Résumé :
The first novel in nearly a decade from Myla Goldberg, the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Bee Season—a compelling and wholly original story about a female photographer grappling with ambition and motherhood, a balancing act familiar to women of every generation.
Feast Your Eyes, framed as the catalogue notes from a photography show at the Museum of Modern Art, tells the life story of Lillian Preston: “America’s Worst Mother, America’s Bravest Mother, America’s Worst Photographer, or America’s Greatest Photographer, depending on who was talking.” After discovering photography as a teenager through her high school’s photo club, Lillian rejects her parents’ expectations of college and marriage and moves to New York City in 1955. When a small gallery exhibits partially nude photographs of Lillian and her daughter Samantha, Lillian is arrested, thrust into the national spotlight, and targeted with an obscenity charge. Mother and daughter’s sudden notoriety changes the course of both of their lives and especially Lillian’s career as she continues a life-long quest for artistic legitimacy and recognition.
Narrated by Samantha, Feast Your Eyes reads as a collection of Samantha’s memories, interviews with Lillian’s friends and lovers, and excerpts from Lillian’s journals and letters—a collage of stories and impressions, together amounting to an astounding portrait of a mother and an artist dedicated, above all, to a vision of beauty, truth, and authenticity.
Voici une traduction personnelle du résumé ci-dessus :
TRADUCTION A VENIR
Extrait :
Greenwich Village, 1953–54
1. Untitled [Prentice High Camera Club, Cleveland], 1951 Unknown photographer
Feast your eyes, America. Here she is: America’s Worst Mother, America’s Bravest Mother, America’s Worst Photographer, or America’s Greatest Photographer—depending on who’s talking—as an anonymous high school junior, sporting the same light blouse/dark skirt combo and fake smile as the other girls. Look for a face with wide-set eyes and bangs at the end of the Camera Club’s second row. Lilly Preston, who was never elected to class office or Most or Best anything. Other than Honor Society, this was the only high school club she was in.
Don’t blame me for the pencil marks. I never touched my mother’s photos. The first circled face is her photography teacher, Mr. Clark. The second is the Camera Club’s president, Sam Decker, “the best photographer no one ever heard of.” That description, which Lillian added whenever she showed off this picture, was the only time I heard her deploy anything resembling sarcasm.
Apparently my mother started writing Sam when she was a high school senior, at which point he’d already enlisted in the army and was serving in Korea. As far as I know, she never showed anyone else the letters she sent to him, the drafts of which she wrote in her journal. And because I only ever violated her privacy in the usual places—her bedside table, her bureau, beneath her mattress—I never found them. Not that I considered her photo boxes any more sacred than her underwear drawer, but at the time of my rabidly dysfunctional adolescence (not to be confused with my rabidly dysfunctional adulthood), fooling with those boxes would have implied an interest in her photography.
LETTER TO SAM DECKER, JUNE 1953: My Dearest Darling, I did it. After all these months of writing and planning and worrying, getting on that bus was the second-hardest thing I’ve ever done. The hardest was telling Father that instead of enrolling at Ursuline College, as he and Mother expected, I plan to attend photography classes at the New School. It’s funny: since I was little, I knew I was meant to live differently from others, I just wasn’t sure how or why. And so I earned decent grades and washed the dishes and ironed my skirts and spoke in turn, which led people to see me as a “good” girl, when really I was just waiting for that different life to reveal itself. Just as I was beginning to worry that waiting was all there would ever be, I picked up a camera—but you know this already. You’re the only one who understands when I say that making pictures makes me fully and truly myself.
Thanks so much for the early anniversary present. I know how much we both like to complain about the mail but this time, at least, the army came through because it arrived the week before I left for New York. I don’t have pierced ears, but they’re such lovely earrings that I may need to change that so I can wear them properly—perhaps in time for our actual anniversary two months from now, especially if you’re back by then and we can celebrate together. In the meantime, they make marvelous pins to fasten to my blouse. Whenever I look at them, I imagine I was with you in Kyoto during those five days on leave. It’s hard to believe it’s only been ten months since my first letter introduced you to a certain Camera Club member who spent her junior year admiring you and your prints without ever saying hello. Even as I rue the distance between here and Korea, I cannot avoid the strange truth of us: had you stayed in Cleveland, I’d never have summoned the courage to make any introductions at all. If you hadn’t enlisted, we’d still be strangers, and I would probably be pinning an Ursuline pennant to my bedroom wall.
I won’t go into the gory details of Father’s reaction after I told him about New York, but when he finally realized he couldn’t stop me, he decided he’d rather help than “throw me to the wolves.” Never in a million years would I have thought I’d be grateful for his asking the pastor about Christian rooming establishments, but Katharine House is nicer than any hotel I’d have been able to afford, and being around other gals who are also new to the city feels a little less like living with strangers. The only problem is that the quiet girl with bangs who sat in the back row of Camera Club has followed me here. There are days I don’t say more than five words between getting out of bed and returning to my room at the end of the day. Luckily, I’ve got my pictures. I’m taking rolls and rolls of them, and though I haven’t developed any yet (the basic amenities here don’t include a darkroom), I can see so many of them in my mind that they supply their own sort of company.
TRADUCTION A VENIR
Extrait de Feast your eyes
Mon avis :
D'abord très intriguée par la forme que prend ce roman, j'ai ensuite été complètement séduite par l'histoire folle de cette photographe racontée par sa fille. Présenter un roman sous une forme de catalogue d'exposition de photos, c'est clairement une excellente idée. Ça fonctionne à merveille.
Ce roman est tellement riche ! Les thèmes abordés sont profonds et nombreux : le rapport à la maternité, le rapport au travail, à l'art, la place qu'on a dans la société ou celle qu'on décide d'avoir, l'amour et les relations et combinaisons entre tous ces thèmes.
Lillian Preston est un personnage qui n'en démord pas, elle se bat pour ses convictions et pour ce qu'elle veut faire de sa vie, peu importe le regard des autres. Elle place son ambition de photographe au-dessus de sa vie de famille et ça détonne. Mais qu'est-ce que ça fait du bien de voir ça. On découvre alors toutes les conséquences de ce choix sur sa vie, celle de sa fille, Samantha, et sur l'image qu'elle renvoie.
C'est vraiment un roman très poignant où l'on apprend à connaître les personnages en profondeurs et on s'attache, par conséquent, très fortement à eux. On s'immisce dans leur vie intime, on découvre leurs secrets, leurs manies, comme si l'on vivait avec eux.
Un très beau roman que je conseille pour ceux qui souhaitent rire, pleurer, être choqué, révolté et pénétrer les intrigues, les secrets et les drames d'une famille un peu particulière pour l'époque.
Ma note :
17/20
Infos complémentaires :
Genre : Historique
Editions : Scribner
Date de parution : 2020
Date de parution : 2020
Nombre de pages : 336
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