L’or ou l’amour ? Les frontières du zéro dans L’Iris de Suse de Jean Giono
Gold or Love? The Borders of Zero in L’Iris de Suse by Jean Giono

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the demarcation between love and gold, that generates spectacular changes in a hardened hero’s soul – the protagonist of Jean Giono’s L’Iris de Suse, formerly titled L’amour du zéro (The Love of Zero). The weight of gold counterbalanced by the ethereality of love turns into a boundary beyond which an egocentric brigand converts to Platonic love. Unlike a tragic hero, the brigand does not end in total failure and disaster, because he has a kind of illumination: the appeal of love. Tringlot can experience passion and thus he is able to fulfil his dreams. By his non-material love for l’Absente, he reaches the Absolute. Giono’s hero suffocates because of his sad wealthiness, he can go anywhere, but he never lingers or becomes attached to anything. But, after the passion for gold, he encounters the enjoyment of love, that removes the guilt from his life and sets up a border between happiness in love and happiness in possession. Tringlot’s cry when, back in Saint-Georges, he finds l’Absente on the threshold of the forge must be more resounding than his shout when discovering the treasure of Sambuque, since he has already established that “all the gold in the world” is no match for l’Absente, for the pure, absolute love.

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