Jean Grenier <Islands>

In my life, there was always an inevitable meeting. Such was the meeting of Grenier; when I came to know of Camus, the encounter wih Grenier had been already foreseen. It was not because he and I were connected with a fatal string, but because almost all critics, reviewers were saying to me of Grenier with his works binding with Camus' ones. In fact I already had known of Grenier's some words before the recognition through Camus, but at that point, I literally just knew him as only some word of his. I couldn't feel any necessity for me to read his books. And then, Camus appeared. He himself was an true introducer for Grenier. Anyway, the meeting unforgettable between Grenier and I got to start together with the preface of Camus like that.

How can I represent his writing? I can say that his sentence spurts out its fragrance by itself, to begin with. "When my cat sleeps, everything in him respects his slumber." How could I pacify my heart trembling when it came into my eyes? "He speaks to us only of simple and familiar experiences in a languages without affectation," Camus said. I agree. That was the very tone of voice Grenier. The attraction of his voice....

Like Mouloud tried to hypnotize a bird he would like to catch, Grenier tried to fascinate me... But could I say he really tried? I would have written over: I was fascinated of itself. It is rude to him enough to even say that he intended to do something; He was the man predestined to wonder why they live instead of actually living, like he himself wrote on his book. That Grenier concluding his journey with a meditation on the absolute and on the divine must have had no intention of control and manipulation. But, in spite of that, I was fascinated. I was sincerely submitted. And that was the very power of this book.