Le décor est posé : nous sommes dans ce que Balzac a si souvent raconté, la mesquinerie, l’âpreté au gain des petites gens, les villages où tout se sait. Ce n’est jamais une toile de fond plaisante, et mon expérience de lecture est certainement teintée par le fait que je viens moi-même d’un village vieillissant de l’Ile-de-France qui, pour n’être plus habité par de tous petits exploitants agricoles, n’en a pas moins gardé une culture locale encore fortement influencée par l’ascension petite bourgeoise des XIXe et XXe, par la montre (pas celle au poignet, hein…) et la pesée soigneuse des statuts sociaux. Sur cet arrière-plan un peu glauque, une femme se détache : Thérèse, notre âme forte, qui pressée par ses deux consœurs, va raconter son histoire, d’abord avec une hypocrisie bienséante, puis, aiguillonnée par l’une des deux autres, une commère qui a le goût du scandale, avec une froide franchise qu’on est tenté de prendre pour la “vraie” version de son histoire. L’histoire de Thérèse est exposée en trois grands mouvements : le premier, raconté par elle, la décrit comme une jeune fille ordinaire, qui s’enfuit avec son amoureux pour aller l’épouser ; le second, où la commère prend la main, vire (on y vient) au roman balzacien, où le mari de Thérèse, métamorphosé en aigrefin, profite de la jeune fille et de la bonté d’une famille bourgeoise pour se faire une petite fortune ; le troisième et dernier mouvement, raconté par Thérèse et la commère, se présente comme une révélation : un monstre plus grand que nature se tapissait dans toute cette vilenie ordinaire, en tirait les ficelles, et trompait avec volupté la vigilance ragotarde de toute la communauté.

Il a de petits détails qui m’ont gênée au cours de la lecture ; par exemple, mon “deuxième mouvement”, raconté par la commère, fournit de très nombreux détails que l’opinion générale, si bien renseignée soit elle, ne pourrait connaître (notamment des pensées, des gestes intimes, etc.) ; on ne peut pas décemment leur donner comme excuse l’invention populaire (non que nous ne remplissions pas tous les blancs lorsque nous racontons une histoire, mais un peu plus d’incohérence, de sensationnalisme ou d’hésitation serait nécessaire pour crédibiliser l’hypothèse). La commère a donc des accès d’omniscience, ce qui est franchement embêtant dans une histoire qui démonte les mécanismes de l’opinion villageoise et les extrêmes qui sont nécessaires pour la tromper. Finalement, je crois que ce livre aurait mieux fonctionné pour moi sans l’inutile complication du récit à deux mains, si Giono soit n’avait pas répondu à la question “qui raconte” (narrateur invisible), soit s’il s’était concentré sur un seul narrateur (Thérèse était tout de même la mieux placée…), soit enfin s’il avait laissé la fin de son récit moins structurée, moins affirmative, et redonné à la narration le jeu qui lui manque pour s’accommoder de multiples points de vue. Reste également la question de la motivation du récit (on la comprend chez la commère, mais Thérèse partage soudain des secrets vieux de plusieurs décennies sans que l’on comprenne bien pourquoi).

Il reste néanmoins la très belle écriture de Giono, qui pour être ici moins poétique et bruissante qu’à son ordinaire (ce n’est après tout pas lui qui parle) n’en est pas moins maîtrisée, ni moins pure et sensible sans sombrer dans la sensiblerie. C’est justement parce que s’enfoncer dans le récit est un tel plaisir que les interruptions narratives m’ont ennuyée ; en revanche, elles nous offrent le plaisir de la langue parlée, avec ses mots tout entiers surgis du passé comme le “trimard”, sa saveur crue (“avec un cul du tonnerre de Dieu, neuf dixièmes en crin, comme de juste, mais l’autre dixième incontestablement ce qu’il y avait de plus valable“) et ses subtilités que seul permet un usage un peu relâché (“elle avait perdu les sens” pour une déclaration d’amour, est-ce que ce pluriel/ cette conglutination d’expressions ne sont pas tout simplement géniaux ?). Tiens, peut-être que j’aurais dû tout simplement lire le livre entièrement à voix haute…

Je ne l’avais cependant pas oublié, notamment grâce aux merveilleuses étagères à l’entrée de notre logis actuel, assez vastes pour que TOUTE notre collection de livres (ou presque) puisse s’étaler reliures visibles, et non plus en doubles rangs d’oignon comme à New York. Il m’a en revanche fallu lire plusieurs fois son titre au fil de mes lectures sur les romans noirs de l’Angleterre au tournant du XIXe pour que je m’aperçoive que c’était cela, que je cachais parmi mes bouquins : rien de moins que l’une des œuvres “majeures” de cette mineure “gothic lit” dont Ann Radcliffe fut la star absolue, la faiseuse de best-seller, le nom par lequel tout est arrivé… mais dont Lewis fut un des artisans majeurs (et un des gros succès de vente, lui aussi). Il paraît d’ailleurs que Le Moine a inspiré L’Italien, le dernier roman publié (hors une poignée d’apocryphes) par Radcliffe ; j’en reparlerai sûrement lorsque j’aurais lu ce dernier !

Revenons cependant pour l’heure à notre moine, frère Ambrosio, un capucin dont la piété et les oraisons fougueuses font l’admiration du tout-Madrid. Il est présenté comme une sorte d’idole des femmes, le dernier confesseur à la mode, le Brad Pitt de l’homélie, à la fois passionné, beau et vertueux. Abandonné à un couvent depuis sa plus tendre enfance, Ambrosio est né en effet avec toutes les qualités qui auraient pu en faire un parfait gentilhomme. Du fait de sa réclusion, il n’a cependant jamais affronté aucune vraie tentation, et manque de compassion pour les faiblesses des autres. Avec l’adulation de belles et riches jeunes femmes et la flatterie constante de l’opinion publique, il se trouve devoir pour la première fois livrer bataille à deux démons, l’orgueil et la concupiscence.

En parallèle progresse l’histoire d’Antonia, une de ces parangons de perfection typique des héroïnes du genre : sa grande beauté va sans dire, mais elle est également d’une bonté si immodérée que je vais me permettre de faire une entorse à la charité chrétienne et d’appeler une bécasse une bécasse, cultivée sans connaître le mal (visiblement Lewis se rendait bien compte du problème, puisqu’il a recours à des explications savoureusement ironiques du type “sa maman lui faisait lire la Bible, mais dans une version qu’elle avait entièrement recopiée à la main pour en purger les torrents d’immondices qui s’y déversent” — ce qu’il dit bien mieux, appelant notamment la Bible “le livre qui trop souvent enseigne les premières leçons du vice, et donne l’alarme aux passions encore endormies“). Bref, Antonia est plus une fonction narrative qu’un personnage à proprement parler, et en tant que telle elle remplit parfaitement son rôle : éveiller l’amour d’un “Don de” prêt à s’abaisser jusqu’à elle et à l’épouser, veiller sur la santé vacillante de sa digne mère, susciter le désir interdit d’Ambrosio, et ensuite, pleurer, crier et s’évanouir à répétition alors que les événements se précipitent autour d’elle.

Difficile sans révéler toute l’histoire de vous dire comment la magie et le merveilleux s’invitent dans le roman, mais puisque nous sommes en roman “gothic*”, il faut bien qu’il y ait du fantastique, et il ne manque pas. Il a même la supériorité énorme sur celui de Radcliffe de ne pas s’excuser, d’être franc et sans explication (d’où le terme de merveilleux plus approprié que celui de fantastique), et dans sa critique sociale (notamment son anticléricalisme). Bien sûr, l’histoire reste conventionnelle, et la subtilité n’est pas vraiment de mise (on est loin de James et de Turn of the Screw), mais j’ai également trouvé une puissance fantasmatique remarquable. Puisque mon principal point de référence est Udolpho, donc Radcliffe, je dois dire que je me demande dans quelle mesure le sexe de l’auteur joue sur cette capacité à évoquer la puissance du désir charnel et du goût du pouvoir, que ce soit à cause du dicible ou du connaissable. Il se peut bien sûr que la froideur de Radcliffe soit personnelle, mais c’est un point que je voudrais garder à l’esprit pour des lectures ultérieures. J’aurais volontiers rajouté James à l’équation ici aussi (lui va encore plus loin, car chez lui le désir semble compris et intégré à la trame même du texte d’une façon incroyablement perceptive pour quelqu’un écrivant avant Freud), mais Turn of the Screw date de la toute fin du siècle, ce qui fausse la comparaison.

Fantastique et merveilleux version XIXe sont au programme cette année — ma dissertation de master 1 devrait porter sur un sujet qui me permettra d’y revenir. Depuis le temps que je promets du surnaturel sur le bandeau de ce blog !

Première phrase: “Si on ne croit pas à la prédestination, alors, il faut admettre que les circonstances d’une rencontre, que par facilité nous attribuons au hasard, sont en fait le résultat d’une incalculable suite de décisions, prises à chaque carrefour dans notre vie, et qui nous ont secrètement orientés vers elle.”

Catherine Millet, faut-il le rappeler, à fait scandale (et succès d’édition) avec sa Vie sexuelle de Catherine M., paru en 2001. J’avais bien aimé ce livre, malgré l’effet refroidissant que produisait l’accumulation d’aventures sexuelles ; il me semblait qu’il y avait un sous-texte, une armature formelle que je ne m’étais pas donnée la peine d’identifier, mais qui donnait une certaine qualité esthétique à l’ensemble, comme une sorte de trompe-l’oeil, l’impression que sous l’amas des corps se dessinait une émotion mal racontée et que donc j’étais libre d’imaginer. La sensation de dissociation, de flottement qui se dégageait du texte n’était pas très gaie, mais elle était intéressante.

Cette impression, je l’ai retrouvée avec Jour de souffrance, mais pas intacte. Elle est raffiné dans la première partie, Résumé, qui commence par un si et poursuit sur de longues théories qui semblent intelligentes mais ne vous laissent que fumée dans les mains. Le temps y revient en arrière, s’emboîte, se corrige, de nouveaux motifs apparaissent, se précisent, se délitent. Ces va-et-vient sont passionnants, techniquement admirables, et leurs décalages constants me sont plus intelligibles après le travail réalisé cette année sur la conscience et les motifs du temps et de la mémoire. Cette partie est, à première lecture, à peine compréhensible ; elle produit cependant l’effet libérateur d’une série de questions, d’un amas de photos floues, et constituent la matière du récit.

La suite du roman, en revanche, m’a laissée plus indifférente. Catherine Millet y relate la découverte par son alter ego des aventures de son compagnon et la souffrance masochiste qui l’envahit alors, au mépris de tous ses choix intellectuels de femme libérée, puis le long parcours pour dominer tant que faire se peut cette douleur. La narration, plus classique, se distingue surtout par son écriture d’une précision “blanche” quasi-impitoyable. La tentative d’honnêteté totale est bien sûr vouée à l’échec, dissoute dans l’indicible et l’animal, et cela est accepté. Le regard, cependant, reste d’une dureté glaciale. De plus, récit d’une obsession, l’écriture garde ce caractère hermétique de l’obsession, la faculté d’exclure celui à qui on la raconte, la faculté de se passionner pour “une incalculable suite de” détails sans grand intérêt, l’incapacité de vivre quoi que ce soit qui ne soit lu en relation avec son obsession. Il est fort possible que cela soit voulu : le résultat en est la même lassitude que l’on ressent à écouter quelqu’un ressasser toujours les mêmes idées.

On le voit, il y a matière intellectuelle dans ce livre ; cependant, sans doute suis-je trop “accro” d’une lecture émotionnelle pour m’y trouver tout à fait à l’aise. Je retrouve bien là une de ces immaturités de lectrice qui me rendent le XIXe siècle littéraire tellement plus naturel que les expérimentations formelles plus récentes… Un lecteur plus “adulte” y trouverait probablement mieux son compte que moi sur le plan du plaisir de lecture ! J’ai en revanche tiré un profit tout à fait personnel de la lecture dans le cadre de mon programme d’étude de cette année : la tentative de reconstitution de mouvements psychologiques ancrés dans le corporel, la jalousie, le voyeurisme, le souvenir, le “feuilletage” de l’être, autant de thèmes très proustiens — et d’ailleurs référence explicite est faite à ce cher Marcel.

Il est donc assez amusant que ce qui m’ait le moins intéressée soit le blabla introspectif qui se glisse sournoisement dans le récit — on a tant reproché à Proust d’être psychologisant, et c’est tellement absent de son oeuvre… On voit bien ici pourquoi, car le personnage n’est jamais si distant que lorsqu’il est expliqué, nous privant de toute chance de le comprendre en nos propres termes…

Dernière phrase (dans le Temps, dans le temps !) : “De temps à autre, il m’arrive encore de déplier un papier que Jacques a laissé traîner, — par réflexe.”

This attempt at a more instinctive manner of communication is, of course, hard to read. We are used to texts being neatly put together, to rational explanation, to synthesis following analysis (or vice-versa, depending on culture). Used to, in short, a modicum of linearity. It is a well known human prejudice that we over-explain, draw conclusions where there is nothing but correlations, and guess correlations at the drop of a hat. Hence astrology, reading in entrails and people thinking they can predict the stock market based on some Fibonacci, pi or moon cycle-based formula.

But I digress.

Simon has a somewhat paradoxical project with La Route des Flandres (itself only a part of a biographical-related series of books). On the one hand, he is recreating a past experience (the trauma of World War II) in a more manageable form; on the other, he is trying to preserve the immediacy of it. To do this, he presents memories not in chronological order, but by way of associations. Here I must make a few side notes:

1. Cheating #1: Simon mentioned around that time the idea that memories present themselves to use not chronologically, but depending on their importance. That would imply sometimes, it seems to me, that you would jump from one thing to another without so much as the tenuous help of objective association. The sheer force of the affect should be justification enough. Simon never does that, though – there’s always some element linking one memory to the next. That’s a very Proustian way to go about things – a clump of related things, a huge nodes of sensations emerging in an otherwise pretty disjointed perception. Simon does indeed admire Proust and refer to him quite a bit.
2. Cheating #2: the book was in fact carefully reconstructed after a period of unstructured writing: Simon wrote a number of fragments which he then color-coded depending on the characters present in each. He organized the fragments to alternate colors – and that’s how the book was born.

This brings to mind the way I will write a dissertation given a limited amount of time: desperately scramble any idea that comes to mind on a piece of paper, then isolate a few themes, color code all rudimentary ideas, and shove them in each theme. Of course I’m doing the opposite of Simon (trying to bring together similar colors instead of trying to weave them through the course of the text); I’m amused to think that my draft paper might look more like his end product that my final dissertation.

Anyway – cheating or not, what Simon does is in fact remarkably successful. There’s a sort of indulgence, a sort of hypnosis that wants to lull you while you read the book, but every time you try to stop and think – the strands of meaning come undone, and you’re left feeling uncertain of where you are, what happened, and what Big Lessons you should take away. That last sentence would certainly make Simon very happy, but of course I’ll have to struggle with this in the context of academic learning. My plan of attack therefore is to start by focusing on the obsessions, the recurring motives of the book: horses, the mud, sexual desire, friends, suicide, etc. These are not really themes, more ornaments (at least at this stage, and in my mind), but we’ll see where they’ll take me.

Most of my reading these days is class-oriented, and it is an interesting experience in and of itself. There’s Proust, which represents an enormous amount of reading and demands close attention: I’ve never really read like this, taking notes, consulting commentaries, reading a novel and its author’s critical writing in parallel, and generally making myself be so deliberate (some would say mechanical!) about it. Some days it’s really hard and brings too much effort between the text and me; other days (like today), it can be really rewarding and glorious, when some deeper understanding, some new connection appears.

But that’s not what I want to talk about.

At the beginning of the week, I went through a rough reading patch. Proust tasted dry and pompous. I decided to break my “one book at a time” rule, at first with very short reads. Nice… but unsatisfying. So I went to my TBR pile intending to pick a book at random: I choose Guenassia’s novel out of pique, because with its 750 pages, it was the thickest of the pile and mocking me and my Proust block.

It was of course a little paradoxical, looking for a breather in the longest book available, but Le Club turned out to be the right choice. A simple, generous book, it leaves its reader ample space to daydream and feel without demanding too much thinking. It is unfortunately not translated in English yet, but it’s been published so recently that I hope it will be soon: I’d love to share it with my husband, as it tells a lot about Paris without ever making it its subject (which avoids all the nostalgia and cliches and generalizations that seem to go hand in hand with this city).

The book’s hero, Michel, is 12 years old when the book starts in October 1959. We follow him through the next five years, until the summer after his baccalauréat. I guess if one was looking to criticize the novel, the main issue might be that in these five crucial years, Michel doesn’t seem to change a lot. The story, or rather the stories, are not in him but around him: in the collapse of his parents’ marriage, in the experiences of the Eastern European refugees who gather at the café Michel and his friends go to, in the political and intellectual effervescence of the early 60′s, in the books Michel reads voraciously, in his first love stories, in the repercussions of the Algerian War on French society… There’s an undercurrent of bitterness in the book — as Guenassia said in an interview, there’s probably not one character in his large cast who doesn’t commit a betrayal at one point or another, Michel included.

And yet the overwhelming feeling left by the book is one of delight, of the richness of the world and of the human experience. All these betrayals, even the worst, stem from aspirations, desires, idealism; and no matter how low men (and women!) fall, there’s always a measure of redemption for them. There is something very comforting in this book, something optimistic in the ease with which Michel makes friends with everyone, in the way the book tells us we all belong, we all have have fascinating stories to tell, in its amusement with human weakness which isn’t so much oblivious to the amount of pain it might inflict as deliberately forgiving, a choice of to smile and take it lightly.

I imagine there might states of mind where this glibness is not welcome, but for cold, damp winter days when one needs to know that the world of men is alive and well, and that not every motion of the soul needs to be scrutinized, nor can be – it is perfect.

“immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion (…); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers” (translation found here)

The first volume of In Search of Lost Time, Swann’s Way, is composed of three long chapters to which I reacted fairly differently. I came relatively unprepared to Proust: I had read the second part of Swann’s Way, Un amour de Swann (Swann in Love) in my early twenties, and blasphemously, I had been neither awed not befuddled by it. I found it to be a much easier read than I had been led to believe; at the same time, its genius didn’t leap out at me.

Missed connection.

The first part of Swann’s Way – Combray — deals with the summer months the unnamed narrator, then a child, spent with his family away from Paris in his aunt’s house in the village of Combray. This first chapter, which contains the madeleine anecdote (in which the narrator regains the emotional memory of his childhood when tasting the same type of cookie he used to get as child), simply blew me away. Proust starts with a longish, slightly nauseating account of the child’s bedtime ritual. I say slightly nauseating because the drama of it, the great question is: will Maman come kiss me goodnight? His longing for her struck me as both disturbingly amorous (and he does, indeed, compare his desire to the one Swann experienced when in love with a courtesan) and heart-wrenching in the loneliness it betrays. This detailed and intense memory is all that subsists in his memory of his summers in Combray; it is like a point of light, like the flame of a candle in darkness. Other memories can be accessed; but they are rational, affectless and dry, facts more than feelings.

 That is, until he tastes a madeleine dipped in tea, and all of it comes flooding back. Proust obviously was proud of his idea to compare this process to a Japanese paper unfolding into wonderful shapes when dropped in water, but I saw it as flows of light (which is why I chose the quote above): first there’s is darkness, against which the one illuminated room of the narrator shines brightly; then the door is opened, and light starts cascading down the stairs, rushing through the entire house, seeping through the door and window frames into the streets, pushing them open to crash over the village and into the nearby fields. It’s a magical feeling of dawn lighting up an entire world and then holding it into the light to sparkle and be examined; once in a while, a bold ray of light even reaches out further than Combray and extends all the way to Paris or Balbec, in Normandy. It really is breathtaking, but Proust doesn’t stop there: in the world he just created, which at first seems to be mostly a world of things and places, he starts dropping characters. They’re initially introduced mostly through their social connections to the narrator’s family (the old family friend, the faithful servant, etc); their best traits are revealed, they all seem pleasant and lovable — what we are told probably is what is openly said about them (the one exception in all this pleasantness is the early mention of Swann’s “unsuitable” wife — but is it really a negative when it tickles the narrator’s fancy so much?). Then Proust starts mentioning a few things his family didn’t know about their acquaintances – Swann’s worldly connections, Legrandin’s reputation as a writer. At first it is all very positive; but then we ineluctably progress to the darker sides of the characters, Françoise’s (the maid) brutality against the other servants, Legrandin’s snobbery, aunt Léonie’s ridiculousness… This gives depth to the conflict that Proust seems to be introducing as a central point of the Search: a desire to go both Swann’s way (the side of arts, freedom, easy women…) and Guermantes’ way (the side of respectability, history and religion). He shows how the narrator’s family cannot imagine both sides could ever coexist: an uncle is forever rejected when Swann meets an actress at his hotel, a friend who idly insinuates that aunt Leonie “lived the life” is banned from the house, and Swann himself is only accepted as long as  he keeps his distasteful wife and daughter under wraps. With so much interdict to recommend her, how could our narrator not fall in love at first sight with Swann’s daughter, Gilberte? That is exactly what happens at the end of Combray.

Don’t worry — I will move much faster through the last two parts of Swann’s Way! The second part is Swann in Love. It felt like a more traditional story, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Set years before Combray, it tells rather exhaustively the love story between Swann and a woman, Odette de Crecy, who is in every way not right for him. “Love” could, and I think should be taken sarcastically here: while Odette might have had a crush on Swann for a week or too, it is obvious she rapidly outgrows it in favor of a more solid feeling of greed for his money and his connections. As for Swann, he develops an obsession for the woman despite her not being his “type” physically, intellectually or emotionally (amusingly, Proust seems to find overcoming a lack of physical attraction much more surprising than the other two). Swann’s love is what used to be called un amour de tête (love from the brain), in opposition to un amour de coeur (love from the heart); he is in love with an image he created for himself out of a Botticelli painting, a music phrase and a good dose of laziness. From such charming beginnings, Swan and Odette’s affair slowly descends into an elegant sort of abjection. I’m sure my reading is totally unorthodox, but since the character study was a little overwrought for me, what this ended up feeling like was — a mystery. I kept focusing on one question: is Odette the “unsuitable” woman Swann ends up marrying? Pure rooting interest (against, of course) kept me turning pages. Perversely, Proust leads his reader all the way to the death of Swann’s interest for Odette — without ever answering the question.

The answer, however, is contained in the last part of Swann’s Way, Place Names: The Name. This third part is much shorter, and truncated by Proust for publishing purposes, which is shockingly perceptible in the abruptness with which it ends. The writing is lovely, starting with long musings on everything there is in the name of a place, all the colors and smells and ideas a few syllables can convey… And yet, how deceptive names are, being both less than and besides the reality of a place. This idea of one being driven by illusions, led astray by one’s imagination of the world (names here, image in the case of Odette in the previous chapter) rather than by the world itself, is immediately illustrated again in the young love of the narrator for Swann’s daughter Gilberte. The passion is built on wind, and the narrator is never happier with Gilberte as when she is away. She is after all only a vivacious, friendly girl of flesh and blood, not her friendship with his beloved writer Bergotte, not her beautiful mother with her sinful past (we meet the mother, but in case you haven’t read the book — I’ll keep her name to myself), not a theatre play with a famous actress: and it is really these things the narrator is in love with.

Woo, that was some note! I’m afraid it’s not really adapted to a blog, but I wanted to put some ideas down before going to explore this website dedicated to reading Proust.

“the abominable education of this world where, in an evening, more crimes are committed in thoughts, in words than the Law punishes, where soundbites murder the highest ideas, where one is only considered as strong as he sees clearly; and there, seeing clearly means believing in nothing, neither feelings nor men, nor even events” (quick and dirty translation)

Eugénie Grandet by Danielle Scarpa Kos

With perhaps the exception of Thomas Hardy, I am unfamiliar with non-French authors as preoccupied with questions of class and the major social changes of the 18th and 19th century as the holy trilogy of Flaubert, Zola and Balzac. Of these, Zola was long my favorite, probably because of his more easily understood idealism; re-reading Eugénie Grandet, however, was a great occasion to let Balzac grow on me – the elegance of his writing, the delicate irony married to acuity of observation (“ce combat secret… occupait passionnément les diverses sociétés de Saumur” – “this secret battle… engrossed the diverse societies of Saumur“), the neatness of the book structure where every scene felt necessary.

There are very few characters to like here: le père Grandet, the formidable shadow hovering over the entire book, is probably the most detestable of all. A devoted miser, he has built a huge fortune on ruthless cunning, breaches of trust and tireless exploitation of his fellow humans. For all this he is enormously admired in his home town of Saumur. The man lives like a pauper with his wife, his daughter Eugénie and his maid Nanon, an outcast he opportunistically rescued. Some vague reasons are provided for his greed: a destitute childhood, a predator’s taste for victory in business matters – but most of all, the picture is that of a man obsessed beyond reason or understanding, for whom is impossible to feel sorry.

Grandet has only one child, his daughter Eugénie, whose prospects attract suitors whose only charms are money and ambition. She herself is quite oblivious to all things romantic, until one day her cousin Charles is sent to spend some time in Saumur. They fall in love. Alas, the true motive for Charles’s visit is that his father, on the verge of bankruptcy, has sent him away while he commits an “honorable suicide”. Grandet arranges to have his nephew sent to the colonies to try and remake his fortune – and to keep this poor suitor away from his daughter. Charles gone, life goes back to its mean routine, with Grandet descending ever more into avarice while Eugénie endlessly waits for her lover’s return.

It will be years before Charles comes back to France. By then he has become the Grandet he was always meant to be, a selfish, obdurate man who dismisses his past promises to contract a marriage he thinks more advantageous. Eugénie discovers the truth at the same time she learns that the disgraceful bankrupcy is still looming. She decides to settle her cousin’s debts and resigning herself to a loveless, sexless marriage to one of her suitors. The rest of her life will be spent in quiet resignation, first at the sideof her callous husband, then as an even-richer widow.  While she will do some good with her immense fortune, she will remain a prisoner to it to the end – isolated from every true feeling and living in the barren existence that is all she has ever known.

Quite peculiar to Balzac is his extremely harsh indictment of individuals. Society, place, circumstances – these are understood to play a role in the human tragi-comedy, but Balzac’s cynicism is unmissable. Individuals are despicable and society heinous; this is made worse by the growing fascination with money he denounces, but he doesn’t see human barbarity as either new or receding. The only admirable characters, individuals touched by a true idea of religion, are represented by Eugénie and her mother; they are frankly so angelic as to lack nerve. Nanon is an exception, the only other character who is overall positive despite some flaws – and my favorite in the book, with her obstinacy to make the best of life and her readiness to compromise for it.

I recently wrote of starting a Jane Austen book full of questions, only to end up oblivious to anything but the story one third of the way into the book. With Bartleby, it was the opposite: questions started to overwhelm me at the end.

The story is told from the point of view of an unnamed Lawyer, a man of experience who professes to look for tranquility foremost in life. His stated intent is curiously at odd with reality: out of three clerks in his employ, one (Turkey) is irate every morning, the second (Nippers) incensed in the afternoon, and the third (Ginger Nut) a rather distracted young boy. The situation and the way the Lawyer describes it make it clear that behind pompous manners and an appearance of respectable bourgeois greed lies a generous heart kept in check just enough to fit in the Wall Street society, with an innate sympathy for his misfit employees. The Lawyer keeps finding reasons to “excuse” his not firing his employees, a behavior the reader could see as either weakness or kindness; because of the story of a few charitable acts, I decided for the second, but reading comments on amazon.com, I might be in the minority.

Yet I was touched by the decency of the character, and not surprised that when he needed to hire a fourth clerk and Bartleby presented himself looking “pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn” – he should be engaged on the spot. But where the other clerks regularly erupt (against their copyist lives?) and move on, Bartleby soon starts resisting fulltime. He starts by refusing to read aloud his work, debuting the famous phrase – “I would prefer not to” – which soon will come to characterize his entire behavior, including the most basic of his work duty, copying. The man also settles at the Lawyer’s office. The occupation is discrete but firm; the Lawyer is refused entrance when he stops by out of business hours.

After some struggle, the Lawyer comes to accept Bartleby’s unexplainable conduct, and probably would have let him stay forever in his chambers where every window opens on a wall, were it not for social pressure. His patience for lunacy threatens his reputation, maybe ultimately his business, and the Lawyer is not foolish (or strong enough) to dismiss the concern. He tries to dismiss Bartleby, but when the later resists; his reserves of “fight” exhausted, the Lawyer decides to flee to new offices, leaving Bartleby behind.

Even then, the Lawyer doesn’t really desert Bartleby: when the office’s new occupant has him arrested and sent to the Tombs, the Lawyer traces him and attempts to make his life there more comfortable, notably by buying Bartleby food privileges. But ever refusing, Bartleby has ceased to eat whatsoever. He dies, probably of starvation, eyes wide open on another wall.

My confusion (mostly at Bartleby’s behavior) was not allayed by a “potential explanation” the Lawyer offers (that Bartleby had been a clerk in the office of the Letter of the Deads, opening for the administration the last missives of the now-defunct, and that this dreadful occupation might have damaged him in some way). Some further reading however helped. Two interpretations in particular seemed illuminating, “Bartleby as criticism of the then-emerging office life”, and “Bartleby as a mirror of Melville’s depression at the time of writing”. It seems to me that the presence of other angry clerks and of a judgmental society of lawyers might give credence to the first. The second, richer interpretation is based on the fact that when Melville wrote Bartleby, he was at a difficult time professionally. After a number of successful adventure books, he was encountering harsh criticism and low sales for books dearer to him (including Moby Dick). Bartleby represents the temptation to curl up in a corner and just stop –stop writing first, then stop living. The Lawyer would be another aspect of the writer – the well-educated, well-adjusted man with an unexplainable sympathy for the quirks of mankind, the one whose tolerance might (or not)have enabled Bartleby’s refusals. The absurdity of the story might reflect the one Melville would have felt in his own life; in that sense, the story would be interesting to confront to Kafka’s work.

Lord of the Flies was a re-read for me (“duh!”, thinks the American reader, “you read it at school!” — well no, because for one reason or another, it has not gone over to French culture as a “must-read”, more as a secondary choice most people have probably never heard of; but its influence in American pop culture is so pervasive, I heard about it one way or another a few years ago. It’s been love since).

Of course, it’s also the stuff nightmares are made of. The bastion of the “bad guys” – or rather, where the boys retreat when the “lord of the flies” (devil) takes over their psyche – is called Castle Rock. I’m no Stephen King scholar, but it seems fitting that it would be the heart of darkness in King’s books (which a quick wikipedia check just confirmed is an intentional homage on his part).

The story in itself is quite simple: a group of schoolboys gets stranded on a desert island during an unnamed war. The island offers plenty to eat (lots of fruits, some fish, an indigenous race of pigs), the weather is forgiving, and there even is a promontory on which to keep a fire to call for help. Surely, as the officer who will ultimately rescue the boys states, “a pack of British boys” would be “able to put on a good show” there?

Well, of course not – and the reason is exactly that we are talking about a “pack” much more than we are talking about a society. The annoying intellectual of the band, Piggy, tries to force the other boys to create one, with rules, a parliament and a project (rescue): the respect he gains for it is manifest in his nickname, and all he gets for it is death. The good intentions of the early days, championed by a truly civilized boy named Ralph, are rapidly forgotten: the lack of personal consequences for disobeying the rules (no grown-ups, a forgiving nature), a power-hunger and demagogic rival to Ralph’s authority (Jack) and the fear of unnamed monsters will soon bring chaos to island. Three boys will ultimately die: Piggy, first mocked, then stolen from, and finally executed; Simon, a boy who seems to embody the spiritual much in the way that Piggy embodies the intellectual (just as Piggy has his weaknesses – pedantry, physical laziness and self-importance, Simon has his  – trances resembling epilepsy, inability to communicate, shyness – but he sees through the illusion of the monster); and a third, unnamed little boy with a mark on his face who is so forgotten at the end that even Ralph will not mention him when telling the officer how many boys died on the island.

The two main reasons I love this book are the terrifying ring of truth of the story and the sharpness of the writing. The starting situation has been treated, over and over again, in an idealized boy-scout manner for young boys dreaming of adventures and independence; Golding tells us what would happen if we were really left unchecked (note that his view of human nature is even more pessimistic in that he doesn’t seem to consider that we get civilized as we age: the older boys are the ones waging war on the island, and beyond it the world of adults is at war too). One of my cousins evoked The Drifting Classroom, a Japanese manga, as pushing the cruelty much farther, making Golding look tame by comparison. I have ordered the first two volumes in the series so I can judge for myself, but I’ve noticed that they are labeled as “horror”, meaning that I expect them indeed to push things further, but probably not to have the same horrifying feel of reality.

The writing I mentioned as just lovely: no verbosity, every sentence feels tight and necessary – yet there is no dryness to it. Too often I find the modern paradigm of “cutting the fat” to lead in less gifted writers to books dessicated as beef jerky, all nerve and no depth(1). None of this here: Golding uses ample narrative ellipsis (doesn’t tell us every single detail of every day, which can sometimes make the descent into savagery feel rushed), but takes the time to work in scenes of intense sensory flavor and symbolic potency. I’m not sure why his other books are not as famous as Lord of the Flies, but I will certainly put more on my reading list!

(1) note: I love beef jerky, and yes it can be argued that good beef jerky has depth of flavor. But that’s the simile that came to mind, so there! :)

Illustration by Abigail Larson

I needed two quotes instead of one for what I liked in Frankenstein – its saving grace – was its duality. Is Victor Frankenstein a victim and his creation purely a “fiend” – or might Victor not be the real monster, and his creation the martyr?

Brought up in a loving Swiss family, Victor is an imaginative teen with a passionate intellect vulnerable to the wildest scientific theories. Despite his reclusive nature, Victor prepares to leave family to study at the university of Ingolstadt when he suffers his first misfortune: the death of his mother. Another shock waits for him in Germany, where he learns that the philosophers and naturalists he has been studying passionately (alchemists and mystics such as Paracelsus) are widely discredited. He decides to study physics and chemistry, quickly mastering these two disciplines.

In his studies, Victor stumbles upon “the secret of life” – and of course decides to test it. Assembling a semblance of a human being in his laboratory, he finally imparts it with life after months of grueling labor, only to feel a disgust of his creation so overwhelming he flees it in blind terror. When he finally returns to his laboratory, the creature is nowhere to be seen. Victor falls into a long delirious illness, nursed by his childhood friend Clerval.

From there, the tale descends into horror: Victor only finds his strength back to lose it again and again. He recovers from his illness to return home and find his youngest brother murdered and a family protégée falsely accused. Victor knows the real culprit is his monster, but cannot prove it. The creature seeks him out, eager to tell him the story from his point view, the rejection by all men including his creator, the accident that led to the murder of Victor’s brother, his solitude and his thirst for company. The monster offers a deal: if Victor creates him a companion, he will disappear forever. Victor accepts, and travels to England to seek out some scientists who can help him build his second creation (apparently, he forgot the trick). A fit of thinking however makes him realize that he’s putting the rest of humanity at risk by unleashing a second fiend upon it, and he destroys his labor. In revenge, the creature kills Clerval, and promises to destroy all that remains of Victor’s happiness on the night of his wedding.

Unable to imagine that this would be a threat against his fiancée, Victor decides to marry her as fast as possible, so he can once more confront – and maybe even this time fight – his monster. Alas! The fiend kills Elizabeth and Victor’s father, ravaged by grief, soon follows into the tomb. Creator and creature then start a chase that will lead them to the North Pole, where Victor dies without having been able to undo his deed. At his deathbed, the creature expresses his remorse, and departs to immolate himself in the wilderness, therefore erasing all his traces.

There are weaknesses aplenty in the book, and they are difficult to overlook: gaping plot holes, characters displaying limited mental abilities (despite his unparalleled brilliance, Victor rarely thinks ahead, and when he does his nerves betray him, or the book would end up much sooner), unrealistic exposition devices (someone writing in a letter: “you know that…” and then proceeding to explain in details what his correspondent knows) and an exaltation sometimes bordering on silliness… Yet this was the work of an author barely 18-year old! Her vivid imagination and enthusiasm are not the last of the charms of the book.

The main interest, however, is the mystery of the monster: are we to believe its account of itself, and feel the cruelty of its fate, or are we to embrace the point of view of the main narrator, Frankenstein, and feel his instinctive hatred for his creation? Perhaps from the weakness of the narration, I could not like Victor at all – found him to be a self-absorbed, timorous prick – and therefore had to side entirely with the monster. I had to share Mary Shelley’s reservations about human nature and its destructiveness, though I would not espouse her view of nature as the healer of it.