Ionesco,Eugène

Ionesco,Eugène

> "Tous les chats sont mortels. Socrate est mortel. Donc Socrate est un chat." Tout langage stéréotypé devient aberrant. C'est ce que Ionesco démontre dans Rhinocéros, pièce qui a tout d'abord vu le jour sous la forme d'une nouvelle. Partisan d'un théâtre total, il porte l'absurde à son paroxysme en l'incarnant matériellement.
Allégorie des idéologies de masse, le rhinocéros, cruel et dévastateur, ne se déplace qu'en groupe et gagne du terrain à une vitesse vertigineuse. Seul et sans trop savoir pourquoi, Bérenger résiste à la mutation. Il résiste pour notre plus grande délectation, car sa lutte désespérée donne lieu à des caricatures savoureuses, à des variations de tons et de genres audacieuses et anticonformistes. La sclérose intellectuelle, l'incommunicabilité et la perversion du langage engendrent des situations tellement tragiques qu'elles en deviennent comiques, tellement grotesques qu'elles ne peuvent être que dramatiques.
On a dit du théâtre de Ionesco qu'il était engagé ; il l'est, en faveur de l'individu, menacé de marginalisation quand, malgré ses faiblesses, il parvient à résister aux tentations avilissantes qu'il a lui-même fait naître.
--Sana Tang-Léopold Wauters

> Par Adrian (Laculturegenerale.com) : Les 150 classiques de la littérature française qu’il faut avoir lus !
07/05/2017 - Malheur ! Toute la population d’une ville entière se transforme en rhinocéros ! Non, pas toute la population, Bérenger résiste à cette déshumanisation ! Le théâtre de l’absurde contre le totalitarisme.

I never knew my Father well. Till these very days when I read one of my teenage books once again. Father left our house when I was too young. Mother was ok with me, you know... "there's food in the fridge" and so on. My studies at school were great, but I spent most of my time as a young girl, reading books. One day I came across a strange one. Some lonesco wrote it. I remember it was at a time when Father was still alive as a memory at our house. The truth is, I've hated him. Something about his ability to go against the current of marriage or life itself made me feel bad. I wanted him not to succeed in his new life; I wanted everyone in the class to know that I did not like my father.
I read lonesco rhinos in those days. I read it over too long. I did not quite understand what I was reading. "a thin book without a connection to time or place," I thought, "people who become rhinoceros until there is only one person left alone." Vague sentences that they say to each other and all attribute to them too much importance. "Absurd. this book is Not for me."
I left it at some point.
Until Father's death.

And now I remember the sound of the phone token falling (I know I'm too young to use this metaphor but telepathy does not make noise) on first-second reading. I remember that I suddenly realized how much perspective and maturity mattered to books like the rhinos or Saramago's brilliant book on blindness.

In short, rhinoceros is not just a book. It's a world in which people join one flock with a common interest that is so inappropriate to them. A world in which one's principles are abandoned and the truth is all that does not penetrate the animal's thick skin. A place where people turn their backs on their ideology to be part of the rule.
And I think about it since then and what a pity I did not understand it when I was younger, about the courage of my father to be outstanding.

this book highly recommended for people who have already matured. ( )

An absurdist play that touches on many themes. Ionesco's work permeates with skill and adeptness. Overall, a great play.

Recommended. ( )