Galel, Fanny Desarzens' first novel takes us into the marvellous but perilous daily life of three mountaineers in the midst of their ascent.two guides and a hut keeper. A a little timeless work to read at their own pace.
Author Fanny Desarzens is almost thirty years old. From Lausanne, you might say - from Gros-de-Vaud, more really. Several of her short stories have already been published, but Galel is his first novel. It is published by Slatkine.
During the Fête du Livre in Saint-Pierre-de-Clages, Valais, I met Fanny Desarzens at the Village du Livre, where we had a chance to chat about her baby, born a few months earlier. This little book tells the story of three men who live and feel the mountains to the depths of their guts. There are two guides, Jonas and Galel. The third, Paul, is a hut keeper. Their friendship blossomed up there, in a refuge called La Baïta.
Every year, they get together to talk about their walking season. They recount their adventures and their daily lives with the tourists they guide. They eat a piece of bread patiently baked by Paul, accompany it with a piece of alpine cheese, drink wine, build a fire, look at the stars and leave. What they share stays at the top of the mountain.
Walk until you can't
For Fanny Desarzens, talking about the daily lives of these guides - their happy routines, but also those that break down - was not really a conscious choice, she tells us during our interview. Two factors may have prompted her to embark on this story. Firstly, a love of the mountains that began in her childhood, when her family roamed the Valais trails. Then, much later, she met a guide whose story moved her: a man whose job it is to walk. Until the day he couldn't anymore. «Guides are people who open paths, who accompany people from point A to point B. I find that very beautiful. I find that very beautiful. That's why I started describing mountains.»
However, the story is not rooted in real topography. Rather, it's a collection of mountains that the woman from Lausanne has traveled through and brought together in a single place in her novel. «I wanted to leave room for readers“ imaginations. What matters to me is not ONE mountain in particular, but rather ”the idea of the mountain»."
Aligning words in cadence
And these slopes, these peaks, these colors, these atmospheres, Fanny Desarzens describes them in the manner of Ramuz. «I know, it's not very original. But yes, he's MY literary reference.» The repetition of certain words is a matter of course. So is the «spoken» language:
«Of course I do. This way of aligning words was a question of rhythm. I open the book with walkers climbing a mountain. I wanted to reproduce the cadence of walking. One foot in front of the other, it's necessarily repetition.»
The question is, why do these three men walk? Why do they feel the need to climb the peaks so relentlessly, all summer long? Is it an escape? «No, I don't think it's an escape,» replies the Vaudoise. «They've just found the environment in which they really feel good. Where they're themselves. And just because you walk somewhere doesn't necessarily mean you're running away. What we're looking for is a state of happiness. Walking makes that possible.»
The plain while waiting «up there»
The fact remains that if the three men go to the mountains, it's because they don't have the codes of the plains. They feel borrowed when they have to work in a factory or live in a house that's too big. When they find themselves in a hospital - we'll say no more about that - everything seems strange. They don't know how to move, how to communicate, how to react to external elements. They simply don't know how to live in this flat world.
Fanny Desarzens makes it clear, however, that this is not a critique of modernity. In fact, her book is timeless. «I wasn't interested at all in writing “and at that moment, he took out his iPhone”. Who cares? That's not what the book is about. I like the fact that there are no markers. You can set the story in the past, present or future. For me, it doesn't matter, since it's a story that can exist at any time.»
Bread and wine
While we don't see any symbols of a particular era, we do find a number of religious references. For example, bread and wine are central to the story. Or that two of the three heroes are named after apostles. This is deliberate: «Yes, there are big biblical references. Fanny Desarzens asserts that her work is imbued with a certain spirituality. She is also very interested in theology. For her, there's something mystical about mountains. »The references may not be very subtle... I don't know. You tell me. But at the beginning of the book, for example, it's true, there are twelve walkers and the thirteenth is the guide.« We return to the figure of the one who opens the way.
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Besides, it's important for someone to lead the way. «So we don't fall flat on our faces». That's my comment. For while the book describes the mountains as a magnificent, enchanting, welcoming place, the fact remains that, for me, it's a ball in the stomach that forms over the pages. You can feel it: danger is here. Everywhere. «One foot sideways and you could fall,» says the author. She won't say any more, so as not to spoil the plot. I won't say any more either. I'll leave you to discover Galel.
Write to the author: alice.ramsauer@leregardlibre.com
Photo credit: © KREL, from the cover of Galel
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Fanny Desarzens
Galel
Editions Slaktine
2022
136 pages
French 
German 
English