Arbre de fumée

Publié en 1986 aux Etats-Unis, Nicaragua 1984 s'inscrit à première vue dans la tradition du roman anglo-saxon qui, de Joseph Conrad à Paul Bowles en passant par William Vollman, nous entraîne au-delà des frontières de l'Empire, vers la sauvagerie de cieux faussement protecteurs. Nicaragua 1984 est un grand roman noir, un thriller "métaphysico-exotique". Avec une écriture coup de poing, dégraissée de tout superflu, mais aussi poétique et parfois visionnaire, Denis Johnson propose ici la version romanesque des longs séjours qu'il a effectués à l'étranger (surtout en Amérique centrale et en Afrique) comme journaliste casse-cou et dont il a tiré un impressionnant recueil d'articles. Dans son recueil de textes journalistiques comme dans le présent roman, les descriptions sont parfois d'un réalisme méticuleux et donc insupportable, comme si l'écriture devait exorciser l'horreur de certaines visions. Avec Nicaragua 1984, Denis Johnson confirme qu'il est bien le surdoué de sa génération, capable de prendre des risques énormes dans sa fiction, de ne rien oublier en chemin et de nous amener à bon port, avec le sentiment d'un tour de force parfaitement réussi.

Ce livre, publié aux Etats-Unis en 2001, réunit huit reportages réalisés par Denis Johnson dans les années 90. Il s'ouvre sur la guerre civile au Libéria et se termine quelques années plus tard, également au Libéria et toujours en pleine guerre civile, avec le récit cauchemardesque des tribulations de l'auteur en quête d'une interview avec Charles Taylor. Entre-temps, Denis Johnson nous a conduits chez les taliban d'Afghanistan et parmi les tribus rebelles de Somalie ; trois théâtres d'opérations ravagés par des conflits endémiques mal définis, barbares et apparemment irrationnels, mais tolérés par les grandes puissances, dans des zones dont l'instabilité préfigure un nouveau désordre mondial. Johnson n'essaye pas de comprendre ces situations mais il les vit ou les subit de façon parfois naïve, toujours avec une attitude très personnelle. C'est avec un regard analogue qu'il enquête aux marges de la société américaine, visite une des dernières grandes manifestations hippies, retrouve l'esprit pionnier de l'Alaska et participe à un de ces revivals religieux qui, aujourd'hui, inspirent jusqu'aux plus hautes sphères du gouvernement américain. On voit là un autre versant de la folie du monde, et, bien avant les événements du 11 septembre 2001, on peut imaginer comment ces versants vont se rencontrer.

Ce livre concis et poétique sent la morille et le bois calciné. C'est une fable transpercée par les hurlements des loups et les jappements des coyotes en délire, un hymne à l'odeur âcre des épicéas géants que des bûcherons loqueteux débitent en billes, là-bas, au fin fond de l'Ouest américain, pour construire, au péril de leur vie, des ponts de chemin de fer en équilibre au-dessus des canyons. [... ] Un roman qui vous emporte loin dans le silence et dans l'azur". Florence Noiville, Le Monde des livres Au début du XXe siècle, Robert Grainier travaille à la construction des chemins de fer qui, très vite, parcourront l'Amérique. Un combat de l'homme contre la nature dans des paysages à l'immensité sauvage. Mais ce n'est pas le seul combat que mène Grainier : ébranlé par un drame personnel, il tente de donner un sens à un monde qui en a perdu, alors que son pays connaît des années décisives qui transforment profondément son identité.

Car Crash While Hitchhiking A salesman who shared his liquor and steered while sleeping... A Cherokee filled with bourbon... A VW no more than a bubble of hashish fumes, captained by a college student... And a family from Marshalltown who headonned and killed forever a man driving west out of Bethany, Missouri... ... I rose up sopping wet from sleeping under the pouring rain, and something less than conscious, thanks to the first three of the people I've already named--the salesman and the Indian and the student--all of whom had given me drugs. At the head of the entrance ramp I waited without hope of a ride. What was the point, even, of rolling up my sleeping bag when I was too wet to be let into anybody's car? I draped it around me like a cape. The downpour raked the asphalt and gurgled in the ruts. My thoughts zoomed pitifully. The travelling salesman had fed me pills that made the linings of my veins feel scraped out. My jaw ached. I knew every raindrop by its name. I sensed everything before it happened. I knew a certain Oldsmobile would stop for me even before it slowed, and by the sweet voices of the family inside it I knew we'd have an accident in the storm. I didn't care. They said they'd take me all the way. The man and the wife put the little girl up front with them and left the baby in back with me and my dripping bedroll. "I'm not taking you anywhere very fast," the man said. "I've got my wife and babies here, that's why.' You are the ones, I thought. And I piled my sleeping bag against the left-hand door and slept across it, not caring whether I lived or died. The baby slept free on the seat beside me. He was about nine months old. ... But before any of this, that afternoon, the salesman and I had swept down into Kansas City in his luxury car. We'd developed a dangerous cynical camaraderie beginning in Texas, where he'd taken me on. We ate up his bottle of amphetamines, and every 80 often we pulled off the Interstate and bought another pint of Canadian Club and a sack of ice. His car had cylindrical glass holders attached to either door and a white, leathery interior. He said he'd take me home to stay overnight with his family, but first he wanted to stop and see a woman he knew. Under Midwestern clouds like great grey brains we left the superhighway with a drifting sensation and entered Kansas City's rush hour with a sensation of running aground. As soon as we slowed down, all the magic of travelling together burned away. He went on and on about his girlfriend."I like this girl, I think I love this girl--but I've got two kids and a wife, and there's certain obligations there. And on top of everything else, I love my wife. I'm gifted with love. I love my kids. I love all my relatives."As he kept on, I felt jilted and sad:"I have a boat, a little sixteen-footer. I have two cars. There's room in the back yard for a swimming pool."He found his girlfriend at work. She ran a furniture store, and I lost him there. The clouds stayed the same until night. Then, in the dark, I didn't see the storm gathering. The driver of the Volkswagen, a college man, the one who stoked my head with all the hashish, let me out beyond the city limits just as it began to rain. Never mind the speed I'd been taking, I was too overcome to stand up. I lay out in the grass off the exit ramp and woke in the middle of a puddle that had filled up around me. And later, as I've said, I slept in the back seat while the Oldsmobile--the family from Marshalltown--splashed along through the rain. And yet I dreamed I was looking right through my eyelids, and my pulse marked off the seconds of time. The Interstate through western Missouri was, in that era, nothing more than a two-way road, most of it. When a semi truck came toward us and passed going the other way, we were lost in a blinding spray and a warfare of noises such as you get being towed through an automatic car wash. The wipers stood up and lay down across the windshield without much effect. I was exhausted, and after an hour I slept more deeply. I'd known all along exactly what was going to happen. But the man and his wife woke me up later, denying it viciously. 'Oh-no!' 'NO!' I was thrown against the back of their seat so hard that it broke. I commenced bouncing back and forth. A liquid which I knew right away was human blood flew around the car and rained down on my head. When it was over I was in the back seat again, just as I had been. I rose up and looked around. Our headlights had gone out. The radiator was hissing steadily. Beyond that, I didn't hear a thing. As far as I could tell, I was the only one conscious. As my eyes adjusted I saw that the baby was lying on its back beside me as if nothing had happened. Its eyes were open and it was feeling its cheeks with its little hands. In a minute the driver, who'd been slumped over the wheel, sat up and peered at us. His face was smashed and dark with blood. It made my teeth hurt to look at him--but when he spoke, it didn't sound as if any of his teeth were broken. 'What happened?' 'We had a wreck," he said...