Marie-Hélène Lafon: Les Derniers indiens (2008)

This really is a comment on Marie-Hélène Lafon's Les Derniers indiens, but I feel this preliminary paragraph about an English novel is very relevant here. It's Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, who actually studied French language and literature at university. Let's take her first sentence in this book, which won the Costa First Novel prize award in 2017: 'When people ask me what I do – taxi drivers, dental hygienists – I tell them I work in an office.' OK, it's written in a chatty colloquial style, as though it is spoken, maybe many readers identify the narrator with themselves, which is why this thing is so popular – even if, in the pages I read, reality seemed to be taking a back seat and I just couldn't believe in the existence of the female narrator. There seems to be something wrong even from that first sentence, and surely this is the fact that the word 'people' is too far removed from the parenthesis? How about 'When people – taxi drivers, dental hygienists – ask me what I do I tell them I work in an office.' That to me seems to be a better worked-on sentence, and although I read several more pages this didn't strike me as an interesting book in any way at all: to be honest it seemed very tedious, and I'd certainly not the least desire to read it. Do most people really read books to identify with themselves, turn pages and pass the time, learning nothing in the process?  If so it's a very sad world, but I suppose at least people are reading something, aren't they?

But are they reading 'finished' books, by which I mean books over which the author has sweated and slaved over a hot keyboard, taking hours to phrase, re-phrase, re-re-phrase, etc, a sentence, paying loving attention and even hours to the place of a comma? I think not, but Marie-Hélène Lafon is definitely one of those writers who care deeply about how they write, but then Lafon seems to be writing out of an inner need, as opposed to Honeyman, who simply appears to be writing to appeal to as many readers as possible, to how much money she can make out of inevitably very drab novels. Lafon believes that most books are 'unfinished' in that nowhere enough time has been devoted to corrections.

But then again, Lafon is no average writer. Now a teacher in Paris, she was born in the département of Cantal, in the Auvergne, to a family she describes as peasant farmers. And her family knew that they were the last survivors – among les derniers indiens – and most of Lafon's books are shot through with her past, the way of life there, and how it is changing. 

Les Derniers indiens may have autobiographical elements, although it is certainly not an autobiography. The narrator is of course not the protagonist Marie (and how can a narrator in a any book ever be the same person anyway?), although we see the novel through her eyes, and the moment of learning that Jean, the man she lives with, is not her husband but her brother, can strike hard. Incest is never mentioned, and physical incest in particular, but the hints of (often port mortem) psychological incest run throughout the novel: the clothes of ancestors kept in the wardrobe, the relationship between Marie's mother and her late son Pierre, the photos, etc.

The neighbours underline the difference between the old world and the new, buying new farming gear, eager to swoop on Marie's property when death comes, and sell the heirlooms off to the local braderies. Lafon's interest, though, is not in making stories, her words – often present in long sentences, adjectives, nouns, adjectival phrases piled on top of each other, swirling around constantly as if birds trying to reach their target prey, enrapturing.

I read recently that there's a saying (or which I was unaware) that goes something like Americans write to tell a story, whereas their French counterparts write to create an act of literature. I wouldn't quite go that far, but Marie-Hélène Lafon's works are certainly acts of literature.

As for Gail Honeyman, well... her work speaks for itself!

Links to my Marie-Hélène Lafon posts:
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Marie-Hélène Lafon: Le Pays d'en haut : entretiens avec Fabrice Lardreau
Marie-Hélène Lafon: Sur la photo
Marie-Hélène Lafon: Les Derniers indiens
Marie-Hélène Lafon: L'Annonce