Marie Redonnet

http://msarki.tumblr.com/post/115287495703/rose-mellie-rose-by-marie-redonnet

For some reason, and it was a surprise to me, this short novel felt more realized than the first two in the trilogy. But there is no way I would ever compare Marie Redonnet with the writing of Annie Ernaux, Samuel Beckett, or any other person champions in her corner are wont to do for her. She is her own, and no label or comparison will do anyone justice, or any good. The almost-innocent childlike voice of every show more narrator in all three books of the trilogy can at times remind me of Agota Kristof, but the final result fails in comparison. This trilogy is in no way a brilliant work of fiction, but pure enjoyment can be had in reading them. Redonnet certainly has style, and that matters. Perhaps a novel of hers to come will strike me as masterful. In the meantime I am satisfied in the way in which she fares.

What is interesting, and sometimes a bit puzzling, is how Redonnet in all her books has her young girl characters nonchalantly experiencing, for example, their first period, falling prey to lecherous men who only want them as sex objects, and the girls routinely coming back for more sexual abuse even from the same pathetic guys. Never is any love involved, no emotion, just sex as if it was as normal and acceptable as the setting sun. Prostituting oneself is also expressed nonchalantly and assumed acceptable. It means nothing to these girls to be violently thrown onto the sand and taken, to be ordered to strip naked and be penetrated, or to be turned over and entered from behind. It is all presented in her text as matter-of-fact, no despair, no feeling of injustice or their having been violated. Instead the young girls continue expecting more of the same, and even go looking for it. And to make matters even more disconcerting, in these clever and well-written books there is rarely a decent man available to even have a loving relationship with. But for some reason there is no review yet written that questions any of my concerns relative to the writing of Redonnet. It is almost as if her readers have become complicit in her undertakings and care little about another's undoing or destruction. Or perhaps it is my own puritan upbringing fighting for years to maintain its awful strangling hold on me, and my struggle to conform to a world that rarely, if ever, makes sense. show less

Wow. What an unrelenting disaster that constantly gets remade and disfigured. Redonnet's creation is set against a backdrop of water and swallowing sands. In addition to the sponge-like rotting of anything made of wood, everything else is corroding and falling into disrepair. Especially the humans. Even birds. Disease and discomfort permeate the novel as does the swamp's encroachment on anything thought to be stable. The constant bombardment of reality disrupts the head-in-the-clouds utopia show more wishing to prevail. This is a dream no one should want. And it never stops. Why does anyone read a book like this? And then, why not? show less

Feels like another world, only slightly different. What it's like to live with very little context for what is happening to you, around you. Musicality and repetition of prose akin to Thomas Bernhard, but with emphasis on brevity in sentence structure. Beckettian persistence in continuance of futile activities, paralysis, inertia, dry humor in the face of it all. A beautiful and hypnotic novel in miniature.

http://msarki.tumblr.com/post/113744100928/forever-valley-by-marie-redonnet

Some of us take life as it comes and we accept our lot. And there are those of us who never complain and simply continue chopping wood and carrying water. But a poor ward of any sort being engaged with a personal project of one’s own design and desire in such a prohibitive life has to be proactive, and can help some to ease a troubled mind. But then, unfortunately, in the end most things never really work out, they show more just are.

The names of all the characters in this book seem to have some importance except for the sixteen year-old narrator. To us she remains nameless. In the opening pages she is framed as an illiterate, undeveloped virgin, but by book’s end she has mastered a word or two and learned how to put her newfound talents to use in the valley’s sex trade. She practices enough that she learns to skillfully use these so-called lesser physical attributes she was originally equipped with. But like her name, even her prostitution isn’t important, nor is her relationship with basically anyone she has relations with of any kind. She is not exactly indifferent, she just knows what it is she likes and what she does not like. Everyone seems to like her. But her greatest gift in life is her forceful persistence, backed by her relative intuition for knowing when to quit. And then, of course, some things just merely end, or become dead.

The language, at least in translation, reminds me so much of the voice of Ágota Kristóf in her Notebook trilogy. Simple, direct sentences, yet always concealing this inner feeling of something sinister, or strange happening in the background or behind the scenes. An impending doom certain to take place. A creepy feeling of being violated, or a soiling of something pure and innocent. Narrated by the voice of a young sixteen year-old girl, short on education and life experience, the tale proceeds in typical fits and bounds similar to what any teenager might suffer being raised in a poor community if she too lacked a healthy upbringing and no mature adult direction. Her triumph exists in her always committed persistence in whatever she sets her mind to. Otherwise, hopelessness and dread, would dictate the awful fate of her true existence. Regardless, even on a good day, never does her world become what most would consider living in anyway. But then, there just might be some hope for a person of conviction who finally, and for good, can leave a lactating town. show less