François Meyronnis' 'Tout autre' explores a life of radical otherness

François Meyronnis' book 'Tout autre' (subtitled 'une confession') is published in the collection L'Infini by Gallimard. The work opens with a childhood memory of disorientation in Tuscany, where the author as a boy could not find his way back into bed, experiencing absolute terror. Meyronnis rejects social involvement and belonging, finding solace only in sacred historical names like Tarquin the Proud, Mary Stuart, Francis of Assisi, and Charles the Bold. He opposes Sartre's notion that being human suffices, insisting on elements of 'god, animal, stone, angels, and demons' within himself. The book includes a gallery of portraits featuring Lautréamont, Gilles Deleuze, Philippe Sollers, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and a spectral interview with Michel Houellebecq. Meyronnis also discusses 'irregulars' like Rabbi Nahman of Breslov and critic Bernard Lamarche-Vadel, who before his suicide meditated on how Nazis inscribed numbers on Jewish bodies. The 33 chapters are likened to a wild mustang, a 'horse of no one,' running free. The text grapples with whether writing is still possible in a degraded world, concluding affirmatively for one with a 'mauve forehead' who walks his own path.