Rendezvous on familiar ground

With What's left of it all, Fanny Desarzens paints a gentle, sensitive portrait of an ordinary family in the French-speaking part of Switzerland during the Thirty Glorious Years.

This is the story of ordinary people who are very much like us. The location is never named, but it’s implied that Fanny Desarzens chose to set the plot of her third novel in her native canton of Vaud What's left of it all, published during the fall literary season by Editions Slatkine.

In it, the author describes people with virtually no backstory—four generations that follow one another quietly, almost without making a sound, throughout the 20th century.^th century. Children are born, grow up, get married, and have children of their own. They grow old, and then they die. It’s a typical story of the Glorious Thirty. The oldest residents have their feet firmly planted in the earth. They are farmers or country grocers. But times are changing, and their children are choosing to make their lives in the city. The husband leaves for work every morning. The wife works a little, but mostly takes care of the children. In any case, they all retain their lilting accent and a shared determination to «do what needs to be done.».

A Portrait of Ordinary People

It’s not a life of dazzling happiness. We work «because it’s the right thing to do—to take care of our loved ones, to have a life without too many worries. To have our minds more or less free while our bodies are busy earning money,» writes Fanny Desarzens. People get married without really falling deeply in love. But they tell themselves that ’with this person, we’ll get along. We’ll understand each other.« They put money aside just in case something happens.

«One might think there’s nothing to say about people like them,» notes Fanny Desarzens. «Except that one would have to describe the small gestures—all the small gestures.» And it is these small gestures—the inflections of their voices, their facial expressions, the tenderness or pain of their feelings, and everyday life—that the author sets out to describe in this novel.

It’s beautiful and touching, because it’s simple. Marianne and Adrien, the main characters in this novel, could be our parents, our grandparents—ordinary people, very much of their time, who want to give their children a better life. For the theme of passing on a legacy lies at the heart of this book, transcending the mere existence of the individual.

A moment of freedom

In this novel, this passing on takes the form of a plot of land on which Marianne dreamed of building a small vacation home in the countryside. It will never happen. But for years, the couple was able to dream about it, imagining its walls and outlines. A brief respite of freedom during a time when self-fulfillment is clearly not a priority.

With his first novel Galel, Fanny Desarzens had received a Swiss literary award. With What's left of it all, the 31-year-old writer has penned a book of beautiful simplicity, in the Ramuzian style she so admires. It is a book that reveals the intensity of emotions beneath the veneer of normality.

Write to the author: [email protected]

You have just read an open-access review published in our print edition (Le Regard Libre N°113). Debates, analyses, cultural news: subscribe to support us and get access to all our content!

Fanny Desarzens
What's left of it all
Slatkine
August 2024
160 pages

Order the book