Cécile Wajsbrot's 'Sentinelles' Weaves Time and Art

Cécile Wajsbrot's novel 'Sentinelles', published by Christian Bourgois, is the third volume of her 'Haute mer' cycle dedicated to art, following works on music ('Conversations avec le Maître') and painting ('l'Île aux Musées'). The book opens with the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora on Sumbawa Island, Indonesia, a VEI 7 event that killed 70,000, caused global climate disruption, and led to the 'year without summer' in 1816. The narrative then shifts to a tribute evening for an unnamed video artist at the Centre Pompidou, spanning 7:30 PM to 10:30 PM. Through films like 'L'Ascenseur' and 'La Banque'—the latter exploring counterfeit money—the novel examines themes of reality, video, montage, migration, and references to Bresson, Godard, Tarkovsky, Nam June Paik, Gary Hill, and poets Coleridge and Shelley. Wajsbrot draws on Edgar Poe and Elias Canetti, structuring the work like a musical piece akin to Anton Webern's string works or Steve Reich's 'Desert Music', with minimalism, rhythm, and tension. The novel interrogates perception and consciousness, echoing Hamlet's 'Who is there?' and reimagining Poe's 'The Man of the Crowd'.