Cabin

To meet Guy, we walk a few minutes in the countryside. At the end of the small path, he is there, “facing his screen” as he says, amused. Actually: a panoramic view on this Provencal valley from the famous Montagne Saint-Victoire to Cassis’ cliffs. This guy from North Quebec has been living here for 25 years and can’t get enough of this landscape. He shows us with humour the (fake) remote control on the table “in case we want to switch the channel”. Guy doesn’t live in a house but in a cabin. Here, no water, no electricity. We follow Guy who is starting the visit. “I just got rid of 350 books, he explains. I brought them to a bar and people took them. I am happy: nothing was left!” If Guy likes books, he considers that they have to circulate, to pass from hands to hands. But the 350 books have almost immediately been replaced by a 28 volumes encyclopaedia. “A friend gave them to me, I couldn’t say no” he says, as to justify himself.

Bookcase

We got it: Guy reads everything including dictionaries and encyclopaedias that he keeps in the main room of his cabin and devours as novels of adventure. To reach upstairs, we climb the big ladder. We discover Guy’s bedroom and the rest of the bookcase: books of history, art books and novels arranged around the bed that he thought as a big swing bed (easy to make according to Guy: just hold a bed base to the ceiling thanks to four ropes). With Guy’s help we unearth his favourite authors: Louis Ferdinand Céline, Romain Gary, Boualem Sansal, Albertine Sarrazin, Pierre Louÿs, Marguerite Yourcenar… “It is the novel Thérèse Raquin by Emile Zola that made me becoming a real reader when I was about twelve, he remembers. I never forgot the emotion I then felt.”

Reviews

Impossible to leave Guy without stopping by the bathroom that is a bit further away in the countryside. There, again, the view is incredible. And there are many books. “It is a real reading room: I read the whole Koran there for example. One of my Egyptian friends liked a lot the idea!” Guy also put here a part of the reviews he reads: “reviews are like a sickness for me, I have a real virus: I cant live without and I love to discover new ones.” It is hard to leave Guy and his cabin. Why don’t we stay a bit longer in the guestroom, an authentic camper van, with a good book, suggests Guy.