The slow erasure of writers on television

They have less and less space on television. France Télévisions is interested in Romain Gary for his life more than for his work. That's not a good sign. Even less so since the authors of L'Enchanteur, François-Henri Désérable and Maria Pourchet, are themselves novelists. What TV doesn't care about.

Neither of them had been born yet when she frequently adapted the novels of the time. In bulk: Colette, Georges Duhamel, Henry de Montherlant, Jacques de Lacretelle, François Mauriac, Philippe Hériat then, in the following generation, Élisabeth Barbier, Maurice Druon, Jean d'Ormesson, Robert Sabatier, Michel Déon, Hervé Bazin, Jean Dutourd and so many others have seen television put at the service of their works.

With rare exceptions – Virginie Despentes, Jean-François Parot – it is today the opposite: novelists are put at the service of television. We do not adapt Didier Decoin, it is Decoin who adapts; and adapts. We don't adapt Didier van Cauwelaert, we order Madame et ses flics (1985) or Les Filles du Lido (1995), subjecting it to the changing diktats of the broadcasters.

Little by little, the singularity of writers gives way to the demands of marketing. And Romain Gary – of whom only Les Cerfs-volants was adapted, twice, in 1983 and 2007 – is nothing more than the subject of a biopic. The Enchanter was watched by 2 million people on February 12. The same evening, there were almost twice as many for Les Bodin's investigative in Corsica. When will there be an episode of Les Bodin's written by Désérable and Pourchet?