How to find your place when you are sure you do not deserve it? This problematic worthy of a philosophy dissertation and placed on the back cover of Autopsy of an Impostor is as intriguing as it is consistent with the theme of this release by Delcourt. Follow our demo to discover the end of this survey.
Story of an ambitious man
Louis Dansart has just left his province to conquer the capital. Fleeing his poor peasant family, he had come to study law and become an important person. But, unlike Rastignac, it is not Paris but Brussels. When he walks, he observes the bourgeois dreaming of being part of them, but in the evening he must return to a small and cold student room. While dreaming of himself in a particular house, he is the neighbor of a prostitute with whom he has episodic relationships. Worse, he is thrown out of a clothing store by the boss who cannot imagine that such a poorly dressed man could afford to buy a luxury suit. Initially, Louis refuses to compromise with the demonic Mr. Albert but his debts to the university and his landlady push him to all extremes. From the first pages, we feel that a drama is taking place. However, the story goes beyond this apparent classicism because the hero is aware that there is a narrator. He even asks her to be quiet so that she can sleep in peace. This is the beginning of a dialogue between an omniscient and particularly harsh narrator and an angry Louis Dansart who refuses to give up his dreams. Another character masters this dialogue and imposes his words on the narrator. However, all are devoid of humanity and the book becomes the chilling portrait of a man and a city.
Back to the past
In the first pages of Autopsy of an Impostor, the reader is moved by this poor young man struggling to climb into the social order. But, this anti-hero is most often deeply unsympathetic. The narrator does not hesitate to share his contempt on the first page. It is certainly cultivated but becomes pedantic. He is convinced that the upcoming Brussels World Expo is the event that will change his life. He thinks he seduces the elite with his mind but opens the door to this world with his body. His ambition devours the shreds of morality that remained when he arrived in the capital. Literally, the screenwriter proposes to do the Autopsy of an impostor ready to do anything to be part of this modern elite that rejects him. However, this complete one-volume narrative goes beyond the simple individual portrait by painting a dark gallery of characters. Louis is confronted with old women in need of sweets, lizard masks and a failed writer. Louis Dansart did not read the sociologist Bourdieu on social reproduction but he lives this social shame and hatred of the rich on a daily basis. Unlike the chilling scenario, Thomas Campi's drawing is profoundly human. His hero has the beauty of youth but also the coldness of an upstart. Its warm colors smell of the sulfur of hell. He knows how to multiply the expressions on the face of Louis Dansart to show us the complexity of a being. Autopsy of an impostor is initially a proposal of the cartoonist and colorist Thomas Campi launched to his regular collaborator, the scriptwriter Vincent Zabus to make a thriller in the 50s and to set it in Brussels. We find this literary inspiration by the division into chapters. The city was then in full transition. Still marked by the destruction of the occupation and bombings of the Second World War, the city transformed these ruins into huge construction sites in anticipation of the Universal Exhibition of 1958 as shown by the Atomium under construction. Edited by Delcourt, Autopsy of an Impostor is the dark tale of an honest student who will do anything to reach the elite. Zabus and Campi also write a sociological study of Brussels society in the 50s (but still relevant). The arrogance, contempt and even hatred of the elite enrage the hero but also the reader. Only the outcome may confuse some.
