Published January 28 2022 Reading time: 4 min
Screenings, an exhibition, guests, passionate discussions and a radiant winter sun: these are the ingredients of a successful first edition, for this new cultural meeting around storytelling and the mountain.
We knew the literary meetings of Savoie-Mont Blanc, the Grand Bivouac festival in Albertville or even the mountain book fair in Passy... In the Savoyard cultural landscape, we will now also have to rely on the Rencontres d'Arêches-Beaufort, whose first sunny edition ended on Saturday 22 January. But the exhibition continues to brighten up the streets of the village.
The credo of this premiere, of course: “in the footsteps of Roger Frison-Roche”, the unforgettable author of Lead climber finding his family roots in Beaufort. It is under this prestigious aura that the Arêches-Beaufort tourist office launched its event with three evenings of screenings, which were all sold out. After Encordés, 200 years in the eyes of Chamonix guides presented by the high mountain guide Francois Hivert, were projected two favorites for the Caesars: The Snow Panther, presented by the photographer Sandra Berenice Michelthen The summit of the gods, presented by Arnaud Miquel, responsible for professional meetings at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. An exhibition around the “faces of exploration” was then displayed in the streets of Arêches, in partnership with the Grand Bivouac festival and Paulsen editions.
Write the Mountain
But the highlight of the week was indeed Saturday, January 22 during the closing party. Were invited, to discuss their relationship to the mountains, Cedric Sapin-Defour, writer, journalist and above all mountaineer well known to readers of Mountains Magazine and resident of Arêches; Fabrice Lardreau, at the head of the “Versant Intime” collection of Arthaud editions, and above all Bernard minier, child of the Pyrenees and master of thrillers with some 4,7 million books sold.
The difficulty of writing the mountain, the summits as the perfect romantic setting, but also reflections around a mountain literature often too phagocytosed by tragic stories of mountaineering, or even the role of walking in the creative process: here some of the themes addressed by the three guests, answering questions from Laetitia Favro, literary criticism notably in the pages of Books Hebdo.
Adret vs Ubac
Since his "original shock", as a child, at the Aiguille du midi, Cedric Sapin-Defour delicately evoked his carnal relationship with the mountain world, which “structures his life and gives it meaning”. "As a reader, I expect someone to describe to me a happy, gentle, luminous mountaineering", launched the mountaineer, guarantor of a mountain literature " gentle ", reminiscent "human vulnerability" and testifying to “the emotion of following a trail”.
In another register, Bernard Minier, “not here to write feel good books”, remembered his isolated childhood facing the " fence " Pyrenean, emerged as obvious in the sets of his first novel, Ice cream (XO). A mountain "hard, which scratches" for the thriller writer. For his part, the publisher Fabrice Lardreau evoked, through his series of interviews published by Arthaud, a mountain literature that goes beyond the eternal classics. “There are plenty of novels that we do not assimilate to the literary field of the mountain but which are. There are many more mountain books than you might think,” he assured.
Two points made the three guests agree. The ambivalence, first of mountain literature, with a sunny side, soft and benevolent like the tenderness of a face, and another more catastrophic, hostile and dangerous side, like a shaded shade. The need, then, not to treat the mountain as a backdrop. "Whatever the literary register, a mountain text is successful when it is a character, and not a setting", concluded the authors. All they had left after these observations was to lend themselves to the game of dedications. And for the organizers, to congratulate themselves on the success of this first edition, giving, no doubt, an appointment with the public next winter for new literary ascents.
The public was able to extend the discussion with the authors during a moment of sharing and exchange to close this event. The success of this first edition invites us to renew the experience in 2023! The appointment is made!
