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.»

Cette violence sera également l’un des axes de la reconstruction de l’histoire de la protagoniste. Révoltée, elle l’est certainement. Mais elle est aussi prisonnière d’un amour pour sa mère qu’elle éprouve malgré elle et d’un besoin de comprendre son passé. Ce dernier jaillira devant ses yeux par bribes, qu’elle s’empressera de raconter à sa mère à la deuxième personne du singulier: tout au long du livre, elle s’adressera à sa mère, nous signifiant ainsi que Sarah est bien au centre de l’histoire.

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.

Si nous sommes tenus par un certain suspense, le plaisir de lire ce livre découle surtout du plaisir de se laisser inonder par les souvenirs de Gretel. Les idées paraissent souvent jetées sur le papier, comme s’il s’agissait de nos propres réflexions. On se délecte de suivre des éléments qui n’ont parfois pas de lien entre eux, oubliant tout contrôle sur l’histoire et ne cherchant plus réellement à aligner ces éclats de mémoire.

«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. Il y avait des fiches étalées partout sur mon bureau, jusque par terre. Ce mot était traître, il refusait de se laisser enfermer dans une définition simple. C’étaient mes préférés. Ils avaient un petit côté obsédant, à la manière d’un air qui trotte dans la tête. (…) J’ai essayé de travailler encore un peu. 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: [email protected]

Daisy Johnson
Everything that overwhelms us
Stock
2019
323 pages