SubStance

Je cherche un évadé, l'homme qui est un chacun. Le problème est que rien ne le distingue d'un autre.¹

Quand on me contrarie, on esveille mon attention, non pas ma cholere; je m'avance vers celuy qui me contredit, qui m'instruit. La cause de la vérité devroit être la cause commune à l'un et à l'autre.²

Lydie Salvayre's Contre stands apart from her other works. It was created in response to an invitation from the radio station France Culture for the 2001 edition of Les Rencontres de La Chartreuse,³ and was thus written to be read publicly, to the accompaniment of an original score. It borrowed from musical theater, and involved collaboration between the writer and the two musicians. Contre was performed by two voices—Salvayre's own, and a male voice, presumably that of one or both of the two accompanying guitarists.⁴ It was aimed at a cultivated audience, since the Rencontres, like the Festival d'Avignon where they take place, offer widely diverse international artistic productions, aimed at encouraging participants and spectators to reflect upon current cultural production. Such details are not superfluous, since they reveal that Contre was created expressly for this "select" audience and that, unlike the readers of Salvayre's other narratives, the listener is not faced with the difficult task of finding just the right intonation for each voice. Here, the tone is provided: for each of the two voices, it is calm and collected, almost a drone, muffled at times by the electric guitars and spoken at a moderate pace, maintained until the final crescendo.

Considering the text's general message, which strongly condemns the stultifying effects of contemporary French society and the consenting submissiveness of its citizens, while inviting the listeners to join in chanting "je contre," such a sober tone may sound off-key. This discordance is doubtless intentional: indeed, if the repetition of the word "contre" that punctuates the last movement of the text evokes the chant of a crowd voicing its opposition, the [End Page 34] placid tone of the preceding thirteen movements acts as a counterpoint to the mind-numbing effects of the social system being denounced. Salvayre doesn't hammer out her words or browbeat her audience, but delivers her message with a tranquil force, a measured passion, and her statement is clearly the result of careful reflection and close observation, meant to appeal equally to her listeners' reason and emotions.

As is the case with most of Salvayre's narratives, at least two different people are implicitly addressed by the speaker: the first is close, familiar, but has no real physical presence apart from a name: Rachel. This appears at the very end of the chorus to produce a rhyme ("Le pays est nickel Rachel"),⁵ but this isn't its sole purpose, since it appears in one other instance, when Salvayre addresses her directly as "ma Rachel" (33). The second addressee, the audience, is plural and unfamiliar, although implicitly present. When addressed as "mesdames, messieurs"(17), it is considered in its anonymous, indefinite and impersonal aspects, but each and every unique individual who makes it up is also being singled out by the very words Salvayre uses to formulate her first and foremost question: "à chacun je demande: avez-vous vu un homme?" (12)⁶ Salvayre offers several variations of the same question, gradually defining this sought-after man, whose insight and capacity to speak his mind (against whatever threatens his integrity or attempts to stifle his unique voice) are the two qualities that make him so difficult to find. Although they stand here as the underlying principles of singularity, these two characteristics do not stand out in any obvious way. This is made all the more clear when Salvayre designates him as "un chacun...