vertigo of the helix

Vincent Borel

(Sabine Wespieser Editeur, 224 pages, 2021)

On this December 1889 evening, on the wharves of Cadiz, the silhouette of a small, middle-aged man wearing a worn felt hat, too narrow for his imposing forehead, attracts the eye. Charles Sannois, who claims to be a wine merchant, has fled Paris, the mourning of his mother, and an Asian flu epidemic spreading throughout the world. He is waiting to embark for the Canary Islands, longing for blue skies and peace. 

Meanwhile, panic is spreading at the Paris opera: the composer of Ascanio, the famous Camille Saint-Saëns, who is as feared as he is adored, has disappeared since his umpteenth argument with the director of the establishment. The work is not yet completed, the mezzo-soprano the master required has failed to show up, nothing is possible without him, and the printing of the programs is still underway. 

In Las Palmas, the man who we understand to be none other than the composer, whose absence sparks wild rumors in his country’s newspapers, relishes his solitude. Saint-Saëns, alias Sannois, needs to heal his wounds: the death of his beloved mother has rekindled the grief of other losses, that of his friend and mentor, but also those of his two young children, born from an arranged marriage that soon disintegrated. This man with a hectic life, a major figure of the French Third Republic with an artistic career at the height of its glory, reconnects with the simple joys of an anonymous life. But he misses music, and when, during a walk in the old town, he hears his Danse macabre being played, he cannot resist the urge to burst into the lavish house from which the piano melody pours out. His encounter with the young doorman, taken by surprise by his impetuous arrival, will change the rhythm of his days. Jonay will act as his guide until the inevitable end of his stay, revealing the telluric and sensual power of the island. 

This solar parenthesis of a musician in need of consolation is quickly transformed into a pas de deux between these two beings that are seemingly very different… But the sensitivity and clairvoyance of the young man, who managed to perceive the sorrow of his companion, will soon abolish the distance between them. Three months after his arrival, Saint-Saëns, whose absence still makes the newspapers’ headlines, is recognized by a tourist, thus ending his escape. It will have given rise, under the buoyant pen of Vincent Borel, to a magnificent portrait of the artist’s rebirth under the intense light of the Atlantic. 

Born in Gap in 1962, Vincent Borel lives between Paris, where he works as a music critic, and the Southern Alps. Vertige de l’hélice is his tenth novel, in a body of work that has a strong focus on music. Vertigo of the helix is published in the year celebrating the centenary of Camille Saint-Saëns’ death (9 October 1835 - 16 December 1921.)