Lenny is a romantic figure in excess, given to a love for his friend that is in turns possessive, manipulative, touching, and brooding. His musical capabilities come with a weakness, a certain pallor, even a death rattle. There’s a romantic indulgence in the myths we construct about musicians – that a musician such as Lenny has at his fingertips songs that he hasn’t yet played, that his gift is a torture, that his life is a constant struggle to communicate with people because his form of communication is music. The novel cleaves to such stereotypes making Lenny feel one-dimensional. On the other hand, I like Lucas Debargue’s reading, in conversation with Léon for France Culture, of Lenny as a figment of poor isolated Hermin’s imagination.