French Literature Reviews - 2026
T. Maugenest, Les Rillettes de Proust, et autres fantaisies littéraires
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics
Les Rillettes de Proust - Et autres fantaisies littéraires
Thierry Maugenest
Published on: 14/01/2010
Publisher: Hugo et Compagnie
ISBN: 978-2-7556-0480-1
EAN: 9782755604801
No. of pages: 106 pages
Publisher price: 12.95€
Passionate about literature? Dreaming of embarking on a writing career? Considering penning the next masterpiece of French letters? Planning to become an academician or win the Nobel Prize? This little book is made for you! The fifty practical tip-sheets found in the pages that follow, abundantly illustrated with well-known or previously unpublished texts, will in turn allow you to earn the coveted label: master-writer.
The author:
Thierry Maugenest
Born in 1964, he has traveled widely and lived in Italy for several years before taking up the pen. From Venise.net to Audimat Circus, via Manuscrit ms 408 and La poudre des rois, his four novels (published by Liana Levi) are all atypical detective stories, blending eras and narrative techniques, fueled by deep erudition and great intelligence. Today he lives in Aix-en-Provence, his hometown, and is working on a new fiction - another thriller.
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On l'express.fr, two reviews of this book:
• Stop everything and rush to the bookstore! Here is the book you need. Especially if you too - no, don't deny it... - secretly dream of becoming a Master-Writer. The author is a joker, deeply passionate about literature, and his name is Thierry Maugenest. This work is destined to become a classic: it is essential, hilarious, eccentric, delightfully politically incorrect and - to top it all off - remarkably published (ah, those pages you have to carefully cut open to read them...). Funnier than Lagarde and Michard, more effective than Jourde & Naulleau, here is *Les Rillettes de Proust*. If you have zero imagination, not an ounce of talent, and not a trace of genius, this book will quickly become your best friend.
Thus we learn, right from the first pages, how to churn out a masterpiece without breaking a sweat: "Go to your library and copy the first words of the novels of your choice. With a lot of patience and a bit of luck, you will write a coherent work at minimal cost." What follows is a genuinely wonderful text composed of the incipits of *Mangeclous* (Albert Cohen), *The Verdict* (Kafka), *Mont-Oriol* (Maupassant), *The Red Grass* (Boris Vian), *Time Regained* (Proust)... Proust, precisely, gives this "manual" all its flavor. His example will inspire the most absent-minded among you not to confuse your dishes any more than your words. Imagine if the famous madeleine had accidentally turned into rillettes! Do not hesitate either to borrow from the works of your peers: the greatest have done it, especially when they were busy complaining about awful plagiarists ("Ô temps ! suspends ton vol", by the delicate Lamartine, actually belongs to the lesser-known Antoine Léonard Thomas, a minor poet and regular at Mme de Staël's salons). To fully grasp the necessity of not burdening your works with useless adverbs, reflect on the meaning of the additions in the following text and ask yourself whether they truly energize Rimbaud's poem: "I went off spontaneously, my hands in my undeniably torn pockets; My overcoat too was becoming absolutely ideal; I walked slowly under the sky, Muse! and I was unfailingly your loyal servant..." Let's give it a standing ovation. Erudition and humor, when they reach this level, leave you with only one desire: to read, read, read!
• Here is a hilarious, irreverent, eccentric, and wonderfully literary little book. Aimed precisely at literature enthusiasts and anyone with an itch for writing, *Les Rillettes de Proust* sets out to deliver a wealth of sound advice to help readers earn the highly coveted "master-writer" label. The result: fifty "tip-sheets" to learn how to court the Muse, mastering the "right word" while avoiding pleonasms and useless adverbs. To achieve this, Thierry Maugenest does not merely draw from the rich corpus of literary masterpieces; he excels above all at subverting them. Published in recent weeks, this charmingly old-school, vellum-paper booklet with uncut pages deserves not to go unnoticed. It is not too late to buy it right away: if it doesn't spark your inspiration, it will certainly tickle your funny bone!
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Humorous guides and manuals addressing the craft of writing have a long tradition in French literature, often blending playful satire with genuine affection for the canon. Works of this nature frequently lean on pastiche and parody, offering readers an eccentric angle from which to view the conventions of composition, style, and literary ambition. By juxtaposing mock-serious advice with canonical references, authors engage in a longstanding intellectual game that questions the boundaries between creation, imitation, and plagiarism within the broader landscape of publishing and literary history.
This book contains fifty practical tip-sheets illustrated with well-known or previously unpublished texts. It touches upon topics such as avoiding pleonasms and useless adverbs, and incorporates examples derived from authors like Albert Cohen, Kafka, Maupassant, Boris Vian, and Proust. Readers interested in lighthearted approaches to French literature and writing may find these humorous reflections relevant to their tastes.