{"id":38282,"date":"2021-02-02T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/?p=38282"},"modified":"2022-11-13T14:51:28","modified_gmt":"2022-11-13T13:51:28","slug":"belladonna-undergo-learn-and-grow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/en\/literature\/belladonna-undergo-learn-and-grow\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00abBelladonna\u00bb: endure, learn, then grow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday's books - Ana\u00efs Sierro<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a mature project on belladonna and its intriguing duality: to heal or to kill, I was drawn to the title of this book. I'm familiar with the effects of atropine, its active ingredient. Theoretically. But here Herv\u00e9 Bougel was proposing, through this simple but equivocal title, that I get to know them in human terms. The effects on those around me, experienced by and through the eyes of a child, the author. An author, incidentally, little known to the general public.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Self-taught and without \u00abdiplomas\u00bb, the young Herv\u00e9 Bougel subsequently trained himself both professionally and personally. A socio-cultural educator, librarian and trainer, these diplomas came to him later in life. Writing, on the other hand, has always followed him. The author of several collections of poetry and chronicles to date, and founder of the contemporary poetry publisher Pr\u00e9#Carr\u00e9, he has now signed with Belladonna<\/em>, not his first novel, but the first with autobiographical overtones. As far as we know, Herv\u00e9 Bougel's childhood was very similar to that of the anonymous main character. A sign of modesty? The hypothesis seems tangible to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beautiful lady, this illusion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Let's be honest, reading this book isn't a healthy, birdsong-inducing stroll through the blossoming fields of spring. The title says it all: fear, abuse, agony and, above all, death. No surprise, then, but a slap in the face, even when warned.

Herv\u00e9 Bougel recounts just one week in the childhood of a pre-teen. Perhaps the one that sums it all up, that tells it all. Certainly, the one that says it all. For the young child has learned a lot. A \u00abto know life\u00bb, <\/em>but above all to keep quiet. So this book sounds like deliverance, a confession, the unleashed word, the very word so often repressed out of obligation. The confession of a child who has become an adult, but whose predecessor is still howling with indigestion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I knew it was all true, but I couldn't say anything. I didn't know how to say it. I didn't know how to say it. I was afraid not to speak, but I was afraid, I was afraid of my brother, I was afraid to speak. I was afraid of my mother, of my mother's slaps. Not of the slaps she might give me, but of what those slaps were. They were slaps to kill words.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Active poison<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yes, because the poison is factual. The father's abuse of alcohol and belladonna pills, the mother's mental illness, the butcher's crimes behind the kitchen wall, the brother's anger or the sister's silent distress. It's there, present and omnipresent. It penetrates bodies and minds. It eats away at them, gradually taking full possession. It dominates and acts. It leads the father to numerous suicide attempts, the mother to destructive apathy, the brother to violence and the sister to deadly muteness. Nothing can counter such poison, when the victim has no choice but to accept it. Accept its effects, its ravages, accept its hold and its rape, accept its outcome. The only fatal outcome: the poison of life that suffocates her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n