French Fiction - Consolation by Anna Gavalda

I finished Anna Gavalda’s new book (the author of Hunting and Gathering discussed in a previous post) while on holiday in Sydney. You might wonder why it has taken me until now to post my thoughts on it, but I have been in a quandary. Did I like it – to be honest, I’m not sure. Certainly I didn’t find it hooked me in as quickly as Hunting and Gathering did.

Firstly, an outline of the story. The main character is Charles, a successful architect who travels the world with his projects and is rarely home. Charles has a very modern relationship with his partner, Laurence. They are not married but have been together for many years and Laurence’s daughter Mathilde has a much closer relationship with Charles than her own mother. Mathilde now fourteen, is at that difficult teenage stage, but she is the one thing keeping Charles and Laurence together. Then one day, Charles gets a letter from his childhood friend, Alexis, a letter with just three words “Anouk is dead”.

Anouk, Alexis’s mother, was so very different from his own parents that she drew him in like a lure.  She was loud, funny and full of life and as a nurse, she cared about other people.  But, to Charles, she was also sexy and she was Charles's first love.  Everything changed when the two boys were in their late teens. Alexis, a talented musician, becomes addicted to drugs and treats his girlfriend, Charles' sister, badly.  Charles and Alexis lose touch as you often do in these circumstances, and thus Charles saw less and less of Anouk.

The letter turns out to be a catalyst for Charles to look at his life and his relationship with Laurence.  It brings back memories both good and bad, and motivates him to start a journey to find out how Anouk died and why she was buried in a suburban cemetery in an area that represents those things she always despised - cheap district housing and racism. While seeking out Alexis, he meets Kate, damaged by life and with a brood of adopted children, lives on a ramshackle farm in a small provincial town, and with whom he experiences an instant connection. Kate, is in some ways, Anouk reincarnated. Is this his second chance?

The first half of the novel was hard to get into, written in small snippets of events, from different points of view. In retrospect, I can see that the style of writing reflected the depression, uncertainty and churning that characterised Charles’ life at this point, but, for me, it made it difficult to keep up with the story and I often got a little lost. Maybe, the author was trying to make her novel fit the literary genre more closely to remove the label of women’s fiction from it, but I thought it made hard to get emotionally involved with the characters and the story in the way I had in Hunting and Gathering.

The second half of the novel flows more smoothly and the characters are easier to understand and empathise with. The novel takes the reader on a gentle journey as Charles discovers himself, and delves into the meaning of family, friendship, and love. I preferred this approach as it I got caught up in the feelings that it evoked, and I think I was disappointed that the first half of the novel wasn’t in this style. To me, the novel feels like it has been written by two different authors, with only Charles as the connection, and I found this a little confusing. I couldn’t decide whether the book was aimed at readers of literary fiction or for the reader of more popular fiction.

In retrospect, I’m not sure I would recommend this book if you were tossing up between a few, but may be a good one for the book club as there are a lot of issues to promote discussion.

"Hunting & Gathering" by Anna Gavalda

I was in a bookstore the other day and noticed Anna Gavalda’s new book “Consolation” on the table. I had to buy it to take away on holiday next week, as I loved Anna’s book, Hunting and Gathering which was released in Australia a few years ago. Some of you may be familiar with the movie of the same name which is based on the book (with English subtitles).

What made it such a memorable book for me that I have read it three times? I would have to say I was drawn to the wonderful characters in the novel - characters which had layers of complexity that had to be peeled away to reveal the true person underneath. While the plot of the novel is quite simple, Anna has created characters with which you live their story, characters that make you want to get to know them better, to be part of their world. Anna is a French writer, and I think that interesting characters are one of the strengths of European writers.

There is Camille, a young woman with a past she is trying to escape. By night, Camille works as a cleaner of corporate offices making friends with a diverse group of women, and by day lives in a tiny, freezing attic rarely venturing out into the world. What is her story, I kept asking myself as I read. She seemed so out of place in this setting. Her neighbour, Philibert, is a quirky French aristocrat, a man born into a family entrenched in the past. Philibert is a contradiction.  He has a academic's knowledge of French history but sells postcards outside a museum for a living. Philibert’s flatmate, Franck, is a moody, womanising, but talented chef, drowning in guilt after having to put his beloved grandmother, Paulette, into a nursing home. He resents the huge hours he works to pay for his fast motorbike and his grandmother’s nursing home fees. Philibert and Franck are an unlikely pair to share an apartment, as they seem to have little in common.

When Philibert rescues a very sick Camille from her garret and brings her to stay, things are not so peaceful in the apartment. As Franck says “the minute you let a girl in, all hell breaks loose. Everything gets complicated, everything becomes a pain in the ass and even the best buddies end up shouting at each other”. Sure enough things change as they all learn to trust each other, to become friends. While Camille and Franck give the story the drama and scenes with their hate/love relationship, Philibert and Pauline are responsible for bringing softness and emotion, and you just want to give them a hug. Each character has a past that unravels over the course of the book, generating our sympathy, understanding, and admiration.

Unlike other books I have read, Anna has managed to bring out the personality of each character without bogging the reader down and slowing down the overall story. I thought this book was a beautiful story of friendship and love, not to mention the food that binds them together and just the right thing to pick you up when things are not going to plan.  I can't wait to dig my teeth into her new book, Consolation.  You might like to learn more about the author in this interview and a review of Consolation here.