan we would spend the afternoon in front of the Pusa it's empty so I will certainly in the course of my year at the Louvre spent a day in the Busan who has very few Works left in Italy yes yes it's buried in Rome yes yes and he lived most of his life in Italy and so there are for instance another home that's always empty which I like a lot is the tipolo very small chipolo it's always empty but then you go to the ground gallery and it's full of people so yes people can choose and this is what I do now because I come for an hour every couple of days and you started with the Islamic Art no I came to this Islamic Art after a couple of videos it's what I like in the Islamic Art is the obscurity it's a nice place to meditate but all these connections that you mentioned are they themselves important museums this is an important Islamic collection yes obviously it is the great connection is important the Roman collection of each department of the law is really important for its visitors for its connections for its history and is the Egyptian Wing the most visited and many other Museum they talked about the Metropolitan or the British museum the the Egypt if you go to the Sphinx I started my Chronicle with these things yes and it's next to the medieval love so everybody goes through the room is the things and then if you go to the mummy it's always crowded and you can understand why it's quite fascinating because the lure is also a cemetery if you go to the Egyptian way it's a word so I will write two Chronicles a week on everything that has to do with the love so it will be paintings sculptures but it will also be the life of the do the visitors per year so it means about 100 short texts and then you will put them into a book or you publish a book it's worth it I can't promise that it I wrote about 30 already so I know that it's feasible before committing signing I tied to write 30 and saw that there was diversity and richness you come to the Louvre it's closed so they I can come on Tuesday when it's closed I might at some point come and try to spend the night in the loo which would be nice because the people who know the Louisville best those who are in the Louvre at night the fireman I was told that those who really know all the stairs don't get lost what happened that museums as you said before empty or foreignly to people and suddenly the music Zoom becomes a center of thousands hundreds of thousands of people attached the democratization of culture the commodification of art it's the same in most countries but they're all over the world is the epitome or that movement which is yes Universal when you go to a museum anywhere in the world I was in Tokyo a couple of weeks ago and there was an exhibition of the Louvre in Tokyo and it was much more crowded that it was about 60 paintings from the loop exhibited in Tokyo all about love and love and the Louvre became a brand now you have moved the Louvre is a brand but we have a one has to accept this is the very important cultural brand yes you do this you love us different Arts this Museum but mainly I mean your life is interesting because you started as an engineer in your life right yes so you were a proper engineer and then suddenly you decided to change and to devote your life to literature and yes and then became a friend and you started getting involved into the Contemporary and past literature French literature becoming an expert on but later on through stems and so how come why did you because the explanation is probably that selection in France is made for the Sciences mathematics and physics I was a good student in mathematics I went to the global Polytechnic which is where you go if you were that you could have been to Diego no like many other intellectuals or yes I didn't have much initiative being good in mathematics I was sent to Legal Polytechnic and when I was at the corporate technique I also went to the salon to check what was being done and then literature but I didn't know that it would become the main commitment professional commitment so it changed little by little then I wrote a dissertation in literature and after that I switched into this Edition in the Polytechnic no no no afterwards because I became an engineer so I started but he worked as an engineer I worked for one year briefly yes and then you changed and then I got a fellowship to write a dissertation which was in literature what was your dissertation it's my first book it's on quotation what quotation means what quotation is the history of quotation my first book which is published under the title the second chance on but why were in the same time fascinated among the friends of the circle of all about he was somehow someone who wanted to change the idea of literature right and in the same time they say about you that you are probably the most knowledgeable expert and Scholar of posts how does it worked like first we did first one of us was a disciple of read when he was young but then he switched to protest in his later years so bajid who didn't want to publish truth but Bart was not a scholar in the sense that he worked very little he didn't try to go to libraries he works mainly at home with what he had but was very influential I mean the influence of Bert on my early years was very powerful I saw him work and I learned from seeing how someone would work and write and research but I obviously was not that enthralled by the theory the moment or theory of literature those years 1970s I think this is because I came from the hard sciences and that I didn't want to apply those scientific or pseudoscientific models through the humanities I was a bit wary of the application of the scientific models to literature when did you discover Bruce why it became so important for you I mean you have been curated your written books and my first reading of course was when I was 16 17 so at that point I was studying mathematics it was a very good Counterpoint I was reading post every evening and studying mathematics during the day so I read most as no matter I read Post in 1966 1967 when Bruce was published in paperback I am a child of this democratization of culture also it was became available as a paperback I bought it and I read it and I loved it and later I started working on the technical editions of course what made me uh post the specialist is working on the critical editions in the early 1980s when a new player the new edition of the player was under preparation at that point I worked in London and I worked with genre with a major post scholar we got along well he was the director of the French Institute in London I taught it at French Institute he asked me if I would work with him on the edition of Houston that's how I really became knowledgeable because then you have to work on the manuscripts of geotechnacional so you said you knew Philip so I knew feeling well working on the manuscripts it was a very distinguished Specialist of course now some people although knows a lot about Bruce's life and these Oddities his asthma his money his way of writing and so on so forth his friends but why post is so important in the French literature I mean in the same literature where you had flop air where you have some that way exactly your plenty of other big writers what is so special about I can tell you that I I'm also surprised by the sort of universality of course so last year was 2022 we sent 100 years after Paul's death so there were many celebrations three exhibitions in Paris many books were published all over the world I was overwhelmed I didn't expect such a huge event surrounding and I have to say that one can be a bit worried that push extinguishes all the rest of French literature at this point most other they're sort of Monopoly of course on French literature and historically most European literatures were encapsulated in one writer in the 19th century there was a Dante for Italy Shakespeare cielandes uh Goethe and there was no equivalent for fancy directory fancy literature was never identified with one only either they were always couples who was there and also cornet and hassin one could never decide who represented in the 19th century so now of course this is a mother of the past but that was again representative of Russian literature at that period at the time of these emergence of the national literature just Pushkin was the Russian writer it says before yeah but I mean for instance not that I know much but flauber invented something right yes yes and then Joyce Joyce somehow with another giants like a truth to followed so what did Kush Inventus invented childhood sexuality he's a contemporary of Freud the celebrity of post really started in the 1950s 1960s because until then trust was very much identified with snobism and aristocracy it wasn't that popular but I mentioned that 1966 said when it was published in paperback and this is really when he was extracted from the ghetto of Snuggies and also it's the time when most of the witnesses had died so he was no longer possessed by those who wrote their memories of posts who published their letters of posts he started being really read for his work in the late 1950s it's the same time when Freud became really important the first became a brand that doesn't them as as Freud then processed a very striking combination I often say post is at the same time Balzac and blancho so it's easy to read like Balzac because it's comic there are characters these characters are types it's a lot of fun to discover a number of characters are still and at the same time there is a philosophical theoretical metaphysical dimension in post which is much closer to what you would expect from a very modernist so what you said about snobism and aristocracy but Zack was known for money right for social achievement I mean each writer has a metaphor yes it doesn't really matter what is the it doesn't really matter after a while this is what push to discussed in the control Sandberg he said that the mistake of sunberg was to read literature from the point of view of the life of the author of his friends of his loves and this is what was done we trust for a number of years until most of the witnesses had disappeared and at the end of the day is Bruce still a big it's a landmark in the French literature I believe so and this was Poland but what took place last year in 2022. I'm not sure that all the visitors of the free exhibitions have had posts or will repost after visiting the exhibition but what is very sight thinking is that it's not only in French and in France that post has this universe this Dimension is translated in all languages and but if I at this point he was always well read in English the translation in English biography painter and the Scott Moncrief translation was very early and there was always a lot of appeal for posts in the English so what you said that is easy to read it's also a key no I mean not everybody's reading choice because yes yes yes I'm reading uh the waves which I haven't read since I was 20 but I have to read it because I'm asked to discuss it and the waves is much more difficult much more difficult to read than post no doubt in the same time the post is a novelist a big writer but you have also very big interest in Butler yes and what is interesting is that Butler was all he wrote books on Art and he was a poet of course that's why so well known but at the same time well there was a frequent visitor yeah he came to the river he was a generation who came to the river on a daily basis when he wanted to see his mother his mother lived on the pleasure Dome his father's wife his mother was he gave acquaintance to his mother this is what people did in the 19th century it was a place Gathering encounter yes where you lived Butler another giant yes I think so suppose they understand why but then evil it's probably the most important collection of poetry nowadays it was not always the case it's the one that most French students have studied and that they know and I think deservedly again Butler is it's a bit like has the advantage of being at the same time a modernist writer but still having this link with the tradition of poetry what I love about border is at the same time the respect for the Alexandra and what he does with it but it's not yet reverse it's not reverse it's really the the limit of what can be done with the Alexa man in 205 you published this ultimate there yes can you tell me a little bit I mean you wrote many other books equally good and so on so forth but until then is you know each writer has a book or a couple of books that people remember the example of the antimony on the best the model of the automation is what I just described Butler is a modernist he is the inventor of what we call in French I mean the word was used a little before him but he really created this word of modernity and at the same time Butler is someone who resists against progress modernity photography the big city the bulbar so he has this sort of passion for modernity which includes Obsession and resistance and so the model being berlaire my argument in this book is that most authentic moderns have a resistance to modernity there's no real modern artists without this element of regret progress implies in French what is a Nostalgia for the past which is the sense of the loss of the past in other words the inevitability of future the innovative ability of that flaws there is a sense of mourning which goes with modernity and this appears psychingly with Bolero which is the middle of the 19th century with the Industrial Revolution with the political revolution of 1848 with photography which he considers you see Butler we have about 14 photos they are all beautiful so he knows he controls the medium of Photography because he is the one who's been able to pose for the best photographies of writer that we have and at the same time he hates photography his best friend is nada but Nadar is also a sort of a great enemy with his body's enemy so there's a sense of you know fighting against NADA but at the same time he knows that Nadal is the future so in buddhaire you have if you go to the spleen De Paris the those poems this sort of a contradiction which is for me the condition of the artist there has to be this sort of division between the modern and the resistance modernity I compare to many I mean there's this exhibition on media on the other side of the sun which is a great exhibition and money is more or less the same attitude as you're there and of course but there is very hard on ballet when he says you're the first you'll promise probably the most important of the impression yes for me even if there is some going in there but what is interesting in your life is that all what we talk about from the Louvre to Butler to prove to your studies it's very Paris sent it right I mean this is very much Paris you are very much embarrassed as we said the beginning because you are the new College to Force Academy build everything in Paris but since a long time you're professor in New York yes of French literature how is it first you Penn then Columbia University I mean why did you go to America and how is it how the French studies perceived in the United States and you have mainly American students or nowadays where there are many Asian or third worlds they come from everywhere you know so and what do you teach yeah so I spent part of my childhood in the United States I was in high school in the United States so part of my education was there at some point Colombia asked me if I wanted to apply for a job and I did and at that point it was tempting and part of my life sentimental life was also in the so I decided to leave and I taught her about a dozen years full time at Columbia then I came back at the samba and then I was professor at the Salmon but I never resigned for my job so I still go to Colombia every form I've been doing that for almost 40 years how is the health of the friendship that is the university in the United States the university when I went to well you know American universities when I went to Columbia in 1985 which is a long time ago it was a completely different University from what it is today exactly we had the grand Luv Colombia it's a global Colombia Colombia is most American universities nowaday is a global University when you go on campus you see people from every part of the world it was not the case in 1985 in 1985 Colombia was still I won't say that it was a New York institution but it was very close to the city of New York most of the faculty was from the area still had been received a university a college education the first generation going to college from families of the area of course in American universities there always have been many professors from all parts of the world in 1985 Colombia was still under the not influence the authority of professors who had left Germany in the 1930s in the Italian Department who was a German Jew we'd been in Italy until 1938 and then went to the United States was still The Authority in the humanity so in 1985 Colombia was a European University in its Spirit it was my parents went to Columbia University so it was it was a European Union university university I knew in 1985. now when you go on campus it's completely different University it's a global it's a global University when I first went to Colombia we were probably two French professors there were one in mathematics in me in French now you look at the economics Department it's all not all many French professors your French professors in the Japanese studies here people from all over the world and there's a program between Colombia and cianco so you have students in my seminars I have students from sales Pro because they do two years at Searsport two years at Columbia what do you teach I teach I teach every year I teach a different I teach two seminars before what is going to be so next for there will be a seminar on the Dreyfus Affair both politics history culture painting literature so now there will be sorry there will be posts there will be a natural insurance also blue more and the other seminar will be on post and Colette because I worked on Colette recently published a book on Colette Frozen Colette were contemporaries there are many points of comparison and confrontation post and collect you were talking about Bruce as a major event unique yes so as you are a scholar or a Critic of French literature maybe what's the difference between the number one probably a genius and the others because in France you had almost contemporary you had Celine you had the writers were very famous like yeah until today right even well back or the writers who are famous in the world what is the difference first I would say wrote only one book series [Music] only one book and he died when he finished before he was finished it would have been different if he had lived longer like Mountain Moten was writing when he died so there is a the monumentality also related to the fact that he wrote only one book and he tried tried it he started he gave up and finally he succeeded in writing our share so it's a monument for that reason it's a monument also because it touches all themes that still and will always be of concern to all of us as I said childhood love death sexuality all types of sexuality the Arts music painting literature everything is in hostage best thing of the black world of from other continents sexualities perceived differently is Bruce still still relevant yeah I used to say for many years post was read although he was Jewish and homosexual and after a certain time let's say 20 or 30 years ago he started being read because he was Jewish and homosexual so he benefited from a sort of marginality if he was white I mean wealthy of course he was he was yes but there are elements of marginality that have been attacked active up to now and what we observed last year is that these elements are still powerful in the attraction that the first exercises so I think we haven't seen the end we might see it I mean I don't say that in 10 years 20 years will occupy the same space but let's say probably 20 years ago I wrote in pianohas and I said that the post celebrity had reached is pick Acme and I was proven home what is very interesting is in the French intellectual World a person a critique with nothing to do with you like remote Fernandez yes in the middle of his Nazi for Lee he writes an essay on process during the war right so I mean complexity of the French intellectual is quite interesting right in fact the politics are one thing literature and something else in a way they are full of contradictions she was a very contradictory time of course you cannot expect people to be coherent I mean of course the example that's always excited is that post obtained the premium and he was his champion and not only that but who's had been the ladder of Luciano his younger brother when he was an adolescent so leandroday would defend the lover of his brother this sounds quite yeah it is literature you are now in the temple in the Museum of Arts and World Arts answer very fashionable nowadays very these crowds of people and even in the social life of people right literature in the world is less fashionable right much less than it used to be how is it in France is literature less fashionable I don't know the problem about literature nowadays in our age is that it takes time to read reading cannot be accelerated and we are in a world where we expect gains of productivity in all activities and if there is one activity where there can be no gains of productivity it's hidden if you read faster you don't read well so there hasn't been any progress since the Greeks in terms of leading but once upon a time you know even if you wanted to be a businessman or a politician you were studying in English in England they said you were reading English Greek absolutely now it is Humanity what we call Humanity including what you do in America are plunging I mean it's true less and less money Humanities less and less student suit because they want immediate results and so on so forth yeah is this a big Calamity for you oh it's less I went to the technical Polytechnic where I studied trying to convince the students that if they read they will be better Engineers or better whatever they do I think one is better in any activity as an engineer as a lawyer as whatever as a doctor if one reads it gives you a plus it gives Reading literature reading literature philosopher or poetry reading gives you a plus I gave a lecture not a couple of years ago at uh I should say the title was I think you're better in any job if you are a reader and this is because I wasn't invited exactly and I wasn't there and when they introduced you recently yes to the academy for sale right yes obviously I presume that it were flattered you know to be elected imagine yes but what did they say about you why you were elected what did fionaire give he said in intellectual yeah writing story and historian way and he as an academician according to tradition he introduced he gave its response as a new academician you speak of your predecessor and then he responds and speaks about a new member and what did he say about you well he said that he had known me for her 40 years he said that I was a hard worker he had seen me working hard for many years what did you learned from her did that I learned from phone number and from Marley who I also mentioned earlier in our conversation well piano is also my publisher so he published a number of books at gallima so he mentioned those books but he also mentioned the books that I published before joining the Lima which were at the same my first books were published with sorry so he mentioned those books it was moved I didn't realize that he liked me so much I didn't realize that he was really a very as Perfection and another two are an academician that you have your Spade you have yours yes what are you going to do there there's a meeting every Thursday afternoon to discuss the dictionary the main mission of the academy francaise is the language French language I already had a couple of Thursdays on the dictionary and then you have responsibilities you can be consulted on a number of issues and then you have elections and so it's interesting to have new responsibilities so Antoine company no in New York but in Paris your life is on the pastel to the academy to the Louvre how is it this makes makes your life more interesting I like the pondisa the point is uh the bridge between the Lord and the academy is quite interesting but what I also want to write about Duluth is all the people in the loop those who work in the loop those who visit the loop and to see how yeah that's we see here now it's Again full of people who are taking uh a lot of different ages ages ages countries it's lovely to be in the room so I will stop and then I will go by the pondes are to the other side of the of the sense but in the same time because you're also between two Ocean between two countries divided by another is there a big difference between life in America again less than 40 years ago 40 years ago when I went to New York to teach at Colombia I mean this was before the internet so it was fun yeah it was far I remember when I first went uh through New York 1985 if I wanted to read Le Bond I had to walk at least 30 blocks now have it by the minute again it's a completely different world what's fascinating is that it takes longer to go to New York because of security at the airports and it was faster 50 years ago yeah because the planes are more or less the same the planes are the same my last question which has nothing to do with the law nothing to do with academics for sales or closed captioning not available is involved in intellectual life and not only intellectual life for jobs I mean all activities are concerned by artificial intelligence at this point are you all refined by the me too who is changing names canceling which happens in museums too right I mean there are some very important artists who are now banished or forget I can say that I'm horrified but I'm certainly worried about what goes on I've seen it for instance at the probably not yet at the loom but at the Metropolitan Museum in New York they put warnings I remember a couple of years ago there was a baltus so at the Metropolitan Museum and warnings and a number of the labels about the young girls in in the Valdez and at some point we will probably know longer see the the batteries this is the strange yes is very different in France from the Americans the problem in France it hasn't probably reached the point where this movement is active in the United States but you see if you compare American universities and French universities the problem is that in French everything is National so everything is centralized so once this movement will be very active it will be more dominant in front in France because in the United States it can affect certain zones the United States is not centralized it's France yes so it is it better from certain point of view yes yes I have been living for too long in the United States not to be rather liberal in the French sense in the sense of is it Museum like to live better run as a state museum or the Metropolitan and the priority I think the Louvre is quite well run they take great initiatives like having a writer and residence for instance but I I like the Metropolitan Museum blood which is a museum that I do I mean I go to the Cooperative Museum you are in New York but in the year the celebration museum is open on Friday and Saturday night in the evening so the best times to go to the Met is on Friday from six to nine and I do it not almost every week so two love affairs New York and Paris yes and the Metropolitan I've been Colombia in the College of France I've been commuting between New York and Paris for almost 40 years and I would probably stop at some point but we don't know where it's in New York or in Paris thank you very much for this conversation and good luck for you writing in Residence and anything else thank you thank you Alan Alcan interviews