Tuesday books - Lauriane Pipoz
Ten characters come together to search for a dog. It's the birth of these bonds, rather than Suzanne's disappearance, that lies at the heart of Mélanie Chappuis' seventh novel. What makes it special? We find ourselves one by one in the heads of all the protagonists, discovering them from the inside, but also from the outside, through the eyes of others, which may or may not be fair. A real lesson in humility.
Suzanne, Lucienne's boxer, has disappeared. The dog is loved by all. So it's only natural that the villagers go into the forest to help in the search, lending a helping hand to this desperate, yet jealous widow. It's true that Lucienne is rich. And she's beautiful. But is that a good reason to hate her? Yes, maybe, she's a climber. But she also commands respect, this courageous, generous woman. Well, everyone has their own opinion of her.
Yes, in Suzanne, desperately, each protagonist has his or her say. In turn, they give their version of events and comment on the way the mistress managed her dog. The book is constructed like a detective story, leaving us to ponder the most likely hypothesis of the famous pooch's disappearance. But, as you'll have gathered, it's not really this event that is the book's main subject.
Union and division
Mélanie Chappuis shows us that, sometimes, different characters can unite around a single cause. These differences are highlighted by the styles used to flesh out the characters' thoughts. For example, it's very fluid when the reader plunges into the head of sweet Marie, a deeply romantic and slightly lost writer, perhaps a little reminiscent of Emma in Madame Bovary. Or it can be much more abrupt, to highlight Victor's impure ideas, infatuated with the melancholy author and imprisoned not, as he thinks, by his condition as the son of workers, but by his bestial desires.
«I'd left them both to take Lucienne home, after a look at Marie, pressed down, during which I'd lingered on her eyes, then on her lips, revealing my desire. An ill-mannered look: I was appropriating this face, exercising a right over it, detailing it as if it belonged to me, as if I owned it. I went home, furious at my husband for stealing her from me, even though he had nothing to do with it - a point that remains to be proven: don't we marry the most desirable people to piss off those who haven't managed to get them?»
But the book is not naive. Far from ending in perfect harmony, it ends on a dissonant note, but one that seems perfectly plausible: if love has the power to unite, it can also divide. The book forms a coherent whole out of diverse struggles: it shows a moment in the lives of the protagonists, all preoccupied by the same problem - the loss of the dog - but also each obsessed by a more particular, personal struggle that no one else can wage in their place. Whether it's the dwindling desire in a couple, a professional ambition that can't be fulfilled, or a passion abandoned in the name of love, we can see that, in the end, although they may seem different, all pain is the same.
Stylistic fluctuations are one of the specialties of this French-speaking Swiss author. Reading her works is a real lesson in humility, but also in generosity. The way she treats certain characters makes us think that she must have observed them a great deal, and made the effort to try and appreciate them, to be able to put her finger so precisely on their flaws and help us to understand them, and sometimes even accept them, with their sometimes dark thoughts.
«In short, [she's] not really a gift. But she is. Firstly, because she's beautiful, even if it annoys her when I mention it; she has the impression that my love is all about her looks, which she also takes great care of. Secondly, because she's tender, generally cheerful, and rather uncomfortable in her own skin. I've turned her lack of self-confidence into a weapon. I'm the one who reassures her, who lifts her up. Or diminish her if I feel she doesn't need me enough. I sound like a jerk when I say that. We all look like scum when we think out loud.»
This talent is even the essence of some of his works, such as his collections of chronicles Inside the head of..., The result is a story in which even the worst protagonists are hard to dislike. Mélanie Chappuis has the gift of making us understand the characters as a whole from an isolated characteristic or anecdote: it's easy to read between the lines, which doesn't make them any less subtle.
Write to the author: lauriane.pipoz@leregardlibre.com
Photo credit: © Pauline Loroy / Unsplash
Mélanie Chappuis
Suzanne, desperately
BSN Press
2021
104 pages
French 
German 
English