Numéro Deux by David Foenkinos

 Numéro Deux

by David Foenkinos is enchantingly interesting. 

Imagine....

Imagine that there was another potential pre-teenager contacted for the role of Harry Potter, and that it was more or less done...

Imagine the entrance in scene of Daniel Radcliffe, a little actor interested at the role and, sometimes, in the part more than not the other one. 

 

Everyone know Daniel Radcliffe. 

No one knows the story of the boy-who-had to-be-Harry-Potter. 

This book reports his personal story.

The author admits that this one is a fictional work...

Mmmmm....

I don't know but for being a fictional work there are a lot of elements of a reality too real for being a fiction.

Anyway, let's put aside any possible speculation...

The story is this one: Martin Hill is the son of John, a worker in big productions in particularly the ones of Hugh Grant. He is in fact from UK. The mother of Martin is french. After a beautiful love-story, love ends for a reason and another and Martin remains with his father that, of course, love immensely.

Then, the story of the birth of Harry Potter: I didn't know all these details: I didn't know that J.K.Rowling loved to visit the bookstore Shakespeare & Co. when she lived in Paris, but for sure she had great taste: the story of the first book and first movie is clearly pretty powerful. J.K. Rowling didn't want to involve in the movie Americans as main protagonists. People, children, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred etc had to be British. And, she asked for Chris Columbus as director.

The casting appeares immediately an adventure. The role of Ron and Hermione is  assigned soon. David, of the casting, contacts John. John's son, Martin is perfect for this role. And Martin truly believes it. As for the rest of the men of this production, he is their Harry Potter: then the entrance in scene of Daniel Radcliffe.

The final choice is that one.

And for Martin the life becomes a real hell. He can't cope anymore with the stress of having been rejected: too similar to Daniel everyone notices it. 

At the same time there are other tragedies. While filming Love Actually with Hugh Grant, John falls sick. There is nothing to do. Martin, orphan of his father starts to live with his mother. The mother has a new companion, Mark with a son Hugo, had with another woman.

I don't want to spoil a lot but this one will be another hell for Martin...There would be many considerations that can be done in this case. When a person loses a big opportunity people in general laugh and tend to ridicule the person in question. It will be what will happen to him, but at the end, Martin will win!

Martin, and the Other. 

The one who had stolen his role: his life is a hell. Martin can't see a book of Harry Potter without feeling strong sensations, he can't see any imagine related to the movie: he cannot  go to the cinema for seeing this movie. Nothing. 

He feels that he has been betrayed: that life has been unfair with him. 

Sensations that changes pretty heavely his existence. 

After the school Martin decides of not attending the university, becoming a guardian of the museum the Louvre. There, he knows a beautiful girl. He loves her; she loves him....Just...When he goes to her home, for a romantic appointment, noticing a book by J.K.Rowling starts to panic. He runs away.

After many other years of solitude the idea that maybe loving is the answer to all problems. One day, as predicts, Martin meets Sophie, a wonderful girl, in grade of understand the hell with which he is coping with. Not only: he knows another boy who has been rejected, refused for a role: yes, maybe not a planetary success like Harry Potter, but with an immense director...

And here, prepare the handkerchief: Sophie doesn't know how to help Martin, but it is important to normalize and stabilize his existence. She tries all her best, but Martin doesn't want to speak with psychologists: also other possible solutions don't work. Then, one day she understands that Daniel Radcliffe is in Paris.

He is the only one: the only card never played that can convince Martin that there has been life, after all, during that twenty past years and that there will be! 

That a lost occasion doesn't mean a lost life.

As writes wonderfully well, David: "Il est rare que l’on ait ainsi accès à son

destin opposé ; notre route unique n’offre pas le moindre accès aux chemins que nous n’empruntons pas." 

It's rare or unique to be in grade of touching the destiny that could have been our destiny but that hadn't been.

It's what happen to Martin.

I imagined the emotion when Daniel receives that letter written by Sophie...Sophie...A girl who thinks...It must works.... Daniel must be the solution.

From the Other Potential Harry Potter: the Number Two.

Memories are vivid: the casting, the Other Boy, Martin...Daniel returns to breath the excitement of that first moments...

Daniel abandons what it is planning to do, and sends an SMS to Sophie. Sure: he wants to see again that teenager, enthusiastic like him of the possibility of playing the role of the main protagonist.

Hemingway Cafè. 

There is just a boy, sat in the cafè when Martin enters: who will be? Sophie has just told him of entering there. He is  pretty discomforted. Then, he notices...He notices that the one sat, and waiting for him is Daniel. 

Daniel... The boy with which he mentally fought the past decades everyday. 

Daniel remembers him. He starts to saying that he wanted to call him after that he had been chosen but that then he thought that maybe he wouldn't known what to say...He explains...Oh yes..Fame, success...But many lost occasions of normality. Addiction. Suicides thoughts followed several protagonists of Harry Potter. Pressure was a lot. Reality and fiction mixed together created a lot of messes. 

And then Daniel asks to him something of the existence spent. And Martin tells him that 

after all it hasn't been so miserable: he is  lucky, he has met a wonderful girl, he works at the Louvre so an immersion in a reassuring past, he has had two beautiful parents.

 

Daniel and Martin, looking like each other, understand something: "Chacun avait désiré ce qu’il n’avait pas. La lumière pour l’un, l’ombre pour l’autre" each of them has desired what the other one has: success, invisibility: in a word the destiny of The Other One.

If you are a fan of Harry Potter, you will love this book so badly. 

And, for case, this Martin Hill exists somewhere... You are great! 

Highly recommended book!

I thank Gallimard for the copy of the book.

Anna Maria Polidori