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 

André Durand, the painter of the most inspired and biggest souls of our Time

 Years ago we contacted André Durand because he painted a beautiful painting about San Pio and the wolf of Gubbio.

Long e-mails and long talks created this, according to us, beautiful interview and good friendship. A portion of it (the one regarding San Pio and the wolf of Gubbio) was released in Il Corriere dell'Umbria and Tutto Gubbio.

Mr Durand where were you born? May tell us something about your childhood and studies? Your family was rich of creative people?

I was born in Canada of French/Irish parents, both Catholic.  Both my mother and father were passionate about painting and music. They worked together as amateur artists and designed theatre productions.

When did you start to feel interest for painting?

I can remember first painting around the age of four a picture of a pirate and I have never stopped painting since then.

You have portrayed many famous men. Can you tell us some  anecdotes, if there are about Papa Giovanni Paolo II and the Dalai Lama?

I had three sittings with John Paul II in the Vatican in 1982. The third sitting was required because I had some difficulty deciding on the pose. At the end of this last audience, the Holy Father turned to me and said 'André, I hope you get it right this time.'

The first time the Dalai Lama posed for me at the Convent of San Anselmo I was too shy to ask him to remove his spectacles. But the second time he posed in Strasbourg in 1989 I had a little more confidence.  I then asked him to remove his glasses, to which he laughed and gave me a hug and asked why I didn't ask him to do so the first time.

  I read you live in London now. Why this choice?

 I live in London, Tuscany and Greece, but my base is in London, because everything and everyone an artist like me needs for inspiration can be found here.  I have no doubt that Greece and Italy are the source of Western art, but London is the ideal place to me to assimilate this beauty and distill it into pictures.

Your paintings are mostly allegorical. There is one I love very much because of the colors you use, THE RED HORSE OF STRIFE, but it is an execution. Can you tell us why there is apparently a lot of joy in this painting? (I am writing this considering of course  the colors you used for painting, incredibly beauty!)

THE RED HORSE OF STRIFE is meant to remind us of the executions in Liberia that took place on the beach after the revolution, and is symbolic of the horrors of civil war.  The vibrant colours were chosen to balance the horror of the subject. The last place I had never imagined executions to take place was on a white sandy beach, which I had associated with idyllic holidays in the Peloponnese.

What kind of technique do you use mostly? Your favorite colors can we find in your paintings?

All my paintings are oil on linen, and I use heavily grained canvas such as was used in Venice in the 15th and 16th centuries. I love all colours, but choose different ones for different pictures to make the image more psychologically penetrating. For example reds can suggest passion or violence. If I had to choose ONE colour it would be blue, any shade of blue.

How much important is for you the fantasy? And what kind of subject do you love to portraying the most?

Any kind of religious subject matter inspires to me. At the moment I've been concentrating on Christian myths from the Gospels and The Golden Legend setting these sacred legends in the English landscape of today. 

I prefer the word myth - or mythic - than fantasy, which usually results in the sort of painting I don't like, such as Surrealism, whereas my own base as an artist is in 15th 16th and 17th century Italian painting.

 

What's the most important factor of inspiration of your work?

The spiritual dimension: to find the relevance of eternal human values and depict them in a way that illuminates the present condition. 

Padre Pio and the wolf of Gubbio: why these two religious symbols in a portrait, and what does the cross close to them mean? The birds are just observing the scene of pacification operated by Padre Pio? And why the other monk? He has an ironical expression...perhaps he doesn't believe that the Saint tamed the wolf. Please, can you explain us this portrait?

The story of Padre Pio and the wolf comes from the book The Little Flowers of Saint Francis of Assisi by Ugolino di Monte Santa Maria. The picture combines two of the stories. The birds form the cross to express God's blessing on the taming of the fierce wolf of Gubbio. Padre Pio and St Francis are in this picture one and the same monk, two very mystical Franciscans. The other monk is Brother Leo, a friend of St Francis.

I think your reading of Padre Pio/St Francis’ expression is charming, but it was not intended that way. Incidentally, the monk that posed for  brother Leo is a Franciscan monk and friend of mine who lives in a tiny monastery in the Outer Hebrides with 3 other monks. Did you notice, Anna Maria, that between 1999 and 2002 I did 7 pictures inspired by Padre Pio. 

Why Padre Pio is so important to you, and which is according to you the message he wants to spread to the world?

The message of Padre Pio at this time would definitely speak to the madness of US foreign policy. Perhaps that is why he appeared to so many American pilots in the sky during the war.

 

Why is it so important to remembering the wolf of Gubbio in our times?

It seems to me the best way to stop violence is with gentleness and following the Christian message of turning the other cheek; the story of St Francis and the wolf is a perfect example of this principle, gentleness subduing aggression.

André you have also painted a lot of times Lady Diana, a myth to me. Please can you tell us something about her? 

Diana had the kind of beauty, sensibility and sensitivity to be anything in a picture - a goddess, a mother – she could fulfill all the female archetypal roles. Also the aspect I appreciated most about her beauty, aside from her ideal proportions – long limbed, small head - was her absolutely perfect profile. For some reason she always reminded me of Simonetta Vespucci, as we discover her in the paintings of Botticelli.

I did indeed know Diana. Diana was a patron of picture I painted for the charity Crusaid, a British AIDS charity. In fact we were neighbours both living  in Kensington, and had several friends in common.

The first picture of Diana was MYSTIC MARRIAGE, painted for her wedding in  1981.

The second, for which she posed, was BONZER SHEILA, in 1987. The picture was commissioned by Speedo  

The third was VOTIVE OFFERING. Diana was the honorary member on the picture’s Committee. The picture commemorates her work for AIDS charities.

The next, DIANA, was painted immediately after her death. The lilies in the picture are those that adorned her coffin. It expresses my sense of grief at the loss of my muse.

 The allegorical FORTUNA was painted in 2000.

While we were realizing the interview André talked to us of another project, that time in progress....it was march 2007...

I am currently, and unexpectedly, painting two life sized allegorical portraits of the actor Daniel Radcliffe, better known as Harry Potter. Is Harry Potter popular in Italy? The pictures are inspired by Radcliffe's performance in Equus, Peter Schaffer’s 1973 play and must be finished by the end of April.

 

What kind of hobbies have you got, apart painting?

I take photographs when I travel of everything and every person that inspires me.

Last summer I took some wonderful pictures in Ischia and Naples. I am a passionate lover of the opera, ballet and theatre, in that order. That is another reason why I live in London. We have a wealth of cultural events and diversity here.

 

Have you never been in Gubbio? If yes, what did you appreciate of Gubbio and when did you visit the city? Will you come back soon or late? What do you think of our Umbria?

I went to Gubbio in 1990, because at the time, when I was living in Tuscany, I was reading The Little Flowers of Saint Francis of Assisi. I wanted to see the place that inspired the story. And of course I will come back to the city, I hope sooner rather than later. I always miss Italy and perhaps one day Gubbio will see this picture in reality. 

I have always been inspired by the timeless beauty and even light of the Umbrian landscape, which he first encountered in Raphael’s paintings. He does not find it much changed since the time Raphael painted it.

Grazie! André. From the bottom of our heart. 

Anna Maria Polidori