The #1937Club – some reading recommendations for next week

It’s early April, so it must be almost time for another of Karen and Simon’s ‘Club’ weeks! On Monday 15^th, the #1937Club will begin – a week-long celebration of books first published in 1937. These ‘Club’ events are always great fun, and I’m looking forward to seeing all the various tweets, reviews and recommendations flying around the web.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given my fondness for mid-20^th-century lit, I’ve reviewed a few 1937 books over the years. So, if you’re thinking of taking part in the Club, here are my recommendations.

La Femme de Gilles by Madeleine Bourdouxhe (tr. Faith Evans)

Probably my favourite of the five novels featured here, although all have something interesting to offer. Elisa is devastated when she realises that her husband, Gilles, has become entangled with her attractive younger sister, Victorine. Beautifully written in a sensual, intimate style, La Femme de Gilles is a very compelling novella with a powerful ending. The writing is spare but very emotive – Bourdouxhe holds the reader close to Elisa’s point of view giving us near-complete access to her inner thoughts and feelings. A timeless story of desire, selfless love, and the pain these things can bring. Highly recommended, particularly for fans of writers such as Simenon, Anita Brookner and Jean Rhys.

These Names Make Clues by E. C. R. Lorac

An intriguing mystery by one of my favourite women writers from the Golden Age of crime fiction, now back in print as a British Library Crime Classic. A treasure hunt party in a well-to-do London house, various literary pseudonyms, a sudden blackout and two dead bodies all come together to form a complex puzzle for Chief Inspector Macdonald to solve. As the story unfolds, the action shifts from London to the Berkshire countryside, widening the novel’s scope. Fans of cryptic crosswords and anagrams will likely enjoy this one, especially given the relevance of the novel’s title.

After Midnight by Irmgard Keun (tr. Anthea Bell)

This book was published while Keun was living in exile in Europe after leaving Germany in 1936. Deceptively straightforward and engaging on the surface, the novel is actually a very subtle and insightful critique of the Nazi regime, written by an author who had experienced the challenges of navigating the system first-hand. It’s an excellent book, drawing the reader in from its striking opening line.

You can open an envelope and take out something which bites or stings, though it isn’t a living creature.

After Midnight also provides a genuine insight into a country on the brink of self-destruction. Keun is particularly illuminating on how easily a society can shift such that the unimaginable becomes a reality as a new world order is established.

Mona Lisa by Alexander Lernet-Holenia (tr. Ignat Avsey)

Some of you may be familiar with Alexander Lernet-Holenia’s intriguing novella I Was Jack Mortimer, a fast-moving, offbeat crime story set in 1930s Vienna. Nevertheless, there’s more to this author than that mystery suggests. Mona Lisa is a charming tale about love, life, and the search for beauty, told with much verve and wit. I thoroughly enjoyed this story of the captivating power of art and how we project our own emotions and feelings onto the images we see before us. Highly recommended, especially if this description appeals.

Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb (tr. Len Rix)

This marvellous novel was a pre-blog read for me, so I haven’t written about it before. Nevertheless, several other reviewers have, so do check out their reviews – you can find Max’s and Karen’s posts by clicking on the links. When I think of this novel, it’s the nostalgic, dreamlike atmosphere that comes to mind. There’s a lot more to Journey by Moonlight than that, of course, but the evocative mood is the first thing I recall. Various train journeys across Italy also feature prominently. I’d really like to reread this at some point, even if it doesn’t happen next week!

So there we are, a few recommendations for next week’s #1937Club! Do let me know your thoughts on these books if you’ve read any of them. Or maybe you have plans of your own for the week – if so, feel free to mention them here.

Sleepless by Marie Darrieussecq (tr. Penny Hueston)

When I saw the description of Marie Darrieussecq’s book Sleepless in Fitzcarraldo’s promotional materials, I knew I had to read it, especially as insomnia is something I have experienced periodically over the past 15 years. Beautifully translated from the French by Penny Hueston, Sleepless is an erudite exploration of sleeplessness, weaving together the author’s personal experiences of the condition with those of other notable sufferers, typically writers. It’s a difficult book to describe accurately as so much of its power comes from being immersed in this dizzying condition, caught in the hinterland between restful sleep and waking up refreshed.

At times, in the madness of no sleep, it’s like oscillating between two worlds. Alive, but in a dead end life, without birth, without death, and moments that is both static and spinning. (p. 98)

Structurally, the book comprises a series of fragments and essays, supplemented by a wealth of footnotes, photographs and illustrations, all of which add texture to Darrieussecq’s eminently readable meditation. It’s a great book for dipping into, best read in small chunks to appreciate all the details in full.

As Darrieussecq notes, Proust is the literary king of insomnia. A longstanding sufferer himself, Proust opens In Search of Lost Time with a description of one of literature’s most famous failed bedtimes. It’s an experience Proust is intimately familiar with himself as we see from the following passage.

I’m living in a sort of death, punctuated by brief awakenings. Proust writes from within insomnia, and it is from insomnia that he elicits his writing. Insomnia is his laboratory, and it is first and foremost an experiment in time. It is the place where memory is written, the room containing the rooms of the past. (p. 46)

As I was reading this book, I couldn’t help but wonder why so many writers experience chronic insomnia – the distinguished roll call also includes Kafka, Kawabata, Huysmans, Philip Roth, Marguerite Duras, Virginia Woolf, Natalie Sarraute, Leonard Cohen, Celine and many more. While Darrieussecq doesn’t offer a definitive hypothesis or explanation, she does give us a fascinating array of examples, peppering her text with various stories and reports through the years. Proust, for instance, lined his walls with cork in the hope of creating an atmosphere conducive to sleep. Others, such as Huysmans and Hemmingway resorted to cataloguing and making lists when woken during the night – tactics played out thorough the characters in their books.

These discussions of literary insomniacs are supplemented by other representations of sleeplessness in the broader cultural arena, touching on portrayals in films – Solaris, Alien, 2001: A Space Odyssey feature prominently here – alongside books and other related media. As the hour between 3 and 4 am is often the most punishing time for poor sleepers, it seems no coincidence that the devil knocks on the door at 3.33 am in Stuart Rosenberg’s classic film The Amityville Horror…

Moreover, Darrieussecq occasionally extends her gaze into the political arena, highlighting some of the social barriers to conducive conditions for sleep. While everyone should have access to a safe place to sleep, many individuals are denied this fundamental human right through no fault of their own. Social inequalities and injustices are often to blame – and, as Darrieussecq points out, migrants, asylum seekers, the homeless and those living in poverty face significant challenges in this area, conditions the author observes first-hand when she reports on conditions in the migrant camps in Calais for French TV.

Living in a place that can be easily erased. Non-places, non-camps, situated in a country but also outside of it, outside political geography. Places peopled with non-subjects, at the same time detained and refused entry: non-people. Non-persons. And when you are a non-person, you non-sleep, non-sleeping is all there is. (p. 148)

As someone who frequently experiences bouts of acute insomnia myself, sometimes lasting up to two weeks, I found the author’s personal reflections on her experiences with the condition especially interesting. For Darrieussecq, her problems with sleeping began shortly after the birth of her first baby – a son born two months prematurely due to her malformed uterus, an issue triggered by her exposure to harmful drugs while developing in her mother’s womb. Sleeping tablets help a little, but these treatments come with their own problems and challenges, not least the requirement to persuade a doctor to issue the tablets in the first place!

Real sleeping pills, ones that work, are hard to obtain without a prescription. It means having a doctor, going through the ritual of seducing the doctor, and sometimes the pharmacist; it means having connections, conniving in some way. Whether you like it or not, you’re engaged in a relationship, you stick with the prescriber who comes up with the goods, you move on from the schmucks. (p. 40)

And because these medications affect people differently, overdoses of sleeping pills and elixirs can pose a significant risk – an issue compounded by the adverse impact of these treatments on our short-term memory. Once again, the literary world is full of near misses with these drugs – some accidental, others deliberate. In Brazil, Clarice Lispector almost perished while smoking in bed, when, under the influence of sleeping pills, her mattress caught fire. In another incident, Virginia Woolf had an early brush with death at the hands of Veranol, several years before her suicide by drowning.

Before she gave herself over forever to the stones and the river, Virginia Woolf was rescued, at the age of thirty-one, from an overdose of veronal, by an injection of strychnine, a lot of coffee, and whacks from a wet towel. (pp. 51–52)

Other writers deliberately overdose on sleeping aids to commit suicide, choosing ‘the big sleep’, often at an early age. Akutagawa and Cesare Pavese are notable examples here, but there are many more in the wider literary arena.

Musing on her own relationship with insomnia, Darrieussecq writes humorously about trialling a plethora of bedtime rituals and sleeping aids, from fasting, acupuncture, hypnosis and meditation to various acupressure mats, gravity blankets, and other weird and (not so) wonderful treatments. Sadly, none of these miracle cures deliver a sustainable solution for Darrieussecq despite the myriad of claims from enthusiastic manufacturers.

Following a polysomnographic analysis of her sleep patterns, Darrieussecq is deemed to be experiencing hypervigilance, a condition that means she wakes up to 20 times an hour (far more than the 2 or 3 micro-awakening per hour many of us experience in a typical night). Consequently, she must maintain a strict bedtime routine, getting up and going to bed at exactly the same time each day including weekends; otherwise, she will fail to connect with her ‘sleep train – the one that arrives approximately every two hours’. No more reading, listening to music or playing with the kids under the covers for Marie – her bed is for sleep and sex, but nothing else.

Thanks to this drastic scheduling of my time and space, I fall asleep. Deeply. It works. At midnight I rest my head on the pillow. At five past midnight the train arrives, and after a brief trip through the hypnagogic mountains, I am no longer there. It’s extraordinary. I often want to go to bed earlier, but no, midnight is when my locomotive turns into a pumpkin.

Alas, I continue to wake up at 4.04 a.m. In short, after two train cycles, I need at least one more for a restful night. (p. 208)

So much of this creative memoir / archive of sleeplessness resonates with me personally, particularly the horror of waking up between 3 and 4 at night, stranded in the interminable limbo of insomnia until the alarm goes off at 6. Moreover, the book’s vignette-style structure reflects the fragmentary nature of this condition, capturing the freewheeling association between a myriad of thoughts as the mind flits from one topic to another – once again, a feverish state I am intimately familiar with.

In short, this is a fascinating treatise on a frustrating condition that many of us will experience at some point in our lives. Recommended reading for any literary lover, especially those with an interest in the mysteries of sleep!

Sleepless is published by Fitzcarraldo Editions; my thanks to the publishers and the Independent Alliance for kindly providing a review copy.

Misunderstanding in Moscow by Simone de Beauvoir (tr. Terry Keefe)

Published posthumously and recently reissued By Vintage Classics, Misunderstanding in Moscow is an elegant novella by the French writer and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Deceptively simple yet infused without enough depth to intrigue readers, the story explores ageing, disillusionment, regrets, misunderstandings, and the evolution of a marriage with the passing of time. It’s my first experience of de Beauvoir’s fiction, and I’m looking forward to trying more.

The novella revolves around a married couple, André and Nicole, retired teachers in their early sixties, travelling from Paris to Moscow in 1966. They are in Russia to visit Macha, André’s daughter from his first marriage, who now works as a publisher and translator. While both Parisians are pleased to be in Moscow, André has especially high hopes for the trip, having only reconnected with Macha in the last few years.

Macha, who lives with her husband and child, has taken a month off work to show her father and Nicole around Russia, despite the couple’s familiarity with the capital from a previous visit. While André reconnects with Macha, bonding (and sometimes disagreeing!) over their interests in languages and socialist politics, Nicole is at a loose end, prompting a series of doubts and disappointments to resurface in her mind. In truth, Nicole is a little jealous of the time André is spending with Macha and his apparent lack of desire to be alone with Nicole herself.

And then, throughout their long life together, her need for him and the joy that he bought her had done nothing but grow. Now it was impossible to say which of the two of them was fonder of the other. Linked like Siamese twins: he is my life, and I am his. And yet there it was: it was not hurting him to never see her alone. Had his feelings cooled down? (p. 54)

Differences between the generations also fuel this discontentment. For instance, while Nicole likes Macha, she views her stepdaughter’s confidence and ability to have it all – a successful career and a contented family – with coolness, jealous perhaps that such opportunities were unavailable to her in the early years of marriage. Moreover, Nicole is acutely conscious of the inevitable erosion of her attractiveness and desirability over time – a decline reinforced by the responses of younger men.

He had shaken her hand with a kind of distracted politeness and something had definitely been undermined. For her, he was a young, attractive male: for him, she was as asexual as an eighty-year-old woman. She had never recovered from that look; she had stopped coinciding with her body, which was now an unfamiliar skin, a kind of distressing disguise. (p. 52)

De Beauvoir skilfully shifts her point of view between Nicole and André throughout the novel in a smooth, seemingly effortless way. While Nicole becomes increasingly bored during the trip, André is assailed by disappointments of his own – more specifically, regrets about his lack of accomplishments in life and a nagging dissatisfaction with the appearance of his body. For both partners, sexual intimacy has given way to companionship and habit, augmenting the sense of stasis lingering in their relationship.

The misunderstanding of the title is a relatively trivial one; nevertheless, it’s significant enough to be damaging if left unchecked. Something de Beauvoir does particularly well here is to show how a small sequence of miscommunications can spiral out of control, exposing deeper fault lines at the heart of a couple’s marriage. Once again, longstanding resentments and insecurities resurface for both partners, causing them to question their understanding of the relationship. For Nicole, there are grudges over the abandonment of her youthful ambitions and ideals, casualties of her devotion to marriage and motherhood. Now she is left wondering if André still loves or even needs her at this stage in his life.

The two images that she had of her life, of the past and of the present, could not be matched up. There was a mistake somewhere. This moment was a lie: it was not André and it was not Nicole; this scene was taking place somewhere else. […] How many women are wrong about their lives, throughout their lives. Her own had not been the one that she used to tell herself. Because André was impetuous, emotional, she had thought that he cherished her passionately. In truth, he forgot her as soon as he could not see her. (p. 86)

For André, there are doubts of a different nature – has he been enough for Nicole in their marriage? Is she bored with him? And if she is questioning his sincerity now, has she always doubted it in the past?

Naturally, there have been more serious arguments before, typically over extramarital affairs and their son Philippe’s education, but these rifts were resolved both passionately and swiftly. In some respects, the petty nature of this disagreement makes it more insidious – and potentially more lasting – as it lingers between them.

What will the future hold for Nicole and André? Friendship, familiarity and habit, or love, tenderness and affection? What remains between them now, and will it be enough to keep them together in the future? I’ll leave you to discover this for yourself…

This is an elegant, perceptive story of how longstanding relationships naturally evolve as we grow older, prompting us to change our expectations and face up to regrets. The novella also perfectly captures how the passing of time can seem both fast and slow at once, particularly for Nicole, as she laments the rapid erosion of her youth while grappling with the boredom of day-to-day existence. There are some interesting points about politics, too, as André defends China – a nation Macha fears – while criticising his daughter’s drive for peace at the possible expense of other values.

Misunderstanding in Moscow is published by Vintage Classics; personal copy.

The Venice Train by Georges Simenon (tr. Ros Schwartz)

I love stories featuring trains, mostly because the settings offer so many possibilities for interesting fiction, from chance encounters and illicit affairs to good old-fashioned murder mysteries. My favourite is probably Patricia Highsmith’s 1950 novel Strangers on a Train, in which a man is drawn into a complex scheme for murder following a seemingly casual conversation on a train. There’s more than a whiff of Highsmith in the premise for The Venice Train, an excellent roman dur by the prolific Belgian writer Georges Simenon – first published in 1965 and recently reissued by Penguin in a new translation by Ros Schwartz.

Simenon’s protagonist is Justin Calmar, a seemingly ordinary thirty-five-year-old man who lives in Paris with his wife, Dominique, and their two children, Josée and Bib. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about Justin, a former teacher who now works as a sales manager for a plastics firm. His life revolves around providing for his family, interspersed with weekly visits to Dominque’s parents at their country restaurant near Poissy.

As the story opens, Justin is travelling home from his family holiday in Venice, having been called back early by his boss – Dominique and the children are to follow a few days later as per the Calmars’ original plan. After saying goodbye to his family at the railway station, Justin falls into a conversation with the only other passenger in his carriage, a middle-aged man, possibly Russian or Slovenian, judging by the newspaper he happens to be carrying. In truth, to call it a ‘conversation’ would be pushing things somewhat as the stranger reveals very little about himself, choosing instead to ask Justin about his job, family and other similar details. 

Gradually, by asking innocuous questions, this man had obtained information about him [Justin], his life and his work, which he had supplied with a meekness that made him feel slightly ashamed. (p. 24)

With the oppressive August heat adding to the sweaty atmosphere, Justin becomes increasingly uncomfortable in the stranger’s presence; yet he continues to answer the man’s questions without daring to ask any of his own. Then, having established that Justin will be at a loose end in Lausanne while waiting for his connection to Paris, the stranger asks his companion for a favour. Could Justin possibly collect a briefcase from a locker at Lausanne station and deliver it to a nearby address? Naturally, the stranger would do it himself, but his flight to Geneva leaves shortly after they arrive at Lausanne, leaving him no time to make the drop. Before Justin knows it, the stranger is passing over the key to the locker along with the address and some money for a taxi…

As you’ll have guessed, this agreement signals no end of trouble for Justin, starting with the mysterious stranger’s disappearance as the train goes through the Simplon Tunnel in the Alps. Nevertheless, Justin – who likes to think of himself as a man of integrity – follows through on his word, collecting the briefcase from the station locker at Lausanne despite his sense of unease.

It seemed to him, as he inserted the key in the lock, that a sort of complicity had been created between him and the stranger. But in what was he becoming complicit? (pp. 25-26)

But it’s the delivery itself that really unnerves our protagonist. At first, it appears that no one is present at the address passed on by the stranger. However, when Justin enters the unlocked flat, he makes a horrific discovery – a woman is lying motionless on the floor, quite possibly dead, although Justin isn’t hanging about to check.

He was tempted to put the briefcase down on the floor and leave, close the door behind him and take the taxi back to the station. He was probably on the verge of doing so when he spotted, at the foot of a sofa upholstered in pale blue, a pair of shoes, two legs, a slip and a woman’s auburn hair. She was lying full-length on the carpet, which was a darker blue than the sofa, one arm outstretched and the other twisted beneath her. (p. 28)

Now, you might think that any sensible person would go straight to the police in such a situation; but no, Justin panics, dashing out of the apartment block with the briefcase in his hand. From there, the waiting taxi takes him back to the station, where he downs a couple of drinks to steady his nerves. Once again, rather than returning the briefcase to one of the station lockers (I’m shouting ‘just get rid of it!’ by this point), Justin takes it back home to Paris and ultimately forces the lock. Unsurprisingly (for this reader at least), the briefcase contains an obscene amount of money in a combination of dollars, pounds and Swiss francs – enough for Justin to retire several times over, should he choose to do so.

At this point, the possibility of contacting the police flashes through Justin’s mind, but what on earth would he say to them? The whole thing sounds far too absurd to be true…

‘Superintendent, I’ve come to hand in a briefcase that…which…A stranger, on the train from Venice, gave me a key, asking me…He wrote an address on a scrap of paper…I burned it earlier… Why?…Because of Madame Léonard, our cleaner…No, I didn’t intend to keep this money…I forced open the lock because…’

It was unthinkable. No one in their right mind would believe his story. (p. 49)

Consequently, Justin is left with a massive problem and a whole host of unanswered questions. In fact, the more he thinks about the incident, the more convinced he becomes that the stranger had singled him out. Why else would this man have asked him so many questions about his life, other than to establish that he could be trusted with the briefcase before handing over the key?

And who was the stranger, exactly? A spy or international trafficker, perhaps? Where did the money come from? Who else knows about the cash, and will they come looking for it? Had the stranger anticipated the woman’s death in advance? Was that why he had asked Justin to deliver the briefcase? And what happened to the stranger on the train? Did he abscond or commit suicide in the tunnel? Or maybe he was murdered? These questions and more haunt Justin in the days and weeks that follow, swirling around in his mind as anxiety exerts its grip.

There were some weeks that were painful, nerve-racking. At the office or at home, in the middle of a meal, he would suddenly find his forehead bathed in sweat, a tightness in his chest, and, at those times, feeling everyone’s eyes on him was unbearable. (p. 119)

All too soon, Dominque notices that her husband is acting strangely, leaving her wondering if he is ill or worried about his job. Moreover, Justin’s work colleagues are also convinced that something is wrong, chalking up his odd behaviour to a possible affair… 

What Simenon does so well here is to show how a seemingly ordinary man can be drawn into a web of guilt, anxiety and paranoia from which there is no apparent escape. It’s a scenario that Simenon explores very effectively in several of his novels. Sometimes, as in The Venice Train, this unravelling of a life is catalysed by a notable incident, causing the protagonist to act out of character, kick-starting their downfall as events spiral out of control. In other instances, the tipping point is more subtle, tapping into a deep-rooted flaw in the protagonist’s character that eventually gives way. Both scenarios typically culminate in self-destruction as the person in question embarks on a futile quest for a release.

I won’t reveal how this compulsive novella plays out, other than to say that it’s a very gripping read with a striking, unexpected conclusion. This is classic Simenon, complete with a brilliant premise and the author’s trademark internal psychological conflict – highly recommended as a dark summer read!

A Wreath for the Enemy by Pamela Frankau

I love coming-of-age novels, stories where the central protagonist must navigate the tricky transition from adolescence to adulthood and all the attendant complexities this brings. Some of my favourites feature a defining moment, a life-changing event where the innocence or simplicity of youth is shattered, ushering in a new, more profound understanding of the wider world. That’s certainly the case in Pamela Frankau’s glorious 1954 novel A Wreath for the Enemy, shortly to be reissued by Daunt Books in this stunning new edition. It’s a beautiful, immersive, heartbreaking book, brilliantly described by Norah Perkins (on Backlisted) as the love child of Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night. Elements of Brideshead Revisited and Bonjour Tristesse also spring to mind, especially for their atmosphere and mood.

Frankau’s novel has a fascinating structure, unfolding in three acts with four different narrators moving in and out of focus, their paths crossing at key moments in the story. In part one, we meet Penelope Wells, a precocious teenager who spends the school holidays with her father, Francis, and stepmother, Jeanne, in their small hotel on the balmy French Riviera. At fourteen, Penelope is fiercely intelligent, preoccupied with ‘dooms’, and generally fed up with her father’s rather bohemian attitude to living. Life at the hotel is chaotic, with events unfolding on a spontaneous basis, much to Penelope’s dismay.

In our household things went on and on and on happening. It was a hotel, which made the doom worse: it would have been remarkable to have two days without a crisis and even if we did, I doubted whether the rule would apply in reverse, so that we could augur a third. I was very fond of the word augur. (p. 4)

In truth, Penelope longs to have some structure and normality in her life – to be part of a conventional family, free of the disorder that reigns at the hotel, some of which she documents in her ‘Anthology of Hates’. Nevertheless, it’s a wish she rarely articulates, even when asked directly by one of the hotel’s most eccentric guests, the wonderful Duchessa di Terracini.

The truthful reply would have been: ‘To be like other people. To live in England; with an ordinary father and mother who do not keep a hotel. To stop having dooms; never to be told that I am a genius, and to have people of my own age to play with so that I need not spend my life listening to grown-ups.’ (p. 33)

When the prim, middle-class Bradley family rent the neighbouring villa, Penelope is fascinated by the new arrivals, craving their wholesome activities, punctuated by regular meals and early-morning swims. To Penelope, the Bradleys are the very epitome of Englishness, and she longs to be friends with them – particularly the teenage children, thirteen-year-old Don and his twin sister Eva.

I spied on them like a huntress, strained my ears for their words, cherished their timetable. It was regular as the clock. They swam before breakfast and again at ten, staying beside the pool all the morning. At a quarter to one the bell would ring from the villa for their lunch. Oh, the beautiful punctuality of those meals! Sometimes we did not eat luncheon until three and although Jeanne told me to go and help myself from the kitchen, this was not the same thing at all. (pp. 8–9)

One day, the children meet, and naturally they are enchanted with each other. The Bradleys are enthralled by Penelope’s sophisticated speech, peppered with words like ‘indubitably’ and ‘unobjectionable’ — not to mention the novelty of a glamorous hotel, which they briefly visit. Soon Penelope is being welcomed into the Bradleys’ world, joining the family for lunch and various sporting activities.

While Francis is somewhat perturbed by Penelope’s relationship with ‘The Smugs’, his fitting nickname for the new arrivals, it is the Bradleys’ parents who are most alarmed by the children’s burgeoning friendship – particularly given the free-spirited atmosphere at the hotel, which they consider ‘unhealthy’ and inappropriate for Don and Eva.

Frankau perfectly captures the world these adolescents inhabit, complete with a fascination for the new and unfamiliar. It’s a situation that ultimately leads to rebellion, swiftly followed by devastation when everything comes crashing down. This first act closes with a tragedy that changes Penelope forever, opening her eyes to the value of everything she has taken for granted – particularly the sense of freedom and maturity encouraged by her parents. Don, too, is fundamentally altered by the experience, setting him on a path that will deepen divisions within his family – fault lines that Frankau duly explores in part two.

The second act finds Don – now seventeen – at boarding school in England, a life that offers a degree of freedom from the constraints of his parents’ ideals.

At home we never talked ideas; we only talked about things. Abstract argument and discussion were quenched sooner or later by an uneasy glance travelling from parents to parent; signal for the veto – ‘Let’s change the subject, shall we?’, my least favourite way of ending a conversation, the axe coming down. (p. 74)

While here, Don develops a friendship with Crusoe Raines, an inspirational middle-aged man who takes the boy under his wing, providing the type of sage guidance that seems alien to the Bradley family. Crusoe, who has spent all his adult life in a wheelchair following a terrible accident, opens Don’s mind to a whole new way of thinking, prompting the young man to question his upbringing.

I was conscious of doors opening in all directions; they opened and I walked through them. (p. 76)

The freedom Don experiences at Crusoe’s house is more than simply the physical freedom to swim and ride horses, it’s a psychological freedom, too – releasing him from the fear of spoiling things for his parents, should he fail to act in accordance with their beliefs.  

Freedom was more than that. It was in the knowledge that, all day, nobody would be hurt, perplexed or questioning, if I didn’t fit to a required pattern. It was in the removal of the guilt that haunted me at home. (p. 117)

While Penelope is absent from this second section, her shadow looms large, helping to shape Don’s values as he finds his way in the world. Like its predecessor, this second act ends with a tragedy entwined with the division between adolescents and their parents – another formative experience that will ripple through the years.

In part three, the narrative alternates between three characters: Penelope, now nineteen and studying at Oxford, back in France at her parents’ hotel for the summer holidays; Livesey Raines, Crusoe’s brother, whom Penelope worships from afar after meeting him through her aunt; and Cara de Bretteville, Livesey’s fragile, demanding ex-wife who still exerts a pull on her former husband. As Penelope is drawn into Cara’s life, another defining experience beckons, one she is powerless to resist.

I love how Frankau explores the coming-of-age theme in this novel. She touches on so many aspects of this formative time in our lives, from the fascination with the familiar and new; the rebellion against our parents’ conventions and beliefs; the importance of learning to value what we have; to the growth that comes through painful experiences, however devastating these may seem at the time. The writing sparkles with just the right balance of wit, insight and humanity, perfectly capturing the intensity of the characters’ emotions as the drama plays out. There is some wonderful descriptive writing here too, especially in the ‘Riviera’ sections, replete with purple bougainvillea, pink hydrangeas (the exact colour of blotting-paper) and green umbrella pines. 

We drove into St. Raphael; the road was changed, red rock and blue sea and green pine glittered in the confident sunlight. We passed our café, bleached and undramatic with morning, still making a signal as though it raised her hand. (p. 227)

This wonderfully immersive coming-of-age story will almost certainly resonate with anyone who recalls the turmoil of adolescence, from the passions, tragedies and shattered illusions of youth to the growth that ultimately follows. It’s also another superb rediscovery from Daunt Books, a publisher that consistently delivers the goods – perfectly timed for summer with its hot, passionate emotions and lush, sun-drenched mood. Naturally, I adored it – very highly recommended indeed!

The Strangers in the House by Georges Simenon (tr. Howards Curtis)

Sneaking this in as my contribution to Karen and Simon’s #1940Club, a week-long celebration of books first published in 1940. (You can find more info on the event here.)

The Strangers in the House is one of Simenon’s romans durs – ‘hard’, psychological novels with an existential edge. Like much of this author’s work, Strangers features a crime; however, the mystery and its resolution are not the most important elements here. Instead, Simenon is more concerned with delving into the psyche of his protagonist, Hector Loursat, a reclusive lawyer whose hermit-like existence is disturbed by a shocking event…

Since the departure of his wife, Geneviève, eighteen years ago, Loursat has had little to do with the outside world, including his fellow inhabitants of Moulins, the French town where he lives. Instead, he spends his days reading his vast collection of books while drinking copious quantities of Burgundy, emerging only for a short daily walk and dinner, which he eats in silence with his daughter, Nicole. While father and daughter share a vast, cavernous house, they have minimal contact on a day-to-day basis. In one sense, they are the ‘strangers’ of the novel’s title – an interpretation that seems particularly apt when we learn that Nicole – who was two when Geneviève ran off with her lover – has been raised by Josephine, the family’s truculent cook. 

One night, Loursat is shaken out of his sleepy, Burgundy-fuelled existence when he hears what sounds like a gunshot from one of the other rooms. Emerging from his lair, Loursat makes his way to Nicole’s bedroom in the other wing of the house. While waiting for his daughter to open the door, our protagonist is convinced he sees a figure passing down the staircase the end of the corridor – a young man in a beige raincoat, as far as he can tell. The plot thickens when father and daughter make their way to the floor above, where they find a dead man lying in one of the beds. Loursat, for his part, knows nothing of this stranger who has been shot in the chest – his identity and reason for being in the house are a complete mystery to him, as are the details of the evening’s events. Moreover, Nicole also claims to have no knowledge of the victim or the circumstances surrounding his death.

However, as more details begin to emerge, it becomes clear that Loursat has little understanding of what his daughter has been getting up to in the other wing at night. It turns out that Nicole has fallen in with a gang of local boys who spend their evenings stealing various items as dares and partying in the house – all unbeknownst to Loursat, who is in effect something of a stranger in his own home. Nevertheless, when Nicole’s boyfriend, Émile, is accused of the murder, Loursat is convinced of the boy’s innocence and agrees to act as his lawyer for the trial.

Something Simenon does particularly well here is to show us how these events prompt Loursat to re-examine his reclusive life. Why has he withdrawn from society for the past eighteen years, preferring instead to live a life of near-total isolation like a primitive, unkempt bear? Consequently, there is a reawakening of sorts as the lawyer is forced to re-engage with the outside world while he investigates the case.

In his street, passing all the big houses that were similar to his, it struck him that he [Loursat] hated them, them and their occupants, just as he hated his sister, and Dossin, and Rogissart and his wife, and Ducup and the deputy prosecutor, all these people who hadn’t done him any harm but were on the other side of the barricade, which would have been his side if his wife hadn’t run off with a man named Bernard, if he hadn’t spent eighteen years shut up in his study and if he hadn’t just discovered a bustling life he’d never thought about, a life superimposed on the other life, the official life of the town… (p. 97)

In some respects, Loursat’s interests in philosophy and other related subjects enable him to understand the psychology and behavioural traits of the boys in Nicole’s gang – any one of whom could have committed the murder instead of Émile.

While Simenon’s romans durs are usually characterised by their bleak, ominous mood, Strangers feels somewhat different in tone. There are some wonderful touches of black comedy here as Loursat bristles at the thought of the town’s bourgeois residents – from the respectable Public Prosecutor, Rogissart, to his idiotic brother-in-law, Dossin, a man Loursat clearly disdains.

He wondered why he resented them [the Dossins] so much, and couldn’t find a satisfactory answer. True, he despised them for their vanity, for this townhouse they had built that had become their reason for being. As far as he was, concerned, Dossin, with his moustache that always smelt of liqueurs or young women, was the epitome of the happy idiot. (p. 80)

Moreover, Loursat is equally dismissive of his sister, Marthe (Dossin’s wife), whom he resents for ‘her constant mournfulness’ and ‘flabby, half-hearted elegance’, not to mention her desire for life’s materialistic trappings. In a further twist of fate, the Dossin’s sickly son, Edmond (Loursat’s nephew), is also embroiled in the murder investigation due to his influence over the other boys in the gang.  

While the mystery behind the murder is finally solved, Strangers does not conform to the typical pattern of an investigative novel. There is little emphasis on gathering clues or delving into the perpetrator’s motives. Instead, we have an intriguing character study of a prickly, isolated man, prompted to make the transition from merely existing to actually participating, particularly in his daughter’s life.

As ever with Simenon, the atmosphere is suitably vivid, evoking images of rainy, wind-swept streets and cold, damp exteriors. No wonder Loursat spends so much time in his grubby, book-lined den, complete with his trusty stove and three bottles of Burgundy each day, especially when the weather seems unremittingly grim.

He could hear the raindrops and, occasionally, the squeak of a shutter that hadn’t been properly shut; the wind was rising and sudden gusts swept through the streets. He could also hear, with the clarity of a metronome, the ticking of his gold stopwatch in his waistcoat pocket. (p. 10)

In summary then, The Strangers in the House, is a most enjoyable Simenon – not as bleak as some of his other romans durs, but certainly gritty enough to fit the bill!

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li

The Chinese-born writer Yiyun Li has been on my radar for a while, ever since her 2019 novel Where Reasons End popped up in my Twitter timeline with recommendations from readers I trust. Published last year with equally positive reviews, The Book of Goose is my first experience of Li’s work, but hopefully not my last. It’s a strange, compelling, captivating novel, full of different layers and ideas. On one level, we have a story about childhood friendship, devotion, manipulation and the power dynamics of relationships; but on another, the novel digs deep into the power of storytelling and the games children play to escape boredom – how fantasies can become truths if we pursue them too avidly, blurring the lines between the real and the imaginary. There’s so much to absorb with this one, and I’ll probably be thinking about it for a long time to come…

The book opens in 1966 with the passing mention of a death in a letter. Twenty-seven-year-old Agnès – now married and living in America with her husband, Earl – receives news that her childhood friend, Fabienne, has died in childbirth. The letter set off a series of memories for Agnès, reminiscences of her close, intense friendship with Fabienne, the two girls having grown up together in the farming village of Saint Rémy in France.

Rewinding to France in the early 1950s, we find Agnès and Fabienne at thirteen, growing up in a poverty-stricken post-war environment with little external excitement to stimulate their curiosity. As is often the case in such friendships, the two girls are the polar opposites of one another. While Fabienne is the natural leader – bold, creative, insolent and unpolished – Agnès is the more passive of the two – a follower by nature, keen to please Fabienne with her loyalty and compliance.

But were we not, in a sense, two blind girls? One would walk everywhere as though not a single mine were buried in the field. The other would not find the courage to take a step because the whole world was a minefield. Had they not been placed side by side by fate, they would have lived out their different lots. But that was not the case for us. Fabienne and I were in this world together, and we had only each other’s hands to hold on to. She had her will. I, my willingness to be led by her will. (p. 122)

One of the things Li does so well here is to capture the close, obsessive nature of the girls’ friendship, particularly how Agnès longs to be with Fabienne every spare minute of the day. We see the girls playing games together, often hanging out in the village cemetery, with Agnès posing questions to Fabienne about life’s great mysteries and the possibility of death.

Fabienne frequently invents games for the two friends to play, largely to alleviate the boredom of their lives. One day, she comes up with a plan to write a sensational book as a sort of collaboration between the two girls. With her highly imaginative mind, Fabienne will create a series of macabre, sinister stories, while Agnès will draw on her well-developed penmanship skills to write them down and pose as the book’s author. When it comes to securing a publisher, Fabienne is smart enough to realise that Agnès is best placed to ‘front’ the book, largely due to the latter’s patient, biddable nature and higher standard of education.

Following some input from the local postmaster – a poetry-loving widower Fabienne manipulates as part of her plan – the stories are published to great critical success. Agnès is hailed as a child prodigy, ‘a savage young chronicler of postwar life with a mind drawn to morbidity’. As such, she finds herself on the end of considerable interest from the press, keen to gain an insight into her life and creative talents.

But I [Agnès] was lucky to have come up with how best to present myself as a child author: I was imagining a person who was half Fabienne and half Agnès, and I had no trouble stepping into the shoes of that person. A mysterious girl who had made up for her lack of education with good intuition—that was what the press needed to see. (p. 86)

After serving a useful purpose, the postmaster is swiftly dispatched by Fabienne in another of her manipulative plans – a move that illustrates how calculating she can be when faced with a potential threat.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, literary success opens up some exciting new opportunities for Agnès, who soon finds herself at Woodsway, a prestigious finishing school in England run by the formidable Mrs Townsend. This changes the dynamics between the two childhood friends as Agnès mixes with the other schoolgirls – all from wealthy families of a higher social class – while Fabienne stays in Saint Rémy. In essence, Fabienne seems quite content for Agnès to be out there in the world, experiencing things that will be useful for their forthcoming books.

Despite missing her soulmate terribly, Agnès becomes more assertive and rebellious at Woodsway, while Fabienne continues to orchestrate the dynamics of the girls’ relationship through her letters from home. With Agnès becoming increasingly restless and unhappy with the strict regime at the school, the stage is set for a denouement of sorts, but I’ll leave it there in terms of the plot for fear of revealing any spoilers.

In some respects, The Book of Goose reads like a fairy story or fable with a fatalistic undercurrent throughout – a kind of darkness or unease that permeates the book. Li makes great use of various metaphors and symbols in the narrative – for instance, apples, oranges and knives, with Agnès acting as ‘a whetstone to Fabienne’s blade’. The childhood game of paper-scissors-stone is another highly relevant metaphor, capturing something of the dynamics of the story and its leading players – the smart but manipulative Fabienne and the naïve yet hopeful Agnès.

Often I imagine that living is a game of rock-paper-scissors: fate beats hope, hope beats ignorance, and ignorance beats fate. Or, in a version that has preoccupied me: the fatalistic attracts the hopeful, the hopeful attracts the ignorant, and the ignorant, the fatalistic. (p. 106)

Some of the most beguiling aspects of Goose stem from the philosophical reflections and questions Li weaves into her book. While some of these represent the adult Agnès’ reminiscences of her childhood with Fabienne, others take the form of questions the two girls discuss as adolescents while hanging out in the cemetery. The existential nature of these questions fits so naturally within the text, capturing the kinds of discussions about life, growing up, ghosts and death one could easily imagine happening between girls of this age.

Another element that Li handles particularly well is how fantasies and stories can become forms of ‘truth’ to those involved if pursued very rigorously, blurring the margins between the imaginary and reality. While Fabienne invents fantasies and games as a way of dealing with boredom and an indifferent world, Agnès is thrilled to play along in the hope these fantasies can continue indefinitely.

Fabienne and I had raised ourselves to be the best make-believers. The world was often inconvenient or indifferent to us, and it was our ingenuity that made what was inconvenient and indifferent interesting: the stinging nettles left bloody marks on our legs as we ran, but we pretended that those were the nail scratches of the girls greedy for our attention; […] A hard life, unlike what we were taught at school, did not make us virtuous; the hardest life was the most boring, the most unrewarding. How else could we overcome this boredom but to bring ourselves up in our own make-believe, which, as we grew older, had become more elaborate, more exhilarating, and, most of all, closer to the truth? (p. 307)

Nevertheless, only Fabienne is mature enough to realise these games must come to a natural end. While Agnès wants a form of their childhood to go on forever, Fabienne knows it cannot last. The intensity of their friendship has been sustained by the fantasies of adolescence, but the adult world is beckoning, and their current relationship might struggle to survive. Soon there will be considerable pressure for the girls to get married and have children; it’s what their families expect of them, especially given their upbringing.

This is such a thoughtful, intelligent book, full of meaning and mystery. A captivating story of obsessive childhood friendship and the alluring nature of fantasies. A layered, literary novel – beautiful, strange and beguiling.

The Book of Goose is published by 4^th Estate; personal copy.

No. 91/92: notes on a Parisian commute by Lauren Elkin

Earlier this year, I read and loved Flâneuse, Lauren Elkin’s fascinating exploration of notable flâneuses down the years, a book that celebrates various women walkers in touch with their cities. Elkin’s latest book, No. 91/92: notes on a Parisian commute, shares something with its predecessor – a curiosity and a sense of engagement with the inhabitants of a metropolis.

From September 2014 to May 2015, while teaching at a Paris university, Elkin jotted down various notes during her twice-weekly bus journeys to and from work (the numbers 91 and 92 refer to the bus routes she used). These diary-style entries are presented in No. 91/92 with very few edits, preserving the spontaneous, unfiltered feel of Elkin’s impressions. The initial aim was for Elkin to observe her surroundings from the position of a commuter, using her phone to note these thoughts and observations; however, as the project progressed, a more personal record emerged – something I’ll return to later in this review.

Elkin openly acknowledges a debt to Georges Perec here. His book, An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris (a collection of observations which Perec wrote as he sat in a café in Saint-Sulpice Square for three days in 1974), is clearly a touchtone for Elkin, as is the work of Annie Ernaux. Like Perec, Elkin is interested in capturing the regular rhythms of everyday life – not the big dramatic events or occurrences, but the small micro-observations that might otherwise go unnoticed.

The individual entries vary in length from just a few sentences (often unpunctuated) to a couple of paragraphs – few vignettes extend over a page. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Elkin’s fellow commuters feature heavily in these notes, highlighting a sense of curiosity about other people’s lives and the stories we imagine from the clues and hints we can see.

I clamber into a seat and move aside the coat of the man sitting next to me to keep from sitting on it. Excusez-moi I say politely. I have a headache. He is wearing too much cologne. When this man gets off the bus I notice his head is completely bald under his blue woolen beanie. Not the kind of bald that comes naturally for some men with age. I don’t know how I know he’s been sick, it’s just something I feel I know. (p. 17)

Some passages are playful, almost like flash non-fiction or poetry, often demonstrating a sharp sense of wit.

Blue tutu Chanel bag fake lashes girl you look amazing. (p. 35)

Your glittery sandals are awful but the rest of your outfit is good. (p. 27)

Occasional flashes of anger and frustration burst through, especially in Elkin’s observations of other commuters’ treatment of their fellow passengers, particularly women. Bus etiquette and common codes of courtesy feature regularly in these notes. For instance, the reluctance of some passengers to slide over to an adjacent window seat when another person wishes to sit, forcing the latter to clamber over them to reach the unoccupied space.

When Elkin falls pregnant, she starts noticing different things on her journeys, such as the practicalities of getting on and off the bus with toddlers in strollers, what children do on the bus, and how pregnant women are treated – sometimes very poorly.

A pregnant woman tries to get on but another woman nearly throws her off the step in her hurry to get on the bus first. She finally makes it on but the only open seat is inhabited by a woman’s bag. The pregnant woman is able to make her move it but only with effort. The woman thinks her bag needs her seat more than a woman with a soccer ball for a stomach. (p. 82)

It’s a revealing picture, highlighting how, in our rush to save time, we often lose sight of general pleasantries towards others, especially those who may be more vulnerable or fragile than ourselves.

As the diary progresses, the tone changes somewhat as we realise both Elkin and the city of Paris are dealing with the fallout from loss. For Elkin, it is the loss of an unborn child due to an ectopic pregnancy, an experience that leaves her feeling shattered – both physically and emotionally.

The days have come apart. I don’t leave the bed. Don’t use my phone except to write this. Check email on my laptop. I can’t answer any messages though people send nice ones.

I watch television, I lose myself in other people’s plot lines, I watch people who exist pretend to be people who don’t exist. (p. 101)

For Paris, it’s the 2015 attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices which prompts the city’s inhabitants to reflect – an incident that ultimately leads to twelve deaths and the injury of several others. As Parisians try to process the impact of the attack, a delicate balance emerges. While most people feel anxious, as if their world has shifted in some terrible, uncontrollable way, this is balanced by a sense of defiance, a necessity to carry on as normal to get through the days.

20/01/15

Tuesday morning

We’re all thinking the same thing, it’s the first day back to work since it all happened and it feels like we swallowed something down the wrong pipe and we’re just starting to be able to take regular breaths again we came out of our houses ok I came out of my house and we marched in defiance but the defiance has taken a backseat to our commute as we try to get on with things even though there are seventeen fewer Parisians than there were this time last week. (p. 50)

What works so well here is Elkin’s ability to capture the sense of togetherness that stems from the regular commute, especially in a time of crisis. While each individual traveller is alone with their own thoughts and preoccupations, they are also united with several others through a shared activity and spirit.

The penultimate entry in the book is one of the most thoughtful and reflective. Writing in November 2015, a day or two after the Bataclan attacks, when the mundanity of everyday life was so cruelly interrupted, Elkin begins to see things in a slightly different light, one that emphasises the fragile nature of our existence and how our lives can turn on the tiniest of moments. A train caught or missed; a decision to go out or stay in; the choice of one concert over another. These reflections and more highlight the importance of appreciating our surroundings, the sense of wonder to be found in the ordinary and everyday.

In summary then, a really interesting book that may well inspire readers to look at their immediate world with a fresh perspective, ready to jot down whatever catches their eye.

No. 91/92: notes on a Parisian commute is published by Les Fugitives; personal copy.

Clouds Over Paris by Felix Hartlaub (tr. Simon Beattie)

When I was casting around for something suitable to read for Lizzy’s German Lit Month, Clouds Over Paris (The Wartime Notebooks of Felix Hartlaub) caught my eye. It’s a series of vignettes and observations penned by the German-born historian and fledgling writer Felix Hartlaub, who was posted to Paris in 1940 as a researcher for the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During his time in the French capital, Hartlaub recorded his impressions of a city under occupation, frequently finding beauty amid the harsh realities of war. As such, Clouds Over Paris offers readers the opportunity to see the city through the eyes of an outsider, a man who felt somewhat uncomfortable about his presence as a German national.

Hartlaub’s style is wonderfully impressionistic (almost stream-of-consciousness in style), and the notebooks are full of evocative imagery, capturing the feel of a city under siege. With an artist’s eye for detail, he writes vividly of soldiers hanging out in cafés and bars, Parisians queuing for food at a butcher’s shop, and anglers fishing in the Seine, their wives desperately waiting to bag any catches. The night-time scenes are particularly atmospheric, with the eerie silence accentuating the sound of soldiers’ movements through the streets.

Blackout. There is an eleven o’clock curfew for Parisians. Only occupying forces are left on the streets, which are deathly quiet. Military boots, solitary or in groups, the odd civilian scooting past, the brim of his hat pulled down low. A breezy night, some big marauding clouds float past at a reasonable height, a burnt-brownish colour. In a patchy bank of cloud, scattered spots of moonlight. Further south, in the rough direction of the Dôme des Invalides, a searchlight shoots up, fixing on a low, ragged cloud, which appears to stop, stretching out paws anew.  The searchlight, cut off from the ground, dies away in a fraction of a second. (p. 59)

Something that comes across very strongly here is the sense of discomfort Hartlaub feels about his presence in the city. Unsurprisingly, he is met with suspicion by the French – as an outsider and an occupier, there is an air of isolation surrounding him as he goes about his day.

The icy ring of alienation and mistrust he has cast about him. He is firmly pinned down within it, his gestures winning no space, his words lacking the air to carry. […]

A couple in the neighbouring séparé, back-to-back with him. Muffled words into each other’s shoulders, the silence of long kisses. The couple leave, eyeing him as they go past, in his empty red mirrored compartment. He returns their gaze: benign, full of admiration, and at the same time veiled, not quite there. (pp. 36–37)

Journeys on the Métro only heighten this sense of unease, especially when Hartlaub is required to show his travel pass, the distinctive colouring of which clearly reveals his nationality. Interestingly though, he is equally uneasy in the company of German soldiers with whom he feels ‘no connection whatsoever’ as his eyes land on their epaulettes.

Alongside the fragments of encounters between soldiers and various ladies of the nights, there are some marvellously evocative descriptions of the buildings in Paris, ranging from views of the city’s streets to a sequence of sketches of a once-glamorous hotel, now a little careworn in the midst of occupation. Night-time trysts are a regular occurrence here, as are minor infringements of the blackout regulations. Nevertheless, the staff go about their usual business as far as possible, from the three lift operators, each with his own distinctive personality, to the room service staff, expertly manoeuvring their trays with precision.

Room service staff scoot across the carpets: a hive of activity, as nearly all the milords and ladies breakfast in bed. The heavy tray clamped at shoulder height, head tucked at an angle. The other hand is for opening doors. The long coat-tails like the wing-cases of giant beetles. One, with thick horn-rimmed spectacles, sweaty red face, a strong smell of wine sometimes trailing behind him, is a farmer’s boy from Picardy. The stiff curved shirt front, clippers for ration cards in his pocket on a silver chain. (pp. 114–115)

Hartlaub writes particularly vividly about the skies over Paris, capturing the various colours, the shapes of clouds and the contrast between light and shade with consummate ease. (The notebook entries cover the period from March to August 1941, with Hartlaub taking the opportunity to record a wide range of impressions, reflecting seasonal changes and variations in weather.) Despite the trials of war, he clearly finds immense beauty in the Paris skyline, especially in spring.

The reflection of the Seine carries the pale brightness of the western sky away to the left, to the east. Approaching frost spices the air, yet the weeping willow which leans out over the river from the Square Notre-Dame is already covered with green. The thick, broad crowns of the chestnut trees, which, neither discoloured nor deformed, have managed to retain all that frost and moisture and hold up the snowy sky, are now seized with white foam, pale bursting stars. (p. 43)

Sadly, Hartlaub died in 1945, disappearing from Berlin just days before the war ended. As such, he never had the opportunity to see his work in print. In fact, it’s not entirely clear whether he thought of these fragments as notes for a future novel or a private record of his time in Paris. Many of the passages break off suddenly, and there are a number of omissions that give some of the vignettes an unfinished feel. Nevertheless, the book offers a fascinating insight into an occupied city glimpsed from the perspective of an outsider who felt uncomfortable about certain aspects of the war.

Clouds Over Paris was translated by Simon Beattie and published by Pushkin Press in 2022 – making the book available in English for the first time. My thanks to the publisher and the Independent Alliance for kindly providing a reading copy.

Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux (tr. Tanya Leslie)

The critically-acclaimed French writer Annie Ernaux is fast becoming one of my favourite chroniclers of the female experience. She writes with remarkable honesty, clarity and a note of vulnerability about various aspects of life, including adolescence, lovemaking, abortion and family. Throughout her work there is an interest in broader society, from social development and progression, to the relationship between individual and collective experiences. 

In Simple Passion (which clocks in at just under 40 pages), Ernaux reflects on the emotional impact of her two-year affair with an attractive married man in the late 1980s. Ernaux is approaching fifty at this time, while her lover — a smart, well-dressed Eastern European with a resemblance to Alain Delon — is thirteen years younger. The passion she feels for this man – referred to as ‘A’ in the book – is all-consuming, to the extent that virtually everything she does revolves around their liaison.

I had no future other than the telephone call fixing our next appointment. (p. 13)

All other activities — work, reading, the routines of day-to-day life — are for Ernaux simply a means of filling in time between their hastily-arranged meetings. He communicates with her by phone, often at short notice, whenever an opportunity arises for him to get away.

What Ernaux does so well here is to convey the emotional impact of living her life almost entirely to fit around the availability of her lover. She captures the uncertainly of waiting by the phone, not knowing when he will call; the rush to get dressed and put on make-up once she knows he is about to come; their pleasurable afternoons of lovemaking; and the overwhelming rush of fatigue she experiences once he’s gone – swiftly followed by the pain of absence.

As soon as he left, I would be overcome by a wave of fatigue. I wouldn’t tidy up straight away: I would sit staring at the glasses, the plates and their leftovers, the overflowing ashtray, the clothes, the lingerie strewn all over the bedroom and the hallway, the sheets spilling over on to the carpet. I would have liked to keep that mess the way it was – a mess in which every object evoked a caress or a particular moment, forming a still-life whose intensity and pain could never, for me, be captured by any painting in a museum. (p. 16)

Ernaux is not giving us an objective, factual account of a liaison here; as far as she is concerned, the most important thing is to reflect the key determinant of her mood, i.e. the distinction between the absence and the presence of her lover. Similarly, she has no desire to search for the origins of her passion in her past or recent history, nor does she seek to rationalise or justify this experience — only to capture and convey it through her prose.

As ever with Ernaux, the approach is deeply introspective, moving seamlessly between her recollections of the ‘feel’ of the affair and the process of writing about it here. There are times when Ernaux feels she is living out her passion in a similar way to writing a book, channelling her natural determination to capture every scene correctly, with the same attention to detail without lessening or diluting the desire.

During all this time, I felt I was living out my passion in the manner of a novel, but now I am not sure in which style I am writing about it, whether in the style of a testimony, or possibly even the sort of confidence that can be found in women’s magazines, maybe a manifesto or a statement, or perhaps a critical commentary. (p. 21)

Throughout their affair, this man becomes an obsession of sorts for Ernaux, prompting her to actively avoid things that prevent her from basking in the pleasures of passion. Nevertheless, after six months or so, Ernaux becomes convinced that ‘A’ is seeing another woman, to the extent that she cannot enjoy his company in quite the same way when he reappears. In truth, she dreads his eventual departure, and her pleasure in the moment becomes tinged with future pain. On the one hand, there is a longing to end the affair so as not to suffer further, but on the other, the emptiness that ultimately lies ahead proves a powerful deterrent.

In time, ‘A’ leaves France to return to his home nation, leaving Ernaux to pick up the threads of her life. At first, the pain is unbearable and she no longer cares if she lives or dies. While the act of writing doesn’t diminish the impact of her loss, it does offer an outlet for her thoughts and feelings. Nevertheless, there is an element of vulnerability here, a slight reluctance to share something private, potentially attracting questions or judgements from others.

To go on writing is also a means of delaying the trauma of giving this to others to read. I hadn’t considered this eventuality while I still felt the need to write. But now that I have satisfied this need, I stare at the written pages with astonishment and something resembling shame, an emotion I certainly never felt when I was living out my passion or writing about it. The prospect of publication brings me closer to people’s judgement and the ‘normal’ values of society. (pp. 43–44)

As with Happening, her remarkable book on sourcing an illegal abortion in the early 1960s, Ernaux hopes to create something meaningful and universal from her experiences, capturing emotions that may prove useful to others.

Sometimes I wonder if the purpose of my writing is to find out whether other people have done or felt the same things or, if not, for them to consider experiencing such things as normal. Maybe I would also like them to live out these very emotions in turn, forgetting that they had once read about them somewhere. (p. 41)

Once again, the writing is clear, precise and emotionally truthful throughout. Moreover. there is a beauty to Ernaux’s prose – a degree of elegance that belies its simplicity.

In summary then, this is an exquisite book by a very accomplished writer – so honest, insightful and true. Best read in one sitting to maximise the impact.

Simple Passion is published by Fitzcarraldo Editions; my thanks to the publishers and the Independent Alliance for kindly providing a review copy.