Jacques Kattan

Spectres Jacques Kattan

In the web of relationships discussed in Jacques Kattan's text, the point of one's life and one's connections with other people surfaces regularly: être pour soi, ou être pour autres? Can we live for ourselves alone? Gloria and Isabel abandon their cluttered lives - and children - for an independent life in a small village. Edward, a romantic, finds a more satisfactory rapport with a young jazz trombonist, Maurice, than his wife. But is our natural reserve, our nostalgia for the spectres of the past and our reflectiveness a valid defence to a lively, material world? The case for Jeanette, who abandons her addiction to cards for a liaison with the affable Edmund tells us that, happily, there's always room for compromise. In an intensely philosophical work, Kattan has focused on an unexpected facet of modern life - our isolation in the midst of so much activity. In his characters and their tangled lives, we cannot fail to see ourselves.