Someone else - Tonino Benacquista 
"Someone else" is a novel published in 2002 and emerged from the pen of French writer and screenwriter Tonino Benacquista, author of "Malavita" and its sequel "Malavita yet," "The Dandy in of Sleeping "or" La Commedia misfire.
Following a game of tennis, Thierry Blin Nicolas Gredzinski two forties intoxicated by their dreary existence, are betting rather unlikely in 3 years to become the men they would have dreamed of being.
very next day, the countdown begins. While Nicolas seems to revel in the new insurance that gives him alcohol, Thierry Blin undertakes change of name, face, woman, craft to slip into the shoes of Paul Vermeiren, a private detective.
The two men will they find happiness with their new lives?
A bet between two strangers? What a curious starting point have I said starting my reading.
If someone spoke to me in the street saying "Chiche that you change your life!", It is clear that I would just go my way.
Now there are between these two characters instant recognition of the distress of the other, complicity through innuendo suggesting that both were awaiting this meeting for a while.
Nicolas is an assistant account manager. It is a retiring man, anxious, unable to say no and a natural pessimism.
Contact with alcohol (drunkenness itself), he discovers that Other who lives inside of him, more relaxed, more talkative, more assertive.
"The Other knew all make fascinating conversation bistro, a subway ride, reading a newspaper. He made the magic of meeting a man in an elevator He knew the words to calm the spirits and rekindle the enthusiasm shriveled lost. It was not the blackness of Nicolas who freed but the opposite: his benevolence towards humanity, his curiosity for everything that was not his little world, its softness for too long.
The rare moments when he let the Other away, Nicolas felt very nostalgic of his escapades, his brilliant ideas and preposterous on its morgue. "p.277
Thierry does not love his job as a coach and knows quite incapable of any creativity. It aspires to a life more exciting, that leaves room for the unexpected and bases all its hopes his private detective. Complexed with his physique, he went a surgeon who transformed and attempts to remove all traces of his former life, including his identity.
" The sick minds who divorce themselves are listed by psychiatry who gave their complicated names, his case would probably wear one.
Had he known that famous word, perhaps would he have been tempted to seek treatment, it was enough to change service. Rodier had left him a chance to stop everything on the spot, why not Joust? Which came in, lunged to use some words and wrote, in silence, lines on the face of his patient. tranquilizer began to take effect, if it still had the desire, Blin could no longer retract. His shoulders sagged suddenly and her whole body began to float. The smile is happy on his lips when he saw the stretcher bearer.
In block, the last time he met the gaze of Joust, it already had more importance, as if conscious of his body slowly Blin left to join one of Vermeiren.
The anesthesiologist injected him in the veins whitish liquid warmed her arm, asked him to count to five.
This was the last face he saw before losing his own. "p.203
Thierry and Nicolas lead parallel existences that will eventually intersect with yet.
The chapters devoted alternately to two characters who are progressing toward a new identity and the rate differs greatly from one portrait to another.
If I liked the way Nicolas recovering brilliantly up his colleague unbearable, I admit I was more captivated by the free determination and the changes made by Thierry, probably because his approach is much more radical and fully assumed. Unlike
Thierry, Nicolas does not want his daily crashes, it remains committed to himself to the Other which is nevertheless part of it where Thierry creates all the Other parts and is completely clean slate of its past (although the temptation is there as to what his relatives believe him to his former and how they interpret his disappearance).
In truth, whenever I began a chapter "Nicolas," I had a rush: the next chapter and find Thierry and the unbearable suspense surrounding his new life! I understand that the author wanted to use polar opposite personalities but I have not really been able to project myself into the malaise Nicolas, the impression left was me stagnation.
mixed reviews so even though I knew that "someone else" is an interesting novel, at least for the story to the questions he poses on the topic of identity reconstruction
Other opinions:
Burnet -
Melusine - Lili
Galipette 
"Someone else" is part of the French selection QD9 Award launched by Cecile
.
