Philippe Forest's 'Le Siècle des nuages' Blends Family Saga, Aviation Epic, and 20th Century History

Philippe Forest's new book 'Le Siècle des nuages' (Gallimard) is a multi-layered work that intertwines the history of the 20th century, the epic of aviation from the Wright brothers to modern airlines, and the story of his own family, particularly his father, a pilot for Air France who flew Boeing 747s and occasionally worked for French intelligence. The book, described by Forest as an 'epic' in Ezra Pound's sense of 'a poem that includes history,' uses clouds as a central metaphor borrowed from Apollinaire and Baudelaire. Forest's father, born in 1924, escaped to the US in 1942 to train as a fighter pilot with the US Army Air Force but never saw combat, becoming an instructor instead. The narrative also addresses political themes, including the father's conservative background (his grandfather refused to accept Dreyfus's innocence) and the broader optimism of the 20th century despite its tragedies. Forest reflects on the impossibility of fiction and the need to deconstruct the stories we tell, citing Faulkner and Shakespeare. The book closes with the death of Forest's daughter, a recurring theme in his work, and questions of evil and faith, ending in Turkey among ancient ruins. Simultaneously, Forest published an essay 'Le Roman infanticide' (Cécile Defaut) on Dostoevsky, Faulkner, and Camus.