Report on Arsène Lupin (and me)

This is a book published by Éditions Équateurs, which comes directly from our neighbors at France Inter, who have been offering authors the opportunity to spend a season with one of their quirks for the past few years. In this case, it’s hard to tell exactly who the author is and who the quirk belongs to in this new delivery signed by Grégoire Bouillier. The character, its inventor, and the writer seem to exist on the same plane, in an exercise of admiration that is wonderfully blurred.

Grégoire Bouillier and Arsène Lupin have found each other. It’s not easy to find Arsène Lupin, as everyone knows. I share his passion for the gentleman burglar, who played a big role in my adolescence, a literary passion with a touch of eroticism, intertwining books and desire. It seems similar for Bouillier, who explains how Lupin, in his troubled childhood, became the best imaginary friend imaginable: malleable, brilliant – Lupin is the pure fantasy that takes shape in words.

Arsène Lupin in the role of a magnet

It’s the creature that interests Grégoire Bouillier the most. The book traces the journey, novel after novel (19), short story after short story (39), of the character Arsène Lupin. Each adventure unfolds, including the first one of 4,500 words titled “The Arrest of Arsène Lupin,” published in the magazine “Je sais tout.” This story ironically recounts the first theft on a cruise ship by a gentleman burglar whose identity remains a mystery, revealed to actually be the narrator of the story. A primitive trick, but oh so literary. They know nothing, but “I know it all,” and “I” is Arsène Lupin.

Grégoire Bouillier attempts a not-so-wild psychoanalysis of Arsène Lupin, obsessed by a primitive sexual scene sublimated in each novel where the character voyeuristically witnesses violence between a man and a woman, and vice versa. I appreciate that the investigation of a character leads to this psychoanalytic option, as I myself am largely obsessed with certain fictional characters more than some books or authors.

And perhaps this is the most interesting aspect of this book, making it more than just a document on Arsène Lupin, but a new book by Grégoire Bouillier, an author whose every piece – whether about his childhood, an unrequited love, or a random event – is a devouring and rich exploration. Arsène Lupin plays the role of a magnet this time, a centrifugal force attracting many small and large facts, thereby weaving together the biography of an author, a character, and the writer as the narrator; everything seems related, everything seems relevant in this economy. And that, that gives energy.