Letting go and allowing ourselves to be guided by «everything that overwhelms us».»

Tuesday's books - Lauriane Pipoz

Gretel, in her thirties, has just been reunited with her mother Sarah. Sarah had abandoned her sixteen years earlier when they were living alone by a river. Now suffering from Alzheimer's, Sarah is unable to answer Gretel's questions. It will be up to the girl to reconstruct her own past, if she can and if she wants to. Her story is impossible to separate from some old, buried shadows: what really happened by the river, and how much of it is imagination?

The main subject of Daisy Johnson's first novel is memory. It's not a long, quiet river - not that the narrator dislikes it. So it's hard to come up with a structured review following the story's thread: it eludes us, confuses us, and that's probably its essence. The book opens with the question of identity, and more specifically, the discovery of the past of the main character, Gretel. She talks about it this way:

«Even now, I don't know where to start. Memory isn't linear, it works in disconcerting circles that appear, then fade away. Sometimes I'm on the verge of violence. If you were still the woman you were sixteen years ago, I think I'd be capable of it: of hitting you to bring out the truth.»

This violence is also one of the main themes in the reconstruction of the protagonist's story. Revolted, she certainly is. But she is also a prisoner of a love for her mother that she feels in spite of herself, and of a need to understand her past. The latter gushes out before her eyes in bits and pieces, which she is quick to recount to her mother in the second person singular: throughout the book, she addresses her mother, signifying to us that Sarah is indeed at the center of the story.

Delicious curls

As you will have gathered, this work is full of contradictory feelings, flashbacks - like the circles at the beginning of the story - and even fantastical elements. The latter remind readers that they are dealing with childhood memories. Implanted in Gretel's memory by her mother, they also show better than any speech that Sarah never really grew up, chained as she is to her past. That's why she's so egocentric.

While we are held by a certain suspense, the pleasure of reading this book derives above all from the pleasure of letting ourselves be flooded by Gretel's memories. Ideas often seem to be thrown down on paper, as if they were our own reflections. We enjoy following the sometimes unrelated elements, forgetting all control over the story and no longer really trying to line up these shards of memory.

«One day, you told me that those who grow up surrounded by water are different from the others. What do you mean by that? I say. But you don't answer, or you've forgotten that you started a sentence. This idea continues to haunt me in the still night: we are determined by the landscape, our lives are mapped out according to hills, rivers and trees.»

Aesthetic pleasure

The author's magnificent pen doesn't seem to have been damaged by the translation. Her sentences, sometimes short, sometimes long, are easy to follow. Their rhythm is not jerked by quotation marks introducing the dialogue: everything happens in the narrator's head, including the exchanges between the characters. Harmoniously, every word in this book has been carefully selected.

«For a living, I was revising a dictionary. I had been working all week on Break. There were cards all over my desk, even on the floor. The word was treacherous, refusing to be confined by a simple definition. They were my favorites. They had a kind of haunting quality, like a tune that runs through your head. (...) I tried to work a little harder. Break. Break into a thousand pieces. Make unusable. I'll see you the next morning at the morgue. Terror, That's the word that best expresses my feelings.»

Daisy Johnson decided to justify this characteristic with her main character's love of words: Gretel is a lexicographer. Her function is inherent to her personality; she sometimes refers to her profession to explain some of her qualities, stating that lexicographers are like this or like that, as if in spite of themselves. As well as being an aesthetic pleasure, this enjoyable game also says a lot about determinism, another of the story's underlying themes.

«I want to scream that you chose to abandon me, that no one forced you to, that you can't hide behind your bad choices by calling it fate, determinism or god. But sometimes, I wonder if you're not right, if our choices aren't all remnants of previous decisions. Shrapnel from our previous actions.»

I dare not tell you more, for fear of spoiling your discovery. I can only recommend this book. Certain themes and their treatment may remind you, as they do me, of the style of Wajdi Mouawad. Here's hoping that Daisy Johnson's work is as successful and, above all, that it heralds many more.

Write to the author: lauriane.pipoz@leregardlibre.com

Daisy Johnson
Everything that overwhelms us
Stock
2019
323 pages