In La Grande Beune (The Origin of the World) (Lagrasse, Verdier, coll. "Jaune," 1996), Pierre Michon continues his depictions of Western painting, first embarked upon with Vie de Joseph Roulin (Life ofJoseph Roulin) (Lagrasse, Verdier, coll. "Jaune," 1988) and rounded out with Les Onze (The Eleven) (Lagrasse, Verdier, coll. "Jaune," 2009), but this time zeroing in on rock-hewn rupestrian frescos. There's a prehistoric and archaic tone to this novella that transforms the protagonist, a young teacher in the 1960s, into a stalker and turns the narrative into an erotic hunt: ultimately it's a tale of arrested education and an erotic quest transfigured into a cynegetic pursuit. This article focuses on the cynegetic motif and, following the work of Carlo Ginzburg, creates the very model of narration, with the writing and graphical account juxtaposed against the rupestrian images. There are no paintings of the hunt in the grotto but instead a multitude of animals inhabit the path of the narrative.
