A Lot and A Little: Fragmentation and Tragedy in Denis Emorine’s Broken Identities

In Denis Emorine’s new novella Broken Identities, gifted young Hungarian student Nora writes a paper on the works of main character and writer Dominic Valarcher, which she describes as “a lot and a little at the same time.” That phrase serves to describe the entire novella. 

On one level, Broken Identities seems to be an intimate domestic drama about a professor caught in a love triangle. Dominic has a wife of many years, Laetitia, a talented concert pianist whom he genuinely loves and finds extremely attractive, yet he also feels passion for Nora, a younger graduate student who admires his writing. The tale explores his angst and conflicted feelings and appears focused solely on three people. 

Yet, through the inclusion of minor characters, we see that this novella draws on these relationships to probe broader historical and psychological themes. Dominic lives haunted by the thought of his mother’s earlier days, as she survived losing her first husband in a concentration camp. Now, as an adult, he seems fascinated by younger women who seek out his care and mentorship. A therapist, with whom he built a close relationship, suggests to him that this might stem from a wish to have protected his mother from heartbreak.

Also, both Nora and Nadja, a young student starting a literary magazine at her school who falls under his spell while seeking his endorsement, are Eastern European, while he and his wife are French. Eastern Europe is tied up in Dominic’s mind with tragedy, death, and the victims of the Holocaust, as what he calls the “Russian” side of his personality. While Eastern Europe is complex and represents much more than tragedy, in Dominic’s mind, it stands in for a shadow, an irreparable loss stemming from his inherited childhood trauma which obsesses him more than he realizes. 

It is this “Russian” side that calls to him during the final days of the academic conference he attends with Nora, and that leads him to his final tragedy. Yet, even at the end, he is not totally overcome by this darkness. He calls Laetitia and shares a sensual text exchange suffused with joy and passion, even after meeting up with Nora. And, finally, the novella ends with a rendition of the elegant love poem to Laetitia that he included in a manuscript he shared with Nadja. 

Broken Identities is told through poems, diary entries, and letters accompanying the prose, which underscores the theme of fragmentation. There are often things characters will not speak aloud but only scarcely admit to themselves, or which they feel are only expressible through art. The additional use of  letters, text messages, and phone calls are forms of communication used when people are separated. When Dominic is with Laetitia, he’s apart from Nora, and vice versa. When he takes refuge in France to write and process his emotions, Laetitia is left alone and communicates her feelings through musical innuendo. 

These bits of communication, which average people might overlook as less significant than a novel or symphonic masterwork, highlight characters’ states of mind in Broken Identities. In this way, as Nora says, all of our thoughts and words can mean “both a lot and a little,” and reveal not only inner romantic conflict, but the lingering intergenerational effects of historical traumas. 

Denis Emorine’s Broken Identities can be ordered here (in French).