Geoffroy Delorme (Norman, born in Nanterre, 37 years old) has a story to tell. And he is the result of a lonely childhood, isolated from others. He studied primary, secondary and high school by correspondence at the imposition of his parents. They gave him, he says, the idea that society was a very dangerous place. It terrified him. But he needed to relate and at 19 he found a way to do it: going into the forest of Louviers, Normandy, near his house. And there, by dint of returning day after day, he ended up wanting to blend in with his surroundings and did not return home. He went hungry until he learned to process acorns and chestnuts. He was cold, even hypothermic, and he understood that he had to keep his nights busy. And over the months he met Daguet, Chévi, Mef, Fougère… The roe deer of the forest, which taught him how to be an animal. His experience lasted seven years, one of them completely. He now publishes the deer man, by Captain Swing, which hits bookstores next Monday. The interview is conducted by phone.
Ask. What happened? Why was he isolated like that?
Answer. It is a decision that I have never understood. I only went to school for one year. When I was 7 years old, I had a problem in the pool, the teacher threw me in the water, I ran out soaking wet and got caught by the school bus driver. After that passage they decided to take me away from school. I don’t know his deep motivation. I can not explain it. From the ages of 8 to 19, I never set foot in a school or had friends.
Q. Can you help me better understand your position?
R. My father was an assistant director, but I don’t really like to talk about my parents. His decision influenced the way I live but he has not played a profound role in what I have done. He would have done it anyway.
Q. Didn’t you rebel?
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R. When you are a child you have no reflexes to defend your own opinion. We trust our family, we are ignorant. When many years later I began to have contact with human beings, I discovered their bad side, yes, but also the good side.
Q. Ten years have passed since that immersive experience. How were you then?
R. A shy boy, afraid of a society he doesn’t know. But he was also intense, adventurous and he felt that to be truly free he had to “be” in nature. People today are frightened by nature and reassured by society. The opposite happened to me.
“People today are scared of nature and reassured by society. The opposite happened to me”
Q. Why did you decide to go into the forest?
R. My way of relating was to go to the forest. Sometimes I went at night to discover sensations, that was what motivated me
Q. Do you like our society?
R. I have more in common with people who live in contact with nature than with those who work to earn money. I have neither that need nor that desire.
Q. Explain to me how to survive without a tent or a sleeping bag.
R. I understood that I would have to sleep during the day. In the evenings I built a fire and kept busy shelling the acorns that I would later eat. I quickly learned that the slightest bit of hypothermia can end your life. It’s not nice. At first you tremble, but when you stop trembling is when the real problem arrives: you are exhausted and at that moment the error of letting yourself go can come. He also ate small amounts of acorns, nuts, and chestnuts every hour.
Q. Doesn’t sound like much fun.
R. It was 90% pure happiness and 10% true pain. I had to look for food, constantly keep myself dry, look for branches, store food well… Life in nature is not a life of pleasure. We cannot relax even for a single day. It is much harder than our current life.
Q. So what for?
R. What I am most proud of is having known how to manage the elements, having been able to be free, having acquired a knowledge of nature. He was surrounded by roe deer. If there hadn’t been animals around me, I wouldn’t have endured. I felt integrated into nature, one.
Q. What kind of intimacy did you achieve with Daguet, the roe deer that you say gave you the key to the forest?
R. My first contact was like the one that any person could have had. But when we had that first contact, I had already been in the forest for three months, my scent was everywhere. Daguet decided to follow me. It was like a game that he started and that I continued. Daguet would come up to me, and then he’d run off. One day he licked me, and from that moment we entered into a relationship of absolute trust. I made 43 roe deer friends. Between 7 and 10 of them were very close, like a dog or a cat. About twenty accepted me, but never came to see me. The rest directly fled.
Q. If Daguet is your David Graybeard —the chimpanzee who proved to Jane Goodall that her species used tools—, what did he show you?
R. In nature we are in front of ourselves. Animals can act as guides. They show us our own instinct. Nature is very hostile and we have reached our current comfort because we have understood all the violence that emanates from nature, it is very dangerous. We must be humble. There are people who come to nature with pride, like a conqueror. You have to arrive humbly, with simplicity. You don’t have to want to dominate it. You have to find a difficult balance.
P. “Living with the roe deer is another form of solitude, more beneficial.”
R. Being with them has shown me to what extent I am human. I have discovered my humanity. It is something very strange given that I was alone as a representative of human nature. And the roe deer taught me to be patient. Anything I don’t use I’ll use in another way. It is a very simple way of life, we are the ones who complicate it.
Q. How did you feel when you were among them and how do you feel now?
R. They are two totally different worlds. When I was with them there were no threats, I wasn’t alone, they didn’t bore me. It was integrated. The animals and the forest take us as we are. Our society is much more complex because it judges you. We complicate our lives. In nature the law of the strongest rules but in society the law of the most violent rules. It is harder to live in human nature than in the forest.
Q. What have you done since you left the forest?
R. I’ve kept coming back, I’ve worked part-time. It has been very difficult for me to reintegrate. He had nothing, no diploma. When they asked me what I had done, I had nothing to tell but my experience. It has been difficult for me to find accommodation and money. Society did not trust me and that affected me a lot. When I was in nature, she trusted me and so did I, since I am nature. Finding myself with a society against me has been very hard, which is why I have written the book. It has allowed me to explain myself. Little by little I managed to convince people. I still live near the forest, I don’t have a very high standard of living. I have received aid from the state to support myself and live honorably.
Q. Have you had contact with your parents again?
R. Our relationship is definitely over. We do not share values, we do not have the same look towards things. I will never understand why they isolated me, I will never understand their insane way of being. To be happy you have to understand that there are people you have to get away from.
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