As Time Goes By : Portraits of Age [1 ed.] 9781443864862, 9781443842457

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As Time Goes By

As Time Goes By: Portraits of Age

Edited by

Joy Charnley and Caroline Verdier

As Time Goes By: Portraits of Age, Edited by Joy Charnley and Caroline Verdier This book first published 2013 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2013 by Joy Charnley and Caroline Verdier and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-4245-1, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4245-7

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Joy Charnley and Caroline Verdier The Ageing Mother The Veiled Mirror: Epiphany and Epicalyptry in Contemporary French Women’s Writing about Ageing.................................................................. 9 Jean Anderson Memories and Nostalgia: Discovering the Mother in Tahar Ben Jelloun’s Sur ma mère............................................................................................... 27 Nancy Arenberg To Break the Looking-glass: Writing a Mother’s Ageing, Illness and Death in Annie Ernaux’s Une femme and “Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit”................................................................................................ 45 Marzia Caporale Women Facing Old Age La vieillesse menaçante: Female Ageing in Latterday Nineteenth-century French Society ........................................................................................... 65 Danielle Bishop Learning to be Old: Laure Wyss’s Literary Reflections on the Challenge of Ageing................................................................................................... 83 Barbara Burns As Time Goes By: Old Age and the Elderly in Maria Judite de Carvalho’s Seta Despedida ........................................................................................ 101 Juliet Perkins The Quest for Leonora Carrington: The Older Role Model in Monika Maron’s Novel Ach Glück ....................................................................... 121 Juliet Wigmore

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Table of Contents

Fatherhood and Age Le Père Goriot: The Depiction of Old Age and of Obsession? ............... 139 Maureen Ramsden Life Begins at Sixty: Representations of Old Age in Emile Zola’s Le Docteur Pascal ................................................................................... 153 Barbara M. Stone Ageing ‘Heroes’ Memories and Old Age: The Old Goethe, as seen by Thomas Mann...... 173 Hans Hahn Respect or Ridicule? The Representation of Old Age in Cervantes’s Works ...................................................................................................... 193 Idoya Puig Exploring Sexuality Future Age and Children: A Compensatory “Trope of Vulnerability” in Llorenç Villalonga’s Fiction?.............................................................. 211 P. Louise Johnson Ageing, Masculinity and Sexuality in Serge Doubrovsky’s L’Après-vivre and Un homme de passage ............................................... 229 Patrick Saveau Creativity and Positivity in Old Age “Silent Transformations”: Ageing and the Work of Writing in Robert Pinget’s Théo ou le temps neuf ................................................ 243 Debra Kelly “In my end / is my beginning”: Giuseppe Ungaretti’s Last Works and Old-Age Creativity ........................................................................... 263 Eleanor Parker

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Towards a Positive Psychology of Ageing: A Discussion of the Representation of Old Age in the Writings of Gabrielle Roy........ 289 Julie Rodgers Contributors............................................................................................. 305



INTRODUCTION JOY CHARNLEY AND CAROLINE VERDIER

The challenges represented by ageing, often linked to illness and death, are long-standing concerns for many societies, which continue to disturb and even terrify. 1 Nowhere is this more evident than in our youth-obsessed western civilisations, which appear torn between recognising the inevitability of an ageing population whilst remaining unwilling to embrace age and all it entails.2 Life expectancy, often taken as one of the indicators of a country’s level of development, is steadily increasing, but concern is now turning more and more to quality of life aswell, along with an awareness that more needs to be done to ensure that older people are respected and looked after appropriately. 3 Ageing is very occasionally reported and discussed in positive and respectful terms: some elderly figures are lauded and admired, 4 psychologists and economists have posited that people become happier as they get older,5 and the sexuality of



1 Barbara G. Walker, The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983), pp. 213-17. 2 See for example Simone de Beauvoir, La Vieillesse, 2 vols (Paris: Gallimard, 1970); Old Age, trans. by Patrick O’Brian (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972). 3 See work done by the ‘Action conjointe européenne sur les espérances de vie en bonne santé/European Joint Action on Healthy Life Years’, which found that it was in Sweden that men lived the longest and retained their good health for the longest (life expectancy 79.6 years, 71.7 in good health) whilst women had the highest life expectancy in France and Spain (85.3 years) but conserved their good health for the longest in Malta (71.6 years). See [accessed 22 July 2012]; also reported in Valeurs Mutualistes, 279 (July/August 2012), pp. 21-24. See also Elisabeth Gordon, ‘En santé jusqu’à 150 ans. Promesse ou utopie ?’ L’Hebdo, 16 February 2012, pp. 40-44 and Michael Wolff, ‘Let my mother go’, The Observer Magazine, 22 July 2012, pp. 24-32. 4 Witness the considerable success of ninety-four-year-old Stéphane Hessel’s book Indignez-vous! (Montpellier: Indigène Editions, 2010) and the national celebration in South Africa of Nelson Mandela’s ninety-fourth birthday (19 July 2012). 5 ‘The U-bend of life. Why, beyond middle age, people get happier as they get older’, The Economist, 18 December 2010, pp. 33-36.

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Introduction

older men and women is openly acknowledged.6 Yet in spite of all this, omnipresent advertising and ‘celebrity culture’ constantly feed individual worries by emphasising the need to look as young as possible for as long as possible and the process of ageing continues to be surrounded with a great deal of fear and denial. Commentators who are critical of our attitudes to age argue in favour of the acceptance and integration of older people, condemn the lack of care often observed and campaign for improved attitudes.7 This belief that we can and must change the way we approach ageing and care for those in the final years of their lives rejects the usual discourse of exclusion and inevitable decline and foregrounds the possibility of new opportunities, intergenerational understanding and cooperation.8 Indeed, although change in this field can feel painfully slow, its speed and nature can often surprise, a fact that is particularly well illustrated by a recent project to build a retirement home near Madrid specifically for lesbians and homosexuals.9 In a country where, under Franco’s regime, laws against homosexuality were severe, and where attitudes are slowly beginning to change, this is an interesting indication of the ways in which ‘old age’ and our experience of it are being radically transformed. But the emergence of new opportunities in response to a perceived ‘market’ is not always so potentially positive and in some instances evacuating a problem is preferred to tackling it and transforming the situation. Witness the development of the ‘market’ for British retirement to Southern Europe, especially Spain, which in recent years has expanded to include countries in South-East Asia such as Thailand. Although providers there emphasise the cheaper costs, the warm weather and traditional Thai respect for elderly people, the phenomenon can nonetheless also be interpreted as a way of ‘exporting’ an unwanted, ageing population

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See for example Philippe Brenot, Les Hommes, le sexe et l’amour (Paris: Les Arènes, 2011) and Les Femmes, le sexe et l’amour (Paris: Les Arènes, 2012); Régine Lemoine-Darthois and Elisabeth Weissman, Elles croyaient qu’elles ne vieilliraient jamais. Les filles du baby-boom ont cinquante ans (Paris: Albin Michel, 2000) and Un âge nommé désir. Féminité et maturité (Paris: Albin Michel, 2006). 7 See for example Laetitia Clavreul, ‘Fin de vie: la France néglige toujours ses mourants’, Le Monde, 16 February 2012, p. 11. 8 On intergenerational solidarity see Sandrine Blanchard, ‘Plaidoyer pour les vieux’, Le Monde, 16 February 2012; Mike Pinches, ‘We have our spats, don’t we?’, The Guardian Weekend, 17 March 2012, pp. 41-45. 9 See reports of this on [accessed 20 July 2012].

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who will be cared for cheaply, far away from their country of origin.10 Such ‘avoidance tactics’ sit alongside more sinister developments, such as the constant reminders, in these times of ‘austerity’, about the rising costs of pensions and future care and claims that ‘babyboomers’ are selfishly enjoying life while younger generations suffer.11 In this environment, it is not difficult to see why some might feel that, rather than being a choice to be exercised or not, euthanasia could all too easily become a threat, an obligation, a duty to one’s family and to society. Academic work in a range of disciplines has been making an important contribution to this fraught, divided and confusing debate, and alongside economics, psychology, history and sociology, literature too can provide valuable insights into the attitudes, prejudices and fears that are prevalent in society, refracted through writers’ consciousness and experience.12 This

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See for example the website [accessed 20 July 2012]. Such ‘exportation’ of the ageing population, the mirror image of the ‘importation’ of foreign workers to rich industrialised countries to care for elderly people, has been reflected in popular literature in novels such as Deborah Moggach’s These Foolish Things (2004), set in India, which inspired the film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012). 11 The titles of recent books are for example indicative of this: Francis Beckett, What did the babyboomers ever do for us? Why the Children of the Sixties lived the Dream and Failed the Future (London: Biteback Publishing, 2010); Shiv Malik and Ed Howker, Jilted Generation: How Britain has Bankrupted its Youth (London: Icon Books Ltd, 2010); David Willetts, The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Stole their Children’s Future and How to Give it Back (London: Atlantic Books, 2010). 12 For example Prisca von Dorotka Bagnell and Patricia Spencer Soper (eds.), Perceptions of Age in Literature. A Cross-Cultural Study (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989); Andrew Blaikie, Ageing and Popular Culture (Cambridge University Press, 1999); Thomas R. Cole, The Journey of Life: a Cultural History of Aging in America (Cambridge University Press, 1992); Oliver Davis, Age Rage and Going Gently. Stories of the Senescent Subject in Twentieth-Century French Writing (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006); Amelia DeFalco, Uncanny Subjects. Aging in Contemporary Narrative (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2010); Margaret Morganroth Gullette, Declining to Decline: Cultural Combat and the Politics of the Midlife (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1997); Julia Johnson (ed.), Writing Old Age (London: Centre for Policy on Ageing, 2004); Laurel Porter and Laurence M. Porter (eds.), Aging in Literature (Troy MI: International Book Publishers, 1984); Janice Sokoloff, The Margin that Remains: A Study of Aging in Literature (New York: Lang, 1987); Kathleen Woodward, Aging and its Discontents. Freud and Other Fictions (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991); Kathleen Woodward (ed.), Figuring Age: Women, Bodies, Generations (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999).

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Introduction

volume thus aims to build on and add to a burgeoning field by providing a varied spectrum of literary analyses that draw on a range of approaches (Freud, Lacan, Kristeva and feminist theory amongst others) and cover a wide geographical area (France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland but also Francophone Canada and Morocco). Major writers such as Balzac, Cervantes, Goethe, Mann and Zola are discussed here, as well as a number of important twentieth-century writers (Ben Jelloun, Cixous, Doubrovsky, Ernaux, Roy, Ungaretti) and less well-known figures (Carvalho, Châtelet, Fleutiaux). In this wide coverage of the subject, novels predominate but autofiction also figures, as do the genres of poetry and the short story. Within the broad themes which structure the volume, many others, also key to any consideration of ageing, emerge, overlapping and often recurring in several sections. The constant echoes between essays remind us that, whatever the geographical location or the period in history, similar issues remain pertinent across time and space, whether it be family relations (Anderson, Arenberg, Caporale, Ramsden, Rodgers), generational solidarity (Anderson, Kelly, Rodgers, Stone), sadness and loneliness (Perkins), memory and dementia (Arenberg, Hahn), class differences (Bishop, Ramsden), gender differences (Bishop, Burns, Puig, Wigmore) or sexuality (Johnson, Parker, Saveau, Stone). In her analysis of the specific position of women in the nineteenth century, when old age, especially for women, was a frightening prospect,13 Danielle Bishop makes an unexpected connection with the twenty-first century, when longer working lives, smaller pensions and reductions in state benefits in many countries are once again raising questions about how best to cope with old age. These gender-specific concerns are echoed by Barbara Burns in her study of a Swiss-German writer living a century later, Juliet Wigmore in her discussion of an East German writer, and Julie Rodgers studying a French-Canadian author, all demonstrating the ways in which female characters react to retirement, loss and physical ageing. Equanimity and acceptance of passing time are not easy to achieve and Jean Anderson in her study of several twentieth- and twenty-first-century French women writers reminds us that it can be difficult or even impossible to face up to one’s own ageing, a similar point emerging from Hans Hahn’s exploration of Goethe and Mann. Of course men too can be



13 As many have commented, ‘la vieillesse a toujours été redoutable pour les femmes. Elle signifie souvent la solitude et la misère’ [‘old age has always been a frightening prospect for women. It often means loneliness and poverty’]. Françoise Héritier, Michelle Perrot, Sylviane Agacinski, Nicole Bacharan, La plus belle histoire des femmes (Paris: Seuil, 2011), p. 136.

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made vulnerable by age, as we see in Maureen Ramsden’s discussion of Le Père Goriot, the story of a man weakened by age and his overpowering love for his daughters, Idoya Puig’s essay on Don Quixote and Juliet Perkins’s study of several short stories by Carvalho. The gloomy picture of ageing that emerges from this latter work is a good reflection of the more negative portrayals of age prevalent in society, an emphasis on solitude and physical and mental decline that is also central to Marzia Caporale’s discussion of Ernaux, Nancy Arenberg’s essay on Ben Jelloun and Patrick Saveau’s contribution on Doubrovsky, where the protagonist, energised by a relationship with a young woman, is nonetheless forced to realise his physical limits. Old age as a period of possible renewal and discovery (and without the obstacles encountered by Doubrovsky) is further explored in the essays by Barbara Stone, who looks at the way in which the central protagonist of Le Docteur Pascal is reinvigorated by his marriage to a young woman, Eleonor Parker, who discusses the Italian poet Ungaretti’s refound energy following the beginning of a new relationship and Debra Kelly, who studies the way in which Pinget’s character is influenced by his interaction with a young boy. If all of the essays included here reflect aspects of old age that are still current and relevant in contemporary society, Louise Johnson’s study of Villalonga’s fictional society, where youth is all-important and age has been ‘erased’, eerily (and scarily) reflects and foreshadows our own obsession with consumerism and youth. Together then, these essays seek to contribute to the existing body of critical work by providing another varied picture of what age is, has been and might be in the future. Collectively they demonstrate once more the power of literature to reflect or even prefigure social trends, encouraging us to pay more attention to what we think, how we live and how we might shape our future societies. Glasgow, July 2012

THE AGEING MOTHER

THE VEILED MIRROR: EPIPHANY AND EPICALYPTRY IN CONTEMPORARY FRENCH WOMEN’S WRITING ABOUT AGEING JEAN ANDERSON

It is widely critically accepted that identity is constructed, and that such a construction may be negatively influenced, whether this be through external influences that depict the so-called variant (woman, queer, ethnically diverse, etc) as Other, or by the internalisation within the subject of these beliefs. Ageing is an important aspect of identity. As the population of the Western world ages, so too does the market increasingly insist on rejuvenation via cosmetic intervention of many kinds: in short, there is a growing pressure on women especially to mask or avoid the effects of the ageing process. This essay looks at some examples of both epicalyptry (deliberate efforts to disguise such effects) and epiphanic moments of realisation of age in work by French women writers, arguing that the physical signs of ageing, whether viewed by others or the self (often but not always via a mirror) constitute a challenge, sometimes of traumatic dimensions, to the subject’s notion of self. Looking outward from behind the physical persona, ‘you are only as old as you feel’, as popular wisdom would have it. But faced with the external mirrored reality, as Sylvia Plath notably puts it in ‘Mirror’, ‘an old woman / Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish’. Je pense qu’il est nécessaire […] que nous affirmions qu’il existe une généalogie de femmes. Généalogie de femmes dans notre famille: après tout, nous avons une mère, une grand-mère, une arrière-grand-mère, des filles. […] Essayons de nous situer pour conquérir et garder notre identité dans cette généalogie féminine.1



1 Luce Irigaray, Le Corps-à-corps avec la mère (Montréal: Editions de la pleine lune, 1981), pp. 29-30. All translations are my own. [‘I believe we must affirm that there is a genealogy of women. A genealogy of women in our family: after all, we have a mother, a grandmother, a great-grandmother, daughters. [...] Let us try to position ourselves to claim and to keep our identity within this female genealogy.’]

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The Veiled Mirror

An increasing number of French women writers are turning to issues of ageing and intergenerational influences, particularly down the (grand)maternal line, to such an extent that a comprehensive study is well beyond the limits of this chapter. An informal survey of recent publications in French bookshops in September 2011 confirms that this is very much an expanding market: where ten years ago old women as central characters in novels were relatively rare, at least half a dozen of the books on featured display were focused on aged or ageing female characters. These included Céline Minard’s So Long, Luise; Véronique Ovaldé’s Ce que je sais de Véra Candida; Fanny Saintenoy’s Juste avant, which features no fewer than five generations; Claudie Gallay’s Dans l’or du temps and Delphine de Vigan’s widely-acclaimed Rien ne s’oppose à la nuit.2 Not only are these books being written and published, they are also being reprinted, making the all-important movement to paperback in many cases. Nor should we forget the work of some of the more established names in French literature: the vastly divergent Benoîte Groult’s La Touche étoile (2007) and Hélène Cixous’s Ciguë: vieilles femmes en fleurs (2008), Ève s’évade: la vie et la ruine (2009) and Revirements: dans l’Antarctique du cœur (2011) add their own stamp of authority to this emerging area of literary investigation.3 In short, writing about ageing and ageing female characters is an area of increasing interest and importance. While many of the works mentioned focus on mothers, and can be said to follow the example of Simone de Beauvoir in some respects, particularly of Une mort très douce (1964),4 a closer examination of the representation of ageing and its effects will allow us to revisit some of the issues found in Beauvoir’s work and already well-documented by critics, 5 along with others which feature only tangentially in her writing.

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Céline Minard, So long, Luise (Paris: Denoël, 2011); Véronique Ovaldé, Ce que je sais de Véra Candida (Paris: Éditions de l’Olivier, 2011); Fanny Saintenoy, Juste avant (Paris: Flammarion, 2011); Claudie Gallay, Dans l’or du temps (Paris: Livre de poche, 2011 [2008]); Delphine de Vigan, Rien ne s’oppose à la nuit (Paris: Robert Laffont, 2011). Vigan’s novel was shortlisted for the Prix Renaudot (2011). 3 Benoîte Groult, La Touche étoile (Paris: Grasset, 2006); Hélène Cixous, Ciguë: vieilles femmes en fleurs (Paris: Galilée, 2008), Ève s’évade: la vie et la ruine (Paris: Galilée, 2009) subsequently referred to as EE followed by the page number, Revirements: dans l’Antarctique du cœur (Paris: Galilée, 2011). 4 Simone de Beauvoir, Une mort très douce (Paris: Folio, 2008 [1964]). Subsequent references are given in the text as MTD followed by the page number. 5 Une mort très douce and Les Mandarins (Paris: Gallimard, 1954) for example, as analysed by Sally Chivers in From Old Woman to Older Women: Contemporary Culture and Women’s Narratives (Columbus OH: Ohio State UP, 2003).

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To Age, or not to Age… It is generally accepted that identity is not fixed but fluid and constructed, and that such a construction may be negatively influenced, whether this be through external influences that depict the so-called variant (woman, queer, ethnically diverse, and so on) as Other, or by the internalisation within the subject of these beliefs.6 Ageing, too, is an important aspect of identity, and one that is still highly vulnerable to stereotypical ideas and expectations, arguably less mitigated by ideas of political correctness. To be old, in these ‘uncorrected’ terms, is to be incompetent, irrelevant, an unattractive encumbrance, or even invisible.7 As the baby-boom population of the Western world grows older, the age-avoidance market increasingly benefits from the resultant demand for rejuvenation via cosmetic intervention of many kinds. The desire to deny the signs of age is not specific to this current period, for Colette writes in Les Vrilles de la vigne (1908) of a young client saying: ‘je me maquille très fort, de manière à avoir la même figure dans vingt ans. Comme ça, j’espère qu’on ne me verra pas changer’8 [‘I wear lots of make-up, so I will look the same in twenty years’ time. That way, I hope no one will notice me changing’].



6 We should be wary, however, as J. Brooks Bouson has pointed out, of taking such theories as gospel: ‘even as critics have come to view the body as “discursively constructed and therefore open to (voluntary) resignification and change” (Hanson 16), the social meanings assigned to the female bodies as deviant and inferior – that is, as shamed – still have real consequences in the lived experiences of many women’ (J. Brooks Bouson, Embodied Shame: Uncovering Female Shame in Contemporary Women’s Writings (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2009)), p. 13. 7 See Groult, La Touche étoile, ‘[…] toi, femme, à mesure que ta beauté ou ta jeunesse s’estompent, tu t’apercevras que tu deviens peu à peu transparente. Bientôt on te heurtera sans te voir. Tu dis par habitude: “pardon”, mais personne ne te répondra, tu ne déranges plus, tu n’es plus là’ (p. 14) [‘you, woman, as your beauty or your youth fade away, you will notice that you are gradually becoming transparent. Soon people will bump into you without seeing you. You say “sorry”, out of habit, but no one answers you, you’re no longer a disturbance, you’re not there any more’]. 8 Colette, ‘Maquillage’, Les Vrilles de la vigne, ed. by Claude Pichois, Œuvres complètes, 4 vols (Paris: Gallimard, 1984-2001) I, pp. 1005-1008, (p. 1008). Or see Beauvoir, La Vieillesse (Paris: Gallimard, 1970) commenting on women who ‘[p]ar leurs toilettes, leur maquillage, leurs mimiques, […] cherchent à abuser autrui, mais surtout à se convaincre hystériquement qu’elles échappent à la vie commune’ (p. 313) [‘through their dress, their make-up, the faces they pull, [...] try to fool others, but also to convince themselves in a hysterical way, that they are spared the common fate’].

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The Veiled Mirror

However, there is clearly a growing pressure on women especially 9 to mask or avoid the effects of the passage of time, a blocking strategy known as epicalyptry.10 I propose here to apply this term to any behaviour, including gaze avoidance, that seeks to deny the realities of the ageing self or other. Despite such efforts however, or perhaps because of them, there can be epiphanic moments of realisation of age. 11 Although part of a process occurring over time, changes are here apprehended as (crisis) points where the physical signs of ageing, whether viewed by others or the self (often but not always via a mirror) constitute a challenge, sometimes of traumatic dimensions, to previously taken-for-granted notions of identity and selfhood. I will demonstrate that specific confrontations with change, focused principally on the face but extending at times to the whole body, one’s own or one’s mother’s or grandmother’s in what we might call a ‘matryoschka [‘Russian doll’] effect’, provide a rich field for literary exploration. With some reference to Beauvoir and Groult, my analysis will focus principally on Pierrette Fleutiaux’s autobiographical Des phrases courtes, ma chérie (2001) [Short Sentences, Darling], Annie Ernaux’s Une femme (1987) [A Woman’s Story] along with its companion non-fiction piece ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’ (1997) [‘I Remain in Darkness’], and Noëlle Châtelet’s two non-fiction works La dernière leçon (2004) [‘The Last Lesson’] and Au pays des vermeilles (2009) [‘In Elderland’], as well as her novels La Dame en bleu (1996) [‘The Lady in Blue’] and La Femme coquelicot (1997) [‘The Red Poppy Woman’].12 The focus of this

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Andrew Morrison in Shame, the Underside of Narcissism (London and New York: Routledge, 1997) points out that body shame in men focuses on performance, whereas in women it is appearance-oriented and related to the ensuing social consideration, or lack of it: ‘While certainly not innate, cultural and biological factors have conspired to instill in women feelings of passivity and inferiority, which frequently engender a sense of shame’ (p. 198). 10 Term apparently invented by writer and Michigan State adviser on ageing Michael Sheehan to refer to the deliberate blocking or masking of a realisation, [accessed 9 September 2011]. 11 I use the term ‘epiphanic’ here as both positive and negative, more frequently the latter, since there is no antonym for the word. 12 Pierrette Fleutiaux, Des phrases courtes, ma chérie (Arles: Actes sud, 2001) subsequently referred to in the text as DPC followed by the page number; Annie Ernaux, Une femme (Paris: Gallimard, 1987) subsequently referred to in the text as UF followed by the page number, ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’ (Paris: Gallimard, 1997) subsequently referred to as JNSP followed by the page number; Noëlle Châtelet, La dernière leçon (Paris: Seuil, 2004) subsequently referred to as

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study will be twofold: on the daughter’s realisation (or epicalyptric nonacknowledgement) of her own evolution from youth to old age as this relates to her mother’s decline and on the older woman’s awareness of herself as ageing. Whether this shocking revelation can be mitigated is a moot point: in her comprehensive study focusing mainly on novels by Canadian women writers but including analysis of several of Beauvoir’s works, Sally Chivers has looked closely at representations of the body and seen a positive trend away from the looking-glass: The trope of mirror-gazing pervades negative fiction of aging because characters struggle with a new self-identification in connection with a changed physical form […however] the increasingly constructive depictions of aging […] move away from the mirror to the reflection in younger people surrounding the aging characters.13

While this seems highly positive, Katheeen Woodward, a leading theorist in the representation of ageing, would disagree: for her, younger people function ‘as mirrors to older women, reflecting them back half their size, shamed by their critical gaze’.14 For the present analysis, I will examine a range of these moments where either fictional or more autobiographical characters respond to their mother’s or grandmother’s ageing appearance, or, conversely, confront their own mirror, somewhat as Snow White’s stepmother did, anxiously seeking the reassurance that inevitably comes to an end. For Beauvoir, this external reflection is essential, since we are incapable of realising internally that we have aged: ‘La vieillesse est particulièrement difficile à assumer parce que nous l’avons toujours considérée comme une espèce étrangère: suis-je donc devenue une autre alors que je demeure moimême?’ 15 [‘Old age is especially difficult to accept because we have



LDL followed by the page number, Au pays des vermeilles (Paris: Seuil, 2009) subsequently referred to in the text as APV followed by the page number, La Dame en bleu (Paris: Stock, 1996), La Femme coquelicot (Paris: Stock, 1997). 13 Chivers, p. xlv. 14 Kathleen Woodward, Aging and its Discontents: Freud and Other Fictions (Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1991), p. xii. 15 Beauvoir, La Vieillesse, p. 301. See also the concept of the ‘mask of ageing’ as elaborated by Mike Featherstone and Mike Hepworth, ‘The Mask of Ageing and the Postmodern Lifecourse’, in Mike Featherstone, Mike Hepworth, Bryan S. Turner (eds.), The Body: Social Process and Cultural Theory (London: Sage Publications, 1991), pp. 371-89: the term refers to the disparity between the subject’s external appearance and his or her sense of self as younger.

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The Veiled Mirror

always considered it to be another species: have I now become a different woman, although I am still myself?’]. In both cases, mirror or (grand)mother, we are either forced to take stock of a new reality, or, in an attempt to block it out, to look away in shame, avoiding a change that is negatively connoted in society.

Mothers as Mirrors As D.W. Winnicott insisted, the mother functions as a mirror in early child development: the protracted eye contact we now refer to as part of the ‘bonding’ process is for him essential to the child’s identity formation and future independence.16 Marianne Hirsch has underlined the importance of this mirroring function, particularly in the case of female children.17 I will argue here that this mirroring can also constitute one of those epiphanic moments where the daughter sees her own ageing reflected in her mother or grandmother. In Des phrases courtes ma chérie Pierrette Fleutiaux discusses with a friend not just her mother’s, but also her own ageing process: Nous savons tout l’une de l’autre, de la misère de nos parents vieillissants, de la détresse que nous cause le délabrement progressif, inexorable, de leur vie. Nous savons qu’au-delà du fardeau qu’il nous fait porter au jour le jour, c’est l’image de notre propre vieillissement que nous contemplons, à cru et en pleine lucidité. (DPC 57) [We know everything about each other, about the misery of our ageing parents, and the distress that their progressive, inexorable decline makes us feel. We know that beyond the burden this brings to our daily lives, it is our own ageing we are looking at, directly and with absolute lucidity.]

Fleutiaux’s autobiographical text, then, strongly stresses the visual connection (‘image’, ‘contemplons’) between the elderly other and the (also-ageing) observing subject. Even more intensely, the ageing body of the mother, however well-preserved for its age, is at the same time the



16 D. W. Winnicott, Playing and Reality (London and New York: Routledge, 2005 [1971]). See chapter 9, ‘The Mirror-role of Mother and Family in Child Development’, pp. 148-159: ‘In individual development the precursor of the mirror is the mother’s face’ (p. 149). Emphasis in the original. 17 Marianne Hirsch, Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory (Cambridge MA and London: Harvard UP, 1997). See Chapter 5, ‘Maternal Exposures’, pp. 151-87.

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body of the daughter: the shock of realising this can cause ‘removal of face’:18 Ses jambes nues, ses bras. C’est un choc, un vertige […] Je détourne les yeux, ne dis plus rien, ne demande plus rien. Je suis avec elle, je suis elle, dans sa peau […] (DPC 78) [Her bare legs, her arms. It is a shock, it makes me dizzy […] I look away, say nothing, ask nothing further. I am with her, I am her, inside her skin].

Gaze avoidance is a key reaction in the shame affect. The twinningbonding effect that is particularly strong in a same-sex parent-child relationship clearly survives long past infancy, and identity projection occurs on both sides of the mother-daughter relationship: as a child, the narrator was primped and fussed over, wearing ringlets and pink velvet ribbons: ‘sa coquetterie, c’était moi’ (DPC 101) [‘her pride in her appearance was me’]. The daughter is required to ‘porter la féminité’ [‘to uphold femininity’] on behalf of the mother: Et maintenant qu’elle est vieille, elle me le demande encore plus, elle n’a plus que moi pour être femme, il faut que je sois son visage, pour qu’elle gagne ses batailles à elle, ses toutes petites batailles de petite vieille. (DPC 101) [And now that she is old, she asks it of me even more, I am the only way she has to be a woman, I have to be her face, so she can win her battles, the tiny little battles of a little old lady].

Roles are reversed, in what Pierre-Louis Fort, in discussing Ernaux’s ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’, refers to as a ‘filiation inversée’:19 ‘Je suis fière de ma mère. C’est moi qui l’ai habillée’ (DPC 120) [‘I’m proud of my mother. I’m the one who dressed her’]. But there is more happening here than a simple parent-child reversal. At the hairdresser’s (with its décor of mirrors and the obligation to inspect one’s appearance), the

 18

Affect theorist S. S. Tomkins, in Affect, Imagery, Consciousness: Vol. 2: The Negative Affects (New York: Springer, 1963) developed the idea of shame as a motive for the interruption of the gaze: the first mode of communication is ‘the sharing of facial affect display between infant and mother’, but if the expected display is disrupted, either by an unexpected expression or some other unfamiliarity, the gaze will be withdrawn (p. 123): see also Donald Nathanson (ed.), The Many Faces of Shame (New York and London: Guilford, 1987), p. 29. 19 Pierre-Louis Fort, Ma mère, la morte. L’écriture du deuil au féminin chez Yourcenar, Beauvoir et Ernaux (Paris: IMAGO, 2007), pp. 95-106.

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daughter realises in a moment of shock that the unrecognised old woman who comes in from the street is her own mother, ‘cette vieille femme sagement assise, attendant sa vieille petite fille’ (DPC 107) [‘that old lady sitting there quietly, waiting for her old little daughter’]. In other words, maternal age reflects back onto the daughter, and as Fleutiaux sums it up: ‘Vases communicants nous sommes, éternellement’ (DPC 112) [‘We are communicating vessels, for all eternity’]. Yet the impossibility of ever truly being equal is clear: in a chapter entitled, significantly, ‘Miroir’, which opens with a reference to the Snow White story, the daughter remarks ‘Elle est devant, toujours plus vieille que moi’ (DPC 151) [‘She is ahead of me, always older than me’]. Clearly at this stage of life the mother-daughter roles are confused and confusing. The resemblances reflected back to the daughter by the mother-mirror are also elements of difference, as the ‘désastre de ce corps’ (DPC 164) [‘the disaster of this body’] has yet to imprint itself fully on the younger woman. In essence, then, while the two women are bound by the mirrored effects of ageing, they are at the same time separated. The face-to-face bonding which is the child’s first and lasting affective link in life is disturbed by the growing disparity caused by the ageing process (wrinkles, thinning hair). The expected face is replaced by something unexpected: this resembles the mask effect that is sometimes seen when the subject looks at herself in a mirror, as we shall see later. In Une femme, Annie Ernaux gives an account of her mother’s life with an emphasis on her declining years as an Alzheimer’s sufferer, and appears to strongly stress the differences between the two women: differences of background, upbringing, education, social status and personality. As a teenager, Annie found her mother ‘voyante’ [‘loud, common’]: and yet the mother-mirror shame effect is there: ‘Je détournai les yeux… J’avais honte de sa manière brusque de parler et de se comporter, d’autant plus vivement que je sentais combien je lui ressemblais’ (UF 63) [‘I looked away... I was ashamed of her brusque way of talking and behaving, all the more so because I could tell how much I was like her’]. The same inversion of roles is described: ‘Je ne voulais pas qu’elle redevienne une petite fille, elle n’en avait pas le “droit”’ (UF 93) [‘I didn’t want her to turn back into a little girl, she had no “right”’]. While these aspects of the work have been commented on by Fort, he gives relatively little consideration to the notion that the mother’s decline can also be reflected, as in a mirror, onto the younger woman, and that this is

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an important aspect of the daughter’s personal vision of ageing. 20 This aspect is stressed even more in Ernaux’s journal version of the same period, entitled ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’, and published a decade later: ‘C’est à cause du temps, d’autrefois. Et c’est aussi mon corps que je vois’ (JNSP 20) [‘It’s because of time passed, because of the old days. And it’s also my own body that I see’]; ‘Aveuglant: elle est ma vieillesse, et je sens en moi menacer la dégradation de son corps, ses rides sur les jambes, son cou froissé […]’ (JNSP 36) [‘Blindingly clear: she is my old age, and I can feel within myself the threat of her body’s degradation, the wrinkles on her legs, her creased neck…’]. As the mother continues to decline, ‘Elle me pousse aussi vers la mort’ (JNSP 74) [‘She is pushing me towards death aswell’]. Here again the sense of maternal lineage, the matryoschka effect, is clearly expressed, now going beyond a two-generational link to something larger: ‘je suis maintenant un être dans une chaîne, une existence incluse dans une filiation continuant après moi’ (JNSP 86) [‘now I’m one part of a chain, an existence included in a line that continues after me’]. This is by no means an exhaustive list of instances in the second work where the daughter sees her own ageing through the lens of her mother’s physical alteration, something which is much more evident here in the journal than in the earlier text. Noëlle Châtelet, in her nonfiction works La dernière leçon (2004), which tells the story of the last weeks of her ninety-two-year-old mother’s life prior to her carefully planned suicide, and Au pays des vermeilles (2009), an account of the joys of grandmotherhood, 21 puts considerable emphasis on female lineage, even though this deviates, through her having had a son rather than a daughter. Despite this (or perhaps because of it), the matryoshka effect is particularly strong: in La dernière leçon, looking at a photograph of herself held by her mother, she comments on ‘l’emboîtage

 20

Fort’s argument in this respect centres mostly on the difference between the death of the mother for son and daughter: ‘Tuer la mère n’a pas le même sens pour la fille et le garçon. Tuer la mère dans ces textes, c’est donc également, pour les auteurs, se tuer un petit peu’, p. 159 [‘Killing off the mother means different things for son and daughter. Killing off the mother in these texts is therefore also, for the women writers, killing themselves a little’]. 21 We should note in passing both the Lewis Carroll / Alice reference and the fact that Benoîte Groult entitles chapter IX of La Touche étoile ‘Alice au pays des vermeilles’, with the same evocation of a positive old age. Note also the use of the term ‘vermeil’ as an equivalent to ‘troisième âge’, as in ‘carte vermeille’, now renamed ‘carte senior’, entitling the elderly to discounted train fares.

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de nos deux corps gigognes’ (LDL 22)22 [‘the way our two Russian doll bodies fit together’]. There are traces here too of the role reversal encountered in the previous examples: ‘C’est une drôle de chose quand on a été la petite d’une mère qui vous a dominé de toute sa puissance de la sentir si chancelante, si près de défaillir’ (LDL 42) [‘It’s a funny thing, when you used to be the daughter of a mother who dominated you with all her power, and now you sense that she is so shaky, so close to failing’]; ‘Tu t’es lovée en moi. […] C’est moi qui désormais te porte, comme l’enfant’ (LDL 68) [‘You curled up inside me. […] I’m the one who carries you from now on, like a child’]. There is also awareness that the mother’s death will bring the narrator closer to her own: ‘Ce matin-là, j’ai dû pleurer ma mort en même temps que la tienne’ (LDL 57) [‘That morning, I must have wept over my own death as well as yours’]. Initially rejected, an understanding of the mother’s situation brings a kind of fusion state: ‘Ta fatigue me déchirait, me rendait malade’ (LDL 123) [‘Your tiredness exhausted me, made me ill’]. This realisation is all the more difficult because of Châtelet’s two previous works of fiction, La Dame en bleu, in which she imagines a fifty-two-year-old woman temporarily adopting habits more fitting for an old woman and enjoying the less pressured lifestyle that results from these changes, and La Femme coquelicot, which tells the story of a romance developing between a seventy-year-old woman and an eighty-year-old man, bringing her sensual and sexual satisfaction for the first time. The author comments on this in La dernière leçon: Moi, qui m’étais offert le luxe d’honorer la vieillesse, d’en célébrer, non sans angélisme, la beauté, je me sentais mortifiée […] La vieillesse, la vraie, je l’avais devant moi et la trouvais abominable. (LDL 76) [I who had allowed myself the luxury of honouring old age, of celebrating its beauty, in a high-minded and abstract way, I felt mortified […] Old age, the real thing, was right in front of me and I found it abominable].

The impact of the matryoshka effect, of intergenerational transmission, is nowhere more clearly expressed than in Châtelet’s most recent work, Au pays des vermeilles. Here, too, the ‘chaîne’ referred to by Ernaux becomes a source of comfort and constantly renewed delight. The narrator finds herself increasingly behaving like her own mother: Il m’arrive de prendre ta voix, ton intonation, ta manière de dire, comme si j’avais besoin de m’identifier à ton modèle, en quelque sorte, toi la grand-

 22

This expression is repeated throughout the text, see pp. 29, 46, 68, 87, 166.

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mère de mon enfant, pour comprendre qui je suis, où je suis dans cette nouvelle configuration des choses. (APV 27) [Sometimes I speak in your voice, with your intonation, your way of putting things, as if I needed to copy you, you, the grandmother of my child, in order to understand who I am, where I am in this new configuration of things].

Equally importantly, the new granddaughter is quickly identified as the continuation of this (grand)maternal line: ‘Besoin de t’inscrire d’emblée dans une filiation, de te reconnaître en même temps que je fais connaissance’ (APV 17) [‘The need to place you immediately into this lineage, to recognise you at the same time as I first get to know you’], something on which the text lays a great deal of stress: ‘L’enfant de l’enfant n’est-il pas un autre soi-même possible?’ (APV 12) [‘Isn’t the child of your child another possible self?’]; ‘[…] tu me ressembles irréfutablement. Indéniablement’ (APV 42) [‘you look like me, irrefutably. Undeniably’]. The book ends with the stunning coincidence of the granddaughter filmed on a beach playing with her shadow in exactly the same way the grandmother had remembered playing herself at the same age. The identification of the ageing process shared with the mother, for example via the same kind of slightly detached observation of what is happening around her – ‘Ce regard que je t’ai vu avant que tu nous quittes et que j’ai surpris déjà chez moi-même’ (APV 154) [‘That look I’ve seen on your face before you leave us, and that I have already caught on my own face’] – is somehow balanced by the ability to move between past, present, and future, like Alice passing through the looking-glass (APV 43). The ‘filiation inversée’ noted by Fort, whereby the older woman becomes younger and the younger woman older, is here merely a part of this chain of maternities that takes shape more clearly the more one ages. This mirroring of roles and the casting forwards and backwards in time can be a source of balance and perspective that allows the ageing woman to situate her life in the context of an ongoing cycle. The narrator’s understanding of this in relation to herself allows her to better understand her own mother’s decision, faced with increasing fatigue, to end her life. We might here briefly note the difference between Beauvoir’s mother and grandmother on this point: where Françoise de Beauvoir seems to deny or be unaware of her approaching death, the narrator comments: Ma grand-mère s’est vue partir. Elle a dit d’un air content: ‘Je vais manger un dernier petit œuf à la coque, et puis j’irai retrouver Gustave’. Elle

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The Veiled Mirror n’avait jamais mis beaucoup d’ardeur à vivre; à quatre-vingt-quatre ans, elle végétait avec morosité: mourir ne la dérangeait pas. (MTD 131) [My grandmother foresaw her end. She said, with a happy expression: ‘I’m going to eat one last little boiled egg, and then I’m going to join Gustave’. She had never put much energy into living; at eighty-four years of age, she was vegetating in gloom: she didn’t mind dying].

The effect of this description of a willing death is to underline through difference the similarity between the narrator and her mother Françoise, to which we will return.

Separate Lives The identification noted by Fleutiaux, Ernaux and Châtelet is, however, by no means universal in women’s writing about their mother’s ageing. It is useful here to briefly consider two other writers’ treatments of the issue, in order to clarify the differences. Indeed, neither Beauvoir nor Cixous fully adopts this approach to the intergenerational. Although the fundamental attachment to the mother in Une mort très douce is undeniable, and its discovery is one of the core threads of the work, Beauvoir does not readily perceive resemblances. She does make the comment, ‘Maman aimait la vie comme je l’aime, et elle éprouvait devant la mort la même révolte que moi’ (MTD 143) [‘Mum loved life the way I love it, and faced with death she felt the same revolt that I do’]. This denial in the mother extends to the rejection of the image she sees of herself in the mirror: ‘Elle n’avait plus demandé de miroir: son visage de moribond n’existait pas pour elle’ (MTD 109) [‘She didn’t ask for a mirror again: her dying face no longer existed for her’]. But it is left to Sartre to note specifically the physical mother-daughter mirroring: ‘Je parlai à Sartre de la bouche de ma mère, telle que je l’avais vue le matin […] Et ma propre bouche, m’a-t-il dit, ne m’obéissait plus: j’avais posé celle de maman sur mon visage et j’en imitais malgré moi les mimiques’ (MTD 43)23 [‘I talked to Sartre about my mother’s mouth, the way I had seen it that morning [...] And my own mouth, he told me, wasn’t under my control any more: I had put mum’s on my face and was copying her grimaces in spite of myself’].

 23

Curiously, in her article comparing Beauvoir’s Une mort très douce and Ernaux’s Une femme, Catherine Montfort elides the attribution to Sartre, thereby implying a greater awareness on the narrator’s part than is actually the case. See Catherine Montfort, ‘”La vieille née”: Simone de Beauvoir, Une mort très douce and Annie Ernaux, Une femme’ French Forum, 21 (1996), 349-64 (p. 355).

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In the case of Cixous, while there is an intense closeness and intimacy with the mother that is not present in Beauvoir and that we also find in Fleutiaux and Ernaux, it is rare to find examples of the daughter projecting herself into her mother’s state. In fact, the opposite is true: ‘Je suis à la première personne du singulier, ma mère aussi de son côté’24 [‘I am in the first person singular, as is also my mother’]. Instead, the narrator insists on physical difference: ‘Ses très grosses mains. Deux fois les miennes. Sa force. Dix fois moi’ (CVF 54) [‘Her great big hands. Twice the size of mine. Her strength. Ten times mine’]. A year later, in Ève s’évade: la ruine et la vie, Cixous even writes: ‘[…] je fis vite comme si ce n’était pas moi, qui pensais, et qui remplaçais maman’ (EE 11) [‘… I was quick to behave as if it wasn’t me who was thinking, who was replacing Mum’]. This focus on separation comes close on the heels of impressions of another matryoschka effect: the mother’s increasing resemblance to her own mother, German grandmother Omi, in an effect referred to as ‘l’Omification de maman’ (EE 14). We might interpret this as a way of seeing age as something that belongs only to preceding generations, rather than reading one’s own ageing through the mother’s, and indeed the text speaks to this very issue, although in a thoroughly ambivalent way: ‘Je me meurs de ta vieillesse. Ce que me donne ta vieillesse: une terrible jeunesse’ (EE 47) [‘I am dying from your old age. What your old age gives me: a terrible youth’]. There are no episodes of mirror-gazing, other than a symbolicallyloaded reference to the cancer that resulted in Freud’s death, following a visit to the cemetery with her mother to see the grave (‘le trou’ [‘the hole’]) where both women will be buried in due course: Quand Freud vit son os dénudé dans le miroir il passa sans un mot par le trou de sa mâchoire de l’autre côté. […] Certes on connaîtra d’autres aventures avant la nuit, mais rien ne pourra faire qu’on n’ait pas vu le trou. Je vis dans le miroir le trou que faisait ma mère dans ma joue en passant de l’autre côté. (CVF 199) [When Freud saw his bone laid bare in the mirror he passed without a word through the hole in his jaw to the other side. […] Obviously there will be other adventures before night comes, but nothing can undo the fact that the hole has been seen. I saw in the mirror the hole that my mother made in my jaw as she passed to the other side].



24 Hélène Cixous, Ciguë: vieilles femmes en fleurs, p. 107. Subsequently referred to in the text as CVF followed by the page number.

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This is arguably a Cixousian formulation of the mother-daughter projection seen in previous authors’ work; however it remains an exceptional example of this kind of shared, projected experience of approaching death. By the end of the most recent book, Revirements: dans l’Antarctique du cœur, the mother’s decreasing physical strength and size, her reduction to mere existence (‘Aujourd’hui, je n’ai fait que manger et exister’25 [‘Today, I have done nothing but eat and exist’]) and her distress at the death of another of her contemporaries begin to cast a harsh light on the narrator’s desire that the old woman stay alive as long as possible, almost to the point of lack of empathy or any ability to project herself into her parent’s position. It is perhaps not surprising then that reflections on the narrator’s own ageing are rare.

The Woman in the Mirror: Affect and the Shame of Ageing As Sylvia Plath once put it, a woman’s reflection over time can betray her image of herself, turning from a fresh young face to something that ‘rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish’.26 Beauvoir, in La Vieillesse, notes the shock she felt looking at herself thus: ‘Je suis restée incrédule quand, plantée devant un miroir, je me suis dit: “J’ai 40 ans”’ 27 [‘I couldn’t believe it when, standing in front of a mirror, I told myself: “I’m forty years old”’]. Winnicott also cites a female patient who ‘looks in the mirror only to remind herself that she ‘looks like an old hag’ (patient’s own words)’. 28 The troubled relationship between the ageing individual and the mirror has been the object of considerable study, particularly, as we have noted, with regard to the ‘mask of ageing’, the disparity between outward appearance and inner sense of self.29 Hélène Cixous, in the somewhat paradoxically titled Ciguë: vieilles femmes en fleurs, refers in the opening chapter, entitled ‘Maman n’est pas dans maman il y a quelqu’un d’autre’ [‘Mum isn’t in Mum there’s someone else’], to this mismatch between inside and outside: ‘les gens la prennent pour son apparence, ils la regardent avec surprise, sous

 25

Cixous, Revirements: dans l’Antarctique du cœur, p. 229. Sylvia Plath, ‘Mirror’, Sylvia Plath: Collected Poems, ed. by Ted Hughes (New York: Harper, 1981), p. 173. 27 Beauvoir, La Vieillesse, p. 301. See Chivers and Brooks Bouson for in-depth analysis of this issue in the works of a number of women writers, including Beauvoir. 28 Winnicott, p. 155. 29 See for example Featherstone, Hepworth and Turner; also Woodward. 26

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l’apparence un vieil être exécute les anciens entrechats, en vacillant, elle traverse le monde’ (CVF 20) [‘People mistake her for her appearance, they look at her in surprise, beneath the surface appearance an old person performs the old entrechats, shakily, she walks through the world’]. The narrator herself is at one point taken aback by the unexpected sight of her denture-less mother, and describes her response thus: Je la regarde. Je ne peux pas la regarder, je la regarde, je ne peux pas, je ne veux pas, je prends mon regard, et je le tiens, je plante mes dents dans sa nuque, il le faut, mon regard la regarde, se débat, se détourne vite, j’ai honte, quel crime mystérieux de ne pas pouvoir la regarder, c’est-à-dire être sous le coup d’une impuissance plus puissante que ma volonté, une impuissance plus forte que mes efforts tendus pour vouloir la regarder […] (CVF 12) [I look at her. I can’t look at her, I look at her, I can’t, I won’t, I seize my looking, and I hold on to it, I plant my teeth in the back of its neck, I have to, my looking looks at her, struggles, turns quickly away, I’m ashamed, what a strange crime not to be able to look at her, meaning to be in the grip of an impotence that is more powerful than my will, an impotence stronger than my strenuous attempts to want to look at her].

Occupying an entire page, the description of this struggle to hold the gaze on the mother’s face, and of the feeling of shame resulting from an inability to do so, is strongly reminiscent of the conclusions reached by researchers in the field of affect studies. When young children’s mothers were asked not to respond to their offspring’s facial expressions, instead showing ‘still face’, the babies reacted with distress and gaze avoidance. Nathanson summarises the study’s conclusions thus: […] the first mode of communication is the sharing of facial affect display between infant and mother during the experience of mutual gaze […] this communication format is held in place by mutual interest […] shame primarily involves the removal of the face from this interest.30

He then goes on to cite Tomkins’s explanation of the motivation for this looking away as likely to be ‘because one is suddenly looked at by one who is strange, or because one wishes to look at or commune with another person but suddenly cannot because he is strange, or one expected him to be familiar but he suddenly appears unfamiliar’.31 Cixous’s text demonstrates

 30 31

Nathanson, p. 29. Nathanson, citing Tomkins, p. 123.

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the importance of the mother’s face in such exchanges: how much more powerful, then, must be those moments of self-rejection and disappointment before the mirror, as the narrator’s or focaliser’s own face reflects back unwelcome changes that break down the expectation of familiarity and a physical appearance as stable as the sense of identity behind the ‘mask’? While some of the texts under discussion here do feature precisely this kind of confrontation, compared to the ‘mother-mirror’ phenomenon such scenes are rare. Groult comments on women’s general but secretive propensity to ‘redesign’ themselves, as one ageing character reflects: […] je me ferais hâcher plutôt que de reconnaître que je me modifie subrepticement chaque fois que je me regarde dans une glace, étirant d’un chouia mes yeux vers les tempes, relevant d’un chouia la commissure de mes lèvres, instillant un chouia de séduction dans mon regard… toutes les femmes font les mêmes grimaces et se ressemblent dans les miroirs.32 [I would rather be cut into pieces than acknowledge that I change myself on the sly every time I look at myself in a mirror, pulling my eyes just a tad towards my temples, lifting the folds at the corners of my mouth just a tad, giving my eyes just a tad of a seductive look… all women pull the same faces and they all look the same in mirrors].

According to Chivers, Beauvoir’s fiction – Les Mandarins, La Femme rompue and Les Belles Images in particular – features mirror confrontation scenes where precisely this realisation of age is played out:33 we might hypothesise that this scenario, although featured in the first person in La Vieillesse, as we have seen, is reserved for the more fictional works. Agnès Lainé’s extraordinary short story ‘Le Poids des ans’ is one of very few texts to focalise from the inside the effects of old age, although the text uses the third rather than the first person.34 An old woman decides to refuse medication that is keeping her alive, even though physically she is aware of her declining strength and increasing deterioration. The sharp contrast provided by a photograph of her younger self, and even more, by

 32

Groult, p. 157. See Chivers, chapter 1, ‘The Mirror has Two Faces’, especially pp. 2-20. 34 Le Jardin des narcisses (Paris: L’Atelier imaginaire/Editions de la différence, 1992). Lainé won the Prix Prométhée de la nouvelle for this collection, but seems to have published nothing since. For a more detailed discussion, see Jean Anderson, ‘Revisiting Simone de Beauvoir’s monstrum: Old Women Protagonists in Short Stories by Contemporary French Women Writers (1990-2005)’ in Adalgisa Giorgio and Julia Waters (eds.), Women’s Writing in Western Europe: Gender, Generation and Legacy (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007) pp. 347-61. 33

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her three-year-old great-grand-daughter’s bright-eyed gaze, persuades her that the time has come to end her life: ‘elle revoit la fillette à la main si douce, cette main qui la guidait, ses yeux de lumière qui lui disaient que la vie n’était plus pour elle et que les vieux ont le droit de mourir’ (p. 100) [‘she remembers the little girl with the very soft hand, the hand that guided her, her light-filled eyes telling her life wasn’t for her any more, and that the aged have the right to die’]. This question of the right to choose death seems to be an increasingly frequent topos in ‘elder fiction’, or perhaps more properly, ‘elder faction’. Christine Détrez and Anne Simon have noted the liberating effects of the inclusion of old women as important characters in contemporary women’s writing: C’est précisément parce que la vieillesse est enfin prise en compte dans l’ensemble de ses aspects que ces romans apparemment intimistes, centrés sur des anti-héroïnes, nous paraissent en réalité des romans sociaux aussi fondamentaux pour la libération des femmes […] que des romans axés sur des fantasmes sexuels à l’exacerbation parfois factice […]35 [It is preciesely because old age is finally being considered in all of its aspects that these apparently highly personal novels, centred on antiheroines, in fact seem to us to be social novels, just as fundamental to women’s liberation […] as novels based on sometimes artificially overwrought sexual fantasies […].

It is clear, however, that this positive element is somewhat ambivalent: La volonté enfin, que ce soit pour s’octroyer sa propre mort […] ou au contraire pour s’accrocher coûte que coûte à la vie […] suggère que vieillir peut être autre chose qu’une détresse subie.36 [The desire, whether to die by one’s own hand […] or on the other hand to cling to life at whatever cost […] suggests that ageing can be something other than distress to be endured].

Whether the gradual loss of physical and perhaps mental integrity in old age should be described, as Isabelle Mallon considers, as ‘pertes’ [‘losses’] or ‘déprises’ [abandonment], 37 the latter being voluntary limitations



35 Christine Détrez and Anne Simon, ‘Un absent trop présent? Le corps des femmes âgées dans la littérature féminine contemporaine’ in Alain Montandon (ed.), Éros, blessures et folie: détresses du vieillir (Clermont-Ferrand: Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal, 2006) pp. 356-73, (p. 371). 36 Détrez and Simon, p. 372. 37 Isabelle Mallon, ‘Pertes ou déprises? Les vieillissements du corps en maison de retraite’ in Montandon, pp. 183-93 (p. 185).

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deliberately operated by the elderly subject, the depiction of the realities of old age remains harsh, as we have seen. Although a sense of continuity through the generations provides a certain amount of comfort in some cases, there is still an element of shamefulness associated with ageing bodies and minds, as illustrated at times by the majority of writers featured here. Whether this shame is stronger for women subjects, given the social importance placed on female attractiveness, and thereby leads to a greater ‘invisibility’ of old women as the gaze is resolutely turned away, either from the mirrored self or from the mother as mirror of the self, is something that cannot be fully decided without a parallel investigation of texts featuring ageing men. We can nevertheless confirm that, Cixous’s death-denying trilogy notwithstanding, a number of female writers are featuring an issue that, with improvements in medical care of the elderly and the extended lifespan of many, is likely to become an increasingly important topos in women’s literature: the question of the right to decide when – and how – to end life. Whether the negative mirror has been replaced, as Chivers claimed, by more positive reflections from younger people, or whether the same reductive negativity remains in others’ judgements, as Woodward would argue, cannot be easily answered. Certainly we have seen a variety of representations here. Humour and a positive approach to issues relating to sexuality and age appear largely confined to fiction (Groult, Châtelet). I would suggest that there is a more positive, because empathetic, reaction where a daughter-observer projects the changes of old age onto herself, and that non-fictional writing appears to be a preferred form for exploring these reflections (Ernaux, Châtelet, Fleutiaux). Yet a non-fictional platform does not guarantee the empathetic matryoschka effect, and some such texts (Cixous, Beauvoir) can and do still maintain epicalyptric strategies, sometimes specifically linked to the shame effect, leaving the mirror veiled and the observer’s own future blurred by denial.

MEMORIES AND NOSTALGIA: DISCOVERING THE MOTHER IN TAHAR BEN JELLOUN’S SUR MA MÈRE NANCY ARENBERG

Tahar Ben Jelloun’s recent novel, Sur ma mère [‘About My Mother’], offers a personal perspective of the author’s aged mother, a proud yet fragile woman suffering from dementia. At first glance, the text is seemingly autobiographical, but a closer look reveals a fragmented, intricately layered work. In this intriguing narrative, the author is positioned as a listener, bearing witness to the vivid account of his mother’s stories. Through the ritual of recollecting parts of her personal saga, the frail woman retraces her life in Morocco as a traditional wife and mother. It is from the disjointed remnants of her memories that Jelloun reconstructs the essence of her identity as a lively woman and cherished maternal figure. This essay initially concentrates on some introductory theories on ageing and dementia to add dimension to the mother’s method of storytelling. The core of the discussion will focus on Jelloun’s active role as he inadvertently participates in a process of creating a coherent portrayal of his mother’s life through her fragmented recollections, fusing the distant past with the more recent events of her life. It is through the retelling of his mother’s disconnected memories that the author uncovers vestiges of her as a vibrant woman, a representation unknown to him as a young man. By listening to his ageing mother’s tales, Jelloun becomes acquainted with her as a woman, thus discovering her views on marriage, motherhood, religion and family. Through this moving series of visits to his ailing mother, Jelloun goes beyond listening to take part in this narration of her life experiences. The author reconstructs the scattered pieces of her life to uncover his authentic mother, the one veiled beneath the tragic signs of dementia.

Tahar Ben Jelloun’s recent novel, Sur ma mère [‘About My Mother’], offers a personal tribute to the author’s aged mother, a proud yet fragile

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woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.1 During the final stages of her illness, Jelloun began work on the text, completed it in 2002, and then set the work aside, publishing it in Italy in 2005. However, the text did not appear in French bookshops until 2007. At first glance, the novel is seemingly autobiographical, but a closer look reveals a complex, multidimensional work. For instance, there are personal memories of the narrator’s mother interwoven with fictional incidents and authentic descriptions of the progression of the disease. Through the ritual of recollecting segments of her personal saga, the frail woman retraces her life in Morocco as a traditional wife and matriarch of her family. But since the mother’s dementia categorises her as an unreliable narrator, her son, Jelloun, must transcribe her fragmented recollections into expository prose. To comprehend the scattered remnants of her stories, Jelloun must rely on his imagination; thus we will refer to him as the narrator, the fictional representation of the author. At her bedside, he accompanies her on this nostalgic journey in which she conjures up images of departed relatives, the immediate family and memorable places in her beloved country. The task of the narrator is to listen in order to reconstruct a coherent portrayal of his mother’s life through her disjointed memories, fusing the distant past with the more recent events of her present life. This essay will initially concentrate on some general theories on ageing and Alzheimer’s disease with particular emphasis on the body, to add dimension to the mother’s fragmented narrative. In essence, the disconnected segments of the mother’s stories verbally echo the mental progression of the disease. As will be shown, recent studies in gerontology shed light not only on the elderly mother’s perception of her own body, but are also useful in analysing the structure of her personal recollections. In the core discussion, the importance of places, mainly key domestic sites, will be considered in the ailing mother’s regressive narrative. As the narrator listens to her stories of the past, he is cast in the role of an intimate witness, in which he becomes acquainted with his mother as an admirable, courageous woman. For instance, he discovers her personal views on cultural issues such as marriage, motherhood and religion which were previously unknown to the narrator. Through this moving series of visits to his dying mother, the narrator also actively participates in this ongoing narration of her life experiences. Together, they embark on a

 1

Tahar Ben Jelloun, Sur ma mère (Paris: Gallimard, 2008). All quotations from the novel are taken from this edition and references to this work are given as SM followed by the page number. All translations are my own.

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spiritual quest to uncover the traces of her authentic identity, the one veiled behind the vacant mask of dementia. To preface the study of ageing in Jelloun’s novel, it is useful to look at some classic conceptions of senescence, which tend to create a universal vocabulary associated with life changes in the ageing process. Curiously, many of these fundamental notions hark back to Antiquity. According to Aristotle, old age evokes the idea of diminished capacity, prefiguring inevitable deterioration. Likewise, Marcus Tullius Cicero affirms Aristotle’s notion. He refers to the advanced stage of life as senile decay, an idea also shared by Desiderius Erasmus.2 While many of these classical identifications with old age as a degenerative process are still relevant, some modern philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche emphasise that ageing is linked to the past. Moreover, the vestiges of ageing manifest themselves upon the body. As Bryan Turner observes, ‘time is inscribed indelibly on our bodies.’3 With the passage of time, it becomes increasingly impossible to separate memory from the corporeal as remembrances become ingrained in the skin of every individual. In The Coming of Age, Simone de Beauvoir not only affirms these notions but also posits that people experience senescence through the body.4 Beauvoir’s body focus is also germane to Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological conception of corporeal experience. Like Turner, Merleau-Ponty opines, ‘we should not talk about memory without talking about body.’ 5 To situate these ideas within the specific context of Alzheimer’s disease, memory becomes increasingly impaired with mental decline and advanced age. Lance Tibbles provides insight into other symptoms of Alzheimer’s such as

 2

Stuart F. Spicker, ‘Gerontogenetic Mentation: Memory, Dementia and Medicine in the Penultimate Years’, in Stuart F. Spicker (ed.), Aging & the Elderly: Humanistic Perspectives in Gerontology (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1978), pp. 153-80 (pp. 153-54). Also see Bernadette Puijalon and Jacqueline Trincaz, ‘Le Retour à l’enfance: métaphore ou théorie scientifique? Ressourcement, réduction, rétrogénèse, régression’, in Alain Montandon (ed.), Éros, blessure & folie: détresses du vieillir (Clermont-Ferrand: Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal, 2006), pp. 167-81 (p. 167). 3 Bryan Turner, ‘Aging and Identity: Some Reflections on the Somatization of the self’, in Mike Featherstone and Andrew Wernick (eds.), Images of Aging: Cultural Representations in Later Life (London & New York: Routledge, 1995), pp. 245-60 (p. 250). 4 Simone de Beauvoir, The Coming of Age, trans. by Patrick O’Brian (New York: Putnam, 1972). In French, La Vieillesse (Paris: Gallimard, 1970). 5 Turner, p. 250.

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confusion, irritability, profound loss of speech and intellect. 6 Although elderly patients afflicted with dementia tend to lose short-term memory faster, they nonetheless retain long-term memory, even if these remembrances are often fragmented and, at times, incoherent. In addition to these general notions pertaining to senescence, Mike Featherstone and Mike Hepworth offer their postmodern theory on the mask of ageing. As they explain, ‘old age is also seen to be characteristically defined as a mask which conceals the essential identity of the person beneath.’7 Furthermore, Featherstone and Hepworth maintain that beneath this mask lie the traces of the youthful self. As they put it, ‘it is the aging mask which is pathological or deviant and the inner essential self which remains – even beneath or ‘inside’ Alzheimer’s disease – as normal.’8 Featherstone and Hepworth also provide examples of how this mask might be portrayed from a sociological perspective. For instance, they posit that clothing can mark the passage from vitality to ageing, anticipating eventual decline. In Jelloun’s novel, there is an interesting example of Featherstone and Hepworth’s theory of the mask with emphasis on clothing. In one of the introductory chapters, the narrator recalls that the mother always wore a scarf to disguise her grey hair, which began even before she was very old. Here, the narrator points to the importance of the scarf: Je ne me souviens pas avoir vu ma mère les cheveux au vent ou la tête nue. Quand elle était à la clinique et qu’elle dormait, le foulard avait glissé un peu et laissait voir une partie de ses cheveux blancs. J’ai détourné la tête. Elle n’aurait pas aimé montrer ses cheveux. (SM 56) [I don’t remember having seen my mother’s hair in the wind or bareheaded. When she was in hospital and was sleeping, her headscarf had slipped a little, revealing some of her white hair. I looked away. She would not have liked to expose her hair.]

Although the narrator inadvertently catches a glimpse of his mother’s ‘real’ essence as an elderly woman, he turns his gaze away out of respect for her sense of dignity and pride, thus symbolically enabling her to

 6

Lance Tibbles, ‘Medieval and Legal Aspects of Competency as Affected by Old Age’, in Stuart F. Spicker, Kathleen M. Woodward and David D. Van Tassel (eds.), Aging and the Elderly: Humanistic Perspectives in Gerontology (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1978), pp. 127-51 (p. 129). 7 Mike Featherstone and Mike Hepworth, ‘The Mask of Aging and the Postmodern Life Course’, in Mike Featherstone and Mike Hepworth (eds.), The Body: Social Process and Cultural Theory (London: Sage, 1991), pp. 371-89 (p. 379). 8 Featherstone and Hepworth, p. 379.

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readjust her ‘mask,’ veiling her true identity from her family. Through his series of visits to the mother, the narrator will be given the opportunity to peer behind the mask, a symbolic marker of the secrets pertaining to her life experiences. Therefore, the relationship between the mask and ageing exceeds the visual aspect of dissimulating the passage of time, which is illustrated by the shocking discovery of the true colour of her hair. Jenny Hockey and Allison James provide another sociological perspective on the connection between the body and ageing, with special emphasis on the autobiographical subject. Hockey and James seem to suggest that the body is actively engaged, especially since it seems to record life’s history upon the corporeal surface. As they postulate, the body in autobiographical narratives takes on the role of mediating and recording one’s personal experiences. According to them, ‘changes in the physical body signal to the individual that aging has occurred, changes brought to our attention by others or through self-reflection.’9 Although the narrator’s mother is not a highly-educated woman, she nonetheless demonstrates many of Hockey’s and James’ ideas, in passages which show her awareness of her ageing body. For example, the narrator emphasises her courage in not expressing wistful nostalgia for her lost youth. On the contrary, the mother refers to her body in a particularly realistic way, underlining a fleeting, yet more lucid representation of herself: Pas de regrets, juste un peu de lassitude de devoir s’arranger avec un corps affaibli et une vue de plus en plus floue. Elle ne cache pas son âge. Elle ignore sa date de naissance. Je suis vieille, je suis au seuil de la tombe, c’est normal, c’est notre destin à tous. (SM 94-5) [No regrets, just a little tired of having to make do with a weakened body and increasingly blurry vision. She doesn’t hide her age. She does not know the date of her birth. I’m old, I’m on the threshold of the grave, it’s normal, it’s everyone’s destiny.]

In another episode, she seems to view her body as a remote, alien entity, as if it has betrayed her. As she puts it, ‘je n’ai rien à faire, je suis là, dans un coin, comme un tas d’os qui ne bouge plus. Ta pauvre mère est folle’ (SM 108) [‘I have nothing to do, I’m here in a corner, like a heap of bones that doesn’t move anymore. Your poor mother is crazy’]. Here, the body resembles an empty container, a lifeless appendage of herself. The mother further amplifies this image of the body being reduced to a sack of bones. In another passage where she believes she is speaking to her deceased



9 Jenny Hockey and Allison James, Social Identities across the Life Course (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p. 50.

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brother, she refers to herself as ‘une chose, une motte de terre, un sac de sable qui fuit de partout’ (SM 181) [‘A thing, a lump of earth, a sack of sand that is full of holes’]. With the progressive decline of her mental faculties, there is a rippling effect on the organic part of her being. As noted above, the body is reduced to a lump of earth, a sack of sand that is scattered about the landscape. At the same time, the mother’s view of her disintegrating body coincides with one of Simone de Beauvoir’s theories on the ageing body. As Beauvoir states, ‘Within me it is the Other – that is to say the person I am for the outsider – who is old; and that Other is myself’ [‘En moi, c’est l’autre qui est âgé, c’est-à-dire celui que je suis pour les autres; et cet autre, c’est moi’].10 The mother’s superficial awareness of her mental and physical impairment points to the image of herself as the ‘Other,’ as her illness forces her to withdraw from her family. In a scene close to the end of the text, the mother even appears to withdraw from her own self. When she asks for a mirror, she is forced to confront her own image and is convinced that she is looking at several women at once. One of these mysterious women is Lalla Bouria, her grandmother, a relative who has been gone for years. The identity of the other woman staring back at her remains unknown. This inability to recognise herself is also experienced by her intimate observer, the narrator. The recurring image of the mirror resurfaces from his perspective, as he elaborates on the repercussions of her disease in a passage situated prior to the episode above. Here, he broadens the perspective on the representation of the mirror: Penser à cette faillite, à ces absences où le temps s’ennuie et s’effrite, regarder sa propre image défaite dans ce miroir plein de trous, aller chercher en soi les traces du bonheur dans l’espoir de colmater ces fissures de l’âme et sauver les mots de ce désarroi qui fait mal (SM 212). [To think about this downfall, these absences where time is dull and disintegrates, to look at her own dishevelled reflection in this mirror full of gaps, to go searching for traces of happiness in oneself, in the hope of sealing up the cracks in the soul and saving the words of this confusion that is painful].

From his point of view, the mother’s reflection has become undone, or has become replaced by a series of holes or gaps, obscuring her identity. The most striking aspect of this passage is the narrator’s emphasis on her absent image, showing the repercussions of old age and Alzheimer’s disease. It is as if her face and body were gradually breaking down into

 10

Beauvoir, The Coming of Age, p. 284. In La Vieillesse, p. 303.

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irreversible effacement. Like the narrator, the mother seems unfamiliar with her own image and is even revolted by the sight of her grey-white hair which, this time, is not concealed under her scarf. The mother believes that she is looking at the reflection of two crazy old ladies. Here, the use of the word ‘crazy,’ signifying another form of otherness, also recalls Beauvoir. She associates otherness with the social stigma of marginalisation of the elderly, a gradual retreat from interaction with younger individuals in society. However, the notion of the ‘other’ can also be placed in a more tragic context, especially for those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Although the decline of the body constitutes the core of the mother’s life experience, there is an unexpected contrast in the text. In particular, the body at times takes on a more active role which is identified with Merleau-Ponty’s idea of embodying memory. As Marja Saarenheimo explains, Merleau-Ponty also postulated that the body as a living entity can take on a vital role. 11 This idea can be contextualised into the recollection of key places, evoking life, in the mother’s disjointed tales, mainly because these locations recall very animated moments in her memories. For example, the text is divided between two main cities: one, Tangiers, the place where the text is situated, and the other, Fez, the city where the mother grew up, married, had her children, and spent many fulfilling years. In the first few pages of the novel, the narrator describes the mother’s confusion: Depuis que ma mère a changé de chambre, elle est persuadée qu’elle a changé de maison et de ville. Nous ne sommes plus impasse Ali Bey à Tanger mais quartier Makhfiya à Fès. Nous ne sommes plus en l’an 2000 mais à la fin de 1944. Ses rêves ont du mal à s’éteindre. (SM 13) [Since my mother has changed rooms, she is convinced that she’s changed homes and towns. We are no longer located in the cul-de-sac Ali Bey in Tangiers but in the Makhfiya neighbourhood in Fez. We are no longer in the year 2000 but at the end of 1944. Her dreams have difficulty fading away].

Although the narrator repeatedly tries to reorient her into the present, their home in Tangiers, the mother clings to the belief that she is back in Fez. This tendency to return to a more dynamic part of her life focuses on the importance of her domestic duties and maternal role, the essence of her

 11

Marja Saarenheimo, ‘Body Memories of Aging Women’, in Lars Andersson (ed.), Cultural Gerontology (Westport, Connecticut: Auburn, 2002), pp. 161-72 (p. 165).

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identity. For instance, the mother imagines that she is cooking for her family: ‘Mais ce qui me fait grand plaisir c’est de vous voir manger ce que je vous ai préparé. C’est mon bonheur’ (SM 232) [‘But what pleases me is to see you eat what I’ve prepared for you’]. Here, the mother envisions herself active again, as she performs one of the most fulfilling domestic tasks for her family. To add dimension to this inventive preoccupation with the past, Hockey and James posit that elderly people suffering from various forms of dementia often revert to the creation of a second childhood in which they become metaphoric children.12 Echoing Hockey’s and James’ theory, Bernadette Puijalon and Jacqueline Trincaz refer to Gaston Bachelard to buttress this association between the elderly and childhood. But instead of using the term ‘second childhood’, Bachelard calls it ‘un état de neuve enfance, d’une enfance qui va plus loin que les souvenirs de notre enfance’ [‘a brand new childhood, a childhood that goes further than our memories of childhood’].13 This emphasis of Bachelard’s on ‘new childhood’ also underlines the importance of creativity, as old people tend to build an inner world within the recesses of their memory, a safe haven which consists of familiar places and people. Within this sacred space, the elderly person’s return to childhood offers yet another surprising possibility. According to François Mauriac, ‘l’enfance dit la vérité de l’être’ [‘childhood tells the truth about an individual’].14 Therefore, the return to childhood, whether a new or a second one, offers the hope of discovering the truth about one’s existence, which is predicated on reliving personal life experiences. Interestingly, Hockey’s and James’ theory about the invention of a second childhood is illustrated in Jelloun’s novel in a variety of scenes, but he amplifies the idea of childhood by focusing on key moments in the mother’s remembrances. At the same time, this voyage into the mother’s memories as a young girl, bride, and mother also provide the opportunity for both of them to discover her genuine identity under the mask of the aged, altered woman. In the first section of the text, Jelloun interpolates some key recollections of the mother which shed light on her most authentic thoughts about her husband and marriage. These sections are written in italics to allow the reader and the narrator to experience some of the mother’s most private thoughts on these life-changing events. With the insertion of these episodes, it is plausible that the narrator has not only

 12

Hockey and James, p. 137. Puijalon and Trincaz, p. 168. 14 Puijalon and Trincaz, p. 170. 13

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transcribed, but reorganised the sequence of her memories in a chronological manner. Interestingly, these coherent passages in italics reveal a striking contrast, since most of the narrative zigzags in and out of the past and present, echoing stylistically the progression of her disease and her senescence. Initially, the mother travels back to her teenage years, as she describes a conversation with her mother about her arranged marriage. The narrator’s mother was betrothed when she was barely fifteen; the inevitability of the match ostensibly instilled fear and a sense of curiosity. However, her mother reassures her that she too was promised by the age of sixteen and justifies the decision by saying that the Prophet Muhammed took a wife at a similar age. In recreating this seminal conversation, the narrator is given the opportunity to study the transmission of life lessons from his grandmother to his mother. In particular, the emphasis is on respecting core Islamic values such as submission to the chosen husband’s rules, while complying with the decision of the father for her to become a wife. As the narrator’s mother says to her mother, ‘Yemma, je te contrarierai jamais, je ferai ce que tu me dis de faire pourvu que j’aie ta bénédiction’ (SM 17) [‘Yemma, I will never cross you, I will do what you tell me, provided that I may have your blessing.’]. At a young age, her will to conform to the traditional values of their faith underscores the importance of religion in the mother’s life. The narrator discovers a very early example of his mother’s profound sense of spirituality in her personal life. It is important to point out that the mother was illiterate, but knew the words to many prayers and recited them religiously. In the opening pages of the text, the narrator eloquently describes her: Illettrée mais pas inculte. Elle a sa culture, ses convictions religieuses, ses valeurs et ses traditions. Vivre toute une vie sans jamais déchiffrer une page d’écriture, sans jamais lire des chiffres, vivre dans un monde clos entouré de signes qu’elle voit défiler devant ses yeux sans pouvoir les comprendre. (SM 21) [Illiterate but not uncultured. She has her own culture, her religious convictions, her values and traditions. To live an entire life without ever deciphering a written page, without ever reading numbers, to live in a closed world surrounded by signs that she sees passing before her eyes without being able to understand them].

Although she resides in a hermeneutic bubble devoid of letters and text, she retains a sense of dignity, for she is a proud, strikingly intuitive woman. After this first remembrance of the marriage conversation between the narrator’s mother and her own mother, the mother’s story

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takes the narrator and reader into a series of other sacred spaces, often reserved for one specific gender. The next key episode that the narrator rewrites is the description of the mother’s marriage, a ritual which first took place in a meeting restricted to the male members of both families. The mother creates a context for the scene by saying she recalls the ceremony took place in 1936 in Fez, when Moroccans lived under French colonial rule. The intention is most likely to situate her marriage in the period prior to independence, especially as she experienced turbulence and violence during this moment of great social change in her homeland. Although this episode does not reveal much of the mother’s inner thoughts, she vividly remembers the tense silence, sealing her fate as a bride. There is also reference to the spatial separation of the women attending the marriage ceremony. For instance, she recalls a curtain behind which the women were concealed, enabling the men to carry out the official business of preparing the nuptial documents. Once again, the focus is on adherence to traditional Islamic values in which the women of her generation did not have a voice in choosing their marriage partners, but simply had to acquiesce to their fates. The mother’s memory of the civil ceremony prefigures the journey into a most intimate aspect of her life for her interlocutor, the narrator. In this episode, the narrator transcribes the mother’s fragmented recollections of her wedding night into a surprisingly vibrant experience. In sharp contrast to the previous episode, this remembrance of her wedding night is colourful, emotional and very revealing. Before the mother’s first night with her husband, her memory concentrates on the sacred feminine space of the hammam, or the bathhouse. On a symbolic level, the curtain, which separated the women from the men in the previous scene, reappears. It is as if the mother raises this curtain to allow the narrator, and in turn the reader, entry into a clandestine space to observe the marriage preparations normally restricted to women. Prior to the mother’s wedding night, the bathhouse was specially reserved for the female members of the bride’s entourage. The narrator’s take on his mother’s story reanimates this flurry of activity, as she recalls sharing this pivotal moment with her cousins and other family members. Once again, the body becomes the focus of this ritual, but here it is revitalised with the youthful promise of fertility and the exciting, yet frightening journey into the unknown territory of sexual desire. Upon entering the hammam, the mother’s body is entrusted to the care of Amber, a former black slave. Interestingly, the slaves and attendants take on a maternal role as they offer lessons and instruction, demystifying the carnal secrets of the wedding night, not only for the

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inexperienced bride, but also for the other young girls. For example, the group of female relatives listens to one of the massage attendants, while she talks about the key role of the bride’s body for the wedding night rituals: […] tout le corps doit être préparé, l’esprit aussi, mais la nuit de noces, c’est le corps qui est à l’épreuve; un conseil pour notre jolie gazelle qui sera offerte demain à son homme. (SM 39) [the entire body must be prepared, the mind as well, but during the wedding night, it’s the body that’s put to the test; a piece of advice for our lovely gazelle who will be offered tomorrow to her husband].

The most noteworthy reference is the emphasis on offering the female body to the husband to consummate the marriage. The religious atmosphere of the bathhouse is solidified by the repetition of seven baths to purify, prepare, and bless the bride’s body. The bathing ceremonials also serve to entrust the bride to the protection of the angels. After this fascinating, lively description of the events in the bathhouse, the narrator reworks the narrative of her wedding night into another candid remembrance. As the narrator listens, he symbolically travels into the forbidden zone of his mother’s sexuality to discover her true feelings regarding this most memorable night in her young life. As she vividly recalls, La fatigue du hammam puis la tension ambiante ajoutée à la peur, la peur et la curiosité de découvrir l’homme, son homme pour la vie, car dans ces familles, le divorce n’existait pas, on se mariait pour toujours que l’entente existe ou pas. (SM 49) [The weariness of the bathhouse then the ambient tension added to fear, the fear and curiosity of discovering the husband, her husband for life, because in these families, divorce didn’t exist, one got married forever whether harmony existed or not].

She refers to her husband as an unknown man, a virtual stranger, thus augmenting her fear. At the same time, the mysterious identity of the husband fuels her desire to discover him sexually. Interestingly, the narrator’s mother appears to disguise her feelings of unease by interweaving fiction into the memory, thereby respecting traditional role expectations of women by maintaining modesty in sexual matters. The tension of this intimate event is offset by the narrator’s focus on the mother’s imagination in the narration:

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Memories and Nostalgia Elle imagine, elle fait un effort pour voir cet homme dans une nudité qu’elle s’invente, elle n’ose pas aller plus loin, elle a peur, elle a soif, elle n’a pas faim, elle a besoin de parler à une amie déjà mariée pour qu’elle lui dise ce qui doit se passer. (SM 50) [She imagines, she makes an effort to see this man in a nude state that she invents, she doesn’t dare go further, she’s afraid, she’s thirsty, she’s not hungry, she needs to talk to a friend who’s already married so that she can tell her what must happen].

Here, the narrator rescripts the mother’s recollection into third-person narration, enabling her to distance herself from her husband, the stranger. It is as if she becomes her former dynamic self again by reliving the fear and anticipation of the moment as an innocent girl entering into marriage. The preparation for this pivotal night also includes lessons from the négafat, another maternal substitute figure. The mother’s memory of her instruction increases the tension of the wedding night but at the same time dispels the mystery of corporeal passion between man and wife. The négafat informs her exactly what to expect in the wedding chamber, emphasising traditional feminine responses such as silence and complete submission. In accordance with Islamic tradition, the families must have visible proof of virgin blood on the white sheets to seal the marriage vows and convey honour to both families. Once again, the narrator shifts the mother’s memory of her wedding night into the third person, highlighting her penchant for creativity. In this passage, she copes with the moment of consummation through the use of her imagination, enabling her to create a sense of absence during the encounter with her husband: ‘elle est ailleurs, dans des champs de blé, elle saute de terrasse en terrasse, elle vole audessus de Fès, elle part vers le bleu du ciel’ (SM 53) [‘she is somewhere else, in the wheat fields, she jumps from patio to patio, she soars above Fez, she takes off towards the blue sky’]. Curiously, the mother, Lalla Fatma, suppresses her own identity by transforming herself into the third person, elle, underscoring the importance of escape which is lyrically expressed. This distancing emphasises the role of the narrator himself. In particular, the narrator’s mother creates evasion which is shown above by verbs such as sauter, voler and partir. Like a bird taking flight, she hovers over the wedding chamber, thus magically willing her mind elsewhere. It is as if she were disembodied, watching herself positioned outside the room, as the flow of blood simultaneously spills onto the white sheets. This recollection is particularly striking for the narrator, as he discovers the mystery surrounding her marriage: ‘Ma mère n’a pas raconté son mariage. Elle a gardé le mystère; ce sont des faits qu’on ne raconte pas à ses enfants’ (SM 54) [‘My mother didn’t talk about her marriage. She kept

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it a mystery; these are facts that one doesn’t tell one’s children’]. Through his rescripted version of the mother’s remembrance of this most intimate night in which she lost her youthful purity and became a woman, the narrator is granted exclusive access to her most private reflections on her wedding night. In another retouched memory, the narrator conveys the mother’s recollection of another life-changing event in her life, as she recalls becoming pregnant at the young age of 16. But the joy of the baby is diminished by the tragic loss of her first husband, Sidi Mohammed, at only 21. After the birth of her first child, Touria, she repeatedly visits her husband’s grave, regaling his ghostly form in the tomb with the news about their baby girl. At the burial site, the mother seems to find some solace in confessing her sense of guilt at being remiss in her wifely duties, but nonetheless she prays that Sidi is granted entry into paradise. Through her heart-wrenching tragic story, the narrator realises the importance of religion in her life, as he begins to comprehend the innate spirituality at the core of his mother’s identity. For the reader, this revelation resonates profoundly within the narrator, as he solidifies the religious aspect by placing it into the cultural context of family values in Morocco. For instance, the narrator recalls the transmission of these values as a child: Au Maroc, on nous apprend, en même temps que l’amour de Dieu, le respect quasi religieux des parents. La pire des choses qui puisse arriver à un être est qu’il soit renié par ses parents. (SM 64) [In Morocco, at the same time as the love of God, we are also taught an almost religious respect for our parents. The worst thing that could happen to someone is to be repudiated by their parents].

As with the mother’s spirituality, the conception of religion for young people emphasises respect towards one’s parents as a manifestation of also honouring God. Furthermore, the narrator posits that in Moroccan culture it is very important for children to receive the blessing of their parents, which mirrors the scene where the narrator’s mother acquiesces to the first arranged marriage, so that she, in turn, can receive the blessing of her mother. The mother’s story continues to unfold as the narrator pieces together the history of her two other arranged marriages, revealing similar reasons for the subsequent unions. Her second husband, Sidi Abdelkrim, took her as a second wife to produce children, which she duly did, but he also died due to his advanced age. The second loss of a spouse enhances the spiritual dimension of the mother’s identity, highlighting her belief in superstition. After Sidi dies, the mother believes she is a carrier of bad

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luck: ‘Plus question de se remarier, persuadée d’être porteuse de malheur, victime du mauvais œil et de la fatalité. Elle regardait le ciel, suivait les étoiles et leur parlait’ (SM 76) [‘No question of getting remarried, persuaded that she was a carrier of bad luck, a victim of the evil eye and of fatality. She looked at the sky, followed the stars and talked to them’]. The familiar Maghrebian symbols of bad luck such as the evil eye, associated with fatality, provide sufficient signs for the mother not to remarry. But as a spiritual woman who religiously visited her first husband’s grave, it is no surprise that she returns to Sidi’s grave to pray, bring offerings, and ask for God’s grace. Although the mother does not want to remarry, her fate is determined by another male, her uncle, as she marries the narrator’s father, Hassan, a spice importer. But in contrast to her recollections of her first two husbands, the mother offers more candid insights on this marriage. Here, the narrator must rely on his imaginative ability to comprehend her disjointed story. In one hallucinatory episode, she believes she is talking to the narrator’s father, as she confesses her secret feelings about him to the narrator. Here, the mother inadvertently and in an essentially liberating way breaks the silence of a traditional Moroccan wife. Some of the more noteworthy details revealed include the mother’s resentment of the father’s decision to leave Fez to pursue better commercial opportunities in Tangiers. For her, Fez represented not only her nostalgic ties to her childhood, family and friends, but also symbolised a spiritual sanctuary for her. For example, she expresses regret in becoming estranged from the spiritual presence of the saint of the city, Moulay Idriss. Her intimate secrets include her silent anger regarding her identity, for the husband never called her by her first name, Lalla Fatma. Her frustration grows when she criticises the husband’s lack of success in providing her with beautiful clothes and jewellery. She goes as far as to call him stingy, unleashing the inner hostility that she harboured for years. However, the most interesting part of her domestic confession focuses on the tension between the traditional roles of man and wife in their household. Here, the truth spills forth in this part of the confession where she expresses her displeasure at being viewed as a servant: J’étais ta femme et aussi ta domestique. Tu aimais te faire servir et je baisais ta main droite comme je le faisais avec mon père. Tu aimais cette soumission et tu manquais de tendresse avec moi. (SM 127) [I was your wife and also your maid. You liked to be served and I kissed your right hand as I did with my father. You liked this submissiveness and you lacked tenderness with me].

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The mother launches into a fictional confrontation in which she faces her invisible interlocutor, Hassan, demanding to know if he ever loved her. Her secret motivation for this invented clash is the lack of communication between them. Interestingly, her rhetoric, inadvertently fuelled by her dementia, places them in an imaginary confessional, one associated with the hereafter in death. As she describes it, […] à présent que nous sommes presque à égalité, toi dans le cimetière, moi étendue sur ce lit attendant la mort, on peut tout se dire, mais tu n’as plus la parole, tu n’es qu’une apparence, une belle figure, une belle allure, et moi je radote. (SM 128) [now we are almost equal, you are in the cemetery and I am stretched out on this bed awaiting death, we can tell each other everything, but you no longer speak, you are only a façade, a lovely figure, a beautiful appearance and I am rambling].

Reversing the gender roles, the mother fractures the silence to place herself in the empowered position by confronting Hassan to voice her true feelings, thus finding liberation in this ‘other’ territory at death’s door. The choice of the verb radoter ostensibly creates an unexpected textual meaning, for she reverses the idea of rambling in a senescent way to accomplish the opposite. In other words, she tells the truth in an oddly coherent declaration, especially since she acknowledges that he is not only dead, but appearing in a ghostly semblance of his former self. To add to this curious form of lucidity, the mother insists on the importance of speaking to the dead. For her, they live on in the hearts of the living, a fact that she claims is substantiated in the Koran. This strange dialogue with departed loved ones sets the stage for her personal acceptance of her own demise. If the city of Fez radiates blissful, joyful memories of family, the other site for the narration, Tangiers, evokes the opposite, for it is associated with unhappiness, and ultimately death. Positioned as an intimate listener, the narrator transcribes the mother’s confession about the move to Tangiers, which she resented because she was isolated from her own relatives in Fez. Her fragmented remembrances of economic hardship in Tangiers are further offset by her avowal that their family home in Tangiers exhausted her. The narrator’s memory of his mother’s pride in maintaining their home as a little palace fades to bleak images, anticipating the coming of dementia and death. In synchrony with the gradual decline of his mother’s ailing body, the house deteriorates, as death slowly permeates the stagnant, haunting structure. Curiously, the

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mother describes this sombre image to the narrator, which he lyrically recasts in his own version: […] la maison est fatiguée, elle est vieille et les murs ont bu pas mal d’eau, tu vois, c’est fissuré partout, un jour il n’y aura plus de toit, plus de murs, plus de maison, ce sera ma tombe. (SM 162) [the house looks worn out, it’s old and the walls have soaked up a lot of water, you see it’s cracked everywhere, one day there will no longer be a roof, walls or a house, it will be my grave].

On a cultural level, the mother clings to the feminine space of the house, forewarning her son that it won’t be necessary to go to the cemetery, as her final resting place will be the private, domestic space of the house. Mirroring her allusion to the tomb, the narrator poetically personifies the house, as he transforms it into a cavernous hole, poised to receive the inanimate body of the mother. For him, at the end of her life, the disease transforms the house; it is as if the walls have been redecorated to become steeped in sadness. As the family gathers around her on her deathbed, the narrator diminishes the visual signs of the disease through the use of religious imagery to respect the mother’s mystical spirituality. In other words, the expiring body fades into fragments, but only after her infirm body has purged itself of years of silence by telling her secrets. At last freed from her memories, her body fades, yet her spirit remains. In the closing pages of the novel, the spiritual aspect of water reappears. For example, the narrator imagines how the mother might have described her death: ‘je me noie, je m’en vais, puis une vague me ramène sur le sable’ (SM 257) [‘I drown, I go away, then a wave carries me back to the sand’]. The water imagery signals the passage from life in the material world to the discovery of the next stage of her existence in the hereafter. To get there, she must search for God’s path, leading her to paradise: ‘tout est entre les mains de Dieu, c’est lui qui guide mes pas sur cette mer plate où je sombre puis me relève, tout dépend de sa volonté’ (SM 257) [‘Everything is in God’s hands, it’s he who guides my steps upon this flat sea where I sink down then I get up again, everything depends on his will’]. For the mother, her faith in the word of Allah assures the safe passage between life and death, as the angels accompany her to the grave. Jelloun’s lyrically written novel, Sur ma mère, offers a deeply insightful look at a subject that remains difficult to discuss. But through the creation of this effective blend of autobiography and fiction, the author facilitates the reading of the text to direct his readers’ attention to a key issue: the relationship between memory loss, ageing and the body, emphasising the connection between remembrances and how they are

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engraved upon the human canvas of the corporeal surface. At the same time, the series of fragmented stories told by the mother and rescripted by the narrator enables Jelloun to discover and uncover the essence of her authentic identity, the one hidden from him as a young child. Together, they embark on this spiritual quest to reattach the essential parts of her life that formulate her entity, in order to assure her safe passage into eternity. But it is the transcription of the mother’s tales into text that constitutes a living testament to her life, thus rendering her memory indelible for the beloved members of her family.

TO BREAK THE LOOKING-GLASS: WRITING A MOTHER’S AGEING, ILLNESS, AND DEATH IN ANNIE ERNAUX’S UNE FEMME AND ‘JE NE SUIS PAS SORTIE DE MA NUIT’ MARZIA CAPORALE

Annie Ernaux’s Une femme (1987) [A Woman’s Story] and ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’ (1997) [‘I Remain in Darkness’] chronicle the author’s autobiographical experience with her mother’s physical and mental decline due to Alzheimer’s disease and her subsequent death. Particularly in ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’, a diary-like narrative published ten years after Une femme and dedicated entirely to reconstructing the disturbingly visual details of her mother’s illness and death, Ernaux feels the compelling need to confront once more the loss of her ‘other’ self. While Une femme’s analeptic narration begins with the mother’s death and subsequently focuses back on biographical events in the mother-daughter relationship, ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’ is entirely dedicated to reliving the deterioration and eventual disappearance of the old maternal body. Despite the first-person narration and the apparent personal journal style, Ernaux’s writing in both texts is surprisingly detached, objective, becoming almost violent and sadistic in the later novel, as she describes her mother’s progressive loss of control of her body and mind.

Feminist scholarship over the past few decades has routinely investigated the sociocultural implications of the often controversial relations between mothers and daughters in the process of female identity formation. The ambivalence of a female discourse, that of the daughter, which oscillates from symbiosis with to separation from that of the mother, is eloquently outlined by feminist author Adrianne Rich in her groundbreaking book Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (1976). In the chapter entitled ‘Motherhood and Daughterhood’, Rich initially describes the mother and daughter bond as grounded in cathexis, the ‘flow of energy between two alike bodies, one of which has lain in amniotic bliss inside

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the other, one of which has labored to give birth to the other’.1 Despite the elements being in place for what appears to be a perfect state of unity between two female beings, mother and daughter eventually evolve towards a bipolar opposition defined by Rich as ‘the deepest mutuality and the most painful estrangement’ (p. 226). In particular, the dialectic tension between mother and daughter translates into an irresolvable negotiation of the polarity of desire: while the daughter seeks to embrace the maternal image as an extension of her female self, she may also feel compelled to relinquish such an image and construct an identity separate from that of the (m)other. Within the recent French literary tradition of writing by and about women Annie Ernaux’s Une femme (1987) [A Woman’s Story] and ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’ (1997) [‘I Remain in Darkness’] offer a unique insight into the painful process of identity severance of an adult daughter from her ageing and dying mother. These two first-person narratives chronicle the author’s autobiographical experience with her old mother’s physical and mental decline due to Alzheimer’s disease. Particularly in ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’, a diary-like narrative written as a series of scattered notes during the course of the mother’s illness, but published only ten years after her death, Ernaux expresses the visceral need to revisit the effects of the terminal disease on the maternal body and mind as a way of exorcising the fear of her own disappearance.2 However, and somewhat surprisingly in an example of écriture féminine centred on the pain and loss of the mother, Ernaux writes feelings of grief and mourning through deliberately detached and a-sentimental language which becomes intermittently violent and shocking in the later of the two accounts. Motivated by the desire to write her mother’s history as a way of preventing her life from disappearing into oblivion, Ernaux’s narrative voice shifts between identification and rejection as she describes a woman who is succumbing to the devastating effects of an irreversible condition. A study of how the literary discourse on the maternal image is articulated in Une femme and ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’ highlights

 1

Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born. Motherhood as Experience and Institution (New York: Norton, 1995), p. 226. Further references to this edition are given parenthetically after quotations in the text. 2 Ernaux, who recently battled breast cancer, continues to reflect on the effects of disease and ageing, this time on her own body, in two later autobiographical works: L’usage de la photo (2005) and Les Années (2008). For an in-depth commentary on this topic, see Shirley Jordan, ‘Writing Age: Annie Ernaux’s Les années’, Forum for Modern Language Studies, 47.2 (2011), 138-49.

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the presence in the texts of the paradoxical duality described by Rich in her analysis of motherhood and daughterhood. In Une femme identification prevails, as the narrator’s fluid and linear narrative strives to convey the importance of the maternal legacy to her own young and adult life. Conversely, in ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’ a fear of identifying with one’s mother and a desire for separation prevail. The result is a puzzle-like collection of visually and linguistically disturbing images of a violently ill woman whose self is falling to pieces. A close reading of the narrative and linguistic evolution in the two texts demonstrates that Ernaux’s writing advances towards what Rich defines as ‘matrophobia’, a fear of identifying with one’s mother, a phobia which, she states, ‘can be seen as the desire to become purged once and for all of our mother’s bondage, to become individuated and free’ (p. 236). Ironically, the fear of identification with the maternal image can be considered a healthy phobia, a necessary step for the daughter who wishes to relinquish the symbolic and embrace the real. As Ernaux’s writing shows, the relationship of an adult daughter with her elderly, ailing mother leads to a dramatic aporia. The deep bond with the dying woman and the opposing desire for separation and survival coexist and become inseparable in the narrator’s representation of the maternal image. As the events narrated in the two texts illustrate, identification with the disappearing maternal body is clearly a source of intense, panicked feelings in the narrator who admits several times to the horror of seeing her own reflection in the image of the sick mother.3 Yet Ernaux opts for an excessively neutral narrative to represent the anxiety she feels when witnessing the identity disintegration of the mother and, synecdochically, of herself. Despite the apparent incongruence that connects a neutral writing style to a deeply personal subject matter, I contend that the detached point of view from which Ernaux describes the mother’s experience with ageing and dying represents a conscious attempt on the part of the narrator to disentangle herself from matrophobia and claim an autonomous female identity as an adult woman as well as a writer. Through the unemotional account of a disease which robs an old woman of the female modesty and sexual reticence she subscribed to while in full possession of her mental faculties, the narrator proves that she has grown into a language separate from that of the mother. By negotiating the bipolar pull between admiration and rejection of the maternal episteme, Ernaux eventually

 3

The horror of a prospective symbiosis with the ageing and ailing mother are particularly evident in ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’. Specific examples from the text are quoted and discussed in the second part of this essay.

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articulates a feminine discourse of her own, outside the phallocratic linguistic order that her mother embodied and promoted through her conservative views on women’s roles in society.4 In Writing Shame and Desire: the Work of Annie Ernaux, Lorraine Day investigates the important connection between language and identity in Ernaux’s texts and argues that, for the author, the act of writing is inseparable from the quest to define her selfhood. More precisely, Day states that ‘narrativity lies at the heart of subjectivity as it seeks its own meaning through memory, through (dis)identification with others, and through projection into the future. Identity is inseparable from imaginative, fictional elaboration’. 5 Indeed, in Une femme, Ernaux envisions the act of (re)writing her mother’s life and death as a way of contextualising her present self by first retracing the socio-familial origins of the mother and of her (early) self. Logically, therefore, much of the existing scholarship on Ernaux’s writing and on Une femme in particular focuses on the issue of class conflict between mother and daughter. Born into a proud working-class family and to a mother with limited schooling, Ernaux pursues a career as an educator, a writer, and an intellectual, thus reaching a higher social and intellectual standing than that of both her parents. Alison Fell comments on Ernaux’s desire to write ‘her mother as a social subject’ by retracing her work and life experiences. As she observes: ‘in her role as social archivist, Ernaux attempts to write as a disembodied narrator but ultimately fails to detach herself completely’. 6 And while Ernaux ultimately reaches a class status well above the one she was born into, her writing proves that complete disengagement from her history is not possible. Une femme, as the title suggests, is presented as a literary work that pays tribute to the memory of the once strong, determined, healthy working woman who is, in a sense, reborn through the written text. The ensuing role reversal, created through the act of the daughter/writer giving



4 The mother’s support of patriarchal beliefs with regards to women and their bodies, as well as her conservative stance on female sexuality are discussed later in this essay. 5 Lorraine Day, Writing Shame and Desire: the Work of Annie Ernaux, (Bern: Peter Lang, 2007), p. 19. Further references to this edition are given parenthetically after quotations in the text. 6 Alison Fell, ‘“Il fallait que ma mère devienne histoire”: Embodying the Mother in Simone de Beauvoir’s Une mort très douce and Annie Ernaux’s Une femme’, in Norman Buford (ed.), The Mother in/and French Literature, French Literature Series, 27 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000), pp. 167-77 (p. 176).

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(literary) birth to the mother, is presented as a journey à rebours.7 The book opens with the author’s recollection of her mother’s death in the nursing home where she spent the last two years of her life, but immediately moves backwards into an analeptic chronology of the salient events in the woman’s history. The opening lines use abruptly concise language to place the mother’s death in a specific spatio-temporal referential frame: Ma mère est morte le lundi 7 avril à la maison de retraite de l’hôpital de Pontoise, où je l’avais placée il y a deux ans. L’infirmier a dit au téléphone: ‘Votre mère s’est éteinte, ce matin, après son petit déjeuner’. Il était environ dix heures.8 [My mother died on Monday 7 April in the nursing home of the Pontoise hospital where I had found a place for her two years before. The nurse said on the phone: ‘Your mother passed away this morning, after her breakfast.’ It was approximately 10 o’clock].

No emotions transpire from this description which is a simple report of the sad news given to the narrator over the telephone. The announcement of the mother’s death is relayed through a series of filters (the telephone, the anonymous nurse, the euphemism of the verb choice s’éteindre – to pass away). The maternal body is evoked only indirectly and remains invisible even when the narrator visits her room: ‘une bande de tissu blanc lui enserrait la tête...elle était recouverte d’un drap jusqu’aux épaules, elle ressemblait à une petite momie’ (UF 11) [‘a strip of white cloth was wrapped tightly around her head...she was covered with a sheet up to her shoulders, she resembled a little mummy’]. No longer a woman nor a wife nor a mother: the maternal body, while obliquely suggesting the image of

 7

As Pierre-Louis Fort notes, ‘dans Une femme, la filiation prend en effet une tournure transgressive et bouleverse les normes rationnelles: non plus la mère donnant la vie à la fille mais l’inverse, la fille générant la mère morte dans un texte dont la durée d’écriture coïncide quasiment avec celle d’une gestation (dix mois au lieu de neuf)’[‘filiation becomes indeed transgressive and drastically changes traditional norms: not a mother giving birth/life to a daughter/child but a daughter/child who conversely, re-creates the dead mother through a text whose preparation was almost as long as a human gestation period (ten months instead of nine)’]. In ‘La filiation inversée: Annie Ernaux et le corps glorieux’, French Studies: A Quarterly Review, 62.2 (2008), 188-99 (p. 189). This and all translations from the French, including those of Ernaux’s texts, are mine. 8 Annie Ernaux, Une femme (Paris: Gallimard, 1987) p. 11. All further references to this title will appear parenthetically in the text with the abbreviation UF, followed by the page number. This and all translations from the French are mine.

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a bride all clad in white, is in actuality compared to that of an a-sexual mummy, to underscore that the mother’s multiple female identities, suggested by the title (Une femme as a woman, as a wife, and, by extension, as a maternal figure), and confirmed by the narrative have been erased by the fatal disease. She is now a blank canvas, white as the sheets draped over her. She is a woman whose history needs to be re-written if her memory, at least, is to be preserved. As the author continues to write the story, the narrative style remains mechanical and detached. The routine actions that follow a death (conversations with nurses and florists, interactions with clerks at the funeral home, and finally the brief description of the funeral itself) are emotionless. Short sentences and verbs in the past tense are used to describe a series of external events that do not allow the reader access to the narrator’s intimate perception of feelings of pain for the loss, as shown by the description of the burial: ‘La famille était massée près de la grille d’entrée du cimetière. L’une de mes cousines m’a crié de loin. “Quel temps, on se croirait en novembre!”, pour ne pas rester à nous regarder avancer sans rien dire’ (UF 18) [‘the family was packed near the iron gate of the cemetery. One of my cousins shouted from a distance. “What awful weather. You’d think it was November” to avoid staring at us silently as we were approaching’]. No insight into the narrator’s internal turmoil is allowed. Lyn Thomas discusses Ernaux’s dispassionate literary discourse or écriture plate while writing about typically painful life events and points out that ‘the adoption of a strict stylistic regime, involving the banishment of metaphor and the evocation of sensory pleasures provides some kind of protection against the chaos and confusion of “les images du souvenir” (as well as avoiding a sentimental tone which might alienate the reader)’.9 At the same time, it can safely be argued that while Ernaux rejects the idea of literature as an emotional conversation with the reader, she simultaneously acknowledges the compelling need to write about her mother not only to allow herself to grieve for her loss but also to freeze the maternal image in time. From this perspective, literary creation represents the only vehicle of expression that can help the narrator negotiate objective truths regarding her mother: Mon projet est de nature littéraire puisqu’il s’agit de chercher une vérité sur ma mère qui ne peut être atteinte que par les mots (c’est-à-dire que ni



9 Lyn Thomas, ‘“A la recherche du moi perdu”: Memory and Mourning in the Work of Annie Ernaux’, Journal of Romance Studies, 8.2 (2008), 95-112 (p. 106).

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les photos ni mes souvenirs ni les témoignages de la famille ne peuvent me donner cette vérité). (UF 23) [my project is of a literary nature, it entails seeking a truth about my mother which can only be found in words (that is to say that neither photos nor my own memories nor family accounts can offer me this truth)].

From this point on, Ernaux’s metanarration circularly operates a return to the beginning: she recounts her mother’s childhood in Normandy, in the small town of Yvetot, her modest education, her marriage, their workingclass status as owners of a café épicerie in the 1930’s, and their struggle to make ends meet. Memories of her mother’s history soon become entwined with portraits of her own life, as the narrator evokes her childhood and the matrifocal perception of a little girl who felt a special closeness to her mother and considered her ‘la figure dominante, la loi’ (UF 59) [‘the dominating figure, the law’]. Ernaux’s recollection of her own childhood and adolescence in Une femme echoes the polarity identified by Rich as an intrinsic characteristic of mother-daughter relations. If during the narrator’s childhood the two women shared intimate moments such as conversations on school and books, adolescence represents the time when the previous bond is ruptured.10 Specifically, the appearance of the first menstrual cycle in the young girl and her official entrance into womanhood marks a traumatic awakening for the mother, who views female sexuality as a forbidden topic never to be discussed. As Ernaux recalls: On ne parlait de la sexualité que sur le mode de la grivoiserie interdite aux jeunes oreilles ou du jugement social, avoir bonne ou mauvaise conduite. Elle ne m’a jamais rien dit et je n’aurais pas osé lui demander quoi que ce soit, la curiosité étant déjà considérée comme le début du vice. Mon angoisse, le moment venu, de lui avouer que j’avais mes règles, prononcer pour la première fois le mot devant elle, et sa rougeur en me tendant une garniture, sans m’expliquer la façon de la mettre. (UF 60) [Sexuality was only talked about through innuendos and stories inappropriate for young ears, or as social judgment, whether one misbehaves

 10

Ernaux admits to a closeness with her mother that she did not share with her father. For instance, her mother discovered the enjoyment of learning through her daughter: ‘elle lisait les livres que je lisais, conseillés par la librairie... Il y avait entre nous une connivence autour de la lecture, des poésies que je lui récitais, des gâteaux au salon de thé de Rouen dont [mon père] était exclu’ (UF 58) [‘she read the books I was reading, recommended by the bookshop...there was a complicity between us when it came to reading, poems I recited, or having pastries at the tea room in Rouen, from which [my father] was excluded’].

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To Break the Looking-glass or not. She never told me anything, and I never would have dared ask her anything, curiosity being considered already the gateway to vice. The anguish I felt when the time arrived, at having to tell her that my period had come, at pronouncing the word in front of her for the first time, and the embarrassment she felt as she handed me a sanitary towel, without showing me how to use it].

The silence of the mother with regards to women’s reproductive cycle and sexuality underscores her high anxiety about her daughter’s separation from the maternal womb as a safe haven. At the same time, the absence of speech points to the mother’s endorsement of a patriarchal value system centred on the idea of female sexuality as a shameful activity which can have dire consequences (i.e. loss or virginity or, even worse, pregnancy) in young women. In the conservative social context of a provincial community, where people are judgmental of the actions of others, menstruation means that a daughter’s promiscuous behaviour can bring immeasurable embarrassment and humiliation to the family, as demonstrated by the mother’s warning: ‘s’il t’arrive un malheur!’ (UF 62) [‘if something bad were to happen to you!’]. 11 The daughter’s menstruating body and her evolution from a dependent little girl to an independent young woman leads to an increasingly radical split between mother and daughter, whose relationship becomes progressively distant. To the adolescent girl and the adult woman who seeks her ‘self’ and her freedom (sexual or other) away from her mother’s belief system, the once nurturing parent becomes an oppressor, metaphorically comparable to some African mothers who excise their own daughters to repress their sexual desires: ‘je confonds la femme qui a le plus marqué ma vie avec ces mères africaines serrant les bras de leur petite fille derrière son dos, pendant que la matronne exciseuse coupe le clitoris’(UF 62) [‘I associate the most influential woman in my life with those African mothers who hold their little girl’s arm behind her back while an old matron excises the clitoris’]. The metaphorical identification of her own parent with female genital mutilators signifies the author’s rejection of the patriarchal discourse articulated by her mother’s (absence of) speech. Ernaux categorises her mother as the defender of a phallocentric system which views female sexuality as taboo and denies women the experience of sexual pleasure and freedom. It also denotes the beginning of a deeper

 11

After she had left her hometown, Ernaux did indeed become pregnant and decided to have an abortion. She discusses this pivotal autobiographical event in her first novel Les Armoires vides (1974) as well as in one of her a more recent works, L’événement (2000).

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instance of detachment from a woman with whom the narrator, who is growing into adulthood, no longer shares an intellectual and physical connection. Nonethleless, as Ernaux acknowledges, the emotional ties to the maternal and to her past are not easily severed: ‘J’avais honte de sa manière brusque de parler et de se comporter, d’autant plus vivement que je sentais combien je lui ressemblais’ (UF 63) [‘I was ashamed of her harsh speech and behaviour, especially because I knew how much we were alike’]. The narrator’s progressive distance and her fear of identifying with the maternal universe lead to an actual separation when she chooses to continue her education and her life away from her home in the provinces. However, even when the adult narrator moves to Rouen and later to London, she continues to experience a powerful connection to her mother: ‘même en vivant loin d’elle...je lui appartenais encore’ (UF 69) [‘Although I was living away... I still belonged to her’]. While a spatial separation is inevitable when the daughter eventually marries, the two women are temporarily reunited under the same roof following the death of Ernaux’s father. The reunion is however short-lived: the old woman, who has spent her entire life in the provinces, soon asks to move back to Yvetot ‘dans un studio de plein-pied pour personnes âgées à proximité du centre’ (UF 82) [‘in a ground floor studio apartment for seniors near the town centre’], a foreshadowing of her stay in the nursing home later on. Theoretically, the return to the hometown and to an independent living facility should announce the mother’s journey back to autonomy. In actuality, however, such a move represents the beginning of the final stages of her life, marked by a complete loss of independence. Soon after being the victim of a car accident, which leaves her severely injured and back in the care of her daughter for several weeks, Ernaux’s mother begins to show a manifest decline of her cognitive functions which eventually makes home care impossible. Plagued by a deep sense of guilt for having to place in a nursing home the woman who gave her life, the narrator resolves to write about her mother after her death to pay tribute to the woman who raised her and to the wholeness of her image before the mental and bodily fragmentation caused by Alzheimer’s disease: ‘je sais que je ne peux pas vivre sans unir par l’écriture la femme démente qu’elle est devenue, à celle forte et lumineuse qu’elle avait été’ (UF 89) [‘I know that I cannot live without reconciling through writing the demented woman she has become with the radiant and strong woman she once was’]. As the narrator passes her time caring for an old woman in pieces, she is struck by the fact that her mother is unrecognisable in her transformation and has become more similar to an animal than to a human

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being, having lost all sense of shame and social decorum: ‘elle n’avait plus honte de rien, porter une couche pour l’urine, manger voracement avec ses doigts’ [‘nothing would shame her anymore, whether it was wearing an adult nappy for her urine, or eating voraciously with her fingers’]. Her language is also transformed and is limited to decontextualised sentences which are semantically empty despite their apparent coherence: ‘phrases cohérentes, mots correctement prononcés, simplement séparés des choses’ (UF 98) [‘coherent sentences, words correctly pronounced, simply separated from reality’]. The narrator, in her role of daughter and caregiver, can only watch and document the disintegration and disappearance of the mother’s body and mind. Despite the horror of witnessing the collapse of the mother’s mental and bodily functions, the narrator never reaches a state of complete rejection of the maternal image. In discussing paradoxical motherdaughter relations, Adrienne Rich points out that although separation may occur, the daughter cannot avoid acknowledging the original bond and symbiotic relation with the mother: ‘Mothers and daughters have always exchanged with each other – beyond the verbally transmitted lore of female survival, a knowledge that is subliminal, subversive, preverbal: the knowledge flowing between two alike bodies, one of which has spent nine months inside the other’ (p. 220). For this reason, Ernaux acknowledges that she is unable to leave her mother’s side, and that she must care for her until the end, as if she were a helpless newborn. However, the degeneration of the mother who returns to a vulnerable infancy stage causes feelings of repulsion and dread in the narrator who is especially tortured by the old woman’s mental regression: ‘Je ne voulais pas qu’elle redevienne une petite fille, elle n’en avait pas le droit’ (UF 93) [‘I did not want her to become a little girl again, she did not have the right’]. Such a return back to babyhood and early childhood, in fact, leads to a destabilising role reversal for the narrator who finds herself forced to assume the function of the attentive mother, thus relinquishing, at least temporarily, the role of daughter. Female identities are subverted and confused to the point that the narrator is no longer able to separate her own ‘self’ from that of her mother. The anxiety of the symbiosis with the dying woman/child is expressed in her recollection of a significant dream which occurs shortly after her mother’s death: Une fois, j’étais couchée au milieu d’une rivière, entre deux eaux. De mon ventre, de mon sexe à nouveau lisse comme celui d’une petite fille, partaient des plantes en filament, qui flottaient molles. Ce n’était pas seulement mon sexe, c’était aussi celui de ma mère. (UF 104)

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[Once, I was lying in the middle of a river, between two streams of water. From my abdomen, from my sex, bare again like that of a little girl, sprung a series of stringy plants, floating about. It was not only my sex, it was also my mother’s].

The sequence is particularly noteworthy as it focuses on the daughter’s sexual organs portrayed in her infancy/childhood, a stage to which her mother also (involuntarily) returns in her sickness. In the dream, as in real life, mother and daughter are connected through a primary union of the sexes. The adult woman in the dream has returned to a pre-sexual stage, as has her mother: both women have regained a symbiotic original union, from which the daughter will eventually have to detach and grow independently. In Bequest and Betrayal: Memoirs of a Mother’s Death, Nancy Miller explains the impossibility for Ernaux of achieving complete freedom from the maternal and defines her attachment as ‘matrophilia, the loving desire to become one’s mother.’ In her analysis, she notes that in Une femme, Ernaux temporarily bridges the gap that has been created by her pursuit of an education which allowed her to reach a much higher social status than her parents. She comments that ‘despite or even through the displacement and rupture a university education produces, Ernaux returns in loving memory to her mother’s body, to the seduction of union’. 12 The matrophilia described by Miller and illustrated in Une femme yields to its opposite, matrophobia, in ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’, as the author herself writes in the introduction: ‘c’est dans la période où elle était encore chez moi que je me suis mise à noter sur des bouts de papier, sans date, des propos, des comportements de ma mère qui me remplissaient de terreur’.13 [‘it was during the time when she was still living with me that I began to jot down on scraps of paper, with no date, some of my mother’s comments and behaviour which filled me with terror’]. Still torn between attachment to the dead mother and the fear of identification with the image of the elderly mother, Ernaux feels compelled to publish the scattered notes taken while caring for her at home and in the nursing home, even though ten years have passed and feelings of grief have at least partially subsided.

 12

Nancy Miller, Bequest and Betrayal: Memoirs of a Mother’s Death (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000) p. 78. 13 Annie Ernaux, ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’ (Paris: Gallimard, 1999), p. 11. All further references to this title will appear parenthetically in the text through the abbreviation JNSN, followed by the page number.

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This return to the mother’s story reflects the narrator’s dread that she will also lose her ‘self’ if she does not once again confront the horror of death through writing. As Claire-Lise Tondeur notes, ‘tout se passe comme si la désintégration identitaire irréversible chez la mère mettait aussi temporairement en danger l’identité de la fille. Le désarroi ressenti par la fille/narratrice/auteur ébranle la cohésion de sa propre identité en sapant les fondements de sa construction identitaire’ [‘it is as if the identity breakdown, irreversible in the mother, also threatened the daughter’s identity temporarily. The distress that the narrator/daughter/ author experiences weakens the cohesion of her own self by undermining the foundation of her identity construction’]. 14 To better capture the panicked feeling of losing her identity in the disintegrating image of the demented mother, the narrator in this text proceeds to literally and figuratively dismantle the maternal picture she had previously painted in Une femme. In ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’, Ernaux uses a language that is highly depersonalised and, in parts, deliberately shocking, as she openly admits in an interview reported by Michèle Magil and Catherine Stephenson: oui, certainement, le style de la brutalité, c’est-à-dire de faire voir, donc c’est sûrement une forme de réalisme, je crois qu’on peut dire ça. C’est un style sans détour, c’est un style en même temps très froid, un style qui est très dépouillé.15 [yes, indeed, it is a brutal style, a style of showing, it is certainly a form of realism, I think you can say that. It is a straightforward style, it is at the same time a very cold, a very raw style].

Exasperation of realism, factuality, and brutal objectivity in the description of the old mother are evident from the opening pages of the text: Elle cache ses culottes souillées sous son oreiller. Cette nuit, j’ai pensé à ses culottes pleines de sang qu’elle enfouissait sous la pile de linge sale dans le grenier jusqu’au jour de la lessive. J’avais sept ans environ, je les regardais fascinée. Et maintenant elles sont pleines de merde. (JNSN 18) [She hides her soiled underwear under her pillow. Last night, I thought of the panties filled with blood which she used to hide under a pile of dirty

 14

Claire-Lise Tondeur, ‘Corps, maladie, vieillesse et fragmentation identitaire: Régine Detambel et Annie Ernaux’, Romance Language Annual, 11 (1999), 12732 (p. 129). 15 Michèle Magil and Catherine Stephenson, Dit de femmes: entretien d’écrivaines françaises (Birmingham Alabama: Summa, 2003), p. 84.

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clothes in the attic until laundry day. I was about seven years old, I stared at them fascinated. And now they are filled with shit].

The memory of a past time in which the mother, fertile yet ashamed of her body and sexuality, hid her underwear, soiled from menstruation, for fear that others would see it, contrasts painfully with the image of present times when the same woman, who has lost all bodily awareness, still soils her undergarments, this time with excrement, which she also mechanically proceeds to hide. The violence of Ernaux’s linguistic choices in this passage suggests a rejection of the taboos of the patriarchal language her mother had adopted as her own and had tried to pass on to her daughter. By giving a grotesque representation of the old female body and of sexuality (underwear stained with excrement and not with menstrual blood), Ernaux creates a textual space which overrules the linguistic code of modesty and decency she grew up speaking. The narrator replaces her mother’s silence with an excessively graphic representation of the body and its functions. She speaks openly of ‘shit,’ ‘blood’ and ‘dirty panties’ without euphemisms or semantic mediation while, at the same time, she uses a language that refuses to abide by rules of decorum and respect. Her painfully frank description of the illness of the ageing mother is the genuine expression of the narrator’s horror towards the deterioration of the sick maternal body. Such horror becomes yet more acute when the daughter, looking at the mother’s devastation, discovers her own image: Samedi, vomi son café. Elle était couchée, inerte. Ses yeux avaient rapetissé, ils étaient bordés de rouge. Je l’ai déshabillée pour la changer. Son corps est blanc et mou. Après, je pleure. C’est à cause du temps, d’autrefois. Et c’est aussi mon corps que je vois. (JNSN 20) [Saturday, threw up her coffee. She was lying in bed, lethargic, her eyes had shrunk, red circles had formed around them. I undressed her to change her. Her body is white and limp. Afterwards, I cry. It is because of old times. And it is also my body that I see].

While a parallelism is established between the two bodies (son corps/mon corps), the adult narrator denies identification with the maternal image through a renunciation of her language and of the epistemology it represents. If, before her illness, the language of the mother had always avoided discussing issues relating to the body and to sexuality, Ernaux now breaks this long-held silence and brings the female body to the centre of her narrative. In particular, it can be argued that when the text chronicles the time the mother spent in the nursing home, the narrator’s depiction of the

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maternal body becomes overtly and disturbingly grotesque. Specifically, during one of her routine visits, Ernaux witnesses a scene which confirms that, within the confines of the nursing home, the conflict between the apparent and the real is unsolvable and that female sexuality is decontextualised and paradoxical: ‘Dans le couloir, j’ai vu, par la porte entrebâillée d’une chambre, une femme les jambes en l’air. A côté, une femme gémissait exactement comme dans la jouissance’ (JNSN 24) [‘In the hallway, through the half-open door of a room, I saw a woman, her legs in the air. Next to her, another woman was moaning as if she were having an orgasm’]. The word jouissance employed to describe the old woman’s moaning, is an empty linguistic sign alien to their reality. The body of the female patients in the home is reduced to its basic physical needs (eating, urinating, and defecating). Erotic desire and sexuality belong to different times and different bodies. However, in Ernaux’s narrative of the mother’s final days, death often coincides with eroticism, pain with pleasure, and the contrast is nullified. Additionally, by placing eroticism and jouissance within a space inhabited only by old people who are ill and dying, Ernaux revisits the classic oxymoron of eros/tanatos and at the same time recalls Georges Bataille’s theory of pain in Les larmes d’Eros. In his analysis of a picture of a Chinese man under torture, Bataille discusses the relationship between pain and ecstasy. He states that the oppositional relation of the two terms is cancelled in what he defines as ‘cette image de la douleur à la fois extatique et intolérable’16 [‘this image of pain ecstatic and intolerable at the same time’]. In his argument, Bataille uses the word ‘ecstasy’ in its etymological sense, as a movement outside itself, a mystical moment of spiritual elevation. In Ernaux’s writing, on the other hand, such a paradox remains outside the symbolic plane. Her writing keeps the narrative on a physical level of reality where eroticism and death can indeed coexist for the women in the nursing home as well as for herself. Indeed, the narrator personally experiences this oxymoron after each visit to her mother: ‘A chaque fois que je reviens de la voir, j’ai besoin d’écouter de la musique sur mon autoradio... Aujourd’hui avec jouissance et désespoir, C’est extra de Léo Ferré. J’ai besoin d’érotisme à cause du corps de ma mère, de sa vie’ (JNSN 61) [‘every time I return from visiting her, I feel the need to listen to music on my car radio... Today with rapture and despair, C’est extra by Léo Ferré. I crave eroticism because of my mother’s body, of her life’]. Evoked by lyrics of the song on the radio, eroticism may exist but only as a metamorphosis of itself, coinciding with

 16

Georges Bataille, Les larmes d’Eros (Paris: Flammarion, 1987), p. 238.

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suffering and death in a linguistic system devoid of symbols and metaphors. Everything in the life of the narrator and in that of her mother happens here and now and is articulated through a painfully realistic narrative which reconstructs, through fragments, the disappearance of the maternal body and the final separation of mother from daughter. Fragmentation and realism in writing appear as the only effective literary devices capable of explaining pain and loss. The mother, creator of life, is no longer capable of creating. It is the narrator herself, as the daughter, who must continue the inevitable cycle of creation through writing in order to overcome ‘l’horreur de ce renversement mère/enfant’ (JNSN 87) [‘the horror of this mother/child reversal’]. Sadism, horror, and violence are part of an identity quest which the author undertakes in order to find her own language. As Christine Fau notes, elle cherche son identité parmi les différents langages et modèles qui lui sont proposés, pour trouver une langue dans laquelle elle puisse fonctionner et se reconnaître en tant qu’individu social et en tant que femme.17 [she searches for her identity among the different models and languages that are available in order to find a language in which she can function and with which she can identify as a social being and as a woman].

Such a quest is particularly important for the daughter since, as she recalls, her birth took place after her mother lost a daughter, the sister she never met: ‘Je suis née parce que ma sœur est morte, je l’ai remplacée. Je n’ai donc pas de moi’ (JNSN 44) [‘I was born because my sister died, I took her place. Therefore, I have no self’]. As Ernaux suggests, the creation of her female self cannot rely on models of women within her family unit: her sister never possessed any language, and the language of the mother is an embodiment of the patriarchal episteme which she openly rejects. Therefore, the narrator must look elsewhere, in the writing of the death of the mother as an instance of rupture and renewal. Negotiating pain and death through literary endeavour is a fundamental passage in the journey to reach for new beginnings. Despite the inevitable feelings of love for the woman who gave birth to her, the daughter must heal the narcissistic wound caused by witnessing the mother’s image (a reflection of her own) collapse in old age and surrender to disease. To develop a narrative space which is not simply



17 Christine Fau, ‘Le problème du langage chez Annie Ernaux’, The French Review, 68.3 (1995), 501-12 (p. 501).

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a mise en abîme of the maternal discourse is the key that allows the narrator to assert the existence of a newly acquired self as a grown woman with an identity of her own. In ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’, Ernaux finally detaches herself from the image of the mother as an almost identical reflection of herself. The mother’s regression to infancy already amply described in Une femme is an uncomfortable reminder of her own history and, while she ultimately accepts it (‘J’avais accepté qu’elle redevienne une petite fille, et elle ne grandira pas’ (UF 107) [‘I had accepted the fact she had become a little girl again, and that she will not grow up’]), this narrator must eventually distance herself from that shadow if she is to achieve ‘wholeness’. As Ernaux signals at the end of her work, however, she cannot write about her mother’s death as if she were the protagonist of a work of fiction. A fragment written shortly after the mother’s death reads as follows: ‘la première fois que j’ai écrit “maman est morte”. L’horreur. Je ne pourrais jamais écrire ces mots dans une fiction’ (JNSN 115) [‘the first time I wrote “mum is dead”. The horror. I could never write those words in a work of fiction’]. The presence of metatextual elements in the narration which eludes the definition of literature proper is a way for the narrator to shift the focus from a disintegrating identity, that of the mother/object of narration, to that of the daughter/subject of narration. Nancy Miller identifies the complexity of the mother-daughter oppositional yet symbiotic relation and states that: ‘The mother’s body is like a map of possibility: you could follow its markers but still carve your own path. Like her but not like her. A daughter then a mother, but a daughter not reproducing her mother’s existence. A biological continuum, not a social one. A mother’s body but not her life’ (p. 69). In ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’, Ernaux finally comes to terms with the necessity of writing about the mother without the fear of becoming her mother. Matrifocal writing here becomes a liberating act, as the narrator herself concludes: ‘il va falloir que je raconte pour “mettre au-dessus de moi”’ (JNSN 110) [‘I will have to tell the story in order to put it behind me’]. It should be noted here that the violence of the narrative, as harsh as it may appear, does not imply a desire on the part of the narrator to destroy the maternal image or her history. As Lorraine Day rightly argues, ‘it would be entirely inappropriate to suggest that Ernaux’s work is premised on matricide, on a death sentence which must be symbolically enacted upon the mother if the daughter is to have freedom to write. On the contrary, Ernaux’s work may be seen as an attempt to maintain a dialogue with her real and internalized mother, and as a bid to negotiate a mother-daughter

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relationship, and concomitantly, a relationship with implied readers where separation can coexist with connection’.18 As the present analysis has demonstrated, in Une femme as in ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’, Ernaux writes about the mother’s death to exorcise the fear of her own future disappearance and to find her present ‘self’. And while her writing exhibits the signs of what has been defined by Adrienne Rich as matrophobia, an analysis of the evolution of maternal representation in the two texts shows that separation does not imply rejection. By facing the fear of seeing herself reflected in the image of an old and dying mother, the narrator is finally capable of achieving selfrealisation as an independent female voice and body. As the narrative progression from fluid to disjointed demonstrates, Ernaux grows into her own language as a woman and as a writer while paying tribute to the language of the mother and to her legacy.

 18

Lorraine Day, ‘Revisioning the Matricidal Gaze. The Dynamics of the MotherDaughter Relationship and Creative Expression in Annie Ernaux’s ‘Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit’ and La Honte’, Dalhousie French Studies, 51 (2000), 150-73 (p. 170).

WOMEN FACING OLD AGE 

LA VIEILLESSE MENAÇANTE:1 FEMALE AGEING IN LATTERDAY NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH SOCIETY DANIELLE BISHOP

Set in Second Empire France, Zola’s Rougon-Macquart series scrutinises women of all ages throughout the social spectrum and is therefore an ideal vehicle for examining the ageing process and attitudes towards this period of life. This essay considers which Zolian female characters regard ageing as ‘menaçante’ and whether they do so justifiably and it further investigates whether core values exist whereby characters may regard old age with greater equanimity. Knowledge of common values held by one’s milieu is essential, as is the sublimation of passion and prudence, and forethought, occasionally teamed with ruthlessness, are similarly vital. Finally, for the fortunate few, luck, outside help and good health can render ‘la vieillesse’ infinitely less ‘menaçante’.

The validity of the expression ‘la vieillesse menaçante’ from La Bête humaine [The Beast Within] underpins this examination of attitudes towards ageing in the second half of the nineteenth century, as viewed through the prism of Émile Zola’s novels. Rather than referring exclusively to a period of life looming in the future, ‘menaçante’ brings the threat forward to darken earlier decades, underlining the fact that, far from being linked with wisdom and veneration, old age bears almost exclusively negative connotations. 2 Though it cannot be avoided, such

 1

This quotation, translated as ‘threatening old age’ comes from Émile Zola’s La Bête humaine in Les Rougon-Macquart: Histoire naturelle et sociale d’une famille sous le Second Empire, [‘The Rougon-Macquart: The Natural and Social History of a Family under the Second Empire’], vol 4 (Paris: Fasquelle et Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1964), p. 1088. All subsequent references to the canon are drawn from the Pléaide series, vols I-V, 1960-1967 and appear within parentheses in the following format (volume: page). All translations are the author’s. 2 Patrice Bourdelais for example, comments that ‘Au XIXe siècle, le principal courant du développement romanesque contribue également à construire une

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juxtaposition seems to conjoin the adjective in that inevitability. Attention will thus be directed less to the actual temporal state, and more to the rationale which does or does not fulfil the ominous portent implied by this description. ‘La vieillesse menaçante’ describes the ageing process viewed by a female, whose fear is substantiated by Marilyn Yalom’s observations on older women’s lives in nineteenth-century France: ‘Although growing old was equally frightening to both men and women […] it did not entail the same social and economic liabilities for men that it did for women’.3 This investigation will thus stress why ageing and old age impact particularly on women and how Zola’s works enhance our understanding of this. Social historians have extensively documented the economic factors and social mores affecting male and female lives in this era but Zola’s role is not identical. Though not of their profession, as a Naturalist he invokes widespread readings and observations to represent the Second Empire accurately. These he garbs with his creative imagination and shapes in novel form, employing the narrative devices of his trade. The facts of ageing and old age are enmeshed in citizens’ lives, moulding potential success and contentment. In tandem, Zola reveals emotional and psychological factors which can determine a trajectory, personality fault lines which can blight decision-making and external influences which can skew portents for old age. The period of ‘la vieillesse’ relates differently to each sex. Peter Stearns observes that in this period, works in the classical tradition of Cicero, Seneca and others were endlessly reread and from them ‘one learned that old age began at [...] forty-five to fifty for women’:4 manuals



image négative de la vieillesse’ [‘In the nineteenth century, the influence central to the development of the novel simultaneously contributed to the shaping of a detrimental image of old age’]. Le nouvel âge de la vieillesse (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1993), p. 357. These comments mirror those commonly expressed in contemporary studies on nineteenth-century attitudes to old age. 3 Marilyn Yalom, ‘The Older Woman’, in Erna O. Hellerstein, Leslie P. Hume, Karen Offen (eds.), Victorian Women: A Documentary Account of Women’s Lives in Nineteenth-Century England, France, and the United States (Brighton: The Harvester Press, 1981), pp. 452-53. 4 Peter Stearns, Old Age in European Society: The Case of France (London: Croon Helm, 1977) p. 24. This is corroborated by Yalom who states that ‘Women over forty, whatever the number of their years […] were frequently lumped together by popular wisdom and collectively disposed of like wilted produce’, Victorian Women p. 454 and Philippe Ariès who, differentiating between the sexes, situates old age for women ‘entre quarante et cinquante ans selon les cas, et pour les hommes, entre cinquante et soixante ans’ [‘between forty and fifty depending on

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advised one to ‘prepare for old age early, certainly by thirty-five or so.’5 Since life expectancy in France ‘still hovered around the fifty-year mark as late as 1900’,6 many would never experience the twilight years, but even to young women the prospect of old age was daunting. However, Zola does include a trio characterised by outstanding success and longevity, who serve as exemplars against whom other Zolian females may be measured, to assess their relative prospects of comfort in old age. It is noteworthy that La Grande of La Terre [The Earth], Félicité Rougon of Le Docteur Pascal [Doctor Pascal] and Irma d’Anglars of Nana are none of them central characters within their respective novels and yet their force is all-pervasive. Félicité Rougon shapes destinies on a broad scale, operating often from the sidelines. 7 La Grande’s power, though confined to one novel, is illustrative of how an individual can dominate a community without being actively in the forefront. Irma d’Anglars is glimpsed once in Nana and from this her present way of life is inferred. Her past is related by another character. In no way does she seek to influence others and yet, in the prostitute community, she assumes the stature of an icon. This essay seeks to evaluate how three women of such advanced years have achieved unique status, together with a lifestyle commensurate with their objectives. This trio confirm that quality of later life is influenced by a woman’s inherent attitudes within three defined spheres: awareness of and adherence to community mores, inter-gender relationships, and finance. Aged between eighty and ninety, in contemporary terms almost half their lives have already been spent in ‘old age’, yet significantly all three still look to the future. La Grande, doyenne of the peasant community, revels in envisaging the future chaos and wrangling certain to ensue from the convoluted will which she has crafted; Félicité Rougon, obsessed by her quest to glorify her family, has bought land to support an ‘Asile pour les vieillards’ (V: 1205) [‘Refuge for the aged’] and looks forward not only to its construction but to its impact on generations yet to come; Irma d’Anglars, eminent courtesan metamorphosed into serene lady of the manor, emerges from church bearing a large prayer book, clearly awaiting further transformation in the hereafter. Vigorous prosecution of the present

 the circumstances and for men, between fifty and sixty’] in ‘Une histoire de la vieillesse?’ Communications, 37 (1983), 47-54 (p. 50). 5 Stearns, p. 26. 6 Yalom, p. 452. 7 Félicité Rougon’s presence spans the entire canon; from her introduction in the first novel, La Fortune des Rougon [The Fortune of the Rougons] she re-appears in the fourth, La Conquête de Plassans [The Conquest of Plassans] and again in the final one, Le Docteur Pascal, still strong at eighty-two years of age.

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and anticipation of the future replicates their attitude in early life and is largely responsible for the transformation of a ‘vieillesse menaçante’ into a ‘vieillesse triomphante’ [‘triumphant old age’]. Zola describes life in diverse communities, each formulating a structure of values to which stringent adherence is requisite for success. ‘To have and to hold’ might be regarded as a mantra for the peasant community: possessions, particularly land, must be seized, gloated over and never relinquished. Status here is rooted in guile, inflexibility, miserliness, ruthlessness and total contempt for generosity or sympathy. In a community redolent of derision rather than veneration for the aged, the description of la Grande as ‘respectée et crainte, non pour sa vieillesse, mais pour sa fortune’ (IV: 393) [‘respected and feared, not on account of her advanced age but of her wealth’] indicates her total immersion in their values, this knowledge forming the bedrock of her position, underpinning not merely her authority but her very survival. When her ageing brother Fouan gives away his land, her scorn and incredulity are absolute, concurring with Roger Price’s dictum that in this milieu, ‘Land remain[s] the essential source of status and security.’ 8 Fouan’s action has been motivated by a quasi-religious veneration for the earth itself, and his abhorrence of its neglect. To ensure its cultivation, Lear-like, he bestows his land upon his offspring: in return each will sustain him. Since this scheme requires fairness, flexibility, sharing, and tolerance, it is inevitably blighted and la Grande warns him prophetically that, having stripped and reduced him to the status of a beggar, ‘tes enfants te pousseront au ruisseau’ [‘your children will shove you into the brook’] (IV: 394): instead of drowning, they suffocate and set fire to him. ‘Un vieux, ça ne sert à rien et ça coûte’ (IV: 734) [‘Old people, they’re good for nothing and they cost’], encapsulates a view predominant among the labouring classes. Fouan had longed for his own father’s death, and accepts that with frailty comes contempt. La Grande never flinches mentally or physically, even when attacked by her grandson. She supervises the cultivation of her own acres, declaring starvation to be preferable to relinquishment of the smallest fragment. As Stearns observes, ‘Being elderly meant being an economic drain’,9 resulting in disrespect, exploitation and abandonment: la Grande with greater wealth, respect for no-one, and expertise in exploitation, epitomises the reverse. These repellent personal qualities assure her status. Her whole life has been a subconscious preparation for

 8

Roger Price, A Social History of Nineteenth-Century France (London: Hutchinson, 1987), p. 150. 9 Stearns, p. 22.

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the latter years: held in awe and fear, she is threatened neither by the younger community nor by old age itself. The gulf between peasant and petite/moyenne bourgeoisie values appears vast, yet though Félicité Rougon would never express or conduct herself publicly in the manner of la Grande, they have characteristics in common. An early description of Félicité notes that ‘Elle regardait au loin dans l’avenir’ (I: 56) [‘she looked far ahead, into the future’], a comment equally applicable to la Grande despite their dissimilar modes of preparation for old age. Both are ambitious, seeking riches and power, but the techniques required to achieve their ends are rooted in community practice. Widowed relatively early, la Grande supervises others to build upon her inheritance, thereby preserving the health and physical strength vital to peasant women. Rather than seeking help from family members, she exploits them, particularly her grandchildren, forcing them into physical labour and encouraging them with her stick. La Grande cuts a solitary figure as she dominates her peasant community, but for Félicité the conventions of the petite/moyenne bourgeoisie would not sanction lone female activity unless concealed behind the mantle of male authority. She develops her manipulative powers, exploiting even her daughter quite mercilessly in La Conquête de Plassans, with disastrous results. Like la Grande she perceives that tenacity is essential and ruthlessness tacitly sanctioned, but whereas for the peasant inflexibility forms a vital component, Félicité’s community requires pragmatism, if not opportunism. In La Fortune des Rougon she knows better than to cling to the family’s failing oil business, like a peasant to his land: in preference to potential bankruptcy, she opts for a modestly funded retirement. Since neither the oil business nor her sons have enabled her to achieve her long-held ambitions, she starts her preparations anew. Though already in her early fifties and therefore considered old, her undiminished dynamism is reflected in the comment that ‘Félicité semblait ne pas avoir vieilli… Son visage lui-même n’avait guère changé’ (I: 71) [‘Félicité did not appear to have aged… Her face itself had barely changed’]. She astutely seizes the initiative in the aftermath of the 1848 Revolution, transforming her drawing-room into a political salon. The role of graceful and charming soirée hostess is perfectly acceptable within the milieu: here her intelligence and manipulative skills prove ideal for the furtherance of the family fortunes. These are qualities shared by Irma d’Anglars, role model within a totally different environment. Aware that ‘In the second half of the nineteenth century twenty thousand [young girls] worked the streets of

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Paris’,10 Zola focuses on prostitutes based in or around the ‘Variétés’. To such women dependent upon their appearance for their livelihood, the prospect of old age, though frightening, has a quality of unreality, since many see it as a land which they will never visit. This is the only group to avow that, ‘Il fallait honorer la vieillesse’ (II: 1256) [‘old age should command respect’]. In this community the body is a woman’s stock-intrade but as Jean Maisondieu observes, ‘la beauté du corps est en effet une monnaie difficile à capitaliser et qui se dévalue inexorablement quand le vieillissement survient’ [‘physical beauty is indeed a difficult capital to realise and one which ageing inexorably devalues’].11 To prolong the years of plenty, it is mandatory to respect and cherish the body as a peasant would his land. La reine Pomaré serves as Janus image to Irma d’Anglars, the latter standing erect, ‘prodigieusement conservée’ (II: 1256) [‘wonderfully well preserved’], whilst the former is described as ‘une reine tombée dans la crotte’ (II: 1374) [‘a queen fallen into the filth of the gutter’]. With her ‘face bleuie, couturée, avec le trou édenté de la bouche et les meurtrissures enflammées des yeux’ (II: 1374) [‘scarred face tinged blue, with a toothless hole for a mouth and inflamed bloodshot eyes’], la reine Pomaré presents a horrifying, though sadly realistic portrait of ‘cette vieillesse affreuse de fille noyée dans le vin’ (II: 1374) [‘this hideous old age of an alcohol-sodden whore’]. Physical hazards are inherent in this profession, as underlined by the death of the beautiful young Satin and la reine Pomaré’s degeneration through alcoholism. Zola exploits the ageing Gaga to pinpoint where desirability precipitates into the grotesque, and women must quit the profession to escape ridicule, but there is an avenue where ambition and shrewdness can ensure continuing success. Strategically managed, this career can be succeeded by that of a procuress, with la Tricon providing a role model. This ‘vieille dame, de haute taille […] ayant la tournure d’une comtesse’ (II: 1125) [‘tall, elderly woman, […] with the mien of a countess’] is respected by all and drives her own carriage to the race course, where she delights in placing highly calculated winning bets. In common with the trio, la Tricon is wealthy, aloof, proactive, manipulative and highly regarded, whilst the fifty-year-old Laure Piedefer, with similar characteristics, enjoys power and riches deriving from her lesbian empire. La Tricon, Laure, la Grande and Félicité share also with Irma the vital characteristics of ruthlessness and ambition, maximising opportunities to

 10

Bernice Chitnis, Reflecting on Nana (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 18. Jean Maisondieu, ‘Horreur du vieillir quand le désir se réduit à l’envie’, in Alain Montandon (ed.), Eros, blessures et folie: détresses du vieillir (Clermont-Ferrand: Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal, 2006), p. 38.

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prepare for a comfortable old age. Gaga recalls of Irma that, ‘Elle vous nettoyait un homme, rien qu’à souffler dessus’ (II: 1254) [‘She’d clean a man out in seconds’]. During the period of highest earning capacity, clients must be prioritised by financial potential, divested of it and discarded, to be instantly superseded. The allure of the woman’s assets should be elevated and given the cachet of exclusivity. Neither sensual desire nor affection, wasteful of time and energy, should cause her to deviate from this regime and devalue the merchandise. Friendship should be regarded with caution. Amongst the prostitutes there is a sense of mutual support absent elsewhere, as demonstrated at Nana’s deathbed, but the male view that contact should be avoided to prevent disease or damage to the skin, seems more representative of community values. ‘Le thème de la valeur marchande de la femme est un thème central des Rougon-Macquart’ [‘The theme of a woman’s market value is one central to the Rougon-Macquart series’].12 Its relevance within the demimonde of Nana is all too apparent, but it is equally pertinent to the world of Henriette Desforges in Au Bonheur des dames [The Ladies’ Paradise], socialite of the haute bourgeoisie. This wealthy widow’s fears of ‘la vieillesse menaçante’ are grounded in knowledge of the mores of her echelon of society where, though wealth and position are esteemed, discrete liaisons with prominent figures are mandatory as confirmation of continuing sexual attraction. Her current relationship with the magnetic Octave Mouret is an ideal status-enhancer, but whereas he, very properly, regards their dalliance as a transient ‘plaisir profitable’ (III: 691) [‘pleasure which pays dividends’], she regards its looming conclusion as disastrous, for ‘à la pensée de le perdre, [elle] entendait aussi sonner le glas de la quarantaine, elle se demandait avec terreur comment remplacer ce grand amour’ (III: 680) [‘the thought of losing him was coupled with the sound of the warning bell tolling forty, causing her, terror-struck, to wonder how she could replace this great passion’]. Zola here underlines a basic difference in male/female life trajectories, since Mouret is already romantically involved with a much younger woman whom he will subsequently marry. Henriette purports to be twenty-nine, but fails fully to address the increasing girth indicative of her actual thirty-five years, preferring to mask the truth: ‘[…] elle se serrait dans des toilettes de soie noire, afin de dissimuler l’embonpoint qui montait’ (III: 681) [‘she squeezed herself into outfits of black silk in order to disguise the



12 Micheline van der Beken, Zola, le dessous des femmes (Brussels: Le Cri, 2000), p. 38.

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encroaching girth’]. Her sense of identity has been predicated on her wealth, prestige and beauty, and in engineering a defining scene with Denise, she stakes all on these advantages. Ordering the girl to adjust an undersized coat to fit her, she creates a visual image of superiority over the kneeling assistant, anticipating her dismissal for incompetence. Finally, continued provocation results in a ‘body blow’: Denise points out that her efforts are unavailing because ‘Madame est un peu forte’ (III: 694) [‘Madam is rather stout’]. Henriette is compelled to realise that these bastions of her self-worth have failed her. Mouret’s support of the girl, rather than herself, is a bitter revelation that ‘la perte de la beauté correspond à une neutralisation du pouvoir séducteur de la femme sur l’homme’ [‘the loss of beauty cancels out the seductive power of woman over man’].13 Through Henriette’s panic over her declining beauty, Zola underlines that women should constantly look beyond their current stage of life, anticipating the future rather than seeking to replicate the past. Though this woman subsequently resumes the ‘masque de sa bonne grâce mondaine’ (III: 698) [‘her outward image of social charm’], essential to her position, it is noticeable that her attitude towards the future remains undefined. Panic has no place in Mme Bonnehon’s emotional life (La Bête humaine). Her supremacy over Rouen society is unusually long, but at the age of fifty-five this beautiful and gracious widow recognises that ‘elle ne régnait plus, maintenant que l’âge venait et qu’elle perdait jusqu’à son opulente beauté blonde de déesse vieillie’ (IV: 1319) [‘now that the years were catching up with her, she no longer reigned and even her opulent blond beauty, as of an ageing goddess, was waning’]. Adhering to the community mores, her impeccable discretion has confirmed her as arbiter of taste and conduct. It is she whose social life is now threatened by ‘la vieillesse’, and sequentially by ‘cette grande brune élégante qui la detrônait’ (IV: 1319) [‘this tall, elegant brunette who was usurping her throne’]. This confirms the dictum articulated in ‘La Vieille Femme’, that ‘the people dethrone kings and time dethrones women.’ 14 Characterised always by her ‘bonne grâce’ [‘social charm’], she is suffused by a sense of melancholy, and must make the transition from beautiful cynoscure of society, to faded older woman consigned to obscurity. With a touch of

 13

Annette Keilhauer, ‘Neutralisée ou inquiétante: représentations de la femme vieillissante dans la littérature française’, Gérontologie et société, 3 (2005)

[accessed 10 August 2011] p. 151. 14 Anaïs Ségalas, ‘La Vieille Femme’, Journal des femmes (1847) as quoted by Stearns, p. 34.

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bitterness she gracefully accepts the desertion of her salon to the extent of sending a protégé to her rival’s. The importance of understanding the values of one’s environment may be equalled by the need for prudence in selection of a male, though many women have little choice. In Second Empire society male jurisdiction over their wives was upheld by the courts, property laws were patriarchal, whilst ‘women’s legal rights within the family were severely limited until after World War II.’ 15 Irma d’Anglars, with no male partner and financially independent, conducts her life as she chooses. La Grande is widowed at a relatively early age and, with inherited acres, would have had little difficulty in finding a replacement. The physical implications of farming would have rendered this imperative to many women, but notwithstanding, la Grande refuses to share what is hers or relinquish governance of her land, which will form the foundation for her old age. Félicité Rougon sees in her future husband opportunities for advancement. She is ambitious but the milieu prevents her from exploiting her own intelligence. With keen-sightedness she calculates that to achieve her goals, she needs a man whom she can manipulate with the skill of a puppeteer. The broad-chested, heavy-framed Rougon should bear with ease ‘le monde d’intrigues qu’elle rêvait de lui mettre sur ses épaules’ (I: 57) [‘the many crafty schemes which she dreamt of letting him shoulder’]. Despite setbacks, she capitalises on the changing political climate, assuming the role of eminence grise to propel Rougon to a position of authority in Plassans. This wife finds self-expression via her husband, whilst a woman alone requires a male figurehead as facilitator. For example, one is fundamental to a widow desirous of improving, as opposed to merely sustaining, her late husband’s business. Madame Hédouin of Au Bonheur des dames recognises that ‘les femmes seules n’ont aucun pouvoir, elles dépendent toujours des hommes d’une façon ou d’une autre’16 [‘women on their own are powerless and always depend on men in one way or another’] and marries the younger, dynamic Octave Mouret who facilitates expansion of her store. Some years after her death, Mouret weds Denise, whose advice has reshaped the department store and it seems apparent that theirs will be both a marriage and a working partnership. Zola favours such shared preparation for old age, reiterating this in the Charles of La Terre. Seeking ‘une vieillesse idyllique en pleine nature’ (IV: 401) [‘an idyllic old age in the bosom of nature’], they retreat

 15

Joan W. Scott and Louise A. Tilley, ‘Women’s Work and the Family in Nineteenth-Century Europe’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 17.1 (January 1975), 36-64 (p. 37). 16 Van der Beken, p. 155.

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from a lifetime of successful brothel-management to embark upon a comfortably-funded retirement, enjoying ‘un bonheur absolu’ (IV: 403) [‘complete happiness’]. Whereas Félicité scrutinises her proposed husband, women with free choice do not inevitably use it judiciously. Gervaise Macquart in L’Assommoir [The Dram Shop] marries the weak-willed Coupeau neither for love, nor for material gain, but to stop him from pestering her. This mistake need not have proved fatal. Her ambition is to run her own laundry to provide for a comfortable retirement. ‘Au bout de vingt ans, si le travail marchait, ils pouvaient avoir une rente, qu’ils iraient manger quelque part, à la campagne’ (II: 476) [‘If the business were successful, after twenty years they could buy an annuity and use it to retire to the country’]. With money saved, she is about to rent a shop: energetic, talented and enthusiastic, her dream is within her grasp when her husband has an accident. Her second mistake is to nurse him at home, neglecting her business and flouting community opinion that ‘A l’hôpital, il se serait remis sur pied deux fois plus vite’ (II: 485) [‘In hospital he would have been back on his feet in half the time’]. Zola inevitably deprecates overindulgence, particularly of male partners, and here it fatally bolsters workshy tendencies and fosters incipient alcoholism. With funds drained by her obsessive care, a loan to establish her business represents a final opportunity. Had Coupeau been forced back to work, she might still have achieved her objective, but with energy depleted and self-discipline eroded, it is too late. Though only forty, a former admirer describes Gervaise as ‘vieillie et dégommée’ (II: 776) [‘aged and withered’]. She who had lived on the sunny side of the courtyard, cultivating her vision of the countryside with her flowering window-box, must now perforce move to the shady side, where ‘Au lieu d’avoir des fleurs sur sa vieillesse, elle roulait dans les choses qui ne sont pas propres’ (II: 673) [‘Instead of being surrounded in old age by flowers, she was wallowing in filth’]. Loss of the life-enhancing flowers underlines the encroaching menace of old age, which will prematurely entomb her body to decay in an understairs cupboard. Gervaise so nearly succeeds, having the ambition, talent and vision to construct a comfortable old age, whereas Christine Hallegrain in L’Oeuvre [The Masterpiece] self-destructs. Though orphaned and penniless, she was given a residential position with an old blind woman, who becomes attached to her. Christine has beauty, a home and the solid prospect of an inheritance, a good basis for the future, but these she squanders on an artist whom she barely knows, deceiving and abandoning her benefactor. She scorns the mores, not merely of her community, but of the period by

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volunteering to live with Claude without marital commitment. She places no value on her assets, seeking only the pleasure of indulging one who comments prophetically on her folly: ‘mais je n’ai rien, moi, et tu perdrais tout’ (IV: 144) [‘but I have nothing at all, whereas you would lose everything’]. No Rembrandt, able to appreciate modifications attendant upon pregnancy or maturity, Claude seeks only the lean lines of extreme youth. He is obsessed with painting quasi pubescent womanhood in its perfection and as his long-term model, Christine is forced to compare each subsequent attempt with his first portrait of her eighteen-year-old self. Soon, he no longer portrays the living flesh before him, but rather the ‘image extra humaine de la chair’ (IV: 347) [‘vision of flesh beyond human compass’] which dominates his mind. Observing her body, he minutely analyses its structural degradation deriving from the passage of time and thus ‘à chaque séance, Christine se sentait vieillir’ (IV: 255) [‘with every sitting, Christine felt herself growing older’]. Self-neglect results in a slovenly and genuinely ageing appearance until finally she rejects Claude’s exclusive correlation of beauty with immature years, declaring that her love for him sustains her continuing vibrancy, youth and beauty. Following his suicide she suffers a nervous breakdown, the nurse asserting ‘qu’elle en sortira vieillie de dix ans’ (IV: 355) [‘that she will emerge aged by ten years’]. Her choice, and subsequent indulgence of Claude, result in premature indigence and loneliness replacing an appropriately timed, comfortable old age. Like Christine, Hélène Grandjean in Une Page d’amour [A Love Affair] flouts the common tenets of morality by urging an innocent encounter with the married Dr Deberle forward to become a relationship. Hitherto this widow’s intensity of emotion has been directed towards her frail daughter, forging an unusually powerful maternal bond. Through the medium of ageing, Zola again shows the effects of an unwise choice of mate and the folly of unrestrained female passion, but on this occasion it is not conveyed through the protagonist. Burdened by her mother’s misdemeanours like a paschal lamb, it is Jeanne who ages visibly under the weight of premature knowledge. As Hélène hastens to meet Deberle, the child is suffused with a jealous awareness, whereby ‘ses traits si fins prenaient cette dureté jalouse qui lui donnait un visage blême de vieille fille méchante’ (II: 1028) [‘her particularly delicate features became hardened by jealousy, giving her the pallid expression of a spiteful old maid’]. After their adulterous encounter, ‘elle comprenait qu’elle devenait très vieille’ (II: 1033) [‘she realised that she was growing very old’]. Through deliberately exacerbating her illness, the ageing process manifests itself both psychologically and physically. ‘Elle ressemblait à

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une petite vieille, avec les yeux des filles très âgées’ (II: 1040) [‘She looked like a little old woman with the eyes of an ancient spinster’]. Passion reverses Hélène’s normal demeanour, causing her to cast off her grave, statue-like mien and revert to childhood: meanwhile Jeanne remarks ‘Je deviens vieille, je ne peux pas jouer toujours’ (II: 1050) [‘I’m getting old, I can’t always be playing’]. As Deberle examines her on her deathbed, it is as if she has eaten of the tree of knowledge. ‘Elle se vit nue, elle sanglota de honte […] il semblait qu’elle eût vieilli tout d’un coup de dix ans’ (II: 1062) [‘She saw herself naked, and sobbed with shame […] it was as though she had suddenly aged by ten years’]. Gervaise, Christine and Hélène enjoy freedom of choice, but a woman’s spouse may be predetermined. Traditionally where there was no male inheritor, businesses were bequeathed to the senior apprentice, together with the daughter of the house. Thus the shopkeeper or craftsman provides for his child, as happens in Au Bonheur des dames with regard to the Baudu family. The fabric shop, which Monsieur Baudu inherits from his father-in-law, is suffused with all-pervasive gloom and decay, for which the shopkeeper’s aversion to modernisation is responsible. He fails to realise that because the fetid atmosphere is exacerbating his wife’s poor health, she will never share the rustic retirement which he plans. His daughter’s dreams of marriage are similarly destroyed by her father’s intransigence. These women have no powers of self-determination: they fade and die prematurely because they are totally dependent upon an honourable, but stubbornly tradition-bound man. Relationships and familiarity with her milieu are highly significant factors in determining for a woman whether or not later life will be ‘menaçante’, but of equal or possibly greater importance is her attitude towards money. The major fear for both sexes was of poverty, exacerbated by frailty, but it was more applicable to women since the age difference at marriage resulted in lengthy widowhood, female wages were lower, employment range was restricted and though men were permitted to work until death, women were often forced to retire by fifty or fifty-five. Pensions were in their infancy during this period: those with money bought annuities, whilst those without had perforce to work indefinitely.17

 17

Jérôme Bourdieu and Lionel Kesztenbaum point out that ‘In the nineteenth century, pensions were principally for civil servants and some occupations for which special pension systems were set up under sector-specific agreements (railways and mines) […] For the rest of the population, a universal pension system developed very slowly and the process was only completed in the second half of the twentieth century.’ ‘Surviving Old Age in an Ageing World. Old People

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Vast numbers of the population had no hope of providing for retirement: satisfying daily needs demanded endless toil, with the result that many women became prematurely aged. 18 Long hours, harsh conditions, multiple, frequent pregnancies, childcare and household duties further diminished both strength and earning power.19 Money was hard won, and substantial sums could be accrued by women only through marriage, inheritance or prostitution. Although Zola makes clear that for most women money was perforce a transient commodity, the three role models previously cited all enjoy the luxury of deciding how to place it: la Grande becomes a miser, Irma a saver and Félicité an investor. La Grande’s financial independence has been achieved through inheritance, work and saving. Not a ‘sou’ (penny) is spent unnecessarily and even at the age of ninety she seizes whatever is available to her. At a gathering early in the novel, ignoring common custom, ‘elle n’apportait jamais de chandelle, abusant de son grand âge’ (IV: 421) [‘she never brought a candle, taking advantage of her advanced age’] and when the chestnuts appear, ‘elle avait englouti tout de suite sa part dans sa poche’ (IV: 436) [‘she immediately stuffed her share into her pocket’], to ensure that she misses nothing through eating slowly. When her niece stays with her, la Grande determines to extract from her



in France, 1820-1940’ in Population-E, 62.2 (2007) [accessed 20 Sept 2011] p. 205. 18 A mere ten years prior to the Second Empire, reformer Flora Tristan noted a washerwoman in Nîmes who, though fifty-one looked seventy and resembled a slug, Victorian Women, p. 473. Zola’s novels similarly portray women prematurely aged by their environment. In L’Assommoir though only twenty-two Gervaise’s degeneration has already begun, her fine features ‘tirés par les rudesses de sa vie’ (II: 381) [‘drawn by the harshness of her life’]; la Palmyre of La Terre, at thirty looks fifty and at thirty-five would pass for sixty; la Maheude of Germinal is described as ‘déjà déformée à 39 ans’ (III: 1147) [‘already deformed by 39’]. 19 These additional burdens borne by women have been noted by Yvonne Knibiehler as regards the peasantry, and are reflected in La Terre. Zola similarly demonstrates their relevance to female workers in Germinal and L’Assommoir. ‘Partout, aux champs ou dans l’atelier familial, la femme est considérée comme l’auxiliaire de l’homme; mais en retour elle n’est jamais aidée dans ses propres tâches; si bien qu’il lui arrive trop souvent de travailler au-délà de ses forces, de vieillir tôt, de mourir jeune.’ [‘Everywhere, whether in the fields or in the family workshop, woman is regarded as being man’s assistant; and yet she never receives reciprocal help with her own tasks, to the extent that she often undertakes work beyond her strength, ages prematurely and dies young’]. Georges Duby and Michelle Perrot (eds.), Histoire des femmes en Occident, 5 vols (Paris: Plon, 1995), IV, p. 385.

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maximum work for minimum food. To prevent exhaustion of her horses, she instead sets her grandson to the plough. Her only daughter has been cast out for wishing to marry a poor man. ‘Ne me demandez pas un sou, jamais! jamais!’ (IV: 546) [‘Never ask me for a penny, never!’], screamed at her brother and sister-in-law, epitomises her generosity. She is the outstanding miser in the canon but others with similar characteristics seem unlikely to be so successful. The chain-making Lorilleux couple (L’Assommoir) appear to have inherited nothing and are therefore dependent upon their own labour. Spending minimally, they work incessantly in the highest temperatures, grasping every coin with a view to the future. Despite their efforts, it is debatable whether they will live to enjoy the wealth they accrue, since Madame is already ‘très vieille pour ses trente ans’ (II: 425) [‘greatly aged for her thirty years’]. Unlike either la Grande or the Lorilleux, early in life Irma occupied a position of plenty. A glimpse at Nana’s brief but vastly lucrative career serves to highlight the qualities which enable Irma to enjoy, indeed relish her closing years. Normally Nana values and takes pains over her greatest asset, namely her body, but when in the grip of emotional involvement as with Fontan, her business acumen fails. Irma is a saver and preserver of all that is hers. In addition to money, a highly successful courtesan receives property and valuable gifts, the sale of which will fund her future comfort and security. Irma would undoubtedly have retained the expensive trinkets bestowed on Nana for her name day, but instead not one survives the latter’s destructive urges. Viewing the reverse images of la reine Pomaré and Irma renders her thoughtful, and she has visions of herself in the latter’s position, but this will never transpire. She has the characteristics of a magpie but, like fellow prostitute Satin, inevitably destroys whatever she touches. Because Nana keeps no check over her household expenditure, servants and others exploit her, with the result that she must constantly borrow. Towards her clients her attitude is austerely business-like: she offers a commodity for which they must pay appropriately, but the fee extracted always slips through her fingers. However brilliant her public lifestyle, Irma’s forward planning was expert. Head-turning magnificence was essential to her role, but equally vital was awareness of the relative brevity of the period when lasting wealth could be garnered to assure leisured retirement. The text does not clarify whether Irma’s strength of purpose was hers alone, or whether she had a mentor as does the prostitute Caroline Héquet in the form of her mother, who acts as personal assistant and guide. When war threatens Paris, she is already in London setting up house for her daughter. ‘Sa mère, en femme prudente, lui avait fait placer toute sa fortune à l’étranger’ (II: 1481) [‘Her mother, being a prudent

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woman, had made her move all her wealth abroad’]. There her money will be safe and business will continue as usual. Successful prostitutes receive handsome sums of money, but have difficulty retaining them: in contrast, their maids may be models of thrift. Working for Nana, Zoé saves earnings and gifts to fund a brothel, where her single-mindedness, emotional detachment and thorough knowledge of the business will ensure a financially secure future. For these women, saving constitutes the retention of sums received, but for many women, preparation for old age consists of spending minimally in order to save that which remains. Nana’s aunt Mme Lerat is one such. ‘Elle avait cessé le métier de fleuriste et vivait de ses économies, six cents francs de rentes amassés sou à sou’ (II: 1127-8) [‘She had given up her job as a florist and was living off her savings, six hundred francs of income, accumulated penny by penny’]. Her friend Mme Malloir, ‘n’ayant jamais sur elle que les six sous d’un omnibus’ (II: 1135) [‘never carrying more than her six-penny bus fare’], is similarly elderly, and together they share modest pleasures such as a free meal, sugar lumps dipped in cognac, the warmth of another’s kitchen or a game of bezique at which they are both expert. These ladies are survivors, for whom old age is not easy, but bearable: for the majority of female workers, ‘Assuming one survived by rigid self-discipline, there was scant reward.’20 Félicité Rougon saves for the future through investment. Determined to become rich, when her oil business fails to prosper, she turns her thoughts towards her three sons. Many contemporary mothers similarly believed that a good education would ensure success and the elevation of the family. To secure ‘la garantie d’une vieillesse bien heureuse: elle met tout en branle pour atteindre ses objectifs’21 [‘the guarantee of real happiness in old age, she sets everything in motion to gain her objectives’]. She cherishes her boys ‘avec […] des tendresses d’usurier. Elle se plut à les engraisser amoureusement comme un capital qui devait plus tard rapporter de gros intérêts’ (I: 60) [‘with the tender affections of a loan shark. She amused herself by affectionately building them up, just like a capital sum destined to yield handsome rewards’]. In the epoch of Le Docteur Pascal this trait still manifests itself: at the age of eighty, Félicité is investing both her wealth and her remaining strength in the Rougon memorial. For her ‘la vieillesse menaçante’ is epitomised by the aged forms of other relations looming grimly over the family reputation which she is so determined to

 20

Stearns, p. 28. Christian Mbarga, Émile Zola. Les femmes de pouvoir dans ‘Les RougonMacquart’ (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2008) p. 108.

21

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extol. Her mother-in-law Tante Dide, at one hundred and five,22 remains a living reminder of insanity, whilst her brother-in-law Antoine Macquart, at eighty-four, is the current representative of family alcoholism. Should death remove such stains on the ancestral landscape, there still remain the extensive family records created by Doctor Pascal, in need of excoriation if not total expurgation. No longer concerned with amassing wealth and with land purchased, Félicité is looking to the future, about to lay the foundation stone to inaugurate the building of the Asile Rougon. No reason is given for her decision to build and endow an ‘asile pour les vieillards’ (V: 1205) but certainly the community will feel lasting gratitude for a facility for which they would otherwise have had to pay themselves. To the poor of future years, a glance in its direction may well remind them of the threat of old age, since such places were viewed as a last resort, but to Félicité it represents an investment in the Rougon family glory. Zola reflects that investment in female education, normally in the hope of securing a profitable marriage, is by no means confined to one social class. The prostitute Gaga (Nana) neither wastes nor saves her money, but uses it to send her daughter Lili to a convent school. ‘Si, à son âge, elle n’avait pas mis un sou à côté, travaillant toujours […] c’était vraiment qu’un bon mariage valait mieux’ (II: 1175) [‘If at her age she hadn’t saved a penny, though still working […] it was really because a good marriage was worth more’]. Intent upon following her mother’s profession, Lili rejects this possibility. Gaga sells her to the Marquis de Chouard, investing the money in a house. Already in her fifties, war will put all in jeopardy, including the serene old age for which she has striven, ‘Dieu sait avec quelle peine!’ (II: 1481) [‘God knows with what sacrifice’]. Whereas Gaga’s investment returns purely personal gain, Félicité’s benefits herself and her community in proportion to the sum outlaid. In one further instance, new investment could ameliorate life for a section of the workforce globally, particularly in retirement. Attentive, silk-clad salesgirls in vast, brightly-lit department stores subsequently become ‘toutes mangées par le métier avant quarante ans […] beaucoup mortes à



22 Though achieving an exceptionally great age, Tante Dide has not been grouped with the three role models on account of the mental instability which characterises her from early years. Her longevity is significant in its mythical/symbolic dimension. She is ‘l’ancêtre et la pierre angulaire de la “nouvelle race” qu’il a créée’ [‘the ancestor and cornerstone of the “new race” that he has created’], linking past, present and future, symbolically representing permanence. Mbarga, p. 31.

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la peine, phtisiques ou anémiques, de fatigue…’ (III: 728) [‘all devoured by the trade before reaching forty […] many dying on the job, consumptive or anaemic, exhausted …’]. In Au Bonheur des dames Zola uses Denise as his mouthpiece to set out a template for management investment in the largely female workforce, introducing reforms which will vastly enhance their chances of reaching retirement. To conclude, old age as associated with the proximity of mortal illness and death casts a shadow of fear over all generations, exacerbated in Zola’s era by the lack of state social and healthcare. Notwithstanding, a recurring motif is glimpsed of country cottage leisure succeeding the years of toil, a dream realisable by so few. Zola reveals the depths of degradation at times attendant upon old age but contrasts these with the peaks attained by others, thereby indicating hazards and pointers to achieving contentment. Irrespective of class, the major pitfalls for women are emotional indulgence of self and others, disregard of community mores, and failure to confront ageing whilst still young by gearing choices and seizing opportunities accordingly. Zola depicts women, unlike men, as being chained to moral blueprints, from which deviation exacts retribution and premature ageing. In an era where female educational and employment opportunities are restricted, women without inheritance have only youth, strength, beauty and intelligence to offer. Zola’s template characters reveal how, through mutation of youth into sustained engagement with life, strength into vigour, and beauty into upright elegance, these advantages can be retained into old age, thereby reducing its menace. It is interesting to observe the sustained line of female development from Zola’s rare trailblazers to women at the dawn of the twenty-first century. With improved healthcare, particularly regarding maternity, better nourishment, a good working and domestic environment, mechanisation of household tasks and improved general infrastructure, for many women of the developed world, the threat of old age had been postponed to the point of complete denial. Early retirement with a healthy pension had dispelled financial worries, and cosmetic surgery promised continuing rejuvenation. As this post-recession century advances, this may be seen as a halcyon period. Young women are now adjured to make pension provision from the earliest moment to avoid working into advanced years, retrenchment of the health service portends future selectivity and council-run social care is becoming obsolete. Indeed, escalating momentum in this trend could result in ‘la vieillesse’ becoming once more ‘menaçante’.

LEARNING TO BE OLD: LAURE WYSS’S LITERARY REFLECTIONS ON THE CHALLENGE OF AGEING1 BARBARA BURNS

Laure Wyss (1913-2002) was a Swiss journalist and television presenter who turned in her retirement to creative writing. Much of Wyss’s literary work is preoccupied with the subject of ageing, and she became a recognised spokesperson in this domain. This chapter focuses on two works: Das rote Haus [‘The Red House’], published in 1982 when the author was 69, and Schuhwerk im Kopf und andere Geschichten [‘Footwear in Mind and Other Stories’], released in 2000 when she was 87. The progression in tone from the former, which evinces a grieving process for the lost prime of life, to the latter, which is stalwart and even defiant in the face of advanced old age, offers clues to Wyss’s personal process of coming to terms with retirement, physical deterioration, and the revision of her preconceptions. Wyss’s writing affirms the value of the individual facing the challenge of ageing and vigorously resists the insidious effects of stereotyping and marginalisation.

Laure Wyss (1913-2002) was a German-speaking Swiss journalist and writer. An influential media figure, she spent her working life as a newspaper editor and television presenter, gaining a reputation for her pioneering initiative, 2 her promotion of the cause of women, 3 and her

 1

I wish to record my thanks to the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland for funding a research visit to the Swiss Literary Archive in Berne where Wyss’s papers are held. 2 In 1958 Wyss set up and presented the ‘Magazin der Frau’, the first Swiss television programme for women, and in 1962 she started the social documentary series ‘Unter Uns’. Her live broadcasts on topical issues between 1958 and 1967 totalled around a hundred. In 1970 she became co-founder and editor of the highly successful Tages-Anzeiger-Magazin known as TAM. 3 Wyss’s first book, Frauen erzählen ihr Leben. 14 Protokolle (Frauenfeld: Huber, 1976), a transcription of the accounts of the personal experience of a cross-section of Swiss women, became a best-seller as women’s issues gained greater prominence in the wake of the introduction of female suffrage in Switzerland.

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professional scrupulousness. It was not until she retired from journalism that she began seriously to write fiction, much of it semi-autobiographical. Offering a vigorous response to pessimistic notions of retirement and ageing, Wyss identifies in later life the opportunity for an enterprising new momentum that resists stereotypes and stultification. Such was her engagement with the theme of ageing both in her creative work and her public statements that she became a kind of spokesperson in this domain. Interviewed on 1 October 2001 by Moritz Leuenberger, then President of the Swiss Confederation, for the UN International Day of Older Persons, Wyss at the age of 88 utilised the widespread media coverage to voice her convictions.4 An ardent opponent of euthanasia, she defended the dignity of the old and lamented the pressures under which the caring professions had to carry out their duties ‘nach der Stechuhr’ (PSA 37) [‘by the clock’], leaving little time to address the emotional needs of their patients. Without any hint of self-pity, she addressed the economic consequences for the individual of increasing frailty and dependency: ‘Es ist wirklich einfacher, alt zu sein, wenn man Geld hat.’ (PSA 18-19) [‘It really is easier to be old if you have money.’] However, at the same time she reaffirmed a concept which was central to her thinking and emerges repeatedly in her work, namely the insight that physical strength is less important than the right attitude of mind: ‘Die Standhaftigkeit kann ja auch im Kopf sein, im Geist, im Gemüt, in der Seele.’ (PSA 20) [‘Steadiness can also be in your head, your spirit, your disposition, your soul.’] Recognising the privilege of being possessed of all her mental faculties and able to continue working in later life, Wyss was shrewd and uncompromising in her social commentary, and gave short shrift to those who patronisingly praised her achievements ‘despite’ her age. Wyss’s first literary work, Mutters Geburtstag [‘Mother’s Birthday’] (1978), contains an affirmation of older age that acknowledges the reality of loneliness and vicarious experience, but contemplates new possibilities that are more than just activities designed to ward off boredom and melancholy: Sie weiss nun besser als vorher, dass nichts sicher und verlässlich ist und dass die Stube des Alters und des Alleinseins nicht mit Kindern ausstaffiert werden darf.

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The interview attracted broad press coverage at the time, and was later published in book form as Protokoll einer Stunde über das Alter. Moritz Leuenberger im Gespräch mit Laure Wyss (Zurich: Limmat, 2002). Subsequent references to this work are given as PSA followed by the page number. All translations from German, from this and other texts, are my own.

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Es sind noch Jahre mit Leben zu füllen. Keine Verpflichtungen, keine Hemmungen, frei für Radikales.5 [She knows now, better than she did before, that nothing is certain or reliable, and that the room of age and solitude should not be fitted out with children. There are still years to be filled with life. No commitments, no inhibitions, free to be radical.]

This is the voice of a strong and independent woman, one who does not yet have to accommodate the limitations of infirmity. The perspective expressed here is different from the age-denying approach typical of contemporary western society that declares the benefits of being ‘young at heart’ or ‘as young as you feel’. But it contrasts also with non-western traditions which elevate elders to a position of respect coupled with inactivity. Instead Wyss, as ‘eine bekennende Alte’ (PSA 9) [‘a selfconfessed old person’], embraces older age with its freedom from obligation and presents the individual with the challenge of marshalling their life experience in the pursuit of some formerly unachievable goal. Being ‘radical’ in the sense Wyss uses it means fighting for what is important and resisting the banality which leads to stagnation and loss of self-worth. To a degree, all of Wyss’s literary writing is preoccupied with the subject of ageing, but this chapter will focus on two works: Das rote Haus6 [‘The Red House’], published in 1982 when the author was 69, and Schuhwerk im Kopf und andere Geschichten 7 [‘Footwear in Mind and Other Stories’], released in 2000 when she was 87. The progression in tone from the former, which evinces a grieving process for the lost prime of life, to the latter, which is stalwart and even defiant in the face of advanced old age, offers clues to Wyss’s personal process of coming to terms with retirement, physical deterioration, and the revision of her preconceptions. Das rote Haus, although somewhat incongruously termed a novel, is a series of recollections connected by the relationship between the three narrators who are the work’s protagonists. Schuhwerk im Kopf is an example of Wyss’s pithiest and most articulate mode, that of the short story. One story begins with the question: ‘Kann man das Alter lernen?’

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Mutters Geburtstag. Notizen zu einer Reise und Nachdenken über A. (Huber: Frauenfeld, 1978), pp. 137-38. 6 Das rote Haus (Frauenfeld: Huber, 1982). Subsequent references to this work are given as RH followed by the page number. 7 Schuhwerk im Kopf und andere Geschichten (Zurich: Limmat, 2000). Subsequent references to this work are given as SK followed by the page number.

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(SK 23) [‘Can one learn how to be old?’], from which this chapter takes its title. This inquiry implies that the learning processes associated with youth and working life do not stop at retirement, but that growing old successfully requires its own discipline and receptivity to the new. Above all Wyss resists the social forces that rob old people of their sense of belonging and their self-determination, the loss of status brought by ageing she herself experienced: ‘Ich fühlte mich in eine Kategorie verschoben, die nicht mehr mitreden oder mithandeln soll, eben abgeschoben ins Alter.’ (PSA 30) [‘I felt pushed into a category of people who aren’t meant to have a say or get involved, who are just shunted off into old age.’] Through her creative writing Wyss explores aspects of the individual’s response to the challenge of ageing, encouraging older women in particular to resist the marginalisation of their generation and to assert their place in a society that might prefer to ignore them. Das rote Haus takes its title from a house in Sweden where three older women spend the summer taking stock of their lives. Lisa is recovering from exhaustion brought about by family pressures, and seeks therapeutic benefit in writing a diary. Martha, a retired journalist, processes difficult memories by writing so-called ‘Albumblätter’ [‘album pages’], a collection of eight episodes from her past. Kristina, the owner of the red house where the two other women are guests, is the woman of fewest words: she too has suffered, but finds solace in music and appears best equipped to face the future. Although these women seem temperamentally quite dissimilar, it has been suggested that they represent three aspects of one individual reflecting on her life.8 This is a coherent argument which identifies the sophistication in Wyss’s presentation of complex and conflicting responses to the ageing process. What unites the three women is their experience of loss. Most of the content of Das rote Haus centres on a fourfold theme of termination: the end of active motherhood through the departure of children, the end of working life through retirement, the end of relationships through the death of friends and colleagues, and the end of robustness through the encroachment of debility. Essential to the outcome of the work is that these endings do not indicate the cessation of all that is good, but rather function as a transition to better self-understanding and a redefined sense of purpose.

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See, for example, Rea Brändle, ‘Eine gute, bedächtige Art, die Dinge anzupacken’, Tages-Anzeiger, 30 November 1982, and André Ratti, ‘Nicht nur ein Frauenbuch’, Basler Allgemeine Zeitung, 21 December 1982.

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Structurally the novel consists of four unequal parts. There is a brief preface which Wyss uses to create the fiction that the true stories of the three women have come into her possession and are merely edited by her. This is followed by Lisa’s diary which takes up fifty pages. Martha’s recollections, at almost a hundred pages, dominate the centre of the work; and the volume is concluded with Kristina’s response, a mere ten pages in length. While the preface at just over two pages appears modest in scope, it has an essential role in framing the text and making a unified whole of the three women’s disparate modes of expression.9 All three narrators have in common with the editor a moment of existential crisis, and the preface establishes both a sense of solidarity between them, and a consciousness that a way forward in one’s own perplexity may be found through reading about the ordeals of others. Before Wyss introduces her three protagonists in the preface, she goes straight to the heart of her theme. Addressing the importance for women, before they become old, of pausing in order to think imaginatively about their future, she highlights the classic triggers for isolation and loss of purpose: Dieser Augenblick des Überlegens kommt, wenn eines Tages die Berufsarbeit aufhört, wenn das Haus, in dem man gewirkt hat, verändert oder leer ist, die Wohnung zu groß und die Enkel, für die man so gern strickte, das großmütterliche Muster für die Kniestrümpfe ablehnen. (RH 7) [This moment of reflection comes when your professional life ends, when the home you have made is changed or empty, the apartment is too big and the grandchildren, for whom you so much enjoyed knitting, reject their grandmother’s pattern for knee-socks.]

The sentiments expressed in these lines spring to a significant extent from personal experience. Within the space of a few years, Wyss’s son, whom she had raised as a single mother, left home, her former lover and close friend died, and she retired from her career in journalism. The writer’s diary conveys the devastating impact of this series of blows in a syntactically disordered outpouring: Kein Bezug zum andern. Kein Bezug zu mir. Ich schwimme richtungslos. Ich suche nach einem Ziel. Hin und hergeworfen in Wünschen, Abschlüssen, Beziehungen, die keine sein dürfen, keine sind. Was ist noch zu ertragen?



9 See Judith Boehringer, ‘Blick in die Gefühlswelt dreier alternder Frauen’, Luzerner Neuste Nachrichten, 8 March 1983.

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Wyss combatted her despair by a course of psychoanalysis and a regime of daily writing. Describing the effort of will required to overcome her own deficiencies as an ‘entsetzliche Anstrengung’ [‘dreadful strain’], she recognised that responsibility for her future lay with her alone: ‘Alles kann sich ändern. Durch mich, nicht durch die andern.’ 11 [‘Everything can change. Through me, not through others.’] It would appear from diary entries that the writing of Das rote Haus was a crucial stage in the evolution of Wyss’s self-consciousness in later life, and that its focus on often painful memory played a therapeutic role in helping her relinquish the past. Lisa, the first occupant of the red house to assume the role of narrator, attempts to rediscover her autonomy after many years of confinement to the domestic realm of child-rearing. ‘Ich schreibe für mich’ (RH 13) [‘I’m writing for myself’], she declares early in her account, implying both the psychological necessity of this exercise and its uniqueness as an activity purely for her own benefit. Laying bare the truth of the breakdown she has suffered, the confrontation with her own inadequacy through psychiatric treatment, and the beginnings of the healing process through rest and reflection, Lisa faces with remarkable honesty the marginalisation and low self-esteem from which she seeks to emerge. Her lack of imagination in face of her own future without dependent children is seen in her words: ‘Ich möchte von anderen Menschen erfahren, wie sie alt werden’ (RH 16) [‘I would like to discover from other people how they grow old’]. For someone who has experienced life at one remove through her children, she seems incapable of envisaging any other mode of existence than a vicarious one. Apart from recording her thoughts in a diary, Lisa’s strategy for recuperation includes savouring the rural solitude. Despite its beauty, however, the countryside is not without danger: the hidden underground shafts of a disused ore mine which present a constant threat to the unwary

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Diary (unpublished), no date, Swiss Literary Archive, Berne. The lack of adherence to conventions of capitalisation indicates the writer’s perplexity. 11 Diary (unpublished), 22 June 1985, Swiss Literary Archive, Berne.

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walker are a metaphor for the precariousness of Lisa’s mental state as she struggles with profound emotional loss. Research on representations of maternity in German literary texts of this period has highlighted the portrayal of mothers as ‘mute and abject’,12 complicit in social conventions which render them isolated and depressed. The fact that Lisa confesses her compulsion to mention her children in conversations as if they were ‘meine einzige Lebensberechtigung’ (RH 50) [‘my only justification for being alive’], indicates the extent to which she has become subsumed by motherhood. Having conformed for so long to the traditional maternal paradigm of ‘provider, interlocutor, caregiver, contingent reinforcer, significant other, empathic understander, mirror’,13 she has forgotten what it means to be a subject in her own right. ‘Ich hatte mich selbst verloren, ich kannte mich nicht mehr’ (RH 40) [‘I had lost myself, I no longer knew myself’] she writes, yet at the same time suggests through the use of the pluperfect tense an incipient self-assertion, a will to change. Her decision to abandon her passivity in favour of taking on some heavy gardening work seems to indicate a fresh agency and a desire to contribute to the community. But just when her lethargy is ostensibly diminishing, the rawness of Lisa’s emotional condition reasserts itself in an unexpected deluge of unresolved grief over the departure of the children to whom she has devoted every fibre of her being, but whom she can no longer protect. Possibly the most striking sentence of the volume comes at this point in Lisa’s account, underlining the interdependence of the mother-child relationship and the problem of disengagement: ‘Warum sterben Mütter nicht, nachdem die Kinder aus dem Hause sind?’ (RH 59) [‘Why do mothers not die when their children leave home?’] Here Wyss presents an extreme but recognisable example of what is for many women the first hurdle of ageing. The text acknowledges the extent to which for some ‘empty nest syndrome’ is a devastating experience, marking in their own minds the end of their useful life. In this most powerful section of Lisa’s narrative, the reader is taken on a poignant journey through the selfless ministrations of motherhood which nurture and shelter the growing child, only to end in a place of dispossession and paralysis. The image of the South American women protesting on the streets because

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Emily Jeremiah, ‘The Hand that Rocks the Cradle: Maternity, Agency and Community in Women’s Writing in German of the 1970s and 1980s’, German Life and Letters, 55 (2002), 75-90 (p. 76). See also, by the same author, Troubling Maternity: Mothering, Agency, and Ethics in Women’s Writing in German of the 1970s and 1980s (London: MHRA, 2003). 13 Jessica Benjamin, The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination (London: Virago, 1988), p. 23.

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their sons have ‘disappeared’, perhaps having been incarcerated, is viewed by Lisa as emblematic of every mother’s fate. Through the distortion of bereavement she sees the world not as a place of opportunity for her children, but as a prison: ‘haben wir nicht alle unsere Kinder im Gefängnis der Welt verloren?’ (RH 62) [‘have we not all lost our children in the prison of the world?’]. By portraying the vexed figure of Lisa as reduced rather than enriched by the experience of motherhood, Wyss addresses the paradox faced by many women who struggle with the constraints placed upon them by the mothering role, yet find their eventual freedom to be a disorienting and daunting stage in the ageing process. The final sentence of Lisa’s diary suggests that voicing her pain helps make her loneliness bearable. Having reached a position where she can confront and mourn her loss, Lisa begins to embrace the potential in later life for emotional repair and a new phase of existence, and so this section ends with a modest but tenable affirmation. Martha, the second and most prominent narrator of Das rote Haus, appears to be Lisa’s opposite both in personality and experience. Confident, effusive and well-travelled, she has led an eventful and independent life as a journalist. Behind her energetic, slightly intimidating facade, however, is a lonely figure in a state of bereavement, not only for her recently deceased friend, but for herself, as through retirement she faces separation from the cultural community that has defined her. Two of Martha’s stories focus on memories from her working life. ‘Brasserie Hauptbahnhof Zürich’ portrays the uphill struggle for a working mother to combine a career with domestic responsibilities in the 1950s when maledominated professional hierarchies were incapable of accommodating women, who could not display their affiliations through association lapel badges as men did. While the story describes a successful career path despite the odds, it ends on a rather bleak note of female isolation in a male environment, suggesting that the narrator still harbours bitterness about the gender inequality which prevented her from achieving full recognition for her abilities. ‘Der Korridor’, the longest of Martha’s stories, draws the reader into the pressurised realm of newspaper production,14 describing with warmth and pride the heyday of the narrator’s career when she is given responsibility for her own department, a period marked by journalistic

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The reviewer for the Tages-Anzeiger recognises in the novel a description of her own newspaper, for which Wyss worked from 1962 to 1979. See Rea Brändle, ‘Eine gute, bedächtige Art, die Dinge anzupacken’, Tages-Anzeiger, 30 November 1982.

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idealism, teamwork and mutual respect between writers and technicians. Yet with the passage of time Martha becomes increasingly aware of the subtle pressure to conform to management expectations, and of the shifting focus from the aims of scrupulous journalism to those of a profitoriented business. The advent of computers brings an estrangement from the trusted tools and methods of the trade, and in addition to technological innovation writers must reconcile themselves to a growing expectation of political correctness which forces them to consider both sides of every argument and blunts the force of their most incisive reporting. Attaining an ever more negative energy, the story concludes with a prophecy of doom: ‘Viele merkten nicht, daß es das Ende des journalistischen Handwerks ist, wenn keiner mehr seine Meinung vertreten darf.’ (RH 133) [‘Many did not notice that it’s the end of journalism as a trade when no one is allowed to express their opinion any more.’] Here Wyss captures the attitude of those who unconsciously seek to make their retirement more bearable by exaggerating unwelcome developments in their beloved profession. Through her cynical stance Martha dulls the pain of bereavement by distancing herself from an occupation she claims no longer to recognise.15 Her litany of complaints diverts attention from the ending of a way of life to which she was passionately committed, and marks a phase of denial which delays the more painful stage of coming to terms with her loss. Both these tales of reminiscence about working life reflect Wyss’s awareness of the complex grieving process triggered by retirement. In an interview in 1995 she stated: ‘Jedes Zurücktreten von einem Beruf ist ein Schlag. Man verliert dadurch das Eingebettetsein und die soziale Umgebung ändert sich.’16 [‘Giving up a job is always a blow. One feels uprooted and one’s social environment changes.’] This recognition that employment goes hand-in-hand with issues of selfdefinition, security and social status is essential to Wyss’s portrayal of her protagonist’s mourning for the lost plenitude of purpose, collegiality and connectedness. The third challenge of ageing with which Wyss engages in Das rote Haus is the death of one’s own generation. Significantly positioned at the centre of the work, Martha’s moving story ‘Die Tiefgarage’ [‘The Underground Car Park’] concerns the narrator’s response to the death of a

 15

Marianne Vogt, ‘“Rückwärts lesen.” Laure Wyss: Das rote Haus’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 24 December 1982, draws attention to Wyss’s personal disappointment and bitterness, as well as to the social criticism expressed in this work. 16 Silvia Schäfer, ‘Eine Frau, die gegen den Strom schwimmt’, Bieler Tageblatt, 25 January 1995.

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close friend. The piece begins with the startling assertion: ‘Tote muß man sehen. Sie wollen es. Sonst sind sie vielleicht gar nicht tot.’ (RH 92). [‘You must see dead people. They want you to. Otherwise they might not be dead at all.’] These statements give voice to Martha’s uncertainty at the beginning of a grief process in which the first reaction is one of disbelief. The need to see her friend’s body, and the notion that she is still in some form of dialogue with him, evince an appeal for help to take in the reality of death. This story differs profoundly from the two discussed above in that it depicts a healthier response to loss and change, one which moves organically from shock and protest on the part of the narrator to the acknowledgement of grief and the redefining of her identity. The early outpouring ‘Alles fing bei ihm an, alles endete bei ihm’ (RH 93) [‘Everything started with him, everything ended with him’] reveals the intimacy of this longstanding relationship in which two individuals share a deep and unique connection despite leading separate lives. In a story in which figurative language is used to considerable effect, the association in Martha’s mind of Georg with rivers suggests his energy and life-sustaining qualities. It is a darker symbol, however, which forms the title of the piece and underpins Martha’s response to the bereavement that awaits her. The underground car park is a shadowy and intimidating place that functions as a metaphor for Hades, and the evening on which Martha drives Georg back to collect his car there proves to be her last parting with him before his death. He allays her anxiety by describing carefully the route back up to the safety of the street, including more than ample detail to ensure her safe passage and even explaining the location of the emergency button to reactivate the door, should it unexpectedly close behind him as she follows him up. Georg’s reassuring consideration of Martha on this and other similar occasions becomes fixed in her mind as a bolstering and liberating experience, from which memory she is able to draw strength for the future. At the end of the story she affirms: ‘Es ist so, wie wenn mir seit seiner Begleitung in entsetzliche Betonkeller und wieder aus ihnen heraus alles leichter zufallen würde.’ (RH 103) [‘It seems as if, after he accompanied me into dreadful concrete cellars and back out of them again, everything would be easier.’] Ultimately, therefore, Georg’s death functions as a catalyst for change in Martha’s life. Rather than fearing the prospect of facing the world diminished or alone, despite her grief she senses that her friend has given her the confidence to move on, fortified by his affirmation of her ability to make the right choices and live positively. Following Martha’s eight stories is a brief postscript in which she confesses her frustration at the apparently random, unconnected nature of her musings, yet at the same time she recognises the value of recording her

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thoughts about recent events as a means of freeing herself from negativity and looking to the future: Die Blätter helfen mir, weiterzugehen, weiterzuhoffen, Zufällen vertrauend, Traurigkeiten ertragend. Man muß wissen, wie es war. So wird Zukünftiges, so unklar und kurz es auch immer sein mag, lebbar. Rückwärts lesen, auch in Verwirrung, schafft Raum. (RH 158) [The pages help me to keep going, to keep hoping, trusting chance, enduring sadness. One has to know what it was like. In that way the future, however unclear and short it may be, becomes liveable. Reading backwards, even in confusion, creates space.]

In this sense Martha’s stories become narratives of recovery, a means of coming to terms with the loss of both a career and a deep friendship, and of contemplating older age with dignity and resilience. For Martha, as for many, grief manifests itself as ‘the expression of the conflict between the contradictory impulses to preserve all that is valuable, while reestablishing a meaningful pattern of life’. 17 In the arduous process of finding a reconciled relationship with her past that is the chief purpose of her writing project, this conflict between holding on to and letting go of precious aspects of her identity is ever present. The title of one review of the work, ‘Frauen blicken zurück nach vorn’ [‘Women look back ahead’],18 conveys this idea that those who have suffered pain must reach an accommodation with the past in order to move on productively with life. Compared to the first narrator Lisa, Martha’s mode of self-expression is in some respects more measured and coherent, and the wording of her postscript conveys a strong sense that she will be able to move on from mourning and recover an integrated sense of self. Nonetheless Martha’s greater articulacy and broader scope of experience also betokens a deeper cognisance of the demanding test of ageing which impinges on all aspects of human agency. Das rote Haus draws to a close with the words of the third narrator Kristina. Marking a contrast with the perspective of her two friends, her thoughts take the form of a letter intended primarily for Lisa, but merging occasionally into the plural form of address to include Martha also. Kristina’s choice of the epistolary mode is less introspective than Lisa’s

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Sheila Payne, Sandra Horn and Marilyn Relf, Loss and Bereavement (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999), p. 68. 18 Doris Tanner, ‘Frauen blicken zurück nach vorn. Laure Wyss’ Roman Das rote Haus’, Der Landbote, 14 May 1983.

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diary or Martha’s ‘album pages’. Its style signifies a desire to communicate with others, and the recounting of inconsequential news in its early pages is evidence of Kristina’s identity, firmly rooted in both her local community and extended family. The losses she has suffered, while no less difficult than those of Lisa or Martha, are not foregrounded with the same intensity or self-absorption. Kristina too has come to the end of her professional life as a violin-maker, and furthermore she has had to learn to manage chronic pain. Despite the debility emanating from an unnamed illness, however, she is resolutely pragmatic and fails to comprehend the preoccupation of others with their own mortality: ‘Ich verstehe nicht, daß du dir Sorgen machst, wie es weitergehen soll. Ich denke nicht über mein Alter nach.’ (RH 165) [‘I don’t understand why you worry about what’s going to happen next. I don’t think about my age.’] Having perfected the art of living in the moment by focusing on domestic tasks, and of generating the goodwill of others by practising tolerance and generosity, she insulates herself against loneliness and inactivity. To a degree therefore Kristina’s uncomplicated, apparently resilient manner offers an antidote to the introversion of the two other women, yet there is an ambivalence about her character that renders it untenable to assert that her approach is somehow better. A repeated motif of Kristina’s narrative is her impatience with her two friends’ protracted self-enquiry: ‘Ihr braucht zu viele Wörter für ein einziges Leben’ (RH 168) [‘You use too many words for a single life’]. This sentiment may be read as a criticism of a cultural obsession with psychological analysis and therapy, as the modest response of a level-headed and mature individual to the affectations of others who seem incapable of getting on with life. On the other hand, however, Kristina’s refusal to think about the future, or to engage candidly with aspects of her own loss, perhaps suggest a denial of the ageing process. Thus at the end of the book Wyss leaves the reader with an element of uncertainty. All three women are fundamentally good but flawed individuals, each with her own strategy for coping with pain and bereavement, but there is no template for success, no inspirational behaviour to be emulated. The four themes of termination explored in Das rote Haus, namely the end of motherhood, of a career, of relationships, and of health, encapsulate the essential predicaments of ageing and function as a prelude to death. The book offers a snapshot of the three women at a juncture where these issues are still quite raw, reflecting Wyss’s own state of mind at the time of writing. While the interest of the novel is maintained by the juxtaposition of different characters with compelling life stories, there is a distinct lack of heartening images of succour or recuperation. In retrospect

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Wyss acknowledged the negativity of this work, recognising that the creative process had been cathartic for her personally, even if the end product bespoke a struggle with despair. Indeed it is as if the book’s publication figuratively closed a dark chapter in the author’s experience, giving way to greater optimism. In October 1982 she wrote: ‘Offensichtlich habe ich doch das Depressive im Roten Haus abgelegt und geniesse nun den Aufwind kolossal.’19 [‘Clearly I got rid of the depressive feeling in the Red House and am now enjoying the fresh impetus enormously.’] A few weeks later, on a tour of interviews to promote the new work, she asserted a positive message in her material that arguably was coloured by her private process of coming to terms with ageing, rather than strictly reflecting the somewhat cheerless impact of Das rote Haus itself: Es erweist sich, dass das Altwerden nicht als Problem einzupacken, zu zerlegen oder gar zu lösen sei, sondern dass sich das gelebte Leben nur heftig jetzt auf die drei Frauen stürzt und dazu beiträgt, dass sie leben.20 [It turns out that growing old is not a problem to be wrapped up, or analysed, or even solved, but that the life they have led only now hits the three women with intense force and helps them to prevail.]

Demonstrating the benefit of some distance, this interpretation indicates Wyss’s increasing composure in mediating the boundary between life and death, and anticipates her subsequent literary reflections on the subject of age. Although the preoccupation with age-related themes is a thread which runs throughout Wyss’s writing, it is not until many years later that it returns as the main focus of another work. Gathered from newspaper columns and radio broadcasts in 1998 and 1999, the contents of Schuhwerk im Kopf und andere Geschichten (2000) demonstrate the author’s remarkable vitality and self-possession near the end of her long life. The style of these twelve stories about old age, as one critic has noted, is ruthlessly honest, succinct and unpretentious, yet at the same time hopeful and plucky. 21 This resolute, rational approach differentiates the

 19

Letter (unpublished) to Peter Keckeis, 1 October 1982, Swiss Literary Archive, Berne. 20 Klara Obermüller, ‘Ein Ort, hinzugehen. Roman dreier Frauen: Das rote Haus von Laure Wyss’, Weltwoche, 3 November 1982. 21 See Charles Linsmayer, ‘“Ich bin so alt, wie ich alt sein will”’, Der Bund, 4 March 2000.

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text from the more emotional, perplexed discourse of Das rote Haus, and illustrates the writer’s progress in the revision of her own emotional history. The pithy narratives which make up the collection – many of them, at little over two pages, almost epigrammatic in mode – represent some of the best examples of Wyss’s creative work. Moreover the credibility of these pieces is underpinned by the fact that their author, in her late eighties, is acutely aware of time’s lengthening shadow. Setting the tone for the volume as a whole, the titles of the first two pieces communicate an approach that is both robust and reflective. ‘Ich bin jetzt alt’ [‘I am old now’] expresses frustration with the linguistic and social conventions that circumvent the reality of old age through euphemisms and patronising compliments, and stubbornly asserts the right to non-conformity to expected behaviour patterns, such as assuming the role of sage adviser. ‘Bin ich nichts anderes mehr als alt?’ [‘Am I no longer anything other than old?’] is more poignant in tenor, pondering the dehumanising effect on old people of being categorised by the younger population as ‘eine Last, eine Bedrohung’ (SK 11) [‘a burden, a threat’]. Wyss’s preference for rhetorical questions is foregrounded again in ‘Ist jede Schwäche schwach?’ [‘Is every weakness weak?’], a compassionate story about an eminent man who begins to fall prey to minor episodes of senility and sees his independence and self-esteem slip away. Written from the perspective of a younger woman who wants to spare her friend his embarrassment at having lost his way in the city, the tale highlights the efforts of caring individuals to compensate for the vulnerability of the old, but demarcates the limits of human ingenuity to counter the devastating power of mental deterioration. Resisting a sense of defeat, however, the narrator in hindsight recognises the greater possibilities inherent in embracing rather than withstanding the onset of a changed state of awareness, and ends her tale on a signally humane and magnanimous note: ‘aus der Schwäche entstehen neue Namen, andere Kräfte, eine unerwartete Welt’ (SK 18) [‘From weakness there emerge new names, different strengths, an unexpected world’]. .

Notwithstanding the thinness of the volume, Schuhwerk im Kopf displays a wide palette of themes and captures multiple nuances of mood associated with the ageing process. From the indefatigable pragmatism of ‘Wer wäscht mir den Rücken?’ [‘Who will wash my back?’], which takes the physical limitations of old age firmly in its stride, through the philosophical musings of ‘Sine molestia – ohne Kummer’ [‘Sine molestia – without sorrow’], in which the narrator considers the sayings of Cicero and Cato the Elder on ageing, to the more unsettling ‘Die Anstalt’ [‘The

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Institution’], which enters the darker world of advanced dementia, Wyss runs the gamut of the ageing experience with frankness and tenacity. ‘Die Anstalt’, the shortest piece of all, is notable for its power of expression through concision. Densely packed with allusions to both Wyss’s individual and cultural history, the tale evokes memories of her mother’s past kindness to residents of a home for the elderly, and reveals the narrator’s feelings of guilt at seeing this figure of altruism end her days in the same institution. The piece moves on from the personal context, however, to conclude on a broader humanitarian note. Shifting the focus to a building that houses deeply disturbed individuals who constantly cry out, the writer again employs a questioning device to probe unpalatable truths: ‘Schrien sie das Elend des Lebens hinaus, auch für alle andern, die stumm geworden waren?’ (SK 16) [‘Were they crying out the distress of life, also for all those who had fallen silent?’] Readers familiar with Wyss’s other work will recognise here echoes of her profound lifelong engagement with the victims of National Socialism, first activated as a young woman working in Sweden with the Scandinavian resistance movement.22 While the legacy of the Second World War is not specifically referenced, it is subsumed in a universal statement of compassionate recognition of all who suffer. The somewhat longer title piece of the collection is one which plays imaginatively with a Germanic stereotype to address the sensitive question of preparedness for death. Recalling the parental insistence on always having appropriate footwear before setting out on uncertain terrain, ‘Schuhwerk im Kopf’ queries this dogma, suggesting that for one’s final journey it is more important to be ready mentally than to be well-shod. In the narrator’s dream the cobbler Oswald, to whom as a child she brought her shoes for repair, becomes the ferryman who can be trusted to transport his passengers safely to another shore where shoes are no longer significant. If this story seems untypically reassuring or ethereal, it is counterbalanced by the more disquieting final piece of the collection. In ‘Einbruch in den Juni’ [‘Breaking into June’] an elderly woman reconstructs her experience of being mugged on the street, an incident that leaves her not only with physical injuries, but with mental scars that heal less easily. The rawness of this closing piece, which characteristically ends on a question highlighting the pain and helplessness of the individual in an

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Wyss spent the years 1937 to 1942 in Stockholm translating sermons and other documents from Swedish, Norwegian and Danish into German for the Swiss theological publisher Arthur Frey.

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uncaring world, illustrates Wyss’s refusal to act as a purveyor of soothing words and upbeat endings.23 Far from being a little book of comforting thoughts for the old, therefore, this volume faces up squarely to the challenges of ageing, embracing the positive where it is to be found, but eschewing glib answers for troubling issues. Laure Wyss’s process of ‘learning to be old’ is firmly grounded on two fundamental principles which can be drawn from her widely publicised interview with Moritz Leuenberger in the year before her death. The first is the requirement for acceptance of old age: ‘Ich wehre mich dagegen, dass man sagt: ältere Leute. Wir müssen dazu stehen: Wir sind alt.’ (PSA 31) [‘I resist the use of the term “elderly people”. We have to face up to it: we are old.’] The second is the conviction that the dignity of the old must be prioritised: ‘Ich möchte nicht, dass man von uns verlangt, dass wir um die Würde des Alters ringen.’ (PSA 31) [‘I do not want us to be expected to fight for the dignity of old age.’] All the figures in Wyss’s literary works considered here are depicted as engaged in a process related to one of these two issues. Some are in denial of their increasing age and of the pain concomitant with retirement and bereavement. Others contend with the loss of confidence and self-worth brought by increasing physical or mental incapacity. In Das rote Haus and Schuhwerk im Kopf Wyss approaches these challenges in different ways: at first hesitantly, as if cognisant of the dilemmas, but unsure of a way forward, then in the later work more decisively, demonstrating reconciliation to her own vulnerability and a desire to affirm the value of the individual coming to terms with the latter stage of life. When asked in a newspaper interview in 1993 whether in old age she had lost any of her former pugnacity and become less assertive in expressing her views, Wyss replied: Nei, nei, gar nid. Das Alter ist die dezidierteste Phase des Lebens. Man wird radikaler. Die Dinge, die einem wichtig sind, vertritt man entschiedener.24 [No, no, not at all. Old age is the most determined phase of life. You become more radical. You are more resolute in standing up for the things that are important to you.]

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See Beatrice Eichmann-Leutenegger, ‘Verweigerungen. Schuhwerk im Kopf, Geschichten von Laure Wyss’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 22 March 2000, and Dora Meschini, ‘Klartext über das Altwerden. Zum Erzählband Schuhwerk im Kopf von Laure Wyss’, Solothurner Zeitung, 3 March 2000. 24 Thomas Eidinger, ‘“Im Alter wird man radikal”’, Blick, 19 June 1993.

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Having decided after retiring from journalism to write about what she knew, Wyss focused on the lives of women and created protagonists who shared some form of outsider status, whether through social exclusion, loneliness or age. While it was not the sole interest of a writing career in which the journalist’s drive to probe difficult themes constantly reasserted itself, the subject of age was central to Wyss’s thinking, and she became arguably the most articulate and noteworthy literary advocate for the aged of her generation. As her protagonists in Das rote Haus and Schuhwerk im Kopf revisit and revise the emotional sites of their loss, mourning is worked through and transformed into art, but it is an uncompromising, gritty form of art that does not tire of asking uncomfortable questions and remains true to the creed of an author who refused to die quietly.

AS TIME GOES BY: OLD AGE AND THE ELDERLY IN MARIA JUDITE DE CARVALHO’S SETA DESPEDIDA JULIET PERKINS

The Portuguese writer Maria Judite de Carvalho (1921-1998) put at the heart of her work themes that reflected her personal qualities of discretion and self-containment, her experience of solitude, her invisibility in public life. In the spare prose of eight volumes of short stories, a novel, a novella, and a quantity of newspaper columns, published from 1988 to 1995, she painted the restrained, understated lives of the middle class in the dingy, stagnant environment of Salazar’s New State. Constant themes are those of solitude, the passage of time, misunderstandings, missed opportunities, departures and farewells, illness and old age. Her last collection of short stories, Seta Despedida [‘An Arrow Loosened’], published in 1995, may be considered a summation of her work. As the title suggests, once the arrow of life is shot, its trajectory is irreversible. In the twelve concise texts are contained the banal, anonymous, unfulfilled lives of mainly female characters, to whom death (whether literal or figurative) is imminent. As unflinchingly as in her earlier prose, Carvalho lays bare the minutiae of isolation and disorientation, the choices that have contributed to the solitariness of old age. In analysing the stories featuring identifiably old people, this chapter questions the peculiarity or otherwise of Carvalho’s vision to a Portugal that threw off the dictatorship in 1974, and argues that her depiction of old age points to an experience that may be universal to contemporary urban Europe.

In Maria Judite de Carvalho’s short story ‘George’, from Seta Despedida [‘An Arrow Loosened’], published in 1995, a successful middle-aged woman painter, the eponymous George, has a hallucinatory encounter: À sua frente uma senhora de idade, primeiro esboçada, finalmente completa, olha-a atentamente. De idade não, George detesta eufemismos, mesmo só pensados, uma mulher velha.1

 1

Maria Judite de Carvalho, ‘George’, in Seta Despedida, 2nd edn (Mem Martin: Publicações Europa-América, 1995), p. 40. All further quotations are from this

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This woman, Georgina, is the future seventy-year-old George, to whom she gives her perspective on the passing of time and of troubles, and remarks that there is one unpardonable crime, old age. She sets out what is in store: Um dia vai acordar na sua casa mobilada [...] E verá que está só e olhará para o espelho com mais atenção e verá que está velha. Irremediavelmente velha. [...] Outro dia vai reparar, ou talvez já tenha dado por isso, que está a ver pior, e outro ainda que as mãos lhe tremem. E, se for um pouco sensata, ou se souber olhar em volta, descobrirá que este mundo já não lhe pertence, é dos outros, dos que julgam que Baden Powell é um tipo que toca guitarra e que Levi Strauss é uma marca de calças. (SD 42) [One day, you’ll wake up in your furnished home […] And you’ll see that you are alone and you’ll look more closely in the mirror and see that you are old. Irremediably old. Another day, you’ll notice, or perhaps you already have, that your sight is not as good, and another day that your hands tremble. And, if you’re the least bit rational, or if you’re able to look around you, you’ll discover that this world doesn’t belong to you any more, it belongs to others, those who think that Baden Powell is a guy that plays the guitar and that Levi Strauss is a brand of jeans.]

Taking Georgina’s words as a starting point, in this chapter I would like to explore Carvalho’s unflinching and decidedly uneuphemistic gaze at those who are alone and nearing their life’s end. Because she is an author little known outside Portuguese-speaking academic circles, and Seta Despedida, the last collection of stories published in her lifetime, is all of a piece with her fiction as a whole, some information about her may be helpful. When she died in January 1998, aged seventy-six, her published work comprised eight volumes of short stories – the first having appeared in 1959, the last in 1995 – a novel, a novella, and two volumes of newspaper columns (crónicas). She left ready to go to press, a collection of poems and a play, both of which were published in October 1998. Despite being hailed at her death as one of the most important Portuguese women writers of the twentieth century,2 an insistent leitmotif appeared among the praise:



edition, referred to in the text in brackets as SD followed by page numbers. Translations of all texts throughout are my own. 2 She was awarded literary prizes for As Palavras Poupadas [‘Words Withheld’], 1961 (Prémio Camilo Castelo Branco); Este Tempo [‘This Time’], 1991 (Prémio

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that her fiction was little known by the general public, although the crónicas, written under a pseudonym, were widely read. In the telling phrase of her contemporary, the novelist Agustina Bessa-Luís, Carvalho was ‘uma flor discreta’ [‘a discreet flower’] in Portuguese literarature.3 ‘Discreet’ is an adjective that applies not only to her prose style, but also to her profile as an author and to her behaviour. Her reticence and selfeffacement vis-à-vis literary circles and attendant publicity doubtless contributed to her invisibility on the bookshelves. As regards her private self, this was surely moulded by her early circumstances. The child of parents who left Portugal soon after her birth to set up life in Belgium, she was brought up from earliest infancy in Lisbon by her paternal uncle and aunt. A series of family deaths, including that of her mother, blighted her young years, and at the age of fifteen she was orphaned when her father was declared missing. After secondary education and a degree in Germanic Philology, she met her husband, the university lecturer and writer Urbano Tavares Rodrigues. Following their marriage in 1949 they went to live in France, for the first three years in Montpellier, where Rodrigues was Portuguese leitor [‘university language assistant’], and then in Paris, until 1955. Their only daughter was born in Lisbon in 1950, and remained in the care of Carvalho’s paternal grandparents. When the couple returned to Portugal, Carvalho worked for the women’s magazine Eva, first as a secretary, then as an editor, and finally as editor-in-chief.4 In the late 1960s, she became an editor on the women’s supplement of the daily newspaper, Diário de Lisboa. She also contributed regularly and with distinction to Diário de Notícias, Diário Popular, República and O Século. As a professional journalist, her demeanour in the newspaper office was the antithesis of flamboyant.5



da Crónica da Associação Portuguesa de Escritores); and Seta Despedida, 1995 (Prémio da Associação Internacional de Críticos Literários, Prémio Pen-Clube, Prémio Revista Máxima, Prémio da Associação Portuguesa de Autores); and for her lifetime’s work, the Prémio Vergílio Ferreira, awarded posthumously in 1998. 3 This was the title of Bessa-Luís’ tribute to Carvalho in Jornal de Letras, no. 712, 28 January – 10 February 1998; cited in Maria da Graça Fróis Costa, ‘La question de la souffrance féminine et ses modes de représentation chez Maria Judite de Carvalho’ p. 4 [accessed 28 March 2011]. 4 It was in this magazine that Carvalho had published her first short story in 1949, and then a series of columns, ‘Crónicas de Paris’ in 1953. 5 The novelist José Cardoso Pires, her colleague at the Diário de Lisboa, himself an ebullient personality, recalled her as detached from the activity and people around her, and said that he had only once seen her happy. Dicionário Cronológico de Autores Portugueses, vol. V (Lisbon: Europa-América, 1998) [accessed 8 April 2011]. 6 Maria Judite de Carvalho, ‘Tanta Gente, Mariana’, in Tanta Gente, Mariana, 6th edn (Mem Martins: Publicações Europa-América, 1988) subsequently referred to as TGM followed by the page number.

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miscarried and destroyed any possibility of her bearing further children), is prefaced by a remarkable simile to describe the process of abandonment: A minha vida é como um tronco a que foram secando todas as folhas e depois, um após outro, todos os ramos. Nem um ficou. E agora vai cair por falta de seiva. (TGM 19). [My life is like the trunk of a tree whose leaves all gradually died off, to be followed by its branches, one by one, till none have remained. And now the trunk is about to collapse through lack of sap.]

The other stories convey a similar emptiness and disappointment. It is difficult to give their true flavour through the plot because, whilst the events and incidents are (except in two cases) slight and banal, the psychology of the ordinary, unexciting and reticent protagonists is dense and complex. ‘A Vida e o Sonho’ [‘Life and Dream’], for example, concerns a mediocre, simple clerk who could have become a travelling salesman, a train mechanic, or a sailor but wasn’t any of these things ‘porque nós não nos fazemos, somos construídos pelas circunstâncias’ (TGM 57) [‘because we do not make ourselves, we are constructed by circumstances’]. Placed at the age of thirteen as a messenger boy in a bank, his zeal and conscientiousness slowly but surely entrap him in its great machine. He turns into a methodical man, ‘com sonhos impossíveis mas nenhumas ambições’ (TGM 58) [‘with impossible dreams but no ambitions’]. However, far from going every Sunday to a football match, as his wife believes, he goes to the docks or the airport. His motives are complex and uncertain, for he does not go to see the passengers, ships or planes, but to experience something more inchoate. When he watches a ship disappear, ‘O que ele sentia era uma grande dor por essa pessoa, ele próprio, ter ficado’ (TGM 59) [‘What he felt was great pain at that person, himself, having stayed behind’]. Ironically, when he is offered the chance to head a branch office in Africa, he turns the job down, without knowing why, without even consulting his wife who, equally ironically, had previously expressed the wish to be warm, like in Africa. He surmises that he is one of those people who dream and live at the same time, and he had got used to that. ‘Agora era tarde, demasiado tarde. Já não saberia viver um sonho’ (TGM 61) [‘Now it was too late, much too late. He was no longer able to live a dream’]. As this story illustrates, the circumstances that construct a person are interior as much as exterior. The pathos and the irony of ‘too late’ is repeated in ‘O Passeio no Domingo’ [‘The Sunday Outing’]. A married book-keeper, Marcelino, whose life has been as dull and circumscribed as that of any Dickensian clerk, is asked by his colleague one Spring day to come on his habitual

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Sunday outing with two prostitutes. This prospect triggers Marcelino’s memory of a similar occasion in his early twenties. On that carefree day, a girl named Ilda had sung a fado and they had begun an affair that had ended only when Marcelino met the chaste young girl he would marry. Absorbed in pleasant anticipation of the forthcoming outing, Marcelino walks into the path of a lorry and is killed. At the moment of death, his thoughts are of Ilda and her singing. Only his wife and employer accompany the coffin to the cemetery the following Sunday. His colleague, Alberto, did not feel moved to alter his usual plans for the day. ‘Desencontro’ [‘Failure to Meet’] is a paradigmatic tale of emotional differences between the sexes. Duarte, studying in Paris for the past ten years, returns to Lisbon for his yearly fortnight with the family. In melancholy mood, he welcomes for the first time the solid, quiet routine which he had been only too glad to escape in the first place. He even starts to notice an old family friend, Luísa, seeing a huge difference between the woman of thirty-three she has become and the girl of seventeen with whom he’d had a mild flirtation. When his mother mentions that Luísa has always loved him, he dismisses it as the product of her over-active imagination. He is irritated, too, by her recommendation of Luísa as ‘a good girl’. The seed has been sown – or else the moment is propitious – and he starts thinking of marriage. Deliberately running into her as she leaves work, they go for tea and he proposes. She replies, ‘Quero […] Mas tu, quererás de facto casar comigo?’ (TGM 109) [‘I do […] But do you really want to marry me?’]. After listening to him talk about his life and prospects, she revisits her past: her innocence at the age of seventeen even though she tried to appear sophisticated and flirtatious; her refusal to go to his parents’ house in Sintra knowing they were absent and then, when he went abroad to study, her regret that she had not done so; her high hopes every year when he returned for the holidays, only to find that he never made an approach until, nearing thirty, she resolved to find someone for herself. Pragmatically, she remarks: ‘Talvez o amor nas mulheres seja mais elástico e mais passivo do que nos homens. Eles escolhem, nós quase sempre vimos a gostar de quem nos escolheu’ (TGM 110) [‘Perhaps love in women is more elastic and passive than in men. They choose, we almost always come to like the one who has chosen us’].7 When she finishes her brief narrative of two relationships, Duarte can only stutter: ‘Ouve, eu …’

 7

Her use of the adjective ‘elástico’ is highly ironic. When she had refused his invitation to go to his parents’ unoccupied house in Sintra, Duarte had called her ‘bota de elástico’. An elastic-sided boot, such as those worn by the dictator Salazar, came to stand for anyone ultra-conservative, and as here, uptight in matters of sexual propriety.

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(TGM 111) [‘Listen, I …’]. Knowing that there is nothing to hear or say, Luísa rushes out of the café and Duarte returns to Paris soon afterwards. Another tale of disappointment is ‘A Mãe’ [‘The Mother’]. A childless married woman lacks for nothing materially but the quiet current of her life is a sign of apathy not contentment, and her husband is no companion to her. Surviving a serious illness at the age of nearly forty, her critical spirit awakes and becomes directed at him: ‘Era um homem, um simples homem, um pobre homem rico que seguia pela vida fora acorrentado pelas circunstâncias que criara, colado à sua riqueza, obrigado a guardá-la, a aumentá-la, sem saber porquê nem para quê’ (TGM 76) [‘He was just an ordinary man, a poor rich man who went through his whole life chained to the circumstances he’d created, glued to his wealth, forced to keep and increase it, without knowing why nor for what purpose’]. Predictably, she falls for the attentions of an interesting man. The brief affair comes to a brutal end when her lover reveals it as a belated act of revenge on her husband who, years before, had been his rival for another woman. The scene of confrontation à trois planned by the lover (who had arranged to have the husband summoned home from work by an urgent message) is aborted when the wife quietly slits her wrists. As her life ebbs away, she can find no energy to say a few cutting words but merely sinks on to the sofa, asks her lover to leave and, reverting to the habits of married life, waits for her husband to come home from the office. In this story, which has all the familiar elements of a nineteenth-century tragedy of adultery, Carvalho denies the wife any grandeur or defiance. As Maria Manuel Lisboa points out in a wider context, her tragic heroines ‘are fit neither for tragedy nor for heroism, since she almost invariably offers centre stage in her writing to shadowy characters by definition more suited to roles in a supporting cast who are patently unequipped for the pathos which overtakes them.’8 ‘A Menina Arminda’ [‘Miss Arminda’] shows the irrevocable damage of violence to women. Raped at the age of fourteen, the fatherless Arminda recovers neither physically or mentally. Unable to cope with the merest touch of the decent young man who proposes to her some years later, she plunges into a state of madness, terror and tears. Her mother cannot help in her hour of need: ‘A mãe chorava também, em silêncio, sem coragem mesmo para a tomar nos braços, receosa de a ferir ainda mais com qualquer palavra menos hábil’ (TGM 86) [‘Her mother cried too, lacking even the courage to take her in her arms, fearful of hurting her



8 Maria Manuel Lisboa, ‘The Importance of Being Ernesto’, Portuguese Studies, 12 (1996), 106-32 (pp. 118-19).

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further by some clumsy word’]. The years pass, her mother dies, Arminda spends her time thinking about children, until the opportunity arises to snatch a baby boy from the park. She experiences two days and nights of happiness before the police arrive. Entwined in her life is an uncommunicative but complicit old servant who keeps her suspicions to herself. Loyalty combined with moral confusion erupt into tears as the police remove the baby from Arminda’s arms. As one of the men retorts: ‘Se tinhas tanta pena da criança, por que não falaste?’ (TGM 90) [‘If you felt so sorry for the child, why didn’t you say something?’] ‘Noite de Natal’ [‘Christmas Night’] is a powerful tragedy. Emília commits manslaughter on her hated father, an abusive drunkard who, on Christmas Night, threatens his wife with a hot poker. Mother and daughter, previously uncommunicative and hostile to each other, collaborate to bury the body under the floor of the cowshed. As the days and months pass, they draw closer in other ways: the passive, mousy mother becomes more decisive; the pretty daughter rapidly loses her bloom and becomes depressed. Increasingly unkempt, they shut themselves off from neighbours, and are hardly visited by the married son. With relief rather than sadness, Emília breaks off with her boyfriend, away on military service. They are consumed by their fear and take to sleeping in the same bed. One day, they have a long conversation, the first they have ever had, and shortly afterwards hang themselves. What strikes the reader today, apart from the human degradation, is the discreet contextualising of a Portugal lacking the social welfare and health agencies familiar in 1950s Western Europe. The only support mechanisms are those of family and neighbours, which the women reject. Their decline is an individual problem, not a concern of the state. If I have lingered on these examples from Carvalho’s earliest collection of stories, it is to map out what is typical of the inner and outer worlds of her characters. They also show that, although the greater sufferers (particularly physically) are the women, men too are victims of repressed emotions, of society’s pressures, of failure to act or to communicate. Even when bound together, people cannot share each other’s worlds, as Mariana’s father pointed out. Although Carvalho does not make explicit political points, the isolation and ‘keeping to oneself’ reflect the stultifying atmosphere and lack of trust engendered over decades by Portugal’s authoritarian regime. Subsequent fiction repeatedly focused on everyday incidents, on uneventful, sad lives, lived in solitude even if among family and friends. Mostly, the characters understand they are unable to change their lives, so there is pessimism and bitterness. But, as Álvaro Manuel Machado points out, for all the emphasis on solitude,

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lack of communication and alienation, Carvalho avoids philosophical digression, ‘falando da solidão com extremo pudor irónico’ [‘speaking of solitude with an extremely ironic reticence’]. 9 This and the following comment, although made in respect of A Janela Fingida [‘The Fake Window’], remain pertinent to Seta Despedida, whose protagonists indeed have seen time go by: Apenas o apontamento fugidio, ao mesmo tempo leve e firme. Apenas o quase imperceptível, tragicamente e ironicamente quotidiano. O fugidio, sim, porque se bem que os temas destes textos como de outros de Maria Judite de Carvalho, seja múltiplos, o grande tema, sub-reptício e todopoderoso, é, para lá mesmo do tema da solidão, o do mistério do tempo.10 [There are just fleeting references, at once light and firm. Just the barely perceptible, tragically and ironically everyday. Fleeting, indeed, because although the themes of these texts, as of others by Maria Judite de Carvalho, are many, the great theme, surreptitious and all-powerful, above and beyond even that of solitude, is that of the mystery of time.]

José Manuel da Costa Esteves, one of the critics who has done most to direct academic attention to Carvalho, takes a similar line about Seta Despedida, linking the theme of solitude to that of the mystery of time, yet qualifying the latter as the mystery of the passage of time: A mistura de tempos, presente e passado, dá a impressão de um destino irreparável, como se alguma coisa fizesse mover as personagens no palco. No entanto, este pessimismo iluminado, em que a vida é uma espécie de antecipação da morte, como a plena consciência da efemeridade da vida, não exclui um sentido muito fino da ironia. [The mixture of tenses, present and past, gives the impression of an inescapable destiny, as if something was moving the actors on the stage. However, this blatant pessimism, in which life is a kind of anticipation of death, in the full consciousness of life’s ephemerality, is not without a very fine sense of irony.]11

 9

Álvaro Manuel Machado, A Novelística Portuguesa Contemporânea (Lisbon: ICALP, 1977), p. 61. 10 Machado, p. 62. 11 José Manuel da Costa Esteves, ‘Seta Despedida de Maria Judite de Carvalho: uma forma abreviada sobre a dificuldade de viver’, in Anne-Maria Quint (ed.), Le Conte en langue portugaise, Cahier No. 6, Centre de Recherches sur les Pays Lusophones-CREPAL (Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1999), pp. 69-78 (pp. 73-74).

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One may conjoin Machado’s ‘fleeting’ and Esteves’ ‘destiny’ by observing that Carvalho’s psychological interrogation of her characters is captured in snapshot moments, that fix actions and consequences for a whole lifetime. As if in recognition of the brevity of human time, they eschew description in favour of the essential moments and mistakes of life. This is apt material for both the short story and the crónica genres. As Esteves notes, there is in the latter, characteristically, the relating of small, disconnected incidents or facts, with the focus on what happens to the narrator, rather than an economical or compressed, narrative as in the short story.12 Given that in the texts of Seta Despedida, the frontier between Carvalho’s favoured genres of short story and crónica is barely demarcated, Esteves regards them as the summing-up and crowning of her previous work.13 As we can obviously surmise from the title of the volume, once the arrow of life has been shot from the bow, its trajectory is irreversible. The adjective ‘despedida’, however, is ambiguous: it can mean being dismissed (as from employment) as well as taking one’s leave. In Helena Carvalhão Buescu’s words, the resonances of these definitions ‘interagem mutuamente até não sabermos se quem parte se quer despedir ou foi apenas despedido. Mas sabemos que não volta […]’14 [‘mutually interact so that we no longer know whether the one who is leaving wishes to take leave, or was merely dismisssed. But we know that he or she will not return’]. From another angle, the speeding arrow functions as a metaphor for the reader’s reaction. As the textual arrow (the process of reading) flies past, merely a fleeting image is retained, its significance too elusive to capture. Only at the end is it realised that the target has been hit, that target which is the justification for the flight of the arrow. Contrary to its swift and linear passage through the air, the reading must backtrack, be repetitive, even circular. By the same token, Carvalho’s protagonists have to track the flight backwards through memory, to seek its origin, to explore cause and effect. As mentioned above, outside events contribute to solitude, especially the loss of family, friends, work colleagues and neighbours through the processes of relocation, illness and death. But here there is a conundrum, the chicken-and-egg question of whether rejection and loss produced loneliness, or whether the solitary individual initiated rejection and, hence, loneliness. Machado touched on this when he called solitude ‘simples e natural manifestação narcísica – pois, em última análise, toda a solidão é

 12

Esteves, pp. 74-75. Esteves, p. 75. 14 Helena Carvalhão Buescu, Chiaroscuro: Modernidade e Literatura (Porto: Campo das Letras, 2001), p. 306. 13

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essencialmente narcísica (mesmo a chamada “solidão social”)’ [‘a simple, natural manifestation of narcissism – since, in the final analysis, all solitude is essentially narcissistic (even so-called “social solitude”’], though he is careful to qualify this by contending that all introspection is inherently human.15 Certainly, the result of excessive self-analysis will be solitude. The lack of fulfilment in these stories is tragic, yet the incidents that bring the protagonists to a solitary old age are not necessarily so. Such incidents have become a habit (the seta despedida again), unrecognised at the time for the permanent effect they cause. With textual references that locate the stories close to their publication date (President George Bush, video-clubs, the disappearance of small, independently-owned shops, IT and database privacy, and contemporary medical concerns such as cholesterol and heart disease), it can be seen that the trappings of the late twentieth century surround characters who would have been well into their forties at the time of the 1974 Revolution and whose lives were fixed under the authoritarian Salazar and Caetano regimes of the Estado Novo [‘New State’]. The oldest of the characters is seventy, perhaps not now old in twenty-first-century Western Europe but indicative, nonetheless, of Portugal’s rapid evolution in terms of life expectancy between 1974 and 1995.16 According to statistics quoted by Alexandra Cristina Ramos da Silva Lopes, by 1991 those aged sixty-five or over made up 13.9% of the population (a rise from 7.98% in 1960). Life expectancy in 1960 for females was 66.4 (for males 60); by 1995, it had reached 78.6 (for males, 71.5).17 Although these statistics do not show the proportion of women to men in given age groups, females made up 51.8% of the population in 1991. Therefore, with female life expectancy increasingly outstripping that of men from 1960 to 1995, the tangible increase in that differential and the consequent preponderance of women

 15

Machado, pp. 61-62. According to António Barreto and Clara Valadas Preto, Portugal 1960/1995: Indicadores Sociais, Cadernos do Público (Lisbon: Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa e Público, 2009), p. 24, one of the most important populational factors during the period studied – which parallels the period of Carvalho’s publications – was its rapid ageing. 17 Alexandra Cristina Ramos da Silva Lopes, ‘Welfare Arrangements, Safety Nets and Familial Support for the Elderly in Portugal’, (unpublished PhD dissertation, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2006), pp. 286-89. Barreto (p. 24) also makes the point that ‘Esta diferença entre sexos é aliás considerada excessiva, quando comparada com a registada em outros países europeus’ [‘This difference between the sexes is, moreover, considered excessive in comparison with that registered in other European countries’]. 16

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among the over sixty-fives, would appear to be reflected in Seta Despedida’s ratio of ten female to two male protagonists. The preponderance of females, as elsewhere in Carvalho, thus encourages a gendered interpretation: it is tempting to regard the sadness, frustration and loneliness of old age as a female problem. Indeed, Maria da Graça Fróis Costa characterises these late texts as ‘la souffrance féminine’ [‘female suffering’]. In her opinion, the women see themselves as a quiverful of arrows, lodged in the memory, which are released by the tale told. 18 They suffer when confronted with the violence of illuminatory moments, when they confront the discovery of a life not chosen. When they can no longer carry on a dialogue with the world, they give up trying to make themselves understood and talk to themselves. The women are not victims of abuse, but of self-doubt and melancholy.19 Although I contend that the degree of physical and mental isolation in the Seta Despedida stories cannot entirely be due to the sex of the protagonists, the almost overnight change in 1974 to women’s legal status, to their professional and personal lives, especially the drive towards equality, both social and sexual, does not appear to have born fruit twenty years on. Although not necessarily quiescent or resigned mentally, Carvalho’s aged women exhibit a certain passivity. It is not that they have always been stay-at-home wives. Indeed, as throughout her fiction, many of the women have worked, earned their living, fended for themselves. Not all have had to set their lives to men’s clocks and routines. However, any self-determination achieved earlier in life has dwindled as they retire and enter old age. This distinct period, with its enforced alienation from the mainstream, is part of Georgina’s warning to George. As important, but less linked to socio-political factors, they do not have an interlocutor to hear their voice and keep them integrated in the world around them. Whilst increased sexual equality and improved rights of women in 1990s Portugal are not reflected in Seta Despedida, the status and condition of old age (intertwined with the change from a rural to an urban economy, such as the country underwent after the Revolution) are clearly signalled and resonate authenticity. In their anthopological study, A Identidade na Velhice, Susana de Matos Viegas and Catarina Antunes Gomes relate how, in common with elsewhere in developed Western Europe, old age in Portugal has come to be viewed through a negative prism. Old people are viewed as problematic because of declining powers; their acquired experience and wisdom is devalued because it is irrelevant

 18 19

Costa, p. 6. Costa, p. 10.

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to the demands of the modern world. However, the authors reject any modern nostalgia for a bucolised past in which the old were respected and socially valued, for the simple reason that their situation was never uniform or idyllic; they maintain that the old must be seen in relation to the dominant cultural ethos. 20 Their fieldwork-interviews with old but highly-skilled female weavers from a village in central Portugal are predicated on allowing the interviewer to remain an active, rather than an invisible presence, in order to construct the biography and identity of the interviewee. The narrative of a life is thus a communicative act.21 With due caution about applying anthropological processes to fiction, I would suggest that Carvalho’s protagonists lack interlocutors or interviewers with whom to maintain their identity. They relive their past on their own by the traditional process of calling up memories. It is not a communicative act in the present but a solitary recollection. On the face of it, Carvalho’s protagonists present a true picture of themselves, because (just as in the traditional interview scenario, where the interviewer is ideally forgotten), the subject talks to her- or himself, albeit via the third-person narrator. However, this solitary narration entrenches still further a lost identity. As Esteves notes, the characters’ inner life is always foregrounded, conveyed through monologue, the very indicator of inability to communicate and total isolation.22 Devoid of interaction and hence devoid of a sense of self that would enable them to live less pessimistically, they appear rootless and uninterested and the expression ‘construídos pelas circunstâncias’ [‘constructed by circumstances’] seems to indicate a purely negative outcome. Certainly, the old in Seta Despedida do not fondly mull over the past or share positive reminiscences with friends or a younger generation. When they look back to find connections with their present condition, it is usually involuntary, because sprung from the unforeseen. Where Machado’s perception in respect of narcissism (which militates against shared meanings and experiences) is less applicable to Seta Despedida is in not acknowledging society’s role in marginalising the old. In fact, Carvalho nuances the reasons for solitude: in addition to individual decisions and choices, she never lets the reader forget time’s contribution to erasing human relationships. That erasure denies the protagonists a confidant-e of whom to ask, ‘Who am I?’ In the stories to be discussed, three of the protagonists die alone of a heart attack, two have a close encounter with death, one is taken care of to

 20

Susana de Matos Viegas and Catarina Antunes Gomes, A Identidade na Velhice, Colecção Idade do Saber (Oporto: Ambar, 2007), pp. 29-30. 21 Viegas and Gomes, pp. 19-20. 22 Esteves, p. 72.

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the end, and just one continues living after a hopeful experience. 23 In ‘Sentido Único’ [‘One-Way Street’], the unnamed female protagonist, frequently wakeful at three in the morning and prey to strange uncertainties of sight and hearing, has not been able to talk of those slight things in her life because she has never found the right interlocutor. It is she who has listened to others, passively: ‘Ela funcionara sempre como um bom gravador.’(SD 102) [‘She had always functioned like a good tape recorder’]. When she activates the recorder, people come back to life. This is a woman whose entire family has died young. Likewise, ‘Os amigos certos e os amores eternos também tido fins semelhantes. Mas talvez fosse melhor dizer – pensar – que se tenham fundido como lâmpadas’ (SD 10203) [‘True friends and eternal loves had also met similar ends. But perhaps one should rather say – or think – that they were like lightbulbs that had blown’]. Their disappearance from one moment to the next gives her the impression that surviving means ‘de estar a mais num território que já não lhe pertencia’ (SD 103) [‘being superfluous in a territory that doesn’t belong to her any more’] – words that chime with Georgina’s warning to George – especially when retirement is equivalent to being forgotten. Like the desiccated tree of ‘Tanta gente, Mariana’, her present physical state, like a fossil, bears little relation to the woman she once was. Although she buys a newspaper now and again, she wonders if her long-dead father also had that feeling, ‘do já não ter nada a ver, ou tão pouco, com o mundo onde morava’ (SD 104) [‘of no longer having anything, or very little, to do with the world in which s/he lived’]. Her habit of buying the occasional lottery ticket enables her to have dreams, young dreams, about what she would do with the money. But she is sometimes irritated at her own youthful hopes and naivety at an age when despair is the norm; and money could only buy things, not love. She realises she would be the butt of ridicule, if there were anybody left to laugh at her. Not just the irony of her dreams, but also the financial reality of 1990s Portugal come sharply into focus, as the woman describes herself as ‘uma pobre de Cristo que trabalhara toda a vida para ter o simples direito a viver e a quem um Governo de jovens tecnocratas endinheirados dava agora uma esmola chamada reforma […]’ (SD 106) [‘a poor creature who’d worked her whole life long in order to have the mere right to go on living, and to whom a government of moneyed young technocrats now gave alms, otherwise called a pension’]. It is difficult for the reader to make a value

 23

Because of their lesser relevance to the theme of this article, in that the protagonists are still in their middle years despite the fact that illness, death and suicide feature, I shall set aside the title story, ‘Seta Despedida’, and ‘Vínculo Precário’, ‘A Absolvição’ and ‘O Grito’, as well as further discussion of ‘George’.

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judgement of the kind implied by Machado’s ‘manifestação narcísica’ when Carvalho lists the plausible, banal reasons for her solitude: work colleagues retiring to their home villages or dying, or those still at work forgetting her now that she is retired; a now-sprawling city and transport complications mean that distant cousins become more so; the expense of telephoning; local shops changing hands or closing down; different people in the neighbourhood, and so on. We see the small-scale tragedy of somebody who has never been actively at the centre and of the harsh truth that centrifugal forces have turned her into the empty space. On consulting the newspaper, she finds she has won the lottery. Chaos and panic symptoms follow. Briefly, she ponders moving to a flat with a lift, but the heart mechanism decides for her. Suddenly, she is aware that it is all too late, knows she is on the edge of danger. She gets on to her bed and closes her eyes. The chest of drawers, always a creaky piece of furniture, makes a snapping sound, signalling for the reader that her heart has given out or, as in the lightbulb metaphor, it has blown. In the rather younger protagonist of ‘A Mancha Verde’ [‘The Green Blotch’] Carvalho sketches the rapid change of a woman who has always seemed to float on air, to have lightness of being, born of dreams, happiness and love. But, one day, as suddenly as a plug being pulled from a socket, she descends to earth, becomes rooted like a plant, or like normal people. As she comes to a halt by a chest of drawers in her house, she sees there is no transition or ‘interregnum’ between then and now, between exemption and dependence. The vague warnings that she had previously ignored now tell her that ‘o voo terminara há muito e que ela não se dera conta’ (SD 127) [‘the flight had come to an end a long time ago and she had not noticed’]. For the first time, she takes note of her heart as a physical entity, not just something to explain love and hate. Illness and old age have come upon her ‘sem preparação’[‘unpreparedly’]. Although Carvalho’s words have literal truth (the healthy woman didn’t notice ordinary or upsetting things, her fortunate viewpoint meant that she saw things from a deforming angle), metaphorically they describe a woman who has never understood the world, who has been self-centred. Only now that her heart aches does she remember her doctor’s warning. Leaning against the chest of drawers for support, ‘sentia pela primeira vez a idade, mais, muito mais do que a sua idade, que era essa que sentia? E olhava também, pela primeira vez, a sua solidão’ (SD 129) [‘she felt her age for the first time but a much, much older age than she was, but what age did she feel? And she looked for the first time, also, at her loneliness’]. Just as she wonders if she has time to adapt to her new condition, she opens her mouth to communicate, but no sound emerges. She is seized by a heart

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attack and falls to the floor, dying in the green dress she is wearing. The colour of hope no longer encases a human being, but is merely a blob on the floor. A shrinking of the environment, or confinement to a house or room, is one of the markers of old age. In ‘As Impressões Digitais’ [‘Fingerprints’], as in the two previous stories, we flicker between present and past, following the chains of memory of a recent widower. His bereavement feels as though ‘alguém tivesse erguido um muro burocrático deixando-o sozinho do outro lado, do lado do deserto’ (SD 73) [‘someone had raised a bureaucratic wall, leaving him all alone on the other side, on the desert side’]. He keeps up a routine of sorts, finding some kind of security in the objects that decorate his home, for they constitute his memory. Wandering from room to room, he picks them up and remembers his wife and the occasions when he brought them home. Most poignantly, the objects in his son’s room bring memories of when the latter was lost in the colonial wars, ‘morto sabia-se lá como, em que circunstâncias. Em combate, foralhe comunicado’ (SD 76) [‘dead, goodness knew how, and in what circumstances. In combat, he’d been informed’]. Back in those days of grief, only his wife understood that he was quite unable to hear the music that their son used to play on the guitar. Now, completely alone, these objects have become all the more important. His weekly cleaner, Dona Augusta, who is uncommunicative but takes immense care of his possessions, achieves a spotlessness that reminds him of his wife, who coped with her son’s death by endlessly cleaning and polishing. The only family he has left is his much younger sister, also widowed and living alone in Porto. Formerly, it was his wife who kept the lines of communication open, but they are now virtual strangers. Finally, he accepts her long-standing invitation to pay a visit. Packing the bare minimum, he realises that if he were to take everything he needed he would have to take all the objects around him, but at the same time, everything that was necessary to life would fit into an even smaller suitcase than the one he had. In Porto, he has little to say to his sister, is uninterested in her life and surroundings (old furniture protected by starched white linen and portraits of deceased family members) and stays only two nights. When he gets back home, he finds a note from Dona Augusta saying she will not be able to come any more because she has to go and look after her ill mother in her home village. He realises he knows absolutely nothing about her, where she lives, where she has gone to, her marital status. It is only next morning that he notices she has stolen several of his valuable objects and, most hurtful of all, his son’s guitar. Before he can find out what lesser items are missing, his heart gives out: ‘O seu

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último pensamento foram os objectos que eram as impressões digitais da sua vida sem história. Deixou-se escorregar para uma cadeira que havia no quarto do filho e fora a sua cadeira de trabalho, e fechou para sempre os olhos’ (SD 85) [‘His last thoughts were on the objects that were the fingerprints of his uneventful life. He slid across to a chair in his son’s bedroom that had been his work chair, and closed his eyes for ever’]. A confinement of a different kind is the lot of the old schoolteacher in ‘A Alta’ [‘The Discharge’]. Recovering in hospital from an unspecified health scare – perhaps a heart attack or a stroke – she is to outward appearances fortunate but in truth she resents having been made to win the battle for life: ‘Lembrava-se de que estivera à porta da paz, que tentara mesmo forçar a fechadura, mas que não a tinham deixado ir em frente. Fora uma luta corpo a corpo num pré-purgatório (chamavam-lhe recobro), uma luta inglória que perdera’ (SD 64) [‘She remembered that she’d been at the door of peace, that she’d actually tried to force the lock but hadn’t been allowed to proceed. It had been a close fight in a foretaste of Purgatory (they called it recovery), an inglorious fight that she had lost’]. With scathing irony, Carvalho shows this sceptical old woman at the mercy of a patronising doctor, of the never-ending chatter of her fellow patients. Her only refuge is to think of her home, the only place she feels safe and calm. Outside, all is danger; everybody, even her late husband who left so few traces on her, is ‘the others’. The only exception is her son, ‘o seu corpo e a sua alma’ (SD 68) [‘her body and soul’]. As she waits for his daily visit, she thinks of her ineffectual daughter-in-law and her aggressive grandchildren, whose violence she had already experienced. So it is with more than dismay that she hears her son telling her she must move in with them, when she is discharged. Fearfully, she asks: ‘E a minha casa? […] As minhas coisas?’ (SD 70) [‘What about my house? […] And my things?’]. As if addressing a child, he replies: ‘Não são assim tão importantes, pois não?’ (SD 70) [‘They’re not so important, are they?’] A lifetime’s love, a lifetime’s outward resignation, make her agree with him. Nobody understands, neither her son nor her fellow patients, her horror at losing a war and becoming a hostage. Denied all hope of recovering autonomy, she will become a child again, without even a room of her own (that sine qua non for independence). The irony is that, although a former schoolteacher, she had never liked children and now, at the end of her life, she is to be thrown to them. Although she would like to die, all she can do is resign herself to the inevitable. As Helena Buescu comments: Esta morte em vida faz dela o exilado impossível, outra seta despedida sem regresso, outra condenação a uma morte que nenhum rito pode redimir:

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morrerá de acordo com as regras que os outros ditaram para si, num espaço cuja apropriação lhe é negada. [This living death makes her the impossible exile, another arrow shot that will not come back, another condemning to a death that no rite can redeem; she will die according to rules that others have dictated for her, in a space that she is forbidden to appropriate.]24

If we can have considerable sympathy for this all-too-recognisable family dilemma, we can have little for the protagonist of ‘Uma Senhora’ [‘A Lady’]. Carvalho paints a cutting portrait of a selfish woman who exercises strong control on those around her, such as the employees at the dress shop she owns, and refuses to dwell on unpleasant things. Her husband died young (thankfully for her because he never treated her as a lady); her children are well married and independent; she keeps time at bay by looking after her appearance, so everyone admires her. Yet it is her self-centredness (under the guise that she is tired and has the right to relax for the remaining years of her life) and her parsimony (because she would have to recompense the redundant staff) that are behind her handing the shop over to her niece, whose business ineptitude leads in due course to its failure and unemployment for the five shop assistants. Ironically, they think fondly of the ‘Senhora’ and curse the niece. Through the following years she remains serene, protected by her family from upsetting news, such as the suicide of the oldest of her former employees. When the doctor diagnoses a heart problem and recommends her to take care, ‘Todos na família tinham o maior cuidado com ela’ (SD 100) [‘Everyone in the family took the greatest care of her’]. Carvalho puts her finger on one of the ironies of life: that the cold and selfish, especially with class pretensions, command a loyalty that the meek never do. ‘O Tesouro’ [‘The Treasure’] concerns an old, solitary man, the last of his family, who has never cared anything for others and has long since ceased to take any interest in the outside world but, encouraged by his doctor, keeps taking the little blue pills to ward off depression. In his garden is a decorated area of paving, laid by far-off ancestors over dry, sterile soil. The design of the paving is very pretty, and over the generations the story was passed down that it covered treasure. However, nobody had the curiosity to dig it up and see. For some reason, out of sheer loneliness on a Saturday, this particular man decides to investigate. He is despondent when he sees the grey, arid soil beneath the paving. However, something makes him persist. With modern machinery, he churns and removes the earth until at length, in this ‘grave’ (and Carvalho

 24

Buescu, p. 311.

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uses the word ‘cova’), he sees a different quality of soil, thick and dark, almost damp. Finally, a tiny but persistent trickle of water appears from some hidden spring. This symbolic tale provides the only note of optimism in Seta Despedida. It is typical of Carvalho’s elliptical writing that she leaves unspoken the extent of the man’s renewal. What we can say is that, once again, the phrase ‘too late’ comes to mind. ‘Frio’ [‘Cold’], the last story of the collection, is an investigation into the broken chains of memory. An old woman finds herself suddenly on a cold, deserted road, totally alone, unable to marshal her thoughts. She finds a door, it opens and she is admitted as if expected, and ushered into a warm environment to come across a young, fair-haired man whose name and face are slightly familiar. Her memory is like a dark well but through a series of desultory questions and answers she recalls that there were people around her crying, then an accident, a painful leg, then making a confession. The reader has by now assumed that this is a conversation in the afterlife. The man has been entrusted with the task of explaining where she is, perhaps because they were linked in some way ‘lá em baixo’ (SD 139) [‘down below’]. He too had an interlocutor to explain things to him, but he has now forgotten much about himself. The same will happen to her. The woman gropes towards an understanding of where she is, but then surmises that Hell might not exist, a disturbing thought, for that does not take care of the evil and unjust. The man replies that all are so in some way: ‘Todos matámos por pensamentos, palavras ou obras, todos, senhora. […] Quantas pessoas mortas por palavras, com o assassino à solta e considerado, por ele próprio, pessoa de bem!’ (SD 141) [‘All of us killed through thoughts, words or deeds, all of us, madam. […] How many people have been killed by words, whilst the assassin is still on the loose and regarded, by himself, as a good person!’] She cannot now be sure of her own blamelessness in this regard, since she cannot remember who she was. At this, she becomes aware of whispering like when she was a child with a fever and her mother asked people to keep their voices down. She says, or thinks, the word, ‘Pai’ [‘Father’]. Around her, someone sees that she is coming round and has opened her eyes. She smiles at her son, a grey-haired man, who is sitting by her hospital bed. ‘Depois fechou os olhos e sorriu a outro Ivo que fora seu pai e morrera jovem, tão jovem que mal o tinha conhecido’ (SD 143) [‘Then she closed her eyes and smiled at another Ivo who had been her father and had died young, so young that she’d barely known him’]. Whether this telescoping of past and present, father and son, constitutes an autobiographical parallel with the author’s own loss, it is a poignant meditation on the ebb and flow of memory, the foundation of both comfort, hurt and identity.

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These examples from Seta Despedida do more than show how the arrow of time is irreversible. They open up the thoughts and memories of those who have travelled with it to old age and death. Along the way, choices and events have determined the mental outcomes of the characters. Although that is not always acknowledged by the protagonists themselves, the reader certainly is shown that lesson. Memory is inescapable, even when physical bonds have disappeared. Out of old age’s natural tendency to introspection and retrospection, Carvalho draws universal points about human psychology, identity and interaction. At the same time, her stories illustrate the particular, the naked facts of lonely old age. They provide a depressingly realistic (‘catastrophic’) corrective to the Utopian image of the Third Age, presented by advertising over recent decades as one of new ventures and fulfilment. Far from reinscribing old age into the contemporary world, 25 Carvalho shows it as alienated. Her protagonists will not delight in their grandchildren, keep in touch via the Internet, enjoy merry lunches at the community centre, or enrol in the University of the Third Age. Seta Despedida shows that a path travelled in companionship peters out into the harsh track of solitude; families are neither a permanent feature nor a guarantee of comfort. However many arrows in the biblical quiver, once loosed they will never come back.

 25

Three models for this reinscription are that of eternal youth, of maintaining mental capacity, and of taking a sybaritic approach to the Third Age. Cited and explained in Viegas and Gomes, pp. 37-38.

THE QUEST FOR LEONORA CARRINGTON: THE OLDER ROLE MODEL IN MONIKA MARON’S NOVEL ACH GLÜCK JULIET WIGMORE

This essay examines the positive role played by an older role model, specifically the painter Leonora Carrington, in the German writer Monika Maron’s novel Ach Glück (2007) [‘Happiness’], and the quest that she inspires in the protagonist. The quest is to be seen in the context of Maron’s female protagonists in earlier novels: these figures can be regarded as alter egos reflecting the author’s own progress through life. They reflect on the one hand the author’s circumstances, notably life in the GDR before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and then in the period following German unification. They also reflect the author’s changing personal situation, including her awareness of her own ageing. In Ach Glück, the protagonist, Johanna, is approaching sixty years of age. The narrative takes place as she embarks upon a trip in search of Carrington in the New World; it consists mainly of Johanna’s own reflections and perceptions, but is interspersed with the perspectives of her husband, a contrast figure who has been left behind, not so much geographically as intellectually and morally, lacking the desire to change. Johanna’s search for new meaning in her life is motivated by events and ideas which were pre-empted particularly in a preceding novel (Endmoränen/ ‘Terminal Moraine’) with a largely similar cast of characters. Whereas the mood in Endmoränen is largely one of self-doubt, the beginning of the quest in Ach Glück represents a shift in a more positive direction for Johanna.

In Monika Maron’s novels, female protagonists frequently represent an alter ego for the author herself and reflect aspects of the life stage of the author at the time of writing. Although they are not literally autobiographical, her narratives often highlight aspects of contemporary events, situations or life experiences familiar to the author, including women’s role at particular times of life. Among the significant aspects addressed are the representation of life in the GDR, the country where Maron grew up and lived until 1988, and the experience of change and the new expectations in the period following the fall of the Berlin Wall and

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the collapse of the communist order itself. In the novels Ach Glück (2007)1 [‘Happiness’] and its prequel Endmoränen (2004)2 [‘Terminal Moraine’], the protagonist, Johanna, is a woman in her mid-fifties, several years younger than the author (born 1941) at the time of writing. In these narratives, Johanna displays awareness of her own ageing and concern about the position of older women in the society to which she belongs. In Endmoränen, the social context in which the issue of ageing is addressed is specifically the role in the post-GDR era of the writer, whose life was previously conditioned by the demands of writing within the prevailing social and political system. Johanna’s perceptions are dominated by the feeling that she has failed to take advantage of the new opportunities that have arisen since the unification of Germany because of the age she had reached by the time the political and social changes occurred. In Ach Glück, by contrast, the focus is rather on Johanna’s perceptions of her position as an older woman in a wider human context and her reflections on the ageing of people around her. It is above all a search for a positive role that she can play at this stage of her life. This chapter will examine first the dilemma facing Johanna, as depicted in Endmoränen, and then how her perception of herself changes in the subsequent novel, Ach Glück. It considers specifically her responses to the ageing process and her embarking on a new quest inspired by the figure of the artist Leonora Carrington. Finally, it will be suggested that the author’s own interest in Carrington, an artist of the Surrealist movement, may have been prompted in part by her own interest in the possibilities presented by the surreal, as evidenced particularly in an earlier novel, Die Überläuferin (1986) [The Defector].3 In her study of ageing entitled The Older Woman in Recent Fiction, Zoe Brennan reminds the reader pertinently that age is relative and that the concept ‘old’ usually represents the perception of those who are younger. It relates, for instance, especially to appearance: ‘the relationship between paradigms of beauty and ageist norms demonstrates the cultural prevalence of what Germaine Greer terms in The Change (1992) “youthism”.’4 In the

 1

Monika Maron, Ach Glück (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer, 2007). Page references to the text are given as AG. All translations of quotations from the novels are my own. 2 Monika Maron, Endmoränen (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer, 2002). Page references to the text are given as E. 3 Monika Maron, Die Überläuferin (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer, 1986). Translated as The Defector by David Newton Marinelli (London: Readers International, 1988). 4 Zoe Brennan, The Older Woman in Recent Fiction (Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland &Co., 2004), p. 21.

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two novels under discussion in this chapter, Johanna’s perception of ageing is clearly subjective and it reflects the way she perceives herself;5 nevertheless, for her, too, ageing is a relative concept, as she contrasts her own life in the present with the past, particularly with reference to the social role she once played, which now appears diminished by comparison. Yet, in reality, she is still only in her mid-fifties, and is therefore not yet in the age group typically categorised as ‘old’ in industrial societies. Brennan’s analysis, which focuses on Anglo-American literature, attempts particularly to redress the gender balance by examining representations of women by women writers, including autobiographical perspectives, such as those seen in works by May Sarton, for example. Brennan categorises positive and negative scenarios in representations of old age under various headings, such as ‘the angry and frustrated older woman’; other categories include ‘passionate and desiring’ and ‘contented and developing’. Some of these descriptions, as will be seen, are pertinent to Maron’s protagonist, Johanna, in varying degrees. Another critic, Barbara Frey Waxman, uses the term ‘Reifungsroman’ (novel of ripening or maturing) in her analysis of older age in literature, coining the expression in contrast to the ‘Bildungsroman’ tradition, with its typically male, goal-orientated protagonist. 6 The German-based term ‘Reifungsroman’ suggests a process towards full development, in contrast to the less positive connotations of examining women in ‘old age’, an approach which merely reflects numerical age and assumes certain stereotypical features of the protagonists. In the present study, Monika Maron’s novel Ach Glück will be considered against the background of such discussions. In this novel, Johanna is presented in relation to other older people, some her contemporaries, but others a whole generation older than herself. An aspect of this novel which will receive particular attention is the idea of the quest and the inspiration engendered in Johanna by a fictitious version of the late Leonora Carrington, who died in May



5 In an earlier novel Animal triste (1996), the protagonist has been interpreted as the first of Maron’s figures to show concern about the ageing body. See Alison Lewis, ‘Engagement und weibliche Identitätsstiftung’, in Elke Gilson (ed.), Monika Maron in Perspective. Dialogische Einblicke in zeitgeschichtliche, intertextuelle und rezeptionsbezogene Aspekte ihres Werkes (Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi, 2002), pp. 75-91 (p. 86). 6 Barbara Frey Waxman, From the Hearth to the Open Road. A Feminist Study of Aging in Contemporary Literature (New York, Westport Conn. and London: Greenwood Press, 1990). ‘Introduction: A New Fictional Genre – The Reifungsroman, or Fiction of Ripening’, pp. 1-21.

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2011 at the age of ninety-four, but who was still alive when Maron published the novel. Ach Glück can only be properly understood in the context of the preceding novel in which Johanna first appears, Endmoränen, for the narratives and characters overlap extensively, as do the issues that concern Johanna. Contrast figures and motivational forces are introduced in the earlier novel, including Johanna’s husband, Achim, and her new friends from the art world, particularly the art dealer, Igor. Above all, the main thrust and outcome of the two novels stand in contrast to one another. In Endmoränen Johanna is a ‘frustrated’ older woman, in the terminology of Zoe Brennan’s classification, who reflects on what she has lost in her life and resents having missed out on opportunities that might have been available under different circumstances. This lack has at the very least been exacerbated by the prevailing social situation, particularly the changes that have occurred since the demise of the GDR, the country where she lived. The alteration in political conditions after 1990 has affected both her work as a writer and her identity. For, during the GDR era, she wrote biographies and gained a sense of satisfaction by imbuing them with ‘geheime Botschaften’ [‘secret messages’], subtle signals for those able to recognise them as minor subversions of the prescribed line. In the years following the political Wende [change], the removal of certain external pressures on her writing, far from having a liberating effect, has left her with a sense of uselessness and the feeling that there is little value in writing biographies to order any more. She has therefore lost the sense of her identity that her mission as a writer previously gave her. This sense of loss, which was undoubtedly shared by many in the erstwhile GDR in the 1990s, appears in the form of a belief that she is too old to start afresh and to make a new life for herself in the reformed Germany, unlike the way younger people have been able to adapt and benefit from the change. These feelings are set out in her correspondence with a friend, Christian P., where she reflects, for instance: ‘Wir hatten die Chance, ein ganz neues Leben zu beginnen, das für uns nicht vorgesehen war […] Ich hätte alle Festlegungen aufheben und mein Leben neu erfinden dürfen’ (E 213) [‘We had the opportunity to begin a completely new life that had not been intended for us [...] I could have done away with everything that was laid down and reinvented my life’]. She is frustrated because she feels that she has wasted the new opportunity; instead, she complains that people of her age have merely become the target of consumer-orientated society and a commercial liability for health insurance companies: Und jetzt, ein paar Jahre später, hat mich die Ahnung, eher die Furcht befallen, es könnte schon wieder vorbei sein mit dem eigentlichen Leben,

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weil es zu spat angefangen hat, weil wir gar nicht mehr dran sind mit dem richtigen Leben, sondern dass für uns bald diese öde Restzeit beginnt, zwanzig oder dreißig Jahre Restzeit, in der wir nur noch als Zielgruppe von Verkäufern aller Branchen und als katastrophaler Kostenfaktor für die Krankenkassen wichtig sind. (E 55-56) [And now, a few years on, I’m afraid my true life could have passed me by because it began too late and because it is no longer our turn to have a true and proper life. For us, there is only this empty last phase, twenty or thirty years in which we are significant merely as a target for marketing of all sorts and a disastrous liability for the health insurance companies.]

Johanna’s correspondence with Christian P. is thus pervaded by a sense of melancholy and an elegiac tone that typifies her state of mind in this narrative. In Endmoränen, evidence of Johanna’s concern with her own life problems emerges in her attitude toward the biography of another older woman that she is writing. The subject of her study is Wilhelmine von Enke (1753-1820), the mistress of Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, who was banished from the court as a result of political intrigue but who successfully fought back and reclaimed her rights and her status. She, like Johanna, had to cope with changed circumstances in a political context, albeit a very different one. Johanna reflects that Wilhelmine appeared to have grasped the opportunities available, overcome the obstacles placed in her way, and to have made the most of her situation. Johanna explicitly contrasts the life of her biographical subject with her own: ‘Und ich? Was habe ich erobert? Ich war nicht einmal in Amerika’ (E 215) [‘And what have I achieved? I’ve never even been to America’]. Although at times she appears to regard Wilhelmine as a type of role model, Johanna feels inadequate by comparison with this older woman from an earlier epoch, whose circumstances were in fact quite different, not least because of her elevated social position. This figure, who might have presented Johanna with a model to be emulated, in fact only highlights Johanna’s negative perception of herself by comparison. It is as if Johanna is not yet ready to benefit from the positive example of a successful older woman. At the end of Endmoränen, a change of direction is initiated which paves the way for the more positive direction in Johanna’s life in Ach Glück, especially in relation to the way she perceives the position of older women. Through a well-connected neighbour in the remote village where Johanna spends the summer and struggles with the commissioned biography, she meets a Russian art dealer, Igor. The brief affair that she has with him makes her realise that she is capable of behaving in a ‘young’ way, not like an older woman, with a long-standing marriage to

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her husband, Achim: ‘ich benahm mich, als hätte ich nie einen anderen Mann gekannt als Achim’ (E 243) [‘I behaved as though I hadn’t known any man except Achim’]. This fleeting experience of passion reinvigorates her and makes her realise that she is still attractive and can respond to the attractiveness of others. That event is one of two important catalysts that have direct motivational effects in the following novel. The second of these, which seems to be even more important to Johanna at the time, occurs as the final episode in Endmoränen. On the drive home to Berlin, she rescues an abandoned dog and takes him home with her, to the dismay of her husband. The new experience of having responsibility for a dog, though ironic in its relative banality, appears to be of at least equal importance in motivating Johanna’s change of direction and in preparing her for the opportunities that now arise. While Endmoränen focuses on Johanna’s gloomy outlook on life, including her regretful feeling about being too old, its sequel Ach Glück reveals Johanna developing in unforeseen directions and even overcoming some of the problems set out in the earlier narrative. The novel opens when Johanna embarks on a flight to Mexico and the narrative takes place through the course of her flight. This departure has been prompted by an elderly art collector, Natalia Timofejewna, with whom she has established an epistolary relationship through Igor, and it ends optimistically with her imminent encounter with Natalia in Mexico City. Apart from her anxiety about flying, Johanna’s primary preoccupation at the beginning of the journey is the foundling dog, Bredow, that she has now left behind with a reliable animal-loving carer, Hannes Strahl. She muses at this point, ‘Vielleicht wäre auch ohne Bredow alles so geworden, wie es jetzt war; wer könnte das wissen’ (AG 9) [‘Perhaps everything would have come about the way it has done even without Bredow, who knows?’]. The hypothetical, and slightly ironic tone of this statement pervades the narrative, and it suggests that various possibilities are open, as Johanna speculates about the past and the future. Ach Glück is narrated from the perspective of Johanna and her husband Achim, in alternating chapters, and largely in the form of internal monologue and a sequence of reflections. Insights into Johanna’s motives for departing for Mexico are suggested partly through Achim’s attitudes. He realises, for instance, that Johanna’s insistence on keeping the dog is a manifestation of the change that has occurred in her while she has been away at their summerhouse in the country, and Johanna herself thinks he sees her determination to do so against his own wishes as a declaration of war (‘Kampfansage’, AG 11) in which he feels he has already been defeated. To the reader, Johanna’s insistence on keeping the dog is an

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indication that she is beginning to stand up for herself and to branch out, if in a minor way. Its significance for her is symbolised by the fact that she insists on giving the dog a meaningful name, Bredow, the name of the place where she found him, rather than one of the names typically given to dogs, as Achim would have expected (AG 11). Achim is evidently irritated by her enthusiasm for the dog, which, in his mind, echoes the enthusiasm she had years ago as a new mother; whilst he imagines her exuberance may pass off in time, it is clear to the reader that Johanna’s experience with the dog represents a revival of the youthful enthusiasm that she once had. The different level of importance of these two life experiences associated in Achim’s mind, however, adds an ironic tone to the narrative; thus, Achim reflects on Johanna’s vivid tales of her night-time walks with the dog, an activity which itself is an indication of her newfound freedom: ‘diese wiedergewonnene Freiheit, sagte Johanna, verdanke sie dem Hund’ (AG 34) [‘Johanna said she owed her reclaimed freedom to the dog’]. The reader gains insight into Achim’s position both through his perceptions of Johanna and the people she meets and also through Johanna’s own reflections upon his behaviour and attitudes. Both in Ach Glück and in Endmoränen, it emerges that Achim, a researcher in German literature, has avoided facing up to the changes that have occurred in the country by continuing to pursue his academic research career in classical literature, a project on the work of the writer Heinrich von Kleist. The repeated image of Achim sitting in his study with his back turned to Johanna suggests a rejection not only of his wife but of the contemporary world itself. Yet Achim has suffered, as many academics in the GDR did after unification, having been in effect demoted in the research institute in favour of a new arrival from the West (E 88). No sooner has Johanna departed for Mexico than he considers visiting Kleist’s grave on the shore of Lake Wannsee, yet he is overcome by feelings of melancholy and reflects that he is not in a position to commune with the genius today, wondering with a hint of self-irony: Sollte er ihm [Kleist] sagen: ein Hund und ein Russe haben mein Leben durcheinandergebracht, und darum verweigere ich schon seit einer Woche den Dienst an deiner Unsterblichkeit. (AG 69) [Was he supposed to tell Kleist that a dog and a Russian had thrown his life into disarray and for that reason he had neglected work on Kleist’s immortality for a whole week.]

Yet, the reader is given little sense that Achim has much insight into why this is happening to him and whether it is the result of circumstances, his own inertia, or his stage of life. For Achim is a near age-contemporary of

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Johanna, who has experienced similar historical circumstances; however, he is also a contrast figure who does not display the initiative, energy or self-awareness required in order to be able to find an exit strategy from the situation in which he finds himself. Achim is not the only contrast figure among Johanna’s contemporaries. Another, more peripheral figure is her old friend Elli, who first appeared in Endmoränen. Unlike Johanna, Elli had immediately taken advantage of the collapse of the GDR and had gone to the West. Now, however, she is also frustrated in her professional endeavours and is about to lose her job as a journalist because she does not know English sufficiently well and feels that she is too old to learn it. This was a typical legacy of GDR education, in which Russian was the main foreign language. Like Achim, she is effectively being demoted, and in conversation with Johanna she declares her intention to go and work in a zoo instead (AG 18). Elli is astonished about Johanna’s plan to go to Mexico, as her own travelling days are now over. She was previously more ambitious, and as Johanna reflects, she once surprised everyone by acquiring a BMW, a stylish vehicle which even at the time seemed designed to compensate for her own lack of glamour as an older employee; as Johanna imagines, ‘wahrscheinlich wollte sie, wenn sie schon doppelt so alt war wie ihr Chef, nicht auch noch ein altes Auto fahren’ (AG 18-19) [‘since she was nearly twice as old as her boss, she probably didn’t want to cap it all by driving an old car into the bargain’]. In the meantime, even the car has seen better days. Now it is Elli who wants to meet in long-familiar places and who is surprised by Johanna’s thirst for new experience. Another contrast figure is more positive: Hannes Strahl, to whom Johanna is introduced by Elli, provides both practical help, agreeing to care for Johanna’s dog in her absence, and also encourages her by his own example. Hannes himself has led an eventful life and shows that he is not afraid of change. He left for America as a young academic, and stayed there until he reached the age of sixty. As well as being a notable geneticist in New York, he also had a farm in the country, where he paid great attention to animal welfare, an indication of his versatility. Now aged sixty-two, he has returned to Germany with his Swedish wife, and he accepts that this move was prompted by his awareness of his age: ‘In New York alt zu werden, konnte ich mir nie vorstellen’ (AG 24) [‘I couldn’t imagine growing old in New York’]. Johanna thinks he looks like a true native of Brandenburg, a country doctor perhaps, suggesting that he has successfully re-engaged with the locality. Elli, by contrast, expresses her surprise that he has come to live ‘mitten ins slawische Vorland’ (AG 23) [‘in the Slavic marches’]. Hannes’ eastward return indeed represents a

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move in the opposite direction to Johanna’s, yet for him, too, it is a positive move, since he has accepted the need to adapt his life in a way that is suited to his age. As a result, he appears to be contented, and is therefore a positive model, who also reassures Johanna about her dog. Hannes’ name, too, is significant, for it is a masculine equivalent of ‘Johanna’; it suggests that he may be interpreted as an alter ego, while his surname ‘Strahl’ [‘radiance’] has positive overtones. Although Hannes’ role in the novel is confined to this early encounter, he is one of a trio of positive role models in this novel, and he anticipates the particular importance assigned in the latter part of the novel to Natalia Timofejewna and Leonora Carrington. Apart from her dog, Johanna’s other major preoccupation, which she has also told Achim about enthusiastically, is the experience of her days spent as a voluntary assistant in Igor’s gallery and her epistolary contact with the elderly Russian art collector, Natalia Timofejewna. A much older woman, who seems to display great energy, Natalia displays the extreme opposite of Achim’s melancholy and tendency to live in the past. In Endmoränen, Igor depicted Natalia as a frail old woman virtually on her deathbed, surrounded by vultures vying for possession of her supposedly rich art collection. Yet, by the beginning of Ach Glück, she has already, by her own efforts, decided to leave her sad old life in Russia behind and has set out in quest of her childhood friend Leonora Carrington, who is for her an inspiration. It is Natalia who, through her letters, inspires Johanna to join her in embarking on this mission. In a letter to Johanna, Natalia describes how her own quest came about. She was inspired by a radio broadcast about Carrington, which she interpreted as a private message designed for her, a ‘Botschaft’, the same word used by Johanna of the concealed messages she used to insert into biographies: ‘mein Herz sagte mir, dass diese Botschaft für mich bestimmt war, nur für mich’ (AG 56) [‘in my heart I knew it was a message intended for me and me alone’]. This message caused her to change her plan to live permanently in her ancestral homeland and instead to go west in pursuit of Leonora Carrington, who was a friend in their schooldays. Their shared past now acts as the trigger for Natalia’s new future. Inspired by Natalia’s example, Johanna sets out in pursuit of both these older women. For Johanna, the choice of the absent Carrington as a source of inspiration is triggered entirely by her correspondence with Natalia, and not by any direct knowledge she has of the artist herself. Indeed, Johanna remains largely ignorant of the artist’s work and appears to be a somewhat naïve narrator in this respect. Yet the figure of Leonora Carrington is an apt role model, as is evident from hints given by Natalia in the text as well

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as any extraneous knowledge that the reader may bring to bear. In particular, Leonora Carrington’s importance to the other protagonists can be seen in relation to her position in life, her history, her embodiment of surrealism and her interest in animals, aspects which provide links to Johanna and to Maron herself. Leonora Carrington is particularly suited to being a role model for Johanna, both because of her person, and because of her history and her achievements. She is a whole generation older than Johanna, who by comparison is still relatively young. Yet despite her great age, Carrington at the time of the narrative is still very active and determined, we are told. She is therefore appropriate as a contrast figure to Johanna, who, as seen in Endmoränen, had begun to regard her own age and the outlook very bleakly. In Ach Glück, Carrington herself remains elusive to the very end; although Johanna learns ever more about her through Natalia’s correspondence, by the end of the novel they still have not met, nor indeed has Natalia succeeded in tracking down Leonora in Mexico City. Johanna’s quest therefore continues into the future, but she becomes increasingly optimistic as she hears more about Carrington’s persistence and her values. Details of Carrington’s life are alluded to in Natalia’s letters, and certain aspects suggest why Maron presents her as a model for Johanna to emulate. For, decades earlier, in 1941, Carrington fled to Mexico to escape difficult circumstances, particularly her own isolation and incarceration in a mental asylum in Spain, the result of stress after enforced separation from her lover, Max Ernst, who was interned first in 1939 as an enemy alien in France, where they had been living together, and then by the Vichy regime.7 In Mexico City she became part of a group of European and other expatriates who had fled war or persecution. Although Johanna’s departure for Mexico clearly occurs in a different context, certain parallels with Leonora’s life can be drawn: Johanna’s relationship with Achim no longer fulfils her needs, and the changed social circumstances, the end of the Cold War, often regarded as the belated conclusion of the Second World War in Europe, are partly responsible for Johanna’s feeling that she is redundant and has no future in her own country. In going west to ‘America’, in this case Mexico, she follows an established tradition, strongly represented in German literature, of leaving the Old World and its values behind for new opportunities. The move is also an implicit contrast

 7

Joanna Moorhead, ‘Leonora Carrington’ in Stefan van Raay, Joanna Moorhead and Teresa Arcq, Surreal Friends. Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and Kati Horna (Farnham: Lund Humphries in association with Pallant House Gallery, 2010), pp. 38-39.

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with the location of the earlier novel, Endmoränen, which is set in rural Germany on the border with Poland, a reminder of ‘old’ Europe and its conflicts. In this respect her departure is similar to Natalia’s abandoning Russia, the country of her ancestry. Johanna’s interest in Carrington occurs indirectly and through a series of fortuitous connections, first by way of Igor, the art dealer acting as advocate for Natalia; through him, Johanna comes into correspondence with Natalia and so hears about Leonora Carrington. Johanna takes the initiative in establishing the relationship with Natalia, reading and replying to Natalia’s letter addressed to Igor (AG 66); it is as if she receives the letter as a message of hope. This correspondence contrasts with her exchanges with Christian P. in Endmoränen in being exciting and forwardlooking, instead of introspective and melancholic. It is then Natalia who persuades Johanna to follow her to Mexico in pursuit of Leonora Carrington. Thus both Natalia and Johanna, women of different older-age groups, find inspiration in Carrington’s life. Not only is Carrington actually an older woman: in her work, she has also displayed concern about the lives of older people, as Natalia explains. For, in her letters, which Johanna rereads on her journey, Natalia has repeatedly advised Johanna to read Carrington’s novel The Hearing Trumpet. In this work, published in English in 1977 but written much earlier when she was a young woman envisaging the implications of old age,8 she narrates, often humorously, the story of an old woman, Marian Leatherby, who is consigned to a home for the elderly, constrained by rules and regulations, which she determinedly resists, despite her physical frailty. It ends with a surreal vision of happiness in which the old women residents take over the home in which they have been incarcerated, and are surrounded by animals.9 Johanna herself has not succeeded in acquiring this book and may therefore, ironically, be less informed than the reader who responds to this intertextual prompt. The fear of confinement in an institution expressed in that novel, however, is a legacy of Leonora’s incarceration in the Spanish mental hospital in her youth, as well as her determination to avoid a repetition of this situation. In evading those on the quest to find her, Leonora Carrington, now aged ninety, is indeed still evading ‘capture’ and maintains her independence.

 8

According to Joanna Moorhead, it dates from as early as 1950. It was first published in French in 1974 and in English in 1977. Surreal Friends, p.100. Leonora Carrington, The Hearing Trumpet (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977; published in Penguin classics, with an introduction by Ali Smith, 2005). 9 See also Carrington’s painting The Kron Flower, reproduced in Surreal Friends, p. 95.

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Elsewhere in her writing, too, Carrington wrote of the problems of ageing. In a text entitled ‘What is a Woman’, she states: Fifty-three years ago I was born a female animal. This, I was told, meant that I was a ‘Woman’. […] I am an aging human female, now. Soon I will be old and then dead.10

Carrington’s reflections in Down Below, from which this text is taken, present an account of her mental breakdown. Like The Hearing Trumpet, it too suggests a projection into the future in which she envisaged her own decline into old age. Carrington’s novel The Hearing Trumpet was widely known in Germany and elsewhere in Europe in the aftermath of the student movement of 1968, when surrealism underwent a revival amongst writers in several countries, in part at least because it was essentially a subversive movement. However, the emergence of new feminism around that time also meant that there was a responsive audience for women artists, including surrealists: The women’s liberation movement, which outlived the rest of the New Left, greatly enlarged these women’s sphere of influence […] The writings of Meret Oppenheim and Leonora Carrington enjoyed wide circulation in many languages. Carrington’s The Hearing Trumpet (1974) appeared as a mass market paperback (1977).11

The events of 1968, which marked those of student age in (West) Germany for life, had a disastrous counterpart in Mexico when several hundred student radicals were shot by police, an event that horrified Carrington, whose own sons were students at the time. This political upheaval drove her to leave Mexico temporarily and to take refuge in New York, where her paintings were becoming known. 12 So although the parallel is not an exact one, the context and mood of Carrington’s novel have implicit relevance to Johanna’s German background.

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Leonora Carrington, Down Below (Chicago: Black Swan, 1983). Cited in Penelope Rosemont (ed.), Surrealist Women. An International Anthology (London: The Athlone Press, 1998), p. 372. Down Below was written during or soon after Carrington’s confinement in the psychiatric unit in Spain and first published in English in 1944 in a translation of a French version. See J. Moorhead, p. 137, note 5. 11 Rosemont, p. 291. 12 Moorhead, pp. 87-90.

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Despite having failed to track down any of Carrington’s writing before her departure for Mexico, Johanna has at least found reproductions of some of her paintings. She mentions one of her favourites, one of Carrington’s most famous, called Self Portrait: A l’auberge du Cheval d’Aube (AG 109). 13 Johanna describes this picture of a woman with symbolic animals as follows: Sie trug weiße, trikotartige Hosen, dazu schwarze Strümpfe und elegante schwarze Schuhe, unter ihrer offenen olivgrünen Jacke einen dünnen Pullover. Hinter der Frau schwebte in Höhe ihres Kopfes ein weißes Schaukelpferd vor einer grauen, leicht blaustichigen Wand. Durch das von schweren goldgelben Vorhängen gerahmte Fenster sah man in einen Pinienhain. Ein weißes Pferd jagte in gestrecktem Galopp vorbei. Eine Hyäne mit prallem Gesäuge tänzelte grazios vor der Frau, die ihre Hand nach dem Tier ausstreckte. Die Frau und die Hyäne schauten herausfordernd auf den Betrachter, und beide Blicke ließen keinen Zweifel: Sie gehörten zusammen […] Eine gespannte Entschlossenheit ging aus von der Frau, die offenbar mit seltsamen Mächten im Bunde war. (AG 109-10) [She was wearing white jersey trousers with black stockings and elegant black shoes with a thin pullover under an olive-green jacket. Behind the woman a rocking-horse hovered at head height in front of a grey, bluetinged wall. Through the window framed with yellow-gold curtains one could see a pine grove. A white horse passed at full gallop. A female hyena with full teats pranced gracefully in front of the woman, who extended her hand towards the animal. The woman and the hyena looked out at the viewer provocatively and their looks left one in no doubt that they were in cahoots […] The woman exuded a sense of tense determination, indicating that she was in league with secret forces.]

This image reveals several aspects which help to explain Carrington’s attraction for Johanna: the fact that she envisages her own person imaginatively; the use of surreal transformation of herself and the things that surround her; and the importance of animals and her feeling of being connected with them. Together these exude a sense that she has ‘secret powers’. Indeed, in later life, Carrington and her circle discussed various mystical traditions, 14 and the sense of connectedness between human beings and nature is a feature both of Carrington’s work and of Maron’s novel.

 13

For a reproduction, see Tilman Spengler (ed.), Leonora Carrington (Frankfurt a. M.: Neue Kritik, 1995), p. 76. 14 Teresa Arcq, ‘Mirror of the Marvellous: Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo’, in Surreal Friends, pp. 99-115.

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The way in which Johanna describes the painting specifically suggests her own link with the foundling dog, Bredow, and it intimates that she is at least subconsciously aware of this connection. In her artistic work, Carrington makes much use of animals as symbols, and as in the selfportrait, she appears to identify with them. This belief is also reflected in a written account of her period of mental illness where she describes what happened when she recovered: ‘When I became sadly reasonable, I was told that for several days I had acted like various animals – jumping upon the wardrobe with the agility of a monkey sc…ing, roaring like a lion, whinnying, barking etc’.15 In her letters, Natalia highlights Carrington’s affection for animals, telling Johanna that Carrington supports a woman who feeds a clan of stray cats in Mexico City (AG 161). Details of this kind suggest that Carrington is above all a role model because of her life, rather than because of her art itself. Although the parallel with Johanna’s attachment to her own dog is partly ironic, it also suggests an underlying reason for Johanna’s feeling of affinity with Carrington. The allusion to the symbolism of Carrington’s art is also ironic, for Johanna’s dog is a type of symbol representing the beginning of her newfound freedom and the potential to determine the course her life is to take, even in opposition to her husband’s preferences. Yet, whilst Achim blames the changes in Johanna mainly on her having adopted the dog, he misunderstands its full significance, since the dog is primarily a trigger for Johanna to change the direction of her life. Surrealism, which informs Carrington’s work, was a liberating artistic movement, freeing the artist from the formal constraints of realism and allowing scope for the imagination to develop connections, such as those between the self-presentation of Carrington and the animal realm. Animals are therefore often symbols of human aspiration or longing. In her own way, Johanna has already made such connections between herself and her dog, Bredow, reflecting on the nature of happiness. She sees Bredow as a ‘message’ [‘Botschaft’] sent as a sign to her, and it is a message of happiness (AG 61). She reflects that she, as a human being, shares much of the dog’s genetic make-up, and therefore it might be possible to be happy and contented like a dog. Once again, the irony present in this comparison prompts the reader to consider its possible relevance: perhaps Johanna can indeed find happiness, but her search for it resides not in the immediate aspect of happiness that a dog experiences, but rather in the quest for the unknown and as yet unattainable. It nevertheless remains a possibility for her.

 15

Down Below, cited in Rosemont, p. 152.

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The freedom from constraint and the suggestion of mystic powers that Johanna detects in Leonora’s self-portrait liberate Johanna’s mind, and she recalls occasions when she herself seemed to have a sixth sense beyond purely rational explanation. She remembers times in her youth when she experienced an intimate relationship with nature, imagining she could hear the trees speak (AG 182-183). On one occasion this sensitivity meant that she reacted without any apparent stimulus to a situation in which she was able to rescue a child who was about to be run down by a lorry. She explained it as a sudden insight, despite the possible rational explanations provided by those around her; this perspective indicates that she was willing to acknowledge the possibility of powers beyond those which ruled the context in which she lived. The attraction of the surrealist artist as a role model can also be related to Monika Maron’s own use of surreal elements in her works, most evidently in the earlier novel Die Überläuferin. There, the protagonist, Rosalind, another alter ego for the author, wakes one day to find herself paralysed and thus rendered unable to carry out her daily work; this situation amounts to a defection, a dereliction of her civic duty as a worker in GDR society, and thus in effect a blow against the demands of the state. Direct allusions to GDR-type figures are presented, as she conjures an imaginary theatre in her bedroom, summoning up stereotypical ‘characters’ who spout jargon of a type familiar in GDR political language.16 The main characters of that novel, too, are symbolic alter egos for the protagonist, representing aspects of her personality and experience. Monika Maron’s own use of the surreal in this novel provided a means of escape from the demands imposed on writers at the time. Similarly, surrealism was a factor that provided Carrington with a form of escape from her restrictive upbringing, when she first fled abroad with Max Ernst and then again to Mexico where she pursued her own art into old age. Through the parallels between herself and various potential role models, Johanna gradually redefines her own position. She opens up to new opportunities, and her eventual arrival in Mexico City suggests the possibility of a new beginning. By the end of Ach Glück, she has changed considerably from the sad and frustrated person she was in Endmoränen, by way of awakened desire in her relationship with Igor, to the possibility of a certain satisfaction and contentment, such as Hannes Strahl displays,

 16

‘Ihr Wohnzimmer füllt sich mit unerwünschten Figuren und surrealen Bildern, die die nunmehr verinnerlichten staatlichen Imperative von Ordnung und Sauberkeit intonieren.’ [‘Her room is filled with undesired figures and images which intone the state imperatives of order and cleanliness that she has internalised.’] Alison Lewis, p. 81.

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and perhaps even happiness. In a letter, Natalia has described how Johanna will recognise her when they meet; she will be wearing a large red hat with a wide brim, and she quotes a bizarre line from a surrealist poem by Meret Oppenheim, a friend of Carrington’s: ‘Oh große Ränder an meiner Zukunft Hut’ (AG 207) [‘Oh great edges-of-my-future hat’]. These lines, which Johanna repeats to herself as the last words of the narrative, suggest that Johanna too perceives herself to be on the brink of a new future. This development in Monika Maron’s protagonist, who reflects not only the author’s increasing awareness of the ageing process but also her interest in the surreal as offering an alternative reality, suggests that the author herself may also have moved on from the sadness that characterised the protagonist of Endmoränen.



FATHERHOOD AND AGE



LE PÈRE GORIOT: THE DEPICTION OF OLD AGE AND OF OBSESSION? MAUREEN RAMSDEN

Balzac’s intentions as a writer, clearly stated in the ‘Avant-Propos’ to La Comédie Humaine, are to depict life in the capital and the provinces as a social historian dealing with areas that the factual historian sees as outside his province and there is thus always a great emphasis on the way in which the characters’ lives are linked to the contemporary historical scene or the recent past and their own social position in society. The question of old age is analysed in several novels, including Le Père Goriot, La Cousine Bette and Le Cousin Pons, but this essay asks whether the depiction of old age is his main aim or simply a point of departure for constructing a narrative concerned with his own personal interest in society and with exceptional cases – behaviour driven by the passions. Thus any depiction of age is closely linked to Balzac’s central ideas. Is Le Père Goriot primarily a depiction of old age, of a character created to show how his life interacts with the social and historical period or, above all, the embodiment of the passion of paternity? ‘L’argent, c’est la vie. Monnaie fait tout’ ‘Ma vie, à moi, est dans mes deux filles’1

The aim of this chapter is to examine to what extent Balzac’s novel, Le Père Goriot (1835), known mainly as an illustration of obsessive paternal love, also focuses on age and the process of ageing. The title, Le Père Goriot, has two connotations, that of a father and also the more negative and derogatory idea used in the English translation, ‘Old Goriot’, meaning ‘that old man, Goriot’. This term shows a lack of respect, but more importantly suggests some emphasis is placed on his age. The chapter will begin with a brief look at the obsession of paternity, before moving on to

 1

Honoré de Balzac, Le Père Goriot (Paris: Garnier Flammarion, 1996), pp. 258, 167. [‘Money is life itself. Money is everything’]; [‘My whole life is centred on my two daughters’]. Subsequent references to the novel will be given in the text as PG with the page number. All translations are mine.

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discuss age and ageing in this narrative, which have received much less attention from critics. Goriot’s role as a father appears to be the main focus of this novel. It has been suggested that a connection can be made with Balzac’s own experience, for he never forgave his parents for sending him away from home into the care of a nurse, and particularly missed a close relationship with his mother.2 This is often transposed in his novels into the analysis of a relationship between a father and his daughter/s, as in Le Père Goriot. Balzac’s notes on this novel and his basic plan also point to a study of paternity and selfless love, the narrative being summarised in the following way: ‘Sujet du Père Goriot – Un brave homme – pension bourgeoise – 600 francs de rente – s’étant dépouillé pour ses filles qui toutes deux ont 50.000 francs de rente, mourant comme un chien’ [‘Plot of Old Goriot – A good chap – A middle-class boarding house – 600 francs in annuities – having allowed his daughters, to whom he has given 50,000 francs each in annuities, to take all his money, dies like a dog’.]3 The devoted père Goriot gave each of his daughters a large sum on their marriage, but the daughters’ greed and ambition lead them to make repeated demands for more money, until finally Goriot must live off a pittance. His interest in his daughters is intense and he asks Rastignac, a fellow boarder, to tell him every detail about his daughters’ lives when the young man visits them. However, Goriot’s love for them is unhealthy, as he appears to have replaced the love he felt for his deceased wife with an obsessive love for his children. The importance of this theme is reinforced by the frequent use of the technique of melodrama, which gives greater force to characters’ actions and words.4 Goriot even grovels on the floor like a dog in his need to be near his daughter, Delphine: [Goriot] se couchait aux pieds de sa fille pour les baiser; il la regardait longtemps dans les yeux; il frottait sa tête contre sa robe; enfin il faisait des folies comme en aurait fait l’amant le plus jeune et le plus tendre. (PG 247)

 2

Anne-Marie Baron, ‘La Double lignée du Père Goriot ou les composantes balzaciennes de l’image paternelle,’ L’Année Balzacienne, 6 (1985), 297-311 (pp. 299-300). 3 Balzac, Pensées, Sujets, Fragments (Paris: Jacques Crépet Ed., 1910) quoted in Maurice Bardèche, Balzac Romancier: La Formation de l’art du roman chez Balzac jusqu’à la publication du ‘Père Goriot’ (1820-35) (Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1967), p. 501. 4 Peter Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James and the Mode of Excess (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976, 1995).

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[(Goriot) would lie at his daughter’s feet to kiss them; he would gaze into her eyes for a long time; he would rub his head against her dress; in short, he acted in the mad way of a very young and tender lover.]

Thus Goriot is one of Balzac’s monomaniacs with one overriding, fixed idea and paternity is an important focus in the novel, but does not cover all the issues in this work, with its rich tapestry and its many interlinking threads. Balzac, aged thirty-five, was at the height of his powers as a novelist when he wrote Le Père Goriot and the novel clearly shows the richness of his experience in life and of writing, as he also experiments with new techniques such as the reappearing characters. Age is depicted in Le Père Goriot, but mainly in a more subtle way than the theme of paternity, as part of a much broader canvas. Balzac intended to be a historian who, like Scott, documented recent history and contemporary social life and although the novel was written between 1834 and 1835, the action takes place between 1819 and 1820.5 In his AvantPropos to La Comédie Humaine Balzac wrote of his aim to include all types of men, women and things in his novels. 6 He underlined the importance of things, as he believed that the objects with which people surrounded themselves reflected their character and general circumstances. Balzac also mentioned in a letter to Mme Hanska (26 October 1834) how wide his studies of people would be, including different professions and ages: Les Etudes de Mœurs représenteront tous les effets sociaux, sans que ni une situation de la vie, ni une physionomie, ni un caractère d’homme ou de femme, ni une manière de vivre, ni une profession, ni une zone sociale, ni un pays français, ni quoi que ce soit de l’enfance, de la vieillesse, de l’âge mûr, de la politique, de la justice, de la guerre, ait été oublié. [The Study of Manners will portray all social conditions, without a single position in life, or a facial appearance, or a man or woman’s character, or a way of life, or a profession, or a district related to a social class, or a region in France or any characteristic whatsoever connected to childhood, old age, middle age, politics, legal matters or war being left out.]

There are several examples of the elderly in other novels of Balzac, of which Eugénie Grandet (1833) is perhaps the most pertinent example

 5

In La Comédie Humaine, Le Père Goriot appears under the larger heading of Etudes de Mœurs and the secondary heading Scènes de la vie privée, from 1789 to the July Monarchy. 6 Honoré de Balzac, Le Père Goriot, Avant-Propos, vol. 1 (Paris: Gallimard, 1951).

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here. The father in that novel is elderly but rich and, unlike Goriot who gives too much money to his family, Grandet is too miserly and therefore retains his money and his power over others, including his wife and daughter. However, the extremes of this monomaniac at first induce rebellion in the daughter, Eugénie, who defies her father by giving some of her money to the man she loves, Charles, who goes abroad to make his fortune. Unfortunately, when both Eugénie’s parents have died, enabling her to live the life she chooses, Charles, on his return, marries another woman and Eugénie, showing the strong influence her father still has on her way of life, lives a very frugal life thereafter. Thus age and even death do not finally alter the father’s influence and power over his daughter, even though it is a negative influence. In this instance it is the daughter, rather than the father, who suffers because of her father’s obsessive miserliness. This present study will concentrate on Le Père Goriot. There are several elderly characters, including Mme Vauquer, whose boarding house forms the backdrop for many of the episodes in the novel, and several of her lodgers are also elderly, including Mlle Michonneau and M. Poirot. The boarding house is inhabited mainly by members of the lower middle class, and it is where the impoverished characters, such as students and the elderly, must live, including the elderly retired père Goriot and the young and impoverished student, Rastignac. The ‘thick description,’ which Balzac provides of the boarding house gives the reader a good idea of the decor and furniture and also the smells, general decay and dreary atmosphere which mark the inhabitants as they in turn leave their stamp on the boarding house.7 The following quotation describes the very unpleasant salon in the boarding house: La cheminée en pierre, dont le foyer toujours propre atteste qu’il ne s’y fait de feu que dans les grandes occasions, est ornée de deux vases pleins de fleurs artificielles, vieillies et encagées, qui accompagnent une pendule en marbre bleuâtre du plus mauvais goût. Cette première pièce exhale une odeur sans nom dans la langue, et qu’il faudrait appeler l’odeur de pension. (PG 47)



7 Martin Kanes, ‘Structures: Organising a Fictional Universe’, in Harold Bloom (ed.), Honoré de Balzac (Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2003) refers to this kind of description as ‘a version of a modern anthropological procedure…a process of extremely detailed depiction that theoretically permits the understanding of a culture “from within”’ pp. 183-94 (pp. 183-84).

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[The stone fireplace, the clean hearth of which was testimony to the fact that there was only a fire there on special occasions, was decorated with two vases of old, artificial flowers, like prisoners under glass shades, together with a marble clock of a bluish colour in the worst possible taste. This first room exuded a smell impossible to name and which can only be referred to as a boarding house smell.]

The reader is likely to feel revulsion as a reaction to this description, which in turn explains the need of a young person like the student Rastignac to improve his situation in life. However, Goriot, being old and finally living in poverty, no longer has this option. The boarding house will also form a contrast with the luxurious mansions and lifestyles of other members of society, including Goriot’s daughters. This further underlines the father’s poverty in his old age and his self-abnegation in relation to his daughters. Goriot’s situation can also be seen as a generational problem, whereby the selfish younger generation sees the older person as little more than a source of finance and an obstacle to their needs.8 The elderly Mlle Michonneau and M. Poirot, at the beginning of the novel, seem of little importance.9 At most they appear to represent the older generation and reinforce the representation of the difficult lives of the elderly who must live in such an unpleasant environment. They, with all the other boarders, are victims of the miserliness of Mme Vauquer. She only gives each person the respect she feels is due to them because of the rent they pay (PG 51). This shows the strong link made in this narrative between money and respect and the suffering it causes the elderly. Goriot’s age is emphasised by the inevitable comparison the reader makes between the elderly Goriot and his fellow boarder the student Rastignac, who stands out because of his youth. Starting out on life’s journey, Rastignac appears to be the typical nineteenth-century young man who, in order to be successful in society, must learn the dynamics of the lifestyle and the unspoken rules of the upper echelons of Parisian society. Rastignac is able to gain entry to this society, because of his social position as a relation of Mme de Beauséant and also because of his good

 8

Herbert S. Donow, ‘The Two Faces of Age and the Resolution of Generational Conflict’, The Gerontologist, 34.1 (1994), 73-78. 9 Mlle Michonneau and Poirot are both revealed to be police spies later in the narrative and enable the police to capture the criminal Vautrin. Balzac often uses the device of setting up a mystery, usually solved, though some are not disclosed to the reader.

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looks and youth which will enable him to charm the ladies in high society, including particularly Goriot’s daughter, Delphine. He can use these rich, beautiful women to help him to ascend the social ladder, as these aristocratic and powerful ladies dictate who will succeed in this society. However he is also naïve and has little insight into how society really functions or his own motivations. He still has important choices to make, as to whether he will succeed by using other people or on his own merit. However, all these attributes offer him the chance of escaping from the boarding house if he makes this decision. Conversely, the elderly Goriot has lost his youthful appearance, his fortune, his energy and his ability to make more money. There are therefore very few choices left for him to improve his lifestyle. Thus, mainly because of his age, he is finally condemned to live out the rest of his life in this mediocre boarding house. Rastignac therefore creates a very forceful contrast with Goriot. The student is also present when Goriot dies, thereby learning how low a once prosperous man can fall in a society obsessed by money and oblivious to the problems of old age. The poverty suffered by the elderly is shown in spatial (vertical/horizontal) and geographical terms. Thus for example the elderly Goriot moves up the different floors of the boarding house, eventually becoming so impoverished that he must live in the garret10 and the poor, inevitably including many elderly middle-class people, inhabit Saint Jacques and Saint Marcel. The bankers and businessmen meanwhile live in the Chaussée d’Antin and the old aristocracy in the Faubourg St Germain, showing once again the success a person has achieved or inherited in life in horizontal, geographical terms. As Goriot’s decline continues, he begins to look more decrepit, gradually losing the respect of other people, particularly the landlady Mme Vauquer who no longer sees him as a suitable suitor. The respect and status which money brings is shown in great detail by the way Goriot is addressed over time by Mme Vauquer. First of all Goriot is known as ‘Monsieur Goriot’ and finally, as his fortune is almost spent, as ‘le père Goriot’ (PG 59-65), underlined by the exact figures mentioned in relation to Goriot’s dwindling income. Goriot mainly loses respect because he has lost most of his money, in a society where money is the chief means of judging and classifying people’s social status and power. Therefore age might appear to be

 10

Brooks, p. 135.

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incidental in the novel. On the other hand, as it is his age which makes Goriot powerless and unable to earn more money to give to his daughters, age is, albeit indirectly, the cause of this loss of others’ respect. In this impoverished state, he feels he is of little value to his daughters, especially Anastasie, who is in dire need of money: Allons, je dois mourir, je n’ai plus qu’à mourir. Oui, je ne suis plus bon à rien, je ne suis plus père! non. Elle me demande, elle a besoin! et moi, misérable, je n’ai rien. Ah! Tu t’es fait des rentes viagères, vieux scélérat, et tu avais des filles! (PG 268) [Now I must die, the only thing I can do is die. Yes, I am no longer good for anything, I am no longer a father! No. She has asked me for something, she needs something! And I, penniless wretch, have nothing to give. Oh! You old scoundrel, you took out annuities for life and you had daughters!]

In addition, Goriot is seen as an embarrassment, particularly in the eyes of his sons-in-law. Since Goriot is a member of the bourgeoisie, they consider he is socially inferior, but their lack of respect derives mainly from the fact that he has lost his fortune and no longer fits in their luxurious homes and high society circles. The story of Goriot, as we have seen, takes place mainly at a point in recent history, after the fall of Napoleon and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, with some reference also to Goriot’s actions in the past, particularly during the period of the Revolution. Balzac includes a lot of material on the aristocracy, and he is equally interested in the rise of the middle classes, but he shows little interest in the working class, of which there are few examples, except mainly servants. Thus Balzac focuses on the relations between the two classes which intrigue him the most and especially their rivalries and jealousies. Greater social mobility at this period meant people, especially the bourgeoisie, could aspire to higher positions in society. Balzac is right when he tells the reader at the beginning of the novel that ‘all is true’. This material in the novel is often elevated to a drama, rather than just a realistic representation of the material, as this underlines the battles taking place as individuals try to fulfil their social ambitions. These events and the value systems of this society thus have greater force and an obvious impact on the lives of other characters and, in particular, the elderly, vulnerable members of society who cannot engage in this merciless class struggle. What drives this society above all is the pursuit of money, pleasure and power. Money is one of the greatest obsessions or passions in this society. It underpins most of the actions and decisions of the characters and

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determines their place in society. It can also lead to much suffering, especially amongst the old and the impoverished like Goriot. These emotions can be so powerful that they are seen by Balzac, and illustrated in La Peau de Chagrin (1831), as passions which can actually have a corrosive effect on characters and even shorten their lives. An example would be Mlle Michonneau whose face appears to have been eroded by acid: Quel acide avait dépouillé cette créature de ses formes féminines?... étaitce le vice, le chagrin, la cupidité? Avait-elle trop aimé, avait-elle été marchande à la toilette, ou seulement courtisane? (PG 52) [What acid had robbed this creature of her womanly shape?...was it vice, sorrow or greed? Had she loved too well, had she been a seller of secondhand clothing, or simply a courtesan?]

Historical events also have their influence on the treatment of Goriot by his family. It is mainly through Goriot, his daughters and Rastignac that we learn about this representation of recent French history. The turmoil of the Revolution has led to greater social mobility, but as the nouveaux riches and the rich bourgeois attained a very different position in society, their negative attitudes towards those in a more humble position to themselves became entrenched. Thus, during the Post-Napoleonic era, different social barriers emerged. When Rastignac arrives in Paris, although he is related to a member of high society, Mme de Beauséant, like Goriot he is in effect an outsider in this society but by the end of the novel he has virtually become an insider.11 In contrast, when Goriot’s daughters first married, because of the more liberal attitudes in society and their father’s wealth, Goriot can see his daughters and is close to being an insider. But as social attitudes change and Goriot loses his wealth, he takes the opposite route to Rastignac and becomes very much an outsider in high society. This is why Rastignac sees his efforts to enter the ranks of high society as a battle to be won. It also explains why Goriot cannot visit his daughters or be much involved in their lives as he belongs to the bourgeoisie, has lost most of his fortune and with that the respect of his elitist sons-in-law and is prevented by his age from accruing another fortune. This exclusion and lack of contact with his daughters is probably the source of Goriot’s greatest suffering in old age. Paris, as mentioned above, divided its population on a geographical level and also had literal and

 11

Kanes, p. 94.

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metaphorical heights and depths. These different areas highlight the different social positions of the characters and the jealousies, selfishness and violence this can lead to. It means that Goriot in his old age is separated from his daughters by physical, social and moral barriers. Goriot’s daughters not only live in very different parts of Paris, but their marriages have made them part of high society, from which Goriot is excluded by his lowly social situation and the lack of respect accorded to him once he has given his fortune away to his daughters. This separation is also due to the lack of moral values in the daughters, particularly their duty to their father. Goriot’s age makes it impossible for him to earn more money and thus more respect, which would lead to more contact with his daughters. Therefore the lives of Goriot and the other characters are deeply rooted in a particular social and historical period and interact with the workings of this period and society, which in turn limits their options and greatly influences their lives, especially amongst the old and the poor like Goriot. This is demonstrated in a very dramatic, even melodramatic way when the dying Goriot wants the police to bring his daughters to him and fears for a society where fathers are of little importance if they have no fortune. Paternity thus serves to show the nature of this society which will prove so heartless towards Goriot in his old age as he lives in a society clearly demonstrating moral degeneration. This idea links together Goriot’s obsession with paternity and his sufferings as an old man in this ruthless society: Envoyez-les chercher par la gendarmerie, de force! la justice est pour moi, tout est pour moi, la nature, le code civil. Je proteste. La patrie périra si les pères sont foulés aux pieds. Cela est clair. La société, le monde roulent sur la paternité, tout croule si les enfants n’aiment pas leurs pères. (PG 296) [Make the police force them to come! I have justice on my side, everything on my side, including nature and common law. I protest. Our homeland will be destroyed if fathers are trampled under foot. That is obvious. Society and the whole world are all about paternity and everything would collapse if children did not love their fathers.]

As the boarding house represents the immediate background of the impoverished characters in the novel, so Paris, the backdrop for the narrative as a whole, represents the wider world they inhabit and reveals a lot about the characters from different classes and ages in society. The city is such an important influence on its inhabitants’ actions and ideas that it can almost be seen as another character in the novel. It is described using various very visual terms, such as a jungle, a wasps’ nest, or spiders

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caught in a pot, which suggests its inhabitants behave rather like wild animals, prepared to stop at nothing, even ready to kill to achieve their aims, mainly power and money. The criminal Vautrin exemplifies this view. He discloses to Rastignac an inverted view of what would have been basic morality, particularly Christian values, at this time. For Vautrin, any action, including murder, is justifiable to attain one’s aims. Young men commonly use their mistresses to rise in society and Anastasie’s lover, Maxime de Trailles, is an example of this, with Anastasie being willing to leave her father in penury to pay her lover’s debts. Such attitudes are clearly shown in the advice Mme de Beauséant gives Rastignac to help him succeed in high society: Plus froidement vous calculerez, plus avant vous irez. Frappez sans pitié, vous serez craint. N’acceptez les hommes et les femmes que comme des chevaux de poste que vous laisserez crever à chaque relais, vous arriverez ainsi au faîte de vos désirs. (PG 117) [The more coldly you weigh up your chances of success, the further you will get. Strike without pity and you will be feared. See men and women as no more than post horses which you ride until you leave them to die at every coaching inn. In this way you will reach the height of your desires.]

This image of Parisian society is also linked to Balzac’s interest in St Hilaire and the parallels he makes between the lives of animals and the human race. Balzac is interested in the struggle for survival found in the animal world, but more significantly in society at all levels. It is also a society where only the fittest can win, or even survive. Those who aspire to improve their position in society, often show great ruthlessness, even using verbal or physical violence. Rastignac needs to be young and strong to make his fortune in such a ruthless society when, somewhat ironically, Balzac describes this attitude in the Avant-Propos as ‘la belle loi du soi pour soi’ (p. 4) [‘the noble law of every man for himself’]. It is evident that Goriot, mainly because of his age, cannot take part in such a merciless struggle for money and power. In such a ruthless society the weak and vulnerable, such as Goriot, are unlikely to survive. This is underlined by the fact that Goriot dies before the end of the novel, in very tragic circumstances, portrayed in a very graphic manner. Most importantly, Paris is likened to an ocean with very murky depths. This is a very vivid metaphor for how society appears on the surface with the proprieties carefully preserved, glittering balls and luxurious mansions, whilst underneath exist adultery, greed, ruthless ambition and cruelty,

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including an ‘élégant parricide’ [‘an elegant parricide’].12 It is a place, in short, where, as Rastignac remarks, the main virtue is money: ‘la fortune est la vertu’ (PG 120) [‘Having a fortune is considered a virtue’]. Thus the elderly Goriot cannot rely on his daughters’ goodness or sense of duty to support him in his old age. They mainly see their father as a source of money. Goriot’s two daughters, despite their bourgeois roots, have been able, in this changing world, to marry into the upper echelons of society, Anastasie to a nobleman and Delphine to a rich banker. Their values in this environment are very different from the virtues shown by Rastignac’s provincial family. Delphine aspires to move beyond the nouveaux riches and join her sister Anastasie in the old aristocratic moneyed class, and Anastasie is obsessed with her lover, even lending him large amounts of money which she takes from her father without any thought for his financial situation. Goriot thus becomes more and more impoverished. Thus, even in the upper strata of society there is still ruthless ambition and greed, even sometimes directed towards the weak, including the elderly. There is no sense of family duty. Virtue would normally be considered as a positive element in society, including the humane treatment of the elderly. However it serves no purpose for many people in this PostNapoleonic era and is indeed often seen in a negative way as it is unlikely to bring success in Parisian society. Goriot comes to the end of his life in the novel and is able to look back and reflect on his mistakes, whereas Rastignac is a young man who must still decide which direction his life will take. Goriot’s past mistakes include the way in which he brought up his young daughters. Since he gave in to their every whim when they were young, Goriot’s overindulgence in effect led to him abdicating his true role as a father. Thus the daughters have become selfish and ambitious. They show little kindness or concern for their father, whom they reduce to dire poverty because of the financial demands they continue to make on him. The daughters’ values, like those of many of the members of society at all levels, do not include any concern for the elderly and impoverished. Therefore Goriot’s daughters’ upbringing and the values of the era work against Goriot in old age. However, the elderly Goriot no longer has time to change his behaviour or that of his daughters. This is his tragedy as

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Rastignac is so shocked when Mme de Nucingen decides to go to the ball rather than to see her dying father that he sees it as a murder in the higher ranks of society (p. 280).

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an old, dying man. Goriot’s situation is particularly striking and introduces pathos when his daughters fail to visit him before he dies. However, his real tragedy is that when he is near death and because of age and sickness unable to remedy his mistakes, he becomes lucid about the damage his upbringing of his daughters has had on their values. He has a clear insight into the cruelty of his daughters and how he failed them as a father: Moi seul ai causé les désordres de mes filles, je les ai gâtées. Elles veulent aujourd’hui le plaisir, comme elles voulaient autrefois le bonbon. Je leur ai toujours permis de satisfaire leurs fantaisies de jeunes filles. A quinze ans elles avaient une voiture! (PG 297) [I alone am responsible for my daughters’ dissolute lives because I spoiled them. Nowadays they demand pleasure as in the past they demanded sweets. As young girls, I always allowed them to satisfy their whims. At fifteen they had a carriage!]

Thus underneath the very real geography and superficial appearance of the city, a Manichean struggle is taking place in some characters, as good and evil strive to win them over.13 In this society evil normally stems from a ruthless desire to be successful by any means. This is the choice Rastignac will finally have to make. However, while he is still debating whether he will take the path of virtue, symbolised by his family, or the more ruthless road to success communicated to him in a very vivid way by Mme de Beauséant and Vautrin, he shows the essential goodness in his nature, by helping Goriot through his last illness. His final choice, to join the ruthless struggle for success, is shown only at the end of the novel. In addition, Goriot’s daughters also make their choice clear when they go to Mme de Beauséant’s ball rather than to the bedside of their dying father and only send their carriages to Goriot’s funeral. Thus, in this society, self-interest and a strong sense of social class usually triumph over concern for the weak and the elderly, even family members,. Youth, strength and ruthlessness are needed to become part of the elite. However, Goriot is not himself beyond reproach. Goriot’s life also has its unsavoury secrets as he chose to make his fortune selling grain at high prices during the Revolution when it was in short supply. This also shows a ruthless element in his character which, in his younger days, enabled him to succeed. In old age, this ruthlessness persists as he admits he would do anything to help his daughters, but he is too weak to use such a pitiless approach to accrue another fortune. Thus when his daughter Anastasie asks her father for money which he is unable to give her, he reacts as

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Brooks, p. 124.

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follows: ‘Je me voue à celui qui te sauvera, Nasie! Je tuerai un homme pour lui. Je ferai comme Vautrin, j’irai au bagne!’ (PG 268) [‘I will do anything for the one who saves you, Nasie! I will even kill a man for him. I will do the same as Vautrin and end up in penal servitude!’]. Thus Goriot, when old and vulnerable, himself becomes the victim of the values of this society based on money, pleasure and self. In conclusion, age, as seen largely in the character of Goriot, may at first appear to be incidental in this novel, but in fact it has quite an important part to play. Old age brings Goriot great physical and psychological suffering, in the form of isolation from family, poverty, loss of respect and powerlessness. Also, just before his death, Goriot gains a tragic insight into his deficiencies in what is for him his most important role, that of a father. His sufferings in old age are due partly to his own behaviour, but also to factors beyond his control. This is because his story is embedded in the larger story of society in the Post-Napoleonic era, a society obsessed with social status, power and money, where accruing a fortune is seen as a virtue, and in which social status and the respect people receive are also linked to money. Thus Goriot’s sufferings as an old man are compounded by the society of which he is a part. Therefore, although age is most often implicit rather than explicit in its role in this novel, it is nevertheless closely linked to a very important view of what drives this society and dictates the morals of many of its citizens, namely money. In addition, two very important themes in the novel, paternity and age, are seen to be linked, as in the title: as Goriot himself observes, had he kept his money, he would not have been neglected by his daughters, nor lost the respect of his sons-in-law and would have been spared the tragic death he endures. Close to death, Goriot finally realises that the obsession with money in this society can buy anything, even daughters: ‘Ah! Si j’étais riche, si j’avais gardé ma fortune, si je ne la leur avais pas donnée, elles seraient là, elles me lécheraient les joues de leurs baisers! Je demeurerais dans un hôtel, j’aurais de belles chambres, des domestiques, du feu à moi; et elles seraient tout en larmes, avec leurs maris, leurs enfants. J’aurais tout cela. Mais rien. L’argent donne tout, même des filles…’ (PG 293-4) [‘Oh! If I was rich, if I had kept my fortune, if I had not given it to them, they would be here, they would wet my cheeks with their kisses! I would live in a town house, I would have beautiful rooms, servants, my own fire; and they, their husbands and children would be in tears. I would have all that. But I have nothing. Money gives you everything, even daughters…’]

Finally, to add a further insight into the idea of obsession in this novel, the author’s personal obsessions, just like many of the characters, reappear

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in most of his works, including Le Père Goriot. As indicated above, the obsession with paternity is a transposition of Balzac’s failed relationship with his own mother and, in addition, as Balzac, like Goriot, had gained and lost a fortune, the obsession with money is also evident. In the obsession to succeed, there is a parallel between Balzac, whose desire was to succeed as a writer, and Rastignac, who aspires to social success. Finally, both Goriot and Balzac can be said to have driven themselves to the point where the intensity of their obsessions, paternity and ambition, destroyed their very life source.



LIFE BEGINS AT SIXTY: REPRESENTATIONS OF OLD AGE IN EMILE ZOLA’S LE DOCTEUR PASCAL BARBARA M. STONE

Emile Zola’s twenty-volume cycle of novels, Les Rougon-Macquart, is a pageant of humanity populated by characters of every class, situation and age; indeed, given Zola’s use of heredity as an organising principle of his series, older characters are a necessary component of the works, which go beyond merely featuring negative stereotypes of older characters to foregrounding positive characters of advancing years. The concluding novel of the series, Le Docteur Pascal [Doctor Pascal], boasts a concentration of elderly characters, ranging from Tante Dide to her daughter-in-law Félicité, her son Antoine Macquart and the eponymous hero of the work, Félicité’s son Pascal Rougon. The representation of Pascal, an alter ego of the late middle-aged Emile Zola, is a sensitive depiction of a man (and a doctor) confronting old age, diagnosing its physical and psychological symptoms with clinical detachment and charting the resurgence of youthful energy which he derives, vampire-like, from an incestuous relationship with his young niece Clotilde. This shows how Zola recognises both the potential and the limitations of old age, and in his nuanced portrait of Pascal there is a fundamentally positive representation, even a modest celebration, of old age.

Emile Zola’s novel Le Docteur Pascal (1893) [Doctor Pascal] is the twentieth and final instalment of his Rougon-Macquart series. That the novel boasts a concentration of elderly characters seen nowhere else in the cycle is perhaps no surprise, given its function as the concluding chapter in a family saga where recurring characters are revisited and some particularly long-lived representatives of the older generation(s) are still standing.1 Le Docteur Pascal offers differing views of old age with both

 1

For the purposes of this chapter old age begins at sixty. Drawing on an analysis of nineteenth-century dictionaries, Gilles Pollet reports that ‘un accord commence à se faire autour d’une borne précise “au commencement de la soixantième année”’. Gilles Pollet, ‘La vieillesse dans la littérature, la médecine et le droit au

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positive and negative characteristics being ascribed to it, such as those which make up Alain Montandon’s description of the double-edged nature of old age: Car la vieillesse a un double visage, et nous retrouvons dans toutes les cultures cette ambivalence qui fait osciller la vieillesse entre bonheur et malheur, sagesse et décrépitude, gain et perte, harmonie et désastre.2 [For old age has a double face, and we find in all cultures this ambivalence which sees old age oscillate between happiness and unhappiness, wisdom and decrepitude, gain and loss, harmony and disaster.]

This idea of oscillation between the positive and the negative is seen to be the case of Pascal Rougon in particular, as the doctor reflects on his experience of ageing. Most of the elderly characters in Le Docteur Pascal are shorthand stereotypes of old age, similar to those found elsewhere in Les RougonMacquart, such as the fossilised retired schoolmaster Bellombre, or Félicité Rougon the ferocious mother figure, guardian of the Rougon family legend, and her roué of a brother-in-law Antoine Macquart, a somewhat reformed ‘old bandit’.3 All three are in a state of advanced old age, since Bellombre is seventy and the others are in their early eighties, but they seem to be preserved from the outward ravages of old age, Bellombre by his self-interest and rejection of the outside world, Antoine Macquart literally pickled in alcohol, and Félicité kept spry by her unstinting activity to secure and promulgate the glory of the Rougon family.4 There is also a role for the recurring figure of Tante Dide, the



XIXème siècle: sociogenèse d’un nouvel âge de la vie’, Retraite et Société, 34 (2001), 29-49 (p. 34). Modern dictionaries suggest that sixty-five or even seventy is now the starting point for old age. 2 Alain Montandon, Eros, blessures et folie: détresses du vieillir (ClermontFerrand: Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal, 2006), p. 7. 3 Antoine Macquart is a member of the group of debauched has-beens in Les Rougon-Macquart, such as M. de Plouguern (Son Excellence Eugène Rougon), Narcisse Bachelard (Pot-Bouille) and the marquis de Chouard (Nana). He is closer to the relatively harmless skirt-chasing parliamentarian M. de Chédeville (La Terre) than to the more sinister figure of the murdered rapist Grandmorin (La Bête humaine). 4 Félicité can be grouped with other scheming shrews, such as Mme Josserand (Pot-Bouille), La Grande (La Terre) and the blackmailing La Méchain (L’Argent). She is also Zola’s most developed ambitious mother figure. The mother of abbé Faujas (La Conquête de Plassans) and Mme Chanteau (La Joie de vivre) pale beside Félicité’s energy and commitment.

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matriarch of the Rougon-Macquart family, this time underlining her mythical significance, as befits the concluding chapter of the cycle. The restricted and negative examples of ageing provided by these minor elderly characters in Le Docteur Pascal form the backdrop against which the eponymous hero of the novel takes centre stage. Zola’s presentation of Félicité Rougon, Antoine Macquart, and even M. Bellombre – each of them characterised by a relentless pursuit of their respective idée fixe – both renders them comical and undermines them, reducing them to the status of a stock comic character. Observing that nineteenth-century literature did, however, feature elderly major characters who were not comic stereotypes, Gilles Pollet describes a character type which fits the sixty-year-old Pascal Rougon perfectly: Doté d’une riche expérience, garant de la fortune et des traditions familiales, il semble, en particulier dans les classes aisées, se trouver à l’apogée de sa vie. Le vieillard peut même être exalté et décrit comme un modèle de bonté, de douceur et de sagesse.5 [Blessed with rich experience, guarantor of the family fortune and traditions, he seems, in particular in the wealthy classes, to be at the peak of his life. The old man can even be exalted and described as a model of goodness, gentleness and wisdom.]

Pascal Rougon is a richly developed character, as befits his importance on several levels to Emile Zola. David Schalk refers to the closeness of the relationship between the two, describing it as ‘one of the most intimate in the history of literature’, calling Pascal Zola’s ‘favourite character’ with whom he identified, as exemplified by his choice of ‘Monsieur Pascal’ as his first pseudonym when in exile in England. 6 Claudie Bernard offers another view of the relationship between author and character, suggesting that the former is keen to assert his superiority over the latter, denying



5 Gilles Pollet, p. 38. Pascal Rougon is associated with exactly these qualities and is one of the rare positive depictions of old age in Les Rougon-Macquart. Instances of benevolent old age are hard to locate in a series of novels depicting the unbridled self-interest which for Zola characterised the Second Empire. Pascal is, however, prefigured by the free-thinking Jeanbernat (La Faute de l’Abbé Mouret) whose positive attitude towards science is celebrated by Zola. The fraternal devotion of the elderly usurer Busch in L’Argent has its echoes in Pascal’s compassion towards his family. 6 David Schalk, ‘Tying up the Loose Ends of an Epoch: Zola’s Docteur Pascal’, French Historical Studies, 16 (1989), 202-16 (p. 208).

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Pascal his own experience of professional, public and personal fulfilment.7 Pascal has special status in the cycle, not derived simply from the structural position of ‘his’ novel at the end of Emile Zola’s vast literary enterprise but linked more to the functions bestowed upon him by Zola, each of which requires him to be a man in early old age. Pascal’s age is suggested by his white hair and beard atop and around a youthful face (‘sous ses cheveux blancs, dans sa barbe blanche, son beau visage flambait de jeunesse’ p. 935),8 and when Clotilde observes him she is surprised to find that he is so young beneath his white hair (‘surprise de le trouver si jeune, sous ses cheveux blancs’ p. 953), and has a new, overflowing heart (‘cœur tout neuf et débordant, sous sa chevelure blanche’ p. 961). Once his relationship with Clotilde is consummated, his hair and beard grow more thickly, which makes him more youthful-looking (‘ses cheveux blancs, sa barbe blanche, poussaient plus drus, d’une abondance léonine, dont le flot de neige le rajeunissait’ p. 1068). Firstly, Pascal fulfils a structural function. Pascal is Zola’s most credible porte-parole in the series,9 and in Le Docteur Pascal he is called upon, with the authority of his professional experience as both doctor and scientist, to present the author’s testament philosophique.10 Just as Pascal

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‘Mais si la famille, l’Histoire, l’histoire sont destinées à se perpétuer, reste que l’individu Pascal échoue dans les trois domaines: il ne verra pas son fils, ne marquera pas dans l’Histoire, et ne rassemblera pas ses résultats.’ [‘But if the family, history and the story are destined to perpetuate themselves, it remains that Pascal the individual fails in all three areas: he will not see his son, will not make a mark on history and will not bring together his results’]. Claudie Bernard, ‘Cercle familial et cycle romanesque dans Le Docteur Pascal’, Les Cahiers Naturalistes, 67 (1993), 123-40 (p. 135). 8 All page references to Le Docteur Pascal and Zola’s preparatory notes are taken from volume V of the Pléiade edition. Emile Zola, Les Rougon-Macquart, ed. by Armand Lanoux and Henri Mitterand, 5 vols (Paris: Gallimard, 1960-1967). The English version of quotations from the novel are taken, where available, from Mary J. Serrano’s translation, a Gutenberg text: [accessed 14 December 2011]. All other translations are my own. 9 For Henri Mitterand, Pascal is ‘de tous les personnages auxquels Zola a prêté successivement sa voix, son porte-parole le plus autorisé’ (p. 1572) [‘of all the characters to whom Zola successively lent his voice, his most authorised spokesperson’]. 10 Zola wrote in the preparatory documents for the novel that ‘je voudrais, avec le Docteur Pascal, résumer toute la signification philosophique de la série’ (p. 1580) [‘I would like, with Doctor Pascal, to summarise the whole philosophical importance of the series’].

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represents the triumph of science in the face of mysticism, his groundbreaking study of heredity, taking his own family as an example, becomes an ingenious pretext for revisiting and summarising the cycle. Pascal’s role as family archivist neatly reflects Zola’s role as the family’s biographer.11 Secondly, Pascal performs a thematic function. Pascal is a vehicle through which Zola exorcises some of his own anxieties about ageing (especially in terms of sexual performance) and mortality and the relative merits of a legacy based on work and one based on offspring. In his preface to a collection of essays on depictions of old age, Alain Montandon observes: Généralement les écrivains qui prennent pour thème central le problème de vieillir en ont une vision catastrophique. On pourrait dire que pour la littérature, s’il n’y a pas d’amour heureux, il n’y a pas non plus de vieillesse heureuse.12 [Generally writers who take the problem of ageing as a central theme have a catastrophic vision of it. It could be said that if, as far as literature is concerned, there is no blissful love, then nor is there blissful old age.]

In Le Docteur Pascal, the image of old age is in fact not unrelievedly negative, but the eponymous hero is subject to three concerns which Zola associates with old age: financial problems, awareness of physical decline and anxiety about his legacy to posterity – what, if anything, will he leave for future generations? When the notary Grandguillot absconds with Pascal’s savings, Pascal’s hitherto carefree attitude towards money gives way to an anxiety about his ability to provide for the household. He sees this reality check starkly in terms of his age: [C]’était une détresse plus angoissante encore, la pensée de son âge, ses

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As Claudie Bernard points out, both stand apart and survey from above. ‘Sur le plan de la narration, la position de Zola par rapport à la famille, à l’Histoire et à l’histoire représentées est comparable, à un niveau supérieur, à celle de Pascal: ni dedans, ni dehors. Tous deux sont viscéralement impliqués parmi les RougonMacquart, mais en situation surplombante’ (p. 135) [‘In the context of the narration, Zola’s position in relation to the family, to history and to the story represented is comparable, at a higher level, to that of Pascal: neither inside nor outside. Both are viscerally implicated among the Rougon-Macquart but looking down from above’]. 12 Alain Montandon, Ecrire le vieillir (Clermont-Ferrand: Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal, 2005), p. 7.

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The anonymous letter he receives (which is, in fact, from his mother, Félicité) further convinces him that his old age is contemptible if he is no longer financially independent. The letter-writer urges him to separate from Clotilde if he cannot support her financially. La lettre avait raison, elle l’éclairait sur son malaise, lui faisait voir que son remords était d’être vieux, d’être pauvre, et de garder Clotilde. (p. 1134) [The letter was right, it enlightened him cruelly regarding the source of his mental distress, showing him that it was remorse for keeping Clotilde with him, old and poor as he was.]

After his death, Clotilde realises the extent of Pascal’s sacrifice and the reasons for his insisting that she leave, recognising that he was determined to disappear and to save her from his old age and poverty (‘de sa vieillesse et de sa pauvreté’ p. 1190). As a doctor, Pascal Rougon is well aware of the toll age takes on the body. Part of his early work was devoted to the development of a panacée universelle which would stave off death. He describes this magical mixture as his witch doctor’s liquor which wakes the dead (‘liqueur de sorcier, qui réveille les morts’ p. 944) and his ‘élixir de résurrection’ (p. 952). For our purposes it is significant that on one occasion he refers to his product as a scientific Fountain of Youth (‘une véritable scientifique fontaine de jouvence’ p. 949) – as youth is the only reliable cure for old age, and the one which Pascal seeks, through his vampiric relationship with Clotilde. During his own illness (nervous and physical exhaustion)

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Clotilde has already considered the burden which the house represents for Pascal, wondering what would become of him, at his age, responsible for such an onerous household (‘se demandant ce qu’il deviendrait, à son âge, chargé d’une maison si lourde’ p. 1118), and she is concerned that his returning to private medical practice is perhaps ill-advised, that it might be too late, at his age, to restart a career (‘n’était-ce pas trop tard, à son âge, pour recommencer une carrière’ p. 1119).

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and as his experimental use of his concoction on his patients seems to lose its efficacy, he reviews his approach and concludes that death will remain inevitable and sovereign (‘que la mort resterait l’inévitable, la souveraine’ p. 1082), but that all efforts should be made to alleviate suffering.14 This goes hand-in-hand with the doctor’s stoicism towards his own death: concluding that death is part of life, he advocates accepting everything in life (‘tout accepter de la vie’ p. 1164). He survives a period of illness early in the novel, but diagnoses his arteriosclerosis, then tracks his own symptoms, such as palpitations (p. 1139) and fainting fits (p. 1150) and describes his condition to his colleague Ramond, who explains to Clotilde that ‘[i]l m’en a dit les progrès jusqu’au dernier souffle, minute par minute, comme un professeur qui dissèque à l’amphithéâtre’ (p. 1186) [‘he described its progress to me, minute by minute, like a professor in the dissecting room’]. Aware of his impending death, Pascal’s thoughts turn to the form which his legacy to posterity will take. He feels driven to leave something behind, be that a contribution to medical and scientific research, the fruit of his brain, or a child, the fruit of his loins: Il lui répétait qu’il ne pouvait laisser son œuvre inachevée, qu’il avait tant à faire encore, s’il voulait élever un monument durable! (p. 1141) [He repeated to her that he could not leave his work unfinished, that he had still a great deal to do, if he desired to leave a lasting monument behind him.] Il eut alors, très net, le regret de ne s’être pas marié et de n’avoir pas d’enfant. […] Ce regret de l’enfant l’angoissait parfois […] ce qu’il voulait, sentant venir la fin de son être, c’était surtout la continuation, l’enfant qui l’aurait perpétué. (p. 1001) [He now regretted keenly that he had not married, and that he had no children. [… ] This regret for not having children now never left him […] what he desired in his isolation, feeling that his days were drawing to an end, was above all, continuance; in a child he would survive, he would live forever.]

In an overt transposition of Zola’s own uncertainty as to the respective value of books over babies as one’s legacy, Pascal ultimately laments the

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This is a very cursory summary of Pascal’s developing scientific outlook. Several monographs have been devoted to this aspect of the novel, among them Sven Kellner, ‘Le Docteur Pascal’ de Zola: rétrospective des ‘Rougon-Macquart’, livre de documents, roman à these (Lund: Osten Sodergård, 1980), and Yves Malinas, Zola et les hérédités imaginaires (Paris: Editions Expansion Scientifique Française, 1985).

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primacy he has given to his scientific research, the noteworthy dissertations which he occasionally sent to the Medical Academy (‘très remarquables mémoires qu’il envoyait parfois à l’Académie de médecine’ p. 944), over what he finally concludes is the worthier goal, sexual reproduction. Ah! que n’avait-il vécu! Certaines nuits, il arrivait à maudire la science, qu’il accusait de lui avoir pris le meilleur de sa virilité. Il s’était laissé dévorer par le travail, qui lui avait mangé le cerveau, mangé le cœur, mangé les muscles. (p. 1047) [Ah, why had he not lived! There were times when he cursed science, accusing it of having taken from him the best part of his manhood. He had let himself be devoured by work; work had consumed his brain, consumed his heart, consumed his flesh.]

Again, his age features in his assessment; it is not yet too late, and the explicit virilité vs vieillesse image present here is repeated on several occasions in the novel: Il s’enfiévrait à l’idée qu’il devait se hâter, car bientôt il ne serait plus temps. Toute sa jeunesse inemployée, tous ses désirs refoulés et amassés lui remontaient alors dans les veines, en un flot tumultueux. C’étaient des serments d’aimer encore, de revivre pour épuiser les passions qu’il n’avait point bues, de goûter à toutes, avant d’être un vieillard. (p. 1047) [But he must hasten, if he would; soon, no doubt, it would be too late. All his unemployed youth, all his pent-up desires, surged tumultuously through his veins. He swore that he would yet love, that he would live a new life, that he would drain the cup of every passion that he had not yet tasted, before he should be an old man.] Il n’avait point vécu, il gardait en lui toute une réserve de virilité, dont le flot grondait à cette heure, sous la menace de la vieillesse prochaine. (p. 1027) [He had not lived; he had within him a reserve of youthfulness, of vigour, whose surging flood now clamoured rebelliously at the menace of approaching age.]

Pascal is prey to the undeclared regret of his celibacy (‘regret inavoué de son célibat’ p. 1019) born of the fact that he lived a monastic life, cloistered with his books, far from women (‘il menait une existence de bénédictin, cloîtré dans ses livres, loin des femmes’ p. 1027). His struggle between work and women is viewed in sexual terms, with impotence – explicitly related to his age – a relevant consideration in both spheres:

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Ou bien n’était-ce que la faute de sa sénilité, s’il devenait incapable d’écrire une page, comme il était incapable de faire un enfant? La peur de l’impuissance l’avait toujours tourmenté (pp. 1143-4).15 [Or was it because of his senility, that he was becoming incapable of writing a single page, just as he was incapable of fathering a child? The fear of impotence had always tormented him.]

Having determined his preference for a flesh and blood rather than a paper and ink legacy, Pascal’s frustration at his apparent failure to reproduce is expressed in terms of his age: Ne vois-tu donc pas que je suis trop vieux et que je me méprise! Avec moi, tu resteras stérile, tu aurais cette douleur de n’être pas toute la femme, la mère! Va-t’en donc, puisque je ne suis plus un homme! (p. 1143) [But do you not see that I am too old and that I despise myself! With me, you will be barren, you will have the unhappiness of not becoming a complete woman, a mother! Go away then, since I am no longer a man!]

Once he viewed his work as his metaphorical offspring: Les découvertes qu’il a faites, les manuscrits qu’il compte laisser, c’est son orgueil, ce sont des êtres, du sang à lui, des enfants, et en les détruisant, en les brûlant, on brûlerait sa chair. (p. 996) [The discoveries which he has made, the writings which he has counted upon leaving behind him, these are his pride, they are creatures of his blood – his children – and whoever destroys, whoever burns them, burns a part of himself.]

But ultimately it is the news of Clotilde’s pregnancy, confirmation of his actual paternity, that is a source of both pride and happiness (‘qui le comblait de bonheur et d’orgueil’ p. 1168) and will be his legacy. Pascal’s old age is thus the time at which he savours satisfaction – and where Zola celebrates the triumph of his alter ego’s virility over his advancing years. Thirdly, Zola charges Pascal with an autobiographical function. Pascal becomes Zola in the transformation of Zola’s real-life adulterous liaison with the much younger Jeanne Rozerot, into the incestuous relationship



15 For example, before an episode of erectile dysfunction during a visit to a brothel in Marseilles, he had never attached any importance to sexual performance, but was henceforth obsessed by it to the point of considering suicide. (‘Jamais il n’avait donné à cette chose une importance. Il en fut désormais possédé, bouleversé, éperdu de misère, jusqu’à songer au suicide’ p. 1030).

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Pascal enjoys with his ward – and niece – Clotilde Rougon.16 For many critics, such as David Schalk, who sees Zola’s life as a useful tool for understanding this novel,17 the principal interest of Le Docteur Pascal is as the literary transposition of Zola’s liaison with his wife’s young chambermaid, begun in 1888, a relationship from which two children were born, Denise in 1889 and Jacques in 1891. A perusal of Zola’s ‘intimate biography’ indeed reveals that the writer had undertaken a serious diet and exercise regime in 1887 and Frederick Brown reports that ‘[n]o sooner had Zola undertaken to make himself more youthful than he began to sketch a story about a middle-aged man falling in love with a much younger woman’.18 A close identification between author and character explains, at least in part, how the representation of Pascal is so thoroughly imbued with emotion and detail in respect of his feelings towards his young lover and his attitude towards his life’s work. As Henri Troyat explains: Du reste, il compte mettre à profit, dans son prochain livre, cette expérience d’un renouveau sentimental et charnel. Le Docteur Pascal, pour lequel il accumule des notes, illustrera le triomphe de l’amour sur l’âge. Et, pour toute la partie psychologique du roman, il n’aura besoin que de ses propres impressions d’homme vieillissant régénéré par l’approche d’une très jeune compagne. Le printemps en plein hiver, quoi de plus exaltant pour un écrivain en quête d’un thème à la fois intimiste et universel?19 [Moreover, in his next book, he hopes to make use of this experience of a sentimental and carnal revival. Le Docteur Pascal for which he is accumulating notes, will illustrate the triumph of love over age. And, for all the psychological part of the novel, he will only need his own impressions of an ageing man regenerated by the approach of a very young partner. Springtime in the depths of winter, what could be more exalting for a writer seeking a theme that is both intimist and universal.]



16 Jeanne Rozerot was twenty-seven years Zola’s junior, she being twenty-one and he forty-eight. The age difference between Pascal and Clotilde is greater, at thirtyfour years. 17 While other critics have looked closely at the medical and scientific sources which informed the novel, for David Schalk ‘other contexts, including Zola’s intimate biography, are much more helpful in interpreting Le Docteur Pascal.’ Schalk, p. 205. 18 Frederick Brown, Zola – a Life (London: Macmillan, 1997), p. 614. 19 Henri Troyat, Zola (Paris: Flammarion, 1992), pp. 297-98. He explains that while Zola’s life was the starting point, the author exercised poetic licence: ‘Zola a voulu magnifier sa propre aventure avec Jeanne. Mais il a idéalisé ses deux personnages au point de les rendre invraisemblables’ (p. 299) [‘Zola wanted to magnify his own relationship with Jeanne. But he idealised his two characters to the point of making them implausible’].

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In the critical apparatus to the Pléiade editon of the novel, Henri Mitterand establishes connections between Pascal’s relationship with Clotilde and Zola’s with Jeanne Rozerot, the ‘crise intime’ which threatened the author’s marriage (p. 1573). 20 Elsewhere Henri Mitterand describes the novel as having ‘les allures d’un roman-confession, ou, selon le terme moderne, d’une autofiction’ [‘the appearance of a confessional novel, or, according the modern term, of autofiction’].21 Ce sera toute l’histoire d’un personnage en qui se confondent, à tous les points de vue, le rameau très anciennement enté sur l’arbre généalogique des Rougon-Macquart, et l’écrivain tardivement saisi par l’amour. Pascal Rougon? Non, Pascal Zola.22 [It will be the whole story of a character in whom merge, from all points of view, the branch grafted long ago onto the Rougon-Macquart family tree, and the writer belatedly struck by love. Pascal Rougon? No, Pascal Zola.]

In his preparatory notes for Le Docteur Pascal, Zola identifies an ‘amour d’automne’ as one of the plot-lines and the fifty-one-year-old author writes that ‘[s]i je mets l’action en 1872, le docteur Pascal n’a que 59 ans. Ce n’est donc pas un vieillard, et je puis parfaitement le faire aimer encore’ (p. 1581) [‘if I set the action in 1872, Doctor Pascal is only 59. He’s therefore not an old man, and I can perfectly well make him love still’]. He further specifies, with a whiff of wish-fulfilment, that the attraction is to be not only reciprocal (‘[i]l faut que ce soit partagé’ p. 1582, ‘Et peu à peu comment elle en vient à aimer passionnément le docteur’ p. 1581), but that the man’s age is to be part of his appeal for the younger woman (‘la passion de la jeunesse pour l’âge’ p. 1588). Pascal appears more worried by the age difference than Zola: Non, non! c’était abominable, c’était impossible! Il venait de sentir, sur son crâne, ses cheveux blancs comme une glace; et il avait une horreur de son âge, de ses cinquante-neuf ans, à la pensée de ses vingt-cinq ans, à elle. (p. 1052) [No, no, it was abominable, it could not be! He felt on his head the frost of

 20

Although the preparatory notes for the novel provide ‘peu de confidences personnelles de Zola’ [‘few of Zola’s personal confidences’], Henri Mitterand discerns nevertheless ‘l’écho assourdi du bonheur, mêlé de tourment, que lui apportait son amour pour Jeanne’ (p. 1591) [‘the muffled echo of happiness, mixed with torment, which his love for Jeanne afforded him’]. 21 Henri Mitterand, Zola: L’homme de ‘Germinal’ 1871-1893 (Paris: Fayard, 2001), p. 1098. The chapter is entitled ‘Pascal Zola (1893)’. 22 Mitterand, p. 1102.

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Clotilde, however, is not concerned by the age difference and she chooses Pascal over his colleague Ramond, a rival who sparkles with virile youth (‘tout l’éclat de sa virile jeunesse’ p. 1056). Clotilde tells him that she has compared Ramond to him and has chosen Pascal (‘[l]’autre! Je l’ai comparé à toi, et je t’ai choisi’ p.1061). For Clotilde, Pascal’s age is a plus, as it makes her youth more attractive to him. 23 This reciprocal passion was identified by Georges Pellissier as one of the weaknesses of the novel. In an 1893 review, he wrote: La plus grosse invraisemblance consiste tout d’abord dans l’amour de la jeune fille pour un vieillard. L’ancienne comédie nous a représenté maints docteurs amoureux à l’âge de Pascal; amoureux, oui, non pas aimés. Quelques précautions que prenne M. Zola, de quelques artifices qu’il use pour nous donner son héros comme ‘aimable’, il est bien forcé de dire son âge. (Les Rougon-Macquart, V, p. 1619) [The greatest improbability consists first of all in the love of the young girl for an old man. Antique comedy showed us many doctors in love at Pascal’s age; in love, yes, not loved. Whichever precautions M. Zola may take, whichever artifices he may employ to make his hero ‘pleasant’ for us, he is still forced to state his age.]

The age difference is highlighted in the anonymous letter, where the letter-writer also questions the reciprocity of feeling. Si la passion jusqu’à un certain point, expliquait la faute, un homme de son âge, et dans sa situation, était en train de se rendre absolument méprisable, en s’obstinant à consommer le malheur de la jeune parente, dont il abusait. […] [N]’était-ce pas à lui de comprendre qu’elle ne pouvait aimer un vieillard, qu’elle éprouvait seulement de la pitié et de la gratitude, et qu’il était grand temps de la délivrer de ces amours séniles, d’où elle sortirait déshonorée, déclassée, ni épouse ni mère? (p. 1133)24

 23

‘[M]a joie est que tu sois âgé et que je sois jeune, parce que le cadeau de mon corps te ravit davantage. Tu serais jeune comme moi, le cadeau de mon corps te ferait moins de plaisir, et j’en aurais moins de bonheur’ (p. 1129). [‘My joy is that you are old and that I am young, because the gift of my body thrills you more. Were you young like me, the gift of my body would give you less pleasure, and I would have less happiness from doing so.’] 24 Félicité, the writer of the letter, makes a similar point to her son viva voce outlining that continuing the relationship will cost him what remains of his health and the young Clotilde will compromise the rest of her life (‘lui, vieillissant,

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[If passion, up to a certain point, explained the fault, yet a man of his age and in his situation was rendering himself contemptible by persisting in wrecking the happiness of the young relative whose trustfulness he abused. […] [O]ught he not, on his side, to comprehend that it was impossible that she should love an old man, that what she felt was merely pity and gratitude, and that it was high time to deliver her from this senile love, which would finally leave her with a dishonoured name!]

In the novel, it is the age difference between the two lovers which is constantly underlined, usually by reference to Clotilde’s youth. Youth is an absolute value, it is all which is good and desirable (‘[i]l n’y avait que la jeunesse de bonne et de désirable’ p. 1050). Their different ages are presented as complementary; the flower of her youth and his mature strength combine to make them a radiant couple (‘jeunesse en fleur’, ‘force mûre’ and ‘couple rayonnant’ p. 1068). The notion of Pascal’s rebirth (‘il renaissait’ p. 1064), in the twilight of his years (‘sur le tard, au déclin de l’âge’ p. 1064), contains a strong undertone of sexual function, their liaison has made him a man once again (‘refait de lui un homme’ p. 1061). He has recovered his virility (‘il retrouvait sa virilité’ p. 1068) and his buying of expensive jewellery for Clotilde is an example of a young man’s enthusiasm (‘une fougue de jeune homme’ p. 1068).25 In Pascal’s desire for Clotilde there is both an attraction to her youth and also a regret for his wasted youth: Ah! la jeunesse, il en avait une faim dévorante. Au déclin de sa vie, ce désir passionné de jeunesse était la révolte contre l’âge menaçant, une envie désespérée de revenir en arrière, de recommencer. […] Ah! la jeunesse, comme il y aurait mordu à pleines dents, comme il l’aurait revécue avec l’appétit vorace de toute la manger et de toute la boire, avant de vieillir. (p. 1049)26



perdrait son reste de santé, où elle, si jeune, achèverait de compromettre sa vie entière’ p. 1145). The letter reprises some of Pascal’s own responses when he first realised he was sexually interested in Clotilde. 25 Frederick Brown neatly suggests the two sorts of expenditure at play: ‘Pascal spends until nothing remains, consummating the virile extravaganza with an impotent swoon’ (p. 656). 26 There is also the appeal of being young again and having a young woman in his arms (‘Ah! recommencer, être jeune encore, avoir à soi, dans une étreinte, toute la femme jeune!’ p. 1050) and later Pascal regains the appetite he had in his thirties (‘avait retrouvé son appétit de trente ans’ p.1128). In a letter (29 July 1893) to Jeanne Rozerot, Zola expresses himself in similar terms: ‘j’aurais été si heureux d’être jeune avec toi, de me rajeunir avec ta jeunesse et, au lieu de cela, c’est moi qui te vieillis’ (quoted in Henri Troyat, pp. 304-5) [‘I would have been so happy to

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The use of words such as faim, mordu à pleines dents, appétit, manger and boire highlights the very concrete hunger for youth (‘faim de jeunesse’ p. 1080) or vampirism, inherent in Pascal’s desire for his niece. Consuming her youth will alleviate his old age. He cannot believe that she shares his taste for youth.27 Once he has sampled the delights of youth, Pascal does not want to relinquish them: A trente ans, une femme se retrouve. Mais quel effort, dans la passion de sa virilité finissante, pour renoncer à ce corps frais, sentant bon la jeunesse, qui s’était royalement donné, qui lui appartenait comme son bien et sa chose! (p. 1150) [At thirty, you can find another woman. But what an effort, in this passion of the last flush of his virility, to give up this fresh body, smelling sweetly of youth, which was given to him so royally, which belonged to him like his very own possession!]

But this is not a problem, as the vampirism is consensual, Clotilde encouraging her uncle to draw on her reserves of youth and gain vitality: Prends ma jeunesse, prends-la toute en un coup, dans un seul baiser, et bois-la toute d’un trait, épuise-la, […] que je sois un jeune fruit délicieux, et que tu me goûtes! […] [J]e suis […] la sève qui bouillonne pour te rendre une jeunesse. (p. 1129)28 [Take my youth, take it all at once, in a single kiss, and drink it in a single draught, exhaust it, […] let me be a delicious young fruit for you to taste! […] I am the rising sap which will make you youthful again.]



be young with you, to make myself younger with your youth and, instead of that, it is me who is making you older’]. 27 ‘Oh! ta jeunesse, ta jeunesse, dont j’ai faim et qui me nourrit!…Mais, toi si jeune, n’en as-tu donc pas faim, de jeunesse, pour m’avoir pris, moi, si vieux, vieux comme le monde?’ (p. 1079) [‘Oh! your youth, your youth, for which I hunger and which sustains me!…But you, so young, don’t you also hunger for youth, having taken me, so old, so very old indeed?’] 28 This is evocative of the scene at the end of the novel where Clotilde is suckling her and Pascal’s son and is happy to feel the baby drinking its fill from her (‘heureuse de sentir la petite bouche vorace la boire sans fin’ p. 1219).

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In addition to the use of prendre in this passage, the verb donner is used elsewhere to suggest this idea of Clotilde gifting her youth to her uncle, for example, ‘lui donner sa vie, lui faire le don de sa jeunesse’ (p. 1145) or servir, ‘ce royal festin de jeunesse qu’elle lui servait’ (p. 1130). After his death, she wonders if her youth might not have saved him (‘elle l’aurait réchauffé de toute sa jeunesse’ pp. 1189, 1192), had she been there with him. When, in an heroic sacrifice, Pascal finally sends her away to Paris, he returns to the single bed – a metaphorical coffin – in which he used to sleep alone. His youth-by-proxy has gone, his temporary deferral of old age has come to an end, echoing his earlier recognition of the impossibility of conquering death with his panacée universelle and ‘[i]l lui sembla rentrer dans sa vieillesse, qui retombait à jamais sur lui, pareille à un couvercle de plomb’ (p. 1149) [‘It was as if he were returning to his old age, which descended upon him forever, like a leaden cover.’] In what could be construed as vicarious self-interest, Zola neutralises the potentially controversial age difference and the spectre of vampirism in his celebration of the reciprocity of the relationship between Pascal and Clotilde. The incestuous nature of their relationship is a further challenge which is also effectively minimised. Zola saves his alter ego Pascal from the negative associations of incest by effacing the family connection between the uncle and niece and by prioritising procreation.29 But Zola has not finished yet, he seeks to go beyond merely rendering the untraditional relationship acceptable, he seeks to give it authority and esteem by presenting the relationship between Clotilde and Pascal as fitting into a long line of mythical relationships characterised by both procreation and a considerable age difference. In so doing, he relies on the Biblical precedents of David and Abishag, Abraham and Agar, Boaz and Ruth. This characterisation of Clotilde and Pascal as royal if not divine sits very neatly with Zola’s reverence for his doctor/scientist alter ego and the messianic quality of their son, the enfant inconnu. The styling of Pascal as the Old King is significant as it makes a virtue out of his age, and thus contributes to a positive representation of old age. In the preliminary documents for Le Docteur Pascal, Zola identifies the image which is repeated several times in the novel. The doctor is still lively and strong, like an old king on the arm of a young, submissive, admiring woman (‘vif

 29

Furthermore, Nicholas White distinguishes the incest in Le Docteur Pascal from other examples of incest in Les Rougon-Macquart, as the ‘idealization of incestuous love is at odds with other depictions of incest, as the epitome of decadent artifice in La Curée and of brutish nature in La Terre in particular.’ Nicholas White, The Family in Crisis in Late Nineteenth-century French Fiction (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 109.

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et solide encore, comme un vieux roi, au bras d’une jeune fille soumise et en admiration’ p. 1582). Pascal and Clotilde are elsewhere described as the powerful and gentle former king, leaning on the shoulder of a charming and submissive girl, whose youth sustains him (‘l’ancien roi puissant et doux, appuyé à l’épaule d’une enfant charmante et soumise, dont la jeunesse le soutenait’ p. 962). The idea of the Old King takes the form of a fantasy for Pascal: C’était une de ces pèlerines d’amour comme on en trouve dans les anciennes histoires, qui avait suivi une étoile pour venir rendre la santé et la force à un vieux roi très puissant, couvert de gloire. Lui était le vieux roi, et elle l’adorait, elle faisait ce miracle, avec ses vingt ans, de lui donner de sa jeunesse (p. 1048).30 [She was one of those pilgrims of love such as we find in ancient stories, who have followed a star to come and restore health and strength to some aged king, powerful and covered with glory. He was the aged king, and she adored him, she wrought the miracle, with her twenty years, of bestowing on him a part of her youth.]

Each time both the age difference and the procreative potential of the relationship is underlined: [C]es extraordinaires histoires d’hommes de cent ans fécondant encore leurs épouses, recevant leurs servantes dans leur lit, accueillant les jeunes veuves et les vierges qui passent! […] [C]es hommes à la virilité jamais éteinte, ces femmes toujours fécondes, cette continuité entêtée et pullulante de la race, au travers des crimes, des adultères, des incestes, des amours hors d’âge et hors de raison (p. 1049).31 [These extraordinary stories of centenarian men still making their wives with child, receiving their servants, young widows and passing virgins in their bed! […] These men with boundless virility, these women always fecund, this stubborn prolongation of life, be it by crime, adultery, incest, love without age and beyond reason.]

 30

The generous-spirited populace of Plassans are also willing to enter into the doctor’s fantasy, sensing its legendary nature, the profound mythical couple of the beautiful young woman supporting her royal master (‘le petit peuple, touché dans son instinct, sentit la grâce de légende, le mythe profond du couple, la belle jeune fille soutenant le maître royal et reverdissant’ p. 1077). 31 The addition of incestes to the list of situations is loaded, for in the realisation of Pascal’s fantasy the young woman’s role is played by his niece. The final sentence is repeated almost verbatim (without ‘des adultères’), as a refrain, on p. 1079.

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Clotilde starts drawing Old King pictures and putting her own and Pascal’s facial features onto the images, starting with David and Abishag and ‘elle termina les visages en quelques coups de crayon: le vieux roi David, c’était lui, et c’était elle, Abisaïg, la Sunamite’ (p. 1078) [‘she finished the faces with a few strokes of the crayon – old King David was he, and she was Abishag, the Shunammite’]. She announces her plan to continue with other mythical couples: Je ferai Abraham et Agar, je ferai Ruth et Booz, je les ferai tous, les prophètes, les pasteurs et les rois, à qui les humbles filles, les parentes et les servantes ont donné leur jeunesse. (p. 1079) [I will do Abraham and Hagar, Ruth and Boaz, all of them, the prophets, the pastors and the kings, to whom lowly girls, female relations and servants offered their youth.]

The Old King concept follows a progression in Le Docteur Pascal. It starts as Pascal’s (and Zola’s) fantasy. The second phase is where Clotilde and Pascal look like the characters in the Old King scenario, thanks to her drawings. Then the couple becomes the Old King and his young fertile companion, where Zola uses metaphors not similes. For example, describing a post-coital doze where the Shunammite was sleeping with her cheek on the chest of her king (‘[l]a Sunamite sommeillait, la joue sur le cœur de son roi’ p. 1087). Pascal appropriates the name David and bestows that of Abishag on Clotilde, allegedly as a joke, but the significance is greater, as it facilitates their entry into this pageant of Old King relationships: Alors, de même que jadis, aux heures de félicité, le vieux roi David, ainsi que Pascal se nommait parfois en plaisantant, sortit au bras d’Abisaïg. (p. 1122) [So, just as in the olden times, in the hours of bliss, old King David, as Pascal sometimes would call himself in jest, went out on the arm of Abishag.]

Elsewhere, not only the names, but also the age difference is mentioned: Et ils durent enfin rentrer sans rien […] le vieux roi mendiant et sa sujette soumise, Abisaïg dans sa fleur de jeunesse, qui ramenait David vieillissant, dépouillé de ses biens. (p. 1125) [And finally they had to return empty-handed […] the old king a beggar and his submissive subject, Abishag, in the flower of her youth, would bring home the ageing David, stripped of his riches.]

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Clotilde sits beside Pascal’s dead body, once again the tender and submissive subject, watching over her king (‘sujette soumise et tendre, veillant sur son roi’ p. 1190). It is after Pascal’s death that the Old King scenario becomes a symbol of the relationship they had, evoked for Clotilde each time she looks at her drawings: Et elle qui ne riait plus, sentit une joie lui monter à la face, dans l’heureux attendrissement qu’elle éprouvait. Comme ils s’aimaient, comme ils rêvaient d’éternité, le jour où elle s’était amusée à ce symbole, orgueilleux et tendre! (p. 1208) [And she, who now never smiled, felt her face flush with a thrill of tender and pleasing emotion. How they had loved each other, how they had dreamed of an eternity of love the day on which she had amused herself painting this proud and loving allegory!]

Pascal Rougon is not the oldest character in Emile Zola’s Le Docteur Pascal, that title goes to his grandmother Tante Dide, the mythical family matriarch. There are in fact four others older than him, mere background characters, rendered superficially in stereotypes, such as Martine, the elderly besotted servant in love with her master Bellombre the old miser, Antoine Macquart the aged roué and Félicité Rougon who pursues her idée fixe of family glory with an almost comic malevolent vitality in spite of her advancing years. Pascal Rougon’s is thus the most sensitive and nuanced portrait of old age in Les Rougon-Macquart, encompassing both positive and negative elements, oscillating between the denigration and glorification of old age. It is a depiction infused with authenticity thanks to Zola’s wholehearted identification with his creation, which extends from the positivist outlook shared by the medical scientist and the naturalist novelist and their similar relationship towards the Rougon-Macquart and Les Rougon-Macquart respectively, into their comparable personal lives. Pascal Rougon is consequently much more than the sixty-something hero of the novel, he is Zola’s porte-parole in the concluding chapter of Les Rougon-Macquart. Furthermore he provides an opportunity for Zola to enunciate and thereby exorcise his own concerns about growing old, and, in Pascal’s incestuous yet fertile relationship with his niece Clotilde, Zola rejoices in his own adulterous late-in-life discovery of love and paternity. This he does with such enthusiasm that in his styling of Pascal as an Old King, he places him(self) in the company of revered royal Biblical figures such as David and Abraham, whose old age is positively celebrated.



AGEING ‘HEROES’



MEMORIES AND OLD AGE: THE OLD GOETHE, AS SEEN BY THOMAS MANN HANS HAHN

Thomas Mann’s novel Lotte in Weimar refers to a scantily documented visit of Charlotte Kästner to Weimar in 1816, 44 years after she figured prominently in Goethe’s novel Werther. This essay discusses how far Mann sees himself in the figure of Goethe and to what extent he wanted to present Goethe in a lovingly ironic style. Mann’s perspective of Goethe is partly reflected in Charlotte’s description, but also in that of Riemer and other figures of Goethe’s circle. The appearance and behaviour of Goethe himself is discussed in the context of the process of de-individualisation as a ‘gradual retreat from the phenomenal world’ and this process of deindividualisation is related to Goethe’s (and Mann’s) concept of art. Mann’s presentation of Goethe is of course compared to the picture portrayed by various Goethe biographers. The political situation (Mann wrote his novel in 1939) is referred to in the context of Goethe’s cosmopolitanism and his criticism of early forms of German nationalism, but is related to Goethe’s increasing distance from his environment. Mann’s novel seems ideally suited for an intertextual approach, offering several changes in perspective: the omniscient narrator, the visiting Lotte, references to Goethe’s Werther, the Weimar ‘temple of the muses’. The discussion of ‘memory’ is a central theme, and its interference with historical fact, aesthetic reality and changing perspectives in general is focused on in this essay.

As an introduction to my choice of writers, some light must be shed on Thomas Mann’s attitude to Goethe and on the reception of Goethe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Goethe’s fame had faded somewhat during the Prussian wars against Napoleon (1813-15) and Germany’s first Goethe Society was not established until 1885. It was perceived as Germany’s cultural counterpart to a burgeoning nationalism,

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following the establishment of the German Empire (1871).1 For some time Goethe’s fame was based on his Götz von Berlichingen, his Faust, his Werther and his earlier poetry, whereas the later Goethe gained recognition mainly after 1918. Goethe’s interest in world literature and in Persian and Far Eastern culture was not appreciated by the champions of German nationalism but with the advent of National Socialism some enlightened critics sought to redress the balance. On the occasion of the centenary of Goethe’s death (1932), the eminent literary figure Friedrich Gundolf celebrated Goethe as the major representative of European humanism, as poet, philosopher and scholar, a genius not of ‘wilde Stärke’ [‘wild strength’], but of ‘die stille Schönheit des Menschentums im Einklang und als Gleichnis des Universums’ [‘the quiet beauty of humanism in harmony with and as an allegory of the universe’]. 2 Thomas Mann’s attitude to Goethe reflects these historical changes. At first, Mann was fascinated by Goethe’s life rather than by his works; his early novella Tonio Kröger indicates a close identification with Goethe and the Werther figure. In a letter to a friend, Mann even refers to the novella as ‘my Werther’.3 The sixty-four-year-old Mann completed his novel Lotte in Weimar in 1939. His book portrays the historically documented visit of Charlotte Kestner, protagonist of Goethe’s early epistolary novel Werther, to Weimar, where the sixty-seven-year-old Goethe occupied a pivotal position. The actual visit occurred in May 1816,4 but Mann changed the date to September, thereby providing the occasion with an autumnal aura reflecting the age of the two characters. A year before publishing his Lotte, Mann wrote the essay ‘Goethe’s “Werther”’. He describes Goethe’s novel as a ‘jugendlich eingeschränkte, aber mit explosivem Gefühl unglaublich geladene Werkchen’5 [‘youthfully limited, but highly charged little work with explosive emotions’], expressing



1 Cf. Dieter Borchmeyer, ‘Goethe im Widerspiel von “Nationalitätswahnsinn” und “ökumenischer Internationalität”. Stationen in der Geschichte der GoetheGesellschft’, Goethe Jahrbuch, 127 (2010), 82-94. 2 Friedrich Gundolf, Rede zu Goethes hundertstem Todestag (Berlin: Georg Bondi, 1932), p. 25. 3 Thomas Mann, Briefe 1889-1936, ed. by Erika Mann, 2 vols (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1962), II, p. 202. 4 Felix Aaron Theilhaber, Goethe. Sexus und Eros (Berlin: Horen, 1929), pp. 28889. Quoted from Werner Frizen, Thomas Mann. Lotte in Weimar. Roman. Kommentar (Frankfurt/M.: Fischer, 2003), p. 10. 5 Thomas Mann, Gesammelte Werke in zwölf Bänden, 12 vols (Frankfurt/M.: Fischer, 1960), IX, p. 640. Mann’s essays will be quoted from this edition and given in the text as M plus volume and page number. A following quotation not annotated is from the same volume and page.

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‘Überdruß an der Zivilisation, [...] wühlende Sehnsucht nach Heimkehr ins Natürlich-Elementare, [...] Revolte gegen Konvention und bürgerliche Enge’ (M IX, 641) [‘a weariness with civilisation, a burning desire for a return to man’s elementary roots, [...] a revolt against convention and bourgeois narrow-mindedness’]. He characterises Werther as a genius, an unreliable vagabond ruled by emotions, repeatedly in love, but afraid of the commitment of marriage. Mann is intrigued by this ‘masterwork’ (M IX, 647), in which he sees rapturous emotion and a precocious understanding of art united in an almost unique combination. Mann then turns to the old Goethe who, rereading his Werther in 1816 with a mixture of affection and fear, determined never to read it again, concluding that it contains dangerous elements emitted by a pathological state of mind. Mann also refers to a memorable reunion with Werther’s Lotte in the same year, when her appearance in Weimar caused a sensation that did not please the old gentleman. Concluding his essay, Mann suggests that a novel could be written ‘über Gefühl und Dichtung, über Würde und Verfall des Alters’ (M IX, 655) [‘about emotion and fiction, dignity and decline in old age’], a character study of Goethe and of the genius figure as such. Mann considered Lotte in Weimar his most accomplished work,6 and the presentation of old age is indeed central to the novel, while the process of ageing itself is integrated into a number of other themes, which illustrate the various aspects of ageing in relation to art, youth and politics. Firstly, there are the different forms of memorising. They can take the form of ‘Erinnerung’, interiorisation, the actual appropriation of an event or experience, but they can also refer to a desire for repetition, ‘Wiederholung’, the attempt to ‘relive’, ‘reclaim’ an experience. The opposite of such an attempt at reliving is the process of repression, a term that became prominent with Sigmund Freud. Mann frequently consulted Freud while writing his novel. Repression, according to Freud, is also connected with narcissism7 and Freud often uses the term in the context of sexual repression,8 specifically in connection with sexual sublimation.9 All

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Werner Frizen, ‘“Den Mythos auf die Beine stellen”. Die Mensch-Werdung Goethes in Thomas Manns Roman Lotte in Weimar’, in Markus HänselHohenhausen (ed.), Im Namen Goethes. Erfundenes, Erinnertes und Grundsätzliches zum 250. Geburtstag Johann Wolfgang von Goethes (Frankfurt/M.: Goethe Gesellschaft, 1999), pp. 32-39 (p. 39). 7 Sigmund Freud, Kulturtheoretische Schriften (Frankfurt/M.: Fischer, 1974), p. 102. 8 Freud, pp. 104, 130. 9 Freud, p. 235, note 2.

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these concepts, as shall be discussed later, are of great importance in Mann’s novel. Secondly, and closely related to the concept of memorising, is the attempt by the two main characters to prove to themselves as well as to others that they have not lost their vitality. On one level this is illustrated in Lotte’s attempt to relive her acquaintance with Goethe. The fact that she attempts – badly! – to hide the true motive of her visit makes this even more obvious. The comparison of a current situation with that of the past will inevitably lead to reflections, a topic that was of great interest to both Mann and Goethe.10 A third theme, though not directly related to the ageing process, concerns the attitude of both Goethe and Mann to the younger generation, especially with respect to literature and politics. Contemporary cultural and political issues inspired Mann’s interest in Goethe. His essay ‘Die geistige Situation des Schriftstellers in unserer Zeit’ refers to a suspect piety which is responsible for a severe rift between ‘Seele und Geist, [...] Gemüt und Verstand, [...] Dichtertum und Schriftstellertum’ (M X, 302) [‘soul and intellect, [...] emotion and reason, [...] poetry and writing’]. In a letter to Hermann Hesse he remarks on the rise of fascism which has forced him to take on the mantle of a dry humanitarian rationalist.11 Hesse himself considered Mann to be someone who never desired the role of an anti-bourgeois genius, but always saw himself as heir to the civic German civilisation.12 Mann and Hesse seemed to share a preference for the old Goethe whom their generation failed to appreciate. Hesse for instance celebrated the cosmopolitan, post-classical Goethe who had transcended national or even European issues and had become a representative of world literature, of the world of Islam and the wisdom of the Far East. Both writers share this interest in Goethe’s process of ageing, of his involvement in a ‘process of de-personalization, of becoming noumenal, mere intellectual energy devoid of any phenomenal attributes.’ 13 Both recognised a civilising aspect in old age, a chance for reflection and tolerance, themes of particular relevance during the 1920s and 1930s,

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Reflections in the form of ‘Spiegelungen’ play a key role, both in Goethe’s Werther as well as in Wahlverwandtschaften; we shall return to this concept later on. 11 Anni Carlson and Volker Michels (eds.), Hermann Hesse – Thomas Mann Briefwechsel, 3rd edn (Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp, Fischer, 1999), p. 70. 12 Carlson and Michels, p. 130. 13 H.J. Hahn, ‘Hermann Hesse’s Goethe’, in Ingo Cornils (ed.), A Companion to the Works of Hermann Hesse (Rochester, New York: Camden House, 2009), pp. 395-421 (p. 406).

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when the allure of speed and a narrow focus on nationhood were considered of utmost importance. Mann reflected on a perverse mixture of ‘Hitlerismus und Goethe’ (M XIII, 71), describing various young men marching through the city with an absolute determination, giving the Roman salute. In Mann’s novel, Adele, daughter of Johanna Schopenhauer, hostess of Weimar’s distinguished literary circle, tells Lotte of Goethe’s disregard for the Romantic generation and of his opposition to the nationalism and anti-French sentiments so popular among the new generation of young writers. The hysterical hatred of all things French and the extreme nationalism of 1813 reflect the advent of National Socialism in Mann’s own time. During his younger years, Mann had himself been an ardent admirer of the German Youth Movement and their opposition to ‘Western Civilisation’, but the assassination of Walther Rathenau in June 1922 changed all that. In a letter to Ernst Bertram he expresses the fear that the new ideology is leading a certain kind of youth astray into mad acts.14 Mann’s changing attitude towards Western values is also reflected in his 1929 essay ‘Die Stellung Freuds in der modernen Geistesgeschichte’. In it he criticises the populist opposition to the Enlightenment and discusses Nietzsche’s concept of ‘Reaktion als Fortschritt’15 [‘reaction as progress’], which advocates a return to an earlier thought process in order to refocus our minds on current issues. Mann applies these ideas to Freud’s concept of repression as ‘Nichtzulassung eines Triebes ins Bewußtsein’ (M X, 276) [‘preventing an impulse from reaching our consciousness’]. In order to deal with such repression, it becomes necessary to transfer essential human urges from the unconscious into consciousness, thus establishing a new form of Enlightenment, the ‘Siege der Vernunft und des Geistes’ (M X, 277) [‘victories of reason and intellect’]. Freud’s psychoanalysis therefore allows for a new awareness, an attitude to life based on our intellect, on freedom and truth, the transformation of the unconscious ‘Id’ into the conscious ‘I’. It could be argued that these lengthy remarks on Mann’s attitude to Freud have no place in an essay on Lotte in Weimar. However, Mann was profoundly interested in Freud’s psychoanalysis, at a time when he himself experienced a crisis in his political views. More significant perhaps was the furious debate that raged in German intellectual circles, prior to the

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Inge Jens (ed.), Thomas Mann an Ernst Bertram. Briefe aus den Jahren 19101955 (Pfullingen: Neske, 1960), pp. 112-13. Given in the translation by T. J. Reed, Thomas Mann, The Uses of Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon, 1974), p. 290. 15 Nietzsche, Werke in drei Bänden, ed. by Karl Schlechta, 3 vols (Munich: Hanser, [1962]), I, pp. 466-67.

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award of the Frankfurt Goethe prize to Freud in 1930. Many reactionary professors of German literature opposed Freud’s nomination, 16 Julius Petersen in his opening address celebrating Goethe’s Weimar as ‘Deutschlands Herz, das auch den Blutumlauf des nationalen Gemeinschaftsbewußtseins zusammenfaßte’ 17 [‘the beating heart of Germany holding together the blood of our national community’]. Petersen questioned Freud’s suitability for the award, but Alfred Döblin, representing the Prussian Academy of Arts, responded (with reference to Mann) that there was a direct link from Goethe to Freud, since both had attempted to overcome the chaotic Dionysian, replacing it with ‘große, apollinische Gestalten’ 18 [‘great Apollonian figures’]. Some excellent work has been done on all the various sources used by Mann, indicating how meticulously he researched them in order to produce an accurate rendering of the old Goethe. However, one could be forgiven for feeling that the large number of references to Goethe’s life and works tend to overshadow the textual study of Mann’s novel, turning it into a veritable puzzle and relating each page to a Goethe quotation or an observation by one of his biographers.19 It is high time to concentrate on the actual novel and the subject of old age. As its title suggests, Lotte is the protagonist, appearing in eight of the nine chapters. Goethe’s actual presence is restricted to the last three chapters, though his actions and reflections are undoubtedly the novel’s primary subject-matter. Some critics have sought to diminish Lotte’s status: Thomas Sperber describes her as ‘eine unwürdige Greisin’ [‘an undignified old lady’] and Werner Frizen believes that ‘Lotte wird hämisch behandelt’20 [‘Lotte is treated in a malicious manner’]. While it

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H. Siefken, ‘The Goethe Centenary of 1932 and Thomas Mann’s Lotte in Weimar’, in Publications of the English Goethe Society, 49 (1978/9), 84-101. 17 Julius Petersen, Drei Goethe-Reden (Leipzig: Insel, 1942), p. 17. 18 Thomas Plänkus, ‘Die Verleihung des Frankfurter Goethe-Preises an Sigmund Freud 1930’, quoted from Thomas Anz, ‘“Eine gerade Linie von Goethe zu Freud”. Zum Streit um die Verleihung des Goethe-Preises im Jahre 1930’, in Julia Schöll et al. (eds.), Buchpersonen, Büchermenschen. Heinz Gockel zum Sechzigsten (Würzburg: Koenigshausen & Neumann, 2001), pp. 223-34 (p. 224). 19 Frizen, Lotte in Weimar Kommentar, p. 64; Irmela von der Lühe, ‘Lotte in Weimar – Thomas Manns Goethe zwischen Dichtung und Wahrheit’, Thomas Mann Jahrbuch, 22 (2009), 9-21 (p. 16). 20 T. Sperber, ‘Altersliebe als Entwürdigung und Größe. Thomas Mann in Marienbad’, in Thomas Mann Jahrbuch, 22 (2009), p. 30 and W. Frizen, ‘“Den Mythos auf die Beine stellen”’, p. 35.

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might be possible to see a male-centred perspective in Mann’s novel,21 I do not believe that this is actually the case. Lotte is presented as the necessary counterpart to Goethe, the only person who can hold her own against the great man. The opening passage introduces her as an elderly matron with pleasant features, suggesting youthful charm. Mann tones down the slight tremor of Lotte’s head, apparent in the historical Lotte,22 but her diction and general appearance indicate a slightly old-fashioned character. Her mild tendency towards self-importance is more endearing than reprehensible and the irony of the narrative gives it a humorously human touch. Pleased that Mager, the hotel porter, recognises her, she immediately corrects his description of her as a former literary figure, insisting that she is here, very much alive. Such protestations concerning her position in literature and life continue: while not wishing to be confused with the literary Lotte, she nevertheless insists on her status ‘im Dome der Menschheit’ [‘in the temple of humanity’].23 And herein lies Lotte’s great illusion. In her imagined conversation with Goethe she reprimands him for having turned her into a historical figure, but fails to appreciate that it is his novel that has bestowed on her eternal youth, an achievement that she cannot attain in life. She had envisaged her journey to Weimar as a ‘Reise ins Jugendland’ (39) [‘a return to the scenes of her youth’] while at the same time partaking in Goethe’s greatness and finding a conclusion to this ‘fragmentarische Geschichte’ (438) [‘fragmentary story’], thereby settling a few old scores. This plan is bound to fail. Her little joke with the Werther dress and its missing pink ribbon is criticised by her daughter; at their actual meeting it fails to remind Goethe of his Werther days. At the end of the novel she shows traces of old age: she can no longer disguise the trembling of her head, which contrasts oddly with her girlish dress. Her grey hair and sagging cheeks make her face appear ‘unrettbar alt’ (381) [‘irretrievably elderly’]. Ultimately she is forced to recognise that she must forsake the

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Cf. von der Lühe, ‘“Opfer einer Fascination”. Die Frauengestalten in Lotte in Weimar’, in Thomas Sperber (ed.), Lebenszauber und Todesmusik. Zum Spätwerk Thomas Manns (Frankfurt/M.: Klostermann, 2004), pp. 89-104 (p. 94). 22 Siefken, ‘Thomas Mann’s Lotte in Weimar – a Lustspiel?’, Oxford German Studies, 11 (1980), 103-22 (p. 105). 23 Thomas Mann, Lotte in Weimar. Große kommentierte Frankfurter Ausgabe, ed. by Werner Frizen (Frankfurt/M: Fischer, 2003), vol. 9.1, p. 442. All quotations from the novel in this essay will henceforth be given in the text with page number. All translations from the novel, unless specifically stated, are taken from Lotte in Weimar, trans. by H. T. Lowe-Porter, first published in Sweden, 1939, reprinted in the Penguin Modern Classics edition of 1982.

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artistic sphere and return to her bourgeois life in Wetzlar. Her Werther days will continue only in her own memory and in the world of literature over which she has no influence. Memories in old age, however, are unreliable. In her daydream in Chapter Two, she fails to distinguish between her ‘real’ relationship with Goethe and a secondary reality, as presented in Goethe’s novel. A succession of ‘fractures’ blend her experience of the Wetzlar days with literature; she falls under the ‘tyranny’ of the Goethe cult. Her primary personal experiences have been undermined by her readings of Werther, Egmont and Dichtung und Wahrheit. Friederike Brion and the fictional Klärchen – to say nothing of the dark eyes of ‘Lili’ Schönemann – invade her memory; Lotte’s personal identity becomes, in Mager’s words, ‘überkreuzt’ (22) [‘interwoven’], overlaid by that of Goethe’s Lotte. By relying on her youthful memories she deceives herself, believing that she has remained young in spirit, that ageing is merely a physiological process which does not affect ‘die Beständigkeit unseres Innersten’ [‘that innermost, foolish self of ours’]. This observation is of central importance in the novel and we shall see later how Goethe takes it up in his own reflections on life and art. The various images which appear so vividly in her daydream are not firsthand memories, but released only later, ‘Teilchen für Teilchen, Wort für Wort’ (39) [‘bit by bit, word by word’], amounting to a reconstructed reality, secondary experiences. On leaving Wetzlar in 1772, Goethe’s farewell note, in which he assures Lotte of a youthful, unchanging faithfulness is seen by Lotte as a deception in the Werther episode. Mann comments on this ‘deception’, describing such sentimental memories of our youthful days as the ‘heiter-verschämte Geheimnis unserer Alterswürde’ (32) [‘the blithe and shameful secret of our dignified old age’]. The novel’s technique of retardation, delaying Goethe’s actual appearance until Chapter Seven, not only keeps the reader in suspense, it also provides ample opportunity for a deconstruction and reconstruction of Goethe, in the process of which Lotte becomes acquainted with a more complex Goethe. In addition, it permits the ageing lady to understand her own position; it will eventually liberate her from the dominance which Goethe’s novel has had over her life. This process is achieved through the technique of ‘Spiegelungen’24 [‘reflections’], a vital technique in all forms

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Goethe: Der Versuch ‘aus Trümmern von Dasein und Überlieferung sich eine zweite Gegenwart zu verschaffen’ [‘the attempt to create a second present out of the ruins of our existence and tradition’], Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Sämtliche Werke nach Epochen seines Schaffens (Münchner Ausgabe), Karl Richter et al. (eds.) (Munich: Hanser, 1998), vol. 19.5, pp. 568-69. Subsequent quotations from Goethe’s works will use this edition.

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of intertextual narration, played out here on different levels. Most important is the manner in which the ‘Werther triangle’ (Lotte, Kestner, Goethe) finds its counterpoint in the ‘Gerbermühle’ triangle with Goethe, Marianne and von Willemer. 25 Another triangle, though perhaps less obvious, is that of Ottilie von Pogwisch, Goethe and his son August, which finds its literary expression in Wahlverwandtschaften [‘Elected Affinities’]. These triangular relationships not only highlight Goethe’s problematic relationship towards women, 26 they also serve to elucidate Lotte’s understanding of her own youthful encounter with Goethe, illustrating the unbridgeable gulf that exists between her own life and its figurative compression in art. Other women, though not involved in a triangular relationship, also serve to ‘correct’ Lotte’s own affinity with the young Goethe; her feelings of jealousy are less concerned with her actual life than with her role in literature, which she sees as under threat from Goethe’s other women. Chief among these is Friederike Brion. In conversation with August, Lotte puts Friederike down rather harshly as a weak character, lacking the strength of purpose to resolve her sorrows by marrying some ‘ländlich tüchtigen Mann’ [‘decent country gentleman’] and to love him as ‘den Vater ihrer Kinder’ (248) [‘the father of her children’]. She cannot understand why Friederike did not follow her own example, becoming a responsible housewife and mother, and instead devoted her whole life to her memories. Such memories, Lotte concludes, are ‘eine Sache des Alters [...] nach vollbrachtem Tagwerk’ (248) [‘the privilege of age, after life’s tasks are done’]; indulging in them in one’s youth inevitably leads to premature death. Lotte’s criticism of Friederike is very similar to her attitude to Faust’s Gretchen and Egmont’s Klärchen; in all three cases, she fails to appreciate that the life of the ‘Bürger’ is irreconcilable with the ‘reality’ of art. In the final chapter Friederike reappears as a potential rival who might oust Lotte from her literary pedestal. The episode not only forms the climax to the Lotte-Goethe comedy, it also seeks to reconcile the antagonism between life and art. Lotte’s imagination conjures up an appearance by Goethe in the form of a dream-like vision, thereby keeping the initiative firmly on her side. In the course of their imagined conversation, however, Goethe gains the upper hand through force of argument. While Lotte is anxious to cherish her memory and protect her literary position vis-à-vis Goethe’s other women, Goethe has already

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Mann in fact describes von Willemer as ‘der neue Albert (Kestner)’. In Frizen, Kommentar, p. 447. 26 Frizen, Kommentar, p. 224 refers essentially only to Goethe and his opus.

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sublated or transcended the subject-matter into art. The actual historical facts are irrelevant to him and the conserving of old memories is utterly alien to his artistic perception. Disapproving of her jealousy, he refers to yet another Spiegelung, citing the cloud that in its constantly changing form, nevertheless keeps its substance (442), an analogy suggesting that all the various women in his life merge into one, when transformed into art. The very same image of the cloud also forms the end of the book Suleika: ‘Wenn Wolke sich gestaltend umgestaltet,/ Allmannigfaltge, dort erkenn ich dich’. 27 [‘When a cloud forms itself into a new shape,/ My many-splendoured one, I will recognize you there’]. This ghazel is conceived as a love song, dedicated to Marianne von Willemer; its conclusion suggests that while the lyrical subject receives its inspiration from the beloved, it generalises this inspiration into something higher, in this case into a religious understanding of Allah: ‘Und wenn ich Allahs Namenhundert nenne,/ Mit jedem klingt ein Name auch für dich’28 [‘And when I call Allah’s hundred names,/ With every one, a name resounds for you’]. For both Goethe and Mann, the personal, merely subjective, becomes elevated into the universal, is transformed into art.29 The passage reveals a most profound thought that holds a central position in the work of the mature Goethe, relating to the insight, gained in old age, that a person’s actual life-experience and memories are meaningless in the face of art. The passage points to the twofold nature of the artist, both as creator and victim. Lotte does not comprehend Goethe’s argument; she only sees herself as a victim on the altar of high art. Goethe’s response demonstrates the true nature of the artist: ‘Den Göttern opfert man, und zuletzt war das Opfer der Gott’ (444) [‘They sacrifice to the gods and in the end the sacrifice was god’].30 The sentence suggests that not only the literary subject, but also its creator become victims: all subjective or personal life becomes noumenal, is transformed into a higher force, will ultimately be in the service of some cosmic power. The central motif in Goethe’s work, that of ‘Stirb und Werde’ 31 [‘dying and rebirth’] is

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Goethe, Sämtliche Werke, vol. 11.1.2, p. 93. Goethe, Sämtliche Werke, p. 93. 29 Frizen, Kommentar, pp. 778-79 gives a fuller interpretation of Goethe’s poem, but, commenting only on Goethe, suggests that no ironical fracture is intended. In Mann’s novel, irony is brought into the poem by the very fact that Goethe quotes this poem to Lotte, remembering her in the shape of Marianne. 30 My translation, Lowe-Porter gives the translation a Christian meaning. 31 Goethe, Sämtliche Werke, vol. 11.1.2, p. 21. Verse in the last stanza of the 1814 poem Selige Sehnsucht, which also contains the image of death through burning and the candle, both central to the novel’s concept of the artist. 28

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illustrated by references to Tasso and Werther and to Willkommen und Abschied, Goethe’s farewell poem to Friederike. Goethe uses the image of the moth or butterfly, which is consumed by the burning candle, describing himself as both moth and candle. His farewell words to Lotte make this insight very intimate and personal. He calls her ‘alte Seele, liebe, kindliche’ (444) [‘dear childlike old soul’] and proceeds to develop his concept of ‘morphology’, ‘in dem die Züge der Lebensalter changieren, Jugend aus Alter, Alter aus Jugend magisch hervortritt’ (445) [‘in which the features of age become changed, youth like a miracle shining out of old age, old age out of youth’].32 Their (imagined) conversation has become free of all irony, it focuses both on Goethe’s and Mann’s innermost understanding of the artist, a revelation distilled through old age. Goethe explicitly refers to Lotte’s ‘SchulmädelStreich’ (377) [‘schoolgirl trick’], the wearing of her ‘Werther dress’, ‘mit Jugendzeichen geschmückt die Altersgestalt’ (445) [‘the aged figure adorned with signs of youthfulness’],33 merging youth and old age into one. He develops the concept further into a universal principle of life and a cosmological entity of death and regeneration, a palingenesis of being and becoming. Although it is doubtful that Lotte can follow Goethe’s philosophical argument, her farewell words ‘Friede deinem Alter’ (445) [‘peace to your old age’] suggest that she has come to terms with her Weimar encounter but still retains her role as a famous literary figure. She has no objection to Mager making reference to her place in the ‘Musentempel’ (446) [‘temple of the muses’]. The novel’s final word contains a double irony: Mager regards Lotte’s visit to Weimar as ‘buchenswert’ [‘worthy of being turned into a book’],34 almost certainly not in the manner in which Goethe’s morphology had seen this. Yet the fact that Mann could turn the event into a novel combines the historical and the artistic, albeit in eironeia, beyond the realm of ‘reality’. Before we can discuss Goethe’s mature aesthetics, part of his wider cosmology, we must return to yet another form of Spiegelung, here employed as some kind of alienation, presented both for Lotte’s and the reader’s sake, in which we perceive Goethe from the perspective of his admirers and beneficiaries with whom Lotte has various encounters. Lotte’s language in these meetings has been compared to that of Mann’s Felix Krull, it has been described as ‘Hochstapler’ [‘confidence trickster’]

 32

I translate this more literally than Lowe-Porter, at the cost of style and elegance. My translation, Lowe-Porter omitted this passage. 34 Lowe-Porter translates this rather too freely as ‘It ought to be put down’, thus losing Mann’s ironical intention. 33

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language. 35 This observation is only superficially correct, it fails to transmit Mann’s irony. Lotte takes over words and whole phrases from others in previous conversations, but not in order to deceive. Instead, her borrowed phrases are indicative of a desire to immerse herself in the literary scene, while we recognise that she fails to grasp the deeper meaning of the conversation and thus remains outside the Goethe circle. Lotte’s first significant visitor, Friedrich Wilhelm Riemer, refers to a common bond between them, since he also considers himself a victim of Goethe’s literary achievements, as ‘Mittel zum Zweck’ (67) [‘means to an end’].36 In a somewhat over-confident manner he suggests that fate has made them brother and sister (66), an opinion which will not have pleased Lotte, given Riemer’s unpleasant exterior (50) and his vanity. While her initial pity turns into contempt (66), Lotte still feels compelled to make Riemer her confidant, describing Goethe as ‘der Dritte’ [‘third party’] in her relationship with Kestner, ‘ein bunter Falter und Sommervogel’ (109) [‘a gay butterfly or bird of passage’]. The image of the butterfly anticipates Goethe’s own self-portrayal and his definition of the artist as victim. While Goethe understands the victim’s dual role as an offering extracted from others and as self-sacrifice, Lotte and Riemer only see themselves as victims and consider Goethe’s behaviour as selfish, some form of ‘Schmarutzertum’ (117) [‘parasite’]. Adele, too, refers to Goethe’s egoism, though on a more personal level. She recounts his behaviour at her mother’s literary circle as tyrannical and portrays him as a parasitic interloper. According to Adele, Goethe played a pivotal role in bringing about the engagement of August and Ottilie, since he himself was attracted to Ottilie who apparently bore some uncanny similarity to the young Lotte.37 She insinuates that ‘durch die Jugend des Sohnes, verjüngt in ihm, der Vater selbst um sie würbe’ (158) [‘the father himself, his youth renewed, sued for her hand’]. Adele even draws a connection between this supposed triangular relationship and Goethe’s Wahlverwandtschaften, where, according to her, personal immorality transcends into art, creating ‘ein bedenkliches Versteckspiel mit der Heiligkeit der Ehe’ (213) [‘a very questionable game of hide and seek with the sanctity of marriage’]. The topic of Goethe’s victims is again taken up in Lotte’s conversation with August, whose features remind her of Goethe in his Werther days and of how August might have been her own son. Much of their conversation



35 Siefken, ‘Goethe spricht’, in Thomas Mann und seine Quellen. Festschrift für Hans Wysling (Frankfurt/M.: Klostermann, 1991), pp. 228-37 (pp. 231, 236). 36 Lowe-Porter translates the passage too freely as ‘being sacrificed against your will’. 37 Frizen, Kommentar, p. 373.

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covers topics already discussed with Riemer and Adele, but the position of this chapter, immediately preceding Goethe’s first appearance in the novel and the particular relationship between August and his father, gives the conversation special significance. A comical note is struck, since neither Lotte nor August really understand each other: August complains about Weimar society which refused to accept Christiane Vulpius and took offence at his father’s post-classical work. Lotte, on the other hand, unable to follow August’s literary argument, admits that she is unfamiliar with these works and does not grasp the concept of ‘die aesthetische Autonomie’ (238) [‘aesthetic autonomy’]. Even revelations about Goethe’s relationship with numerous women, where he always played the role of intruder, elicit little response from her. Instead she admires Goethe’s ‘Ausharren’, his ‘Erneuerungsfähigkeit der hervorbringenden Kräfte’ (245) [‘a persistence, a power of renewal of the creative gift’], which she interprets as a male prerogative, comparing his ‘geistige Fruchtbarkeit’ [‘creatively intellectual ability’] to her child-bearing (which ceased some twenty years earlier). She seems to accept the popular concept of the genius artist as life-long creator, whereas her own life is confined to the natural process of ageing. Goethe will take up this topic later in his monologue and will contend that her popular concept of the genius is misleading.38 However, when August belittles Goethe’s various affairs of the heart as nothing more than ‘Mittel zum Zweck’ (256) [‘means to an end’] her moral conscience seems to rebel. The same phrase was of course used in her conversation with Riemer; she thinks of herself as a victim, a fate that apparently is forced upon those in Goethe’s vicinity. Lotte urges August to free himself from the overwhelming dictates of his father and here she speaks in the first person plural, combining August’s fate with her own: Unser eigenes Leben sollen wir führen, – nicht in Selbstsucht und indem wir andere nur als Mittel dazu betrachten, aber doch auch nicht in Selbstlosigkeit, sondern selbständig und aus eigenem Sinn, in vernünftigem Ausgleich unserer Pflichten gegen andere und gegen uns selbst (275) [We must lead our own lives – not in selfishness, not regarding others solely as means to an end, but also not quite selflessly; rather independently and by the light of our own thoughts, in a reasonable balance between our own duties to others and to ourselves].

 38

Volkmar Hansen, ‘Lebensglanz und Altersgröße in Lotte in Weimar’, in Hauptund Nebenwege zu Goethe. Düsseldorfer Schriften zur deutschen Literatur, 2 (Frankfurt/M.: P. Lang, 2005), pp. 22-49 (p. 33) explains the secondary function of the genius role in Goethe.

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This sentence becomes the key for Lotte’s own life. She is now able to emancipate herself not only from Goethe, but also from the Werther episode and can resume her own bourgeois life, something denied to Goethe.39 Chapter Eight brings the two protagonists together, their roles now almost reversed. Whereas Goethe is unable to free himself from an artificially hyped-up environment, unable to become his true self and instead donning the mask of court jester with the ‘naiv-unaufrichtigen Ausdruck gespielten Erstaunens’ (413) [‘that same disingenuous naïveté and pretended surprise’], Lotte behaves with determined dignity in this strange circle. On coming face to face with Goethe, she is ‘erschüttert’ (386) [‘disturbed’] and feels an almost maternal pity for this man who can no longer be his own self. She expresses her reflections in the words of an authentic letter to her son, describing Goethe as an old man who did not appeal to her (431).40 Within the novel, however, this letter does not form the concluding judgement; it is ‘corrected’ by the final episode of reconciliation between the two protagonists. Goethe’s conversation with Lotte is foreshadowed in Chapter Seven, where the aged Goethe develops his philosophy of art. The chapter begins in the morning; the awakening Goethe feels sexually aroused,41 an arousal that is related to some contemplation on art. He looks at the painting of Venus and Adonis (Alessandro Turchi (1582-1648)) and moves on from there, in a most intricate stream of consciousness technique, via the process of artistic creation to the general concept of ‘Wachstum’ (284) [‘growth’] 42 and to a number of other themes, even – momentarily – accepting Newton’s theory of colours. The monologue seems to follow Goethe’s thinking in terms of systole and diastole, reflecting his cosmic philosophy that reconciles apparent opposites on to a higher principle.43 It seems only apposite that Goethe develops his philosophy of cosmic

 39

Mann portrays the tragic role of the artist in his early short story Tonio Kröger. Charlotte Kestner’s letter to her son August, 29 September, 1816. Frizen, Kommentar, p. 762. 41 Frizen, ‘Den Mythos auf die Beine stellen’, pp. 34-35 refers to an ejaculation, which is not the case! Cf. also Sperber, ‘Altersliebe als Entwürdigung und Größe. Thomas Mann in Marienbad’, Thomas Mann Jahrbuch, 22 (2009), p. 30. 42 Lowe-Porter translates this as ‘to grow, to grow’ which is not quite conceptual enough. 43 Goethe, Sämtliche Werke, vol. 10, § 38: ‘So setzt das Einatmen schon das Ausatmen voraus und umgekehrt, so jede Systole ihre Diastole. Es ist die ewige Formel des Lebens...’ [‘Thus a breathing in presupposes a breathing out and vice versa, thus every systole its diastole’.] 40

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enhancement in his bath. In praising the four elements, he singles out water as the fluid, constantly changing matter, relating it indirectly to the image of the cloud that he took as an analogy to his love affairs with women. The water image relates historically to the philosophy of Thales,44 but is here part of Goethe’s philosophy of expansion and contraction as the engine of all living organisms. The bath sponge becomes such a symbol of contraction and expansion, illustrating the genesis of all life. His intellectual development, his philosophy, not confined to a circle, but gyrating on to a constantly higher level, is part of this morphology: ‘Geist– ein Produkt des Lebens, – das auch wieder in ihm erst wahrhaft lebt’ (309) [‘Mind, product of life, life that again in mind first truly lives’]. Goethe’s reflections on age and ageing are part of this interplay, leading to yet another aspect of his metamorphosis: ‘Es muß der Mensch wieder ruiniert werden’ (292) [‘Man must first be ruined again’].45 Yet even this ruination of the body is no more than ‘eine lächelnde Erfindung der ewigen Güte’ [‘a blessed invention of everlasting Goodness’], for we adjust to such change and can still find comfort in old age. His thoughts turn to Werther; he views it as a work of genius, but not of greatness. Greatness requires authority and this manifests itself in old age: ‘Macht und Geist, das ist das Alter und ist die Größe’ (292) [‘Mind and power are products of age, they are what make up greatness’]. He sees the spiritual and intellectual strength of love in old age as a sublimated advance on youthful love, ‘das rosige Glück, worin lebensversichert das große Alter prangt’ (293) [‘the glowing bliss of age when the love of youth confers on it the boon of new life’]. These sentiments refer superficially to Goethe’s love for the young Marianne, but they essentially signify his innermost thoughts on poetic creativity itself. He refers to Schiller, a driving force in his life, who not only endowed him with a second youth46 and renewed his poetic creativity, but also understood his cosmology and encouraged his views on natural philosophy. However, Mann’s depiction of Goethe in the novel contains a slight resentment towards Schiller. Schiller was popular as the great patriot, favoured by nationalists in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which could be seen to conflict with Goethe’s cosmology and the primacy of nature over intellectual freedom. Schiller



44 Mann quotes from Goethe’s Faust, but references in both texts link up with the philosophy of Thales of Milet, according to whom all life emerged from the fluid element (Cf. Frizen, Kommentar, p. 561). 45 Lowe-Porter: ‘so man must come to his second fall’ puts this too much into a Biblical context. 46 Cf. Goethe’s letter to Schiller, 6th January 1798 in Goethe, Sämtliche Werke, vol. 8.1, p. 487.

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here not only becomes a catalyst,47 who invigorates Goethe’s artistic output, but is also the antithesis to Goethe, a puritanical intellectual, aristocratic by nature, endowed with saviour-like qualities, 48 although lacking in ‘Anmut’ (307) [‘charm’]. Mann’s Goethe employs Schiller’s aesthetic concept, but transforms it from its theoretical weightiness into the vivid form of Goethe’s Faustian Helena figure. Such deliberations lead once again to contemplations on the concept of time and to the process of memorising, as discussed earlier in connection with Lotte. Schiller, the sentimental poet, is constantly exerting himself and therefore aware of time passing, whereas Goethe, living in harmony with nature, experiences time as ‘Gnade, unheroisch und gütig’ [‘mercy – a kindly unassuming boon’], so that he can say ‘mich umkreist die Zeit’ (288) [‘time encircles me’]. While it will not be possible within this essay to do justice to the cosmic philosophy developed in this chapter, we can focus on two issues which seem of overarching importance both within the plot of the novel and our subject-matter. They are the position of Germany in Mann’s own time and Goethe’s attitude towards Lotte during her Weimar visit. The political contemplations assigned to Goethe by Mann foreshadow his 1945 essay ‘Deutschland und die Deutschen’.49 Goethe condemns ‘Nationalität als Isolierung und Rohheit’ (327) [‘nationality means barbarism and isolation’], a formula that not only rejects his own ‘Sturm und Drang’ youth, but would also have condemned Nazi Germany. Goethe, in his old age, sees the good Germany founded on the ubiquitous values of humanism, on ‘Freiheit, Bildung, Allseitigkeit und Liebe’ (328) [‘freedom, culture, universality, love’]. Like Mann in his years of exile, Goethe wishes to be ‘welt-empfangend und welt-beschenkend [...] groß durch Verstand und Liebe, durch Mittlertum, durch Geist’ (334) [‘worldreceiving, world-giving [...] great in understanding and in love, in mediating spirits’]. These statements not only indicate a process of maturation in Mann’s Goethe figure, but also place the novel in the wider context of Mann’s attitude towards Germany. This, too, is a process of maturation, reflecting a change from the narrow-minded nationalism of his

 47

Here understood not in T.S. Eliot’s sense of ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’, but rather as some form of ‘Steigerung’. Mann puts the term ‘cohobation’ in Goethe’s mouth, ‘a returning of any distilled liquor again upon what it was withdrawn from’ (OED). 48 Cf. Frizen, Kommentar, pp. 508-12. 49 ‘Deutschland und die Deutschen’ (M XI, in part. pp. 1128-29).

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1914 utterances 50 to a broader cultural understanding of a democratic Germany. Goethe’s reaction on hearing about Lotte’s arrival in Weimar occurs on two levels. It follows traditional comedy with the hero being confronted with some unpleasant event from his past and therefore desperately trying to avoid the issue. He calls Lotte’s arrival a ‘kuriose Vorfallenheit’ (357) [‘a curious occurrence’]51 and considers responding to her letter with a quotation from one of his recent poems, referring to stupid geese who look back in the same manner in which Lotte is captivated by her memories.52 This note is obviously inappropriate, to be replaced by an invitation to a formal dinner, thus avoiding a more intimate encounter. On a second level the quotation reveals Goethe’s more philosophical understanding of Lotte’s action, illustrating his rejection of any form of sentimental ‘Wiederholung’ [‘reclaiming of the past’]. On hearing of Lotte’s arrival, Goethe talks to August about a hyalite crystal. He admires its perfect symmetry and its permanence, but then turns to its shortcomings, using the terminology of nature philosophy.53 Goethe sees the chief characteristic of the crystal in its ‘Dauer’ [‘duration’] and he defines this permanence as ‘tote Ewigkeit’ (358) [‘dead eternity’], incapable of change and therefore also of generating new life. The crystal represents the exact opposite of the bath sponge, it is inorganic and it conserves its form. In a very indirect manner, Goethe relates these considerations to the character of Lotte, referring to her desire to conserve memory, of holding fast to the past. Such memorising amounts to ‘ein falscher Sieg über Zeit und Tod’ (358) [‘a spurious victory over time and death’],54 it is nothing more than ‘tote Beständigkeit’ [‘lifeless persistence’], unable to enter into the process of

 50

‘Gedanken zum Kriege’ (1914) in Große kommentierte Frankfurter Ausgabe, vol. 15.1, pp. 137-41; ‘Friedrich und die große Koalition’ in Große kommentierte Frankfurter Ausgabe, vol. 15.1, pp. 55-123; Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen, vol. 13.1. 51 Lowe-Porter translates it as ‘a curious thing to happen‘. ‘Vorfallenheit’ is a neologism. 52 ‘Das Leben ist ein Gänsespiel:/ Je mehr man vorwärts gehet/ Je früher kommt man an das Ziel./ Wo niemand gerne stehet’. In Goethe, Sämtliche Werke, vol. 11.1.1, p. 38. Stanza 2 suggests stupidity on the part of geese. 53 Mann relies heavily on the anthroposophist Otto Lulius Hartmann, cf. Frizen, Kommentar, pp. 673-75, but it is also possible to relate Goethe’s comments to his contemporary Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749-1817) who is invited to the dinner with Lotte. Werner was a ‘Neptunist’ who related the origin of all life to water and saw crystals as secondary forms of nature, incapable of further development. 54 Lowe-Porter’s translation, ‘only apparent triumph over death and time’, does not convey the philosophical meaning.

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systole and diastole, universal pulsation, ‘Wandlung’ (445) [‘change’]. For Goethe the crystal represents the antithesis to his philosophy of metamorphosis, it denotes a ‘Sein, das in der Zeit steht, statt die Zeit in sich selbst zu tragen’ (359) [[‘an existence] that has its being in time, instead of having time within itself’]. This is Goethe’s wisdom, achieved over a long life: we cannot preserve the moment and can only be masters of time, if we surrender to the movement of time and thus become part of it, of the cosmic life cycle. The attitude to time becomes a cardinal feature for the ageing Goethe and Mann seems to take Goethe’s, rather than Lotte’s side. In his autobiographical writings Mann defines age as the experience of time, this ‘höchste, nutzbare Gabe, in ihrem Wesen [...] identisch mit allem Schöpferischen und Tätigen, aller Regsamkeit, allem Wollen und Streben’ [‘this highest of all useful gifts, in essence [...] identical with everything that is creative and active, full of life, willpower and strife’]. By contrast, he defines timelessness as ‘das stehende Nichts [...] das absolut Uninteressante’ (M X, 383) [‘actual non-existence, that which is of absolutely no interest’]. While Lotte strives to conserve time in her memories, Goethe develops his memories by relating them to new experiences, merging them into art. And yet, it would be misleading, were we to consider Goethe and Lotte incompatible figures. The mature Mann’s concept of age seems to reject such antagonism. While Mann’s earlier opus considered the lives of artist and bourgeois as irreconcilable, a more conciliatory tone is struck here: Lotte and Goethe can part in friendship, but move in different directions, presenting different attitudes to the ageing process. Returning to her bourgeois family life, Lotte still imagines herself as a literary figure, yet fails to comprehend the literary process that transforms life into art. The apparently unsettled scores which brought her to Weimar are all but forgotten, possibly even resolved. Unlike Riemer, Adele and August, with whom she had previously conversed, Lotte is free from bitterness and resentment. She now recognises ‘the great protean artist in Goethe’, 55 yet pities his isolation at the court in Weimar, distancing herself from the sentiments expressed in the authentic letter which she wrote to her son.56 While the ageing process has deprived her of some of her physical strength, she remains unchanged at heart, leaving the scene, her dignity intact. The return to her former life becomes a ‘Wiederholung’ in its literal sense, a regaining of her true self.57

 55

Siefken, ‘Thomas Mann’s Novel’, p. 121. Cf. footnote 41. 57 But cf. von der Lühe, ‘Opfer einer Faszination’, p. 103. 56

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Goethe’s farewell to this ‘childlike old soul’ is similarly without rancour; he has long ceased to see her as the ‘beloved’ of his Werther. His goodbye is reminiscent of the farewell letter written at the end of Werther part one: it avoids any finality. In this final conversation the term ‘fragmentary’ occurs three times. Goethe considers Lotte’s visit to Weimar ‘ein klein Capitel, fragmentarisch’ (437) [‘a little chapter, a fragment’], whereas Lotte had hoped for some definitive outcome, as far as the Werther episode was concerned. Goethe responds that his rereading of the novel had occurred ‘in einer Epoche der Erneuerung und der Wiederkehr’ (438) [‘in a phase of renewal and recurrence’] that had opened up ‘höhere Möglichkeiten’ [‘possibilities of a higher kind’]. 58 The passage reveals fundamental differences between the two characters which are critical for their different experience of ageing. For Goethe the past becomes rejuvenated in the present, while Lotte experiences the past ‘unverjüngt’ (439) [‘unrejuvenated’], subject to ‘Zeitunterworfenheit’ [‘bondage to time’]. Lotte is disappointed that Goethe has so completely freed himself from the past, but admires the way he can rejuvenate the past, ‘verjüngt als geistreiche Gegenwart’ (440) [‘renewed and rejuvenated as the stimulating present’]. Goethe’s process of maturation is complex. He sees himself as a victim, incapable of leading an ordinary life. At the same time, and through his sacrifice, he has mastered time in his art, thereby regenerating youth in old age. Returning to his concept of metamorphosis he can proclaim that ‘Wandlung ist alles’ (444) [‘Conversion, transformation, is all’]. In this ‘Spiel der Verwandlungen’ (445) [‘game of transformations’] youth and old age merge into one. His formula ‘die Jugend im Alten, das Alte als Jugend’ [‘the old as youth, youth in the old’] occurs three times in the novel (310, 313, 445), it requires the forsaking of memory in order to exist as an artist. Mann’s central theme, the cleavage between ‘Bürger und Künstler’ [‘common man and artist’], seems resolved:59 the two types can coexist next to each other in peace. The artist voluntarily removes himself from the here and now in order to exist on a higher plane, based on the insight that can only be achieved by an older person; it signifies the difference between genius and true artist. The last sentences of the novel are reminiscent of the last lines in Faust, spoken by the Chorus Mysticus: ‘Alles Vergängliche/ Ist nur ein Gleichnis;/ Das Unzulängliche,/ Hier wird’s Ereignis;/ Das Unbeschreibliche,/ Hier ist’s getan’;60 [‘All things transient are but a parable, the inaccessible here becomes actuality, here

 58

Not translated by Lowe-Porter. Frizen, ‘Goethe tritt auf’, p. 74 believes that Mann has ‘verbürgerlicht’ Goethe, which in my opinion is a gross misunderstanding. 60 Goethe, Sämtliche Werke, vol. 18.1, p. 351. 59

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the ineffable is achieved’], and here Mann is at one with the historic Goethe.



RESPECT OR RIDICULE? THE REPRESENTATION OF OLD AGE IN CERVANTES’S WORKS IDOYA PUIG

Cervantes reached literary success in the last years of his life and was very aware of how close he was to death when he wrote the prologue to his posthumous novel Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda [The Wanderings of Persiles and Sigismunda]. He wrote therefore from the standpoint of an older person who had experienced a life of hardship and had acquired a tempered view of life. This essay looks at Cervantes’s view of old age as presented through his characters and against the background of the traditions of his time. His most representative character is Don Quijote, a mature hidalgo, initially respected for his good judgement but who goes mad due to his excessive reading. Thus, his old age becomes the object of merriment and even cruel laughter. Similarly, Carrizales in the short story ‘El celoso extremeño’ [‘The Jealous Old Man from Extremadura’], has travelled to the New World and acquired experience and wisdom. However, when he decides to marry a young girl, his jealousy transforms him into a ridiculous old man who fails to gain the love and respect of his wife and others. As in many other aspects of Cervantes’s work, one can see that the theme of old age provides a new opportunity to explore the key cervantine traits of irony and ambivalence.

In the recent collection of articles, Representations of Age in European Literatures, Joy Charnley states: ‘As far as literature is concerned, the process of physical ageing has been commented on and analysed by writers and critics across cultures and periods, evoking a range of emotions, from fear and rejection at the negative end of the spectrum to (more rarely) respect and veneration at the positive end’. 1 With this in mind, I intend to explore Cervantes’s attitude towards old age as it emerges from the presentation of some of his characters and against the background of the traditions of his time. There have been some



1 Joy Charnley, ‘Introduction’, Forum for Modern Language Studies, 47 (2011), 121-25 (p. 122).

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publications on Cervantes and old age, which I will briefly survey in the course of this essay, but they are mainly focused on individual characters. I would like to provide a more wide-ranging view of Cervantes’s presentation of old age and assess whether his attitude is ultimately one of respect or rather ridicule. Old people are not necessarily prominent in his works but they are present in his stories, as in society: we encounter older people invested with more authority, like the local priest or senior clerics, people he meets on his journeys or in inns, or the parents of many of the protagonists of his love stories. In some of his stories, the older person is central to the plot, as in the obvious case of Don Quijote or ‘El celoso extremeño’ [‘The Jealous Old Man from Extremadura’] which I will discuss in greater detail. It is interesting to note that Cervantes reached literary success in the last years of his life, when he was in his sixties. He was born in 1547, and after being a soldier for some years and having suffered captivity in Algiers, he returned to Spain and became a tax collector. His first published work, La Galatea, appeared in 1585, but it was with the publication of the first part of Don Quijote (1605) that his literary talent started to be recognised. In 1613 he published his collection of short stories, Las Novelas ejemplares, which includes the story ‘El celoso extremeño’, and in 1615 the second part of Don Quijote appeared in print. He was very aware of how close he was to death when he wrote the prologue to his posthumous novel Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda: ‘Adiós, regocijados amigos; que yo me voy muriendo’ [‘Adieu, my pleasant friends, for I am dying’].2 The dedication of the book to the Count of Lemos is dated 19 April 1616 and Cervantes died on 23 April at the age of sixty-nine. He wrote therefore from the standpoint of an older person who had experienced a life of hardship in very varied circumstances. Although it is always risky to mix biographical data with fiction, we should bear this fact in mind when we look at some of his characters as it can help to understand the sympathetic presentation we find of some of them. Cervantes actually describes himself in the prologue to his Novelas ejemplares as a person no longer young: ‘Las barbas de plata, que no ha veinte años que fueron de oro, […] algo cargado de espaldas, y no muy ligero de pies’ [‘Silvery beard which not twenty years ago was golden,

 2

Miguel de Cervantes, Los Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (Madrid: Castalia, 1969), p. 49. The translation is from The Wanderings of Persiles and Sigismunda, trans. by L. D. Stanley (London: Cundall, 1854), p. xvii.

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[…] somewhat stooping and none too light on his feet’].3 He tells us that: ‘Mi edad no está ya para burlarse con la otra vida, que al cincuenta y cinco de los años gano por nueve más y por la mano’ (I, 64) [‘At my time of life I cannot afford to mess around with the hereafter, for at fifty-five I might have nine years left, and I could still beat them to it’]. In recent years, a vast bibliography on the topic of old age has been produced with a wide variety of approaches which look at it from a sociological, legal, political or medical perspective. From the point of view of literature, George Minois’s book continues to be a classic reference from which to gain an insight into the way old age was represented in literature until the 17th century. 4 It becomes clear from Minois and other studies that there is always a mixture of respect and scorn in describing old age,5 and depending on the period, there may have been more emphasis on one attitude or the other. Nevertheless, the complexity of the representation of old age in a particular period cannot be summarised in a few words. Thus, for example, from the Hebraic world and in the books of the Bible, we see the concept of the old man as one who has acquired wisdom but is not necessarily the older person. In the Ancient Greek and Roman worlds one can see a range of views that go from Plato and Cicero offering a positive and almost idealised view of old age, to Aristotle who is harsh and offers no pity to the elderly. Some even advocate suicide as the best option for the aged. Equally, while Roman law endows the old man with the authority of the pater familias, we see that this is compatible with cruel jokes and mockery in the literary works of Plautus, Terence or Juvenal. There is, therefore, a fundamental ambiguity in old age: ‘So nobly tragic and derisorily comic, so mean in all its faults and so sublime in its qualities’.6 As I hope to demonstrate in this article, Cervantes captures this fundamental ambiguity of old age in his writings as well. The Middle Ages developed a great deal of symbolism around the different ages of man, defining again the true age as human wisdom and

 3

Miguel de Cervantes, Novelas ejemplares, 3 vols (Madrid: Castalia, 1987), I, p. 62. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text, indicating the volume and page number. The translations are from B.W. Ife (ed.), Exemplary Novels, 4 vols (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1992), p. 3. 4 George Minois, History of Old Age, from Antiquity to the Renaissance, trans. by Sarah Hanbury Tenison (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989). 5 See also Pat Thane (ed.), The Long History of Old Age (London: Thames & Hudson, 2005) and Paul Johnson and Pat Thane (eds.), Old Age from Antiquity to Post-Modernity (London: Routledge, 1998). 6 Minois, p. 112.

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not the actual age a person may be.7 Minois explains that after the century of the Black Death (1350-1450) there was a strengthening of the role of old people in society as many were spared by the plague and more old people survived than did young ones. As a reaction to this period of a certain dominance of the older generation, the following century, that of Cervantes, is characterised by an influx of young and demanding people, a younger generation claiming more presence and influence in society. 8 Printing was a factor to take into account because it stripped the old of their role as the community’s memory in this age of the Renaissance which exalted youth and beauty above all. Humanists and courtiers condemned old age in their writings. Thus, The Book of the Courtier of Balthazar Castiglione and The Praise of Folly of Erasmus of Rotterdam offer a very unsympathetic and negative image of old age, both for men and women, which is representative of the time: ‘The most savage detractor of old women was also the prince of humanists: Erasmus’s Praise of Folly is quite merciless’.9 Erasmus stated that Folly was the true remedy for old age. Erasmus’s influence on Cervantes has been widely explored and it is quite certain that Cervantes was familiar with Erasmus’s ideas because they were commonly known in mid-sixteenth-century Spain, as well as the treatise of Castiglione.10 Therefore, Cervantes wrote against this backdrop of general disdain for old age and idealisation of youth: For Renaissance man, both the humanist and the courtier, old age remained the sign of the ultimate failure of their attempts to create superman. For old age makes us lose all the virtues of ideal man: beauty, strength, the capacity for decision and intellectual growth. It robs us of love and the worldly pleasures. It brings suffering and frailty.11

Nevertheless older people still played an important role in society: ‘The theoretical attitude of the humanists and the courtiers towards old age was no more than a front, striking because of its exponents’ talent, but concealing their real attitude towards the old, which was one of sympathy rather than sarcasm’.12

 7

J. A. Burrow, The Ages of Man: A Study in Medieval Writing and Thought (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). 8 Minois, p. 248. 9 Minois, p. 255. 10 See the section ‘El erasmismo de Cervantes’ in Marcel Bataillon, Erasmo y España (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1966), pp. 777-801. 11 Minois, p. 287. 12 Minois, p. 301.

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I would like to turn to Cervantes now to see how this representation of old age is manifested in his works. His most well-known character is Don Quijote, of whom it is said that ‘Frisaba la edad de nuestro hidalgo con los cincuenta años’ [‘Our gentleman was verging on fifty’]. 13 Don Alonso Quijano was known as el Bueño for his good judgement, and was well respected in his village. However, due to excessive reading of books of chivalry he lost his wits and thus his formerly respected old age becomes the object of merriment and even cruel laughter throughout the novel. Eduardo Urbina was the first critic to focus attention on the issue of age in Don Quijote. He found an example of an old knight in the book Tristán de Leonís, and drew a number of parallels with Don Quijote.14 Traditionally, the old man in epic poems is an object of contempt because he has lost his strength and ability to fight 15 and indeed in Tristán de Leonís, some characters do not take the elderly knight seriously, laughing at him because of his age. Nevertheless, there are moments when he shows his wisdom and therefore the satire is moderate and the character earns some respect. In a way, this is also applicable to Don Quijote: he is often the subject of laughter but there are other instances where his wisdom is recognised. He is not a simple stereotype of the useless old man: Por ello, y a pesar de la desproporción y anacronismo que suponen su edad y condición, es con frecuencia apreciado incluso por aquellos que en un principio se burlan de él. Don Quijote, en este sentido, asemeja y encarna burlescamente la figura del caballero anciano, incorporando en su mundo caballeresco esa eficaz mezcla de admiración y asombro que justifica su existencia a lo largo de la parodia que ejecuta y de la narración que origina. [Thus, in spite of the disproportion and anachronism implied in his age and condition, he is frequently appreciated even by those who initially mock him. Don Quijote, in this respect, is similar and embodies the figure of the old knight, incorporating in his chivalric world the effective combination of admiration and wonderment which justifies his existence throughout the parody which he executes and the narrative that he originates.]16

 13

Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols (Madrid: Cátedra, 1990), I, p. 98. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text, indicating the volume and page number. The translations are from Don Quixote, trans. by J. M. Cohen (London: Penguin Books, 1972), p. 31. 14 Eduardo Urbina, ‘El caballero anciano en Tristán de Leonís y don Quijote, caballero cincuentón’, Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, 29 (1980), 164-72. 15 Thane, p. 103. 16 Urbina, ‘El caballero anciano’, p. 171. My own translation.

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A few years later, Carroll B. Johnson published Madness and Lust, which offers an analysis of Don Quijote from a psychoanalytical point of view.17 Although this is probably the most extensive work referring to age in Don Quijote, his conclusions did not encounter much support. Johnson argued that Don Quijote was undergoing a mid-life crisis due to not having experienced a successful love relationship. Therefore, the cause of his madness was the result of the tension produced by the strong incestuous attraction he felt for his young niece, which drove him away from the family home. More recently, in a posthumous article published in the Cervantes journal, Johnson reiterated his theories and provided other examples of authors who, according to his interpretation, read Don Quijote in the same way, including Galdós and Nabokov: I hope to have amassed enough examples to suggest that many writers, from different ages, different linguistic and cultural traditions, have absorbed, consciously or not, and repeated the basic plot and underlying psychosexual dynamic that Cervantes offers in Don Quijote.18

More convincing in my view, and closer to textual evidence, is Urbina’s second article on the topic of age, where he traces the topic of the youth with the maturity of an old man back to Apuleyo and medieval tradition (St. Augustine).19 Urbina suggests that Don Quijote is a parodic inversion of this topic because our protagonist is an old man behaving like a child, a senex-puer, as a result of his madness. Nevertheless, in the course of the novel, Don Quijote undergoes a transformation, becoming disillusioned with the world of chivalry due to his defeats and above all, due to the failure to release his beloved Dulcinea from the enchantment to which she is subjected. At the end of the novel, Don Quijote changes and becomes a real puer-senex. ‘Una historia que representa el proceso mismo de crecimiento por el cual don Quijote, sin dejar de ser loco, senex-puer, se convierte en nueva expresión del tópico del puer-senex’ [‘It is a story that presents the actual process of development whereby don Quixote, without ceasing to be mad, senex-puer, becomes a new expression of the commonplace of the puer-senex’].20 His madness makes him behave like a

 17

Carroll B. Johnson, Madness and Lust: A Psychoanalytical Approach to Don Quijote (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983). 18 Carroll B. Johnson, ‘Don Quijote Turned 400. Did Anybody Notice?’, Cervantes, 30 (2010), 15-32 (p. 26). 19 Eduardo Urbina, ‘Don Quijote, puer-senex: un tópico y su transformación paródica en el Quijote’, Journal of Hispanic Philology, 12 (1988), 127-38. 20 Urbina, ‘Don Quijote, puer-senex’, p. 128.

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child. He is mad and therefore naïve and gullible like a child but he acquires some experience and maturity. Eventually, Don Quijote overcomes his madness and ends the parody by dying in his right mind. The old man appears to be a human being with weaknesses, but also one who is undergoing a process of maturity and self-improvement. Urbina’s article provides an indication of the character development experienced by Don Quijote from the angle of old age, confirming what is considered one of the defining features of the modern novel: the emergence of in-depth characterisation. Through Cervantes’s stories we begin to see characters changing and developing as real human beings and they cease to become the fixed types that could be found in the romance tradition. Don Quijote and his squire Sancho are the prototype of this new characterisation which will determine the birth of the novel as we understand it today: Don Quixote’s behaviour and his relations with Sancho are so full of subtle twists and turns that they preclude coherent symbolization. Indeed, it is this idiosyncracy which carries the narrative beyond neat symbolic antinomies towards a form of characterization that heralds the modern novel. 21

More should be made of the fact that the parody of the books of chivalry is based on age: Don Quijote is ridiculous as a knight because he is old, in contrast with the young Amadís de Gaula. Everything related to Don Quijote is incongruous because of his age: the aspiration to love the young and beautiful Dulcinea, the use of his old horse Rocinante and the old broken armour he finds in the house. From the first episodes of the book, we witness the same anachronism: his encounter with Maritornes in the inn is equally funny because it is ludicrous to think that she would be attracted to him and yet this is what he believes. The same occurs in a much later episode, when he thinks Altisidora loves him: ‘¡Que tengo de ser tan desdichado andante, que no ha de haber doncella que me mire que de mí no se enamore!’ (II, 357) [‘What an unhappy errant I am, that there is no maiden sets eyes on me but is enamoured!’]. We cannot forget that what we could now find distasteful in the way an old man is treated, was a source of laughter in the society of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. As mentioned earlier, humanists like Erasmus considered the old as fools and a source of fun and the older the man, the more foolish he would be: ‘Erasmus was merciless in this



21 Edwin Williamson, The Halfway-House of Fiction: ‘Don Quixote’ and Arthurian Romance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), p. 211.

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respect, and the old man held an eminent place in his gallery of fools’.22 Russell recalled this attitude when he reminded critics that, initially, Don Quijote was intended as a funny book, and this was the way it was interpreted in his time. Only in later centuries did it receive interpretations that were more serious.23 Taking all this into account, I would like to see if in this context, there are any signs of respect shown towards old age and Don Quijote in particular. Don Quijote can be a cruel book at times but it offers more than just a parody of books of chivalry. Cervantes presents Don Quijote as a human character and that makes him endearing and loved by others, including the reader. There are instances of respect towards Don Quijote, starting with his close family and friends who truly love him and want to help and protect him. The housekeeper and his niece show constant signs of concern towards him and they are upset when they see him hurt and losing his wits. It is significant, for example, that at the end of his first sally, one of the people of the village finds Don Quijote badly injured on the road. Nevertheless, he decides to wait until it is dark to enter the village with Don Quijote, to avoid ridicule and humiliation: ‘Pero el labrador aguardó a que fuese algo más de noche, porque no viesen al molido hidalgo tan mal caballero’ (I, 126) [‘But the labourer waited till it was rather darker, so that no one should see the battered gentleman on so shameful a mount’]. In some episodes in the novel, other characters express admiration for Don Quijote in his lucid intervals when he displays signs of great wisdom; for example, after the speeches on the ‘Golden Age’ or the ‘Arms and Letters’, people feel pity towards him and they do not laugh at him. In the second part of Don Quijote, we meet a gentleman of the same age as Don Quijote, who shows the measure and good manners which one would normally associate with an older person of some rank or education: ‘La edad mostraba ser de cincuenta años, las canas, pocas, el rostro, aguileño, la vista, entre alegre y grave; finalmente, en el traje y apostura daba a entender ser hombre de buenas prendas’ (II, 138) [‘His age appeared to be about fifty; his grey hairs few; his face aquiline; his expression between cheerful and grave – in short, from his dress and appearance he gave the impression of a man of good parts’]. The caballero del Verde Gabán [‘The Knight of the Green Coat’], Don Diego de

 22

Minois, p. 259. P.E. Russell, ‘Don Quixote as a funny book’, Modern Language Review, 64 (1969), 312-26. For a study of a different reception and varying interpretations of Don Quijote, see Anthony Close, The Romantic Approach to ‘Don Quixote’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978). 23

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Miranda, treats Don Quijote with great deference and invites him to his house where he stays for four days. Thus, Cervantes gives us here an example of a model older person who has earned the respect of others. Don Diego explains who he is and what he does and Sancho concludes that he is a saint: ‘Déjenme besar – respondió Sancho –; porque me parece vuesa merced el primer santo a la jineta que he visto en todos los días de mi vida’ (II, 141) [‘Let me kiss you, answered Sancho, for I think your worship’s the first saint I’ve ever seen riding with short stirrups in all the days of my life’]. Don Diego de Miranda has been identified by some critics as an embodiment of the Erasmian ideal of a Christian lay gentleman.24 This conversation gives rise to Don Quijote reminding the reader that parents should look after and educate their children so that later, they can look after their parents in their old age: ‘A los padres toca el encaminarlos desde pequeños por los pasos de la virtud, de la buena crianza y de las buenas y cristianas costumbres, para que cuando grandes, sean báculo de la vejez de sus padres y gloria de su posteridad’ (II, 142) [‘It is the parents’ duty to guide them from childhood along the paths of virtue, of good breeding, and of good and Christian manners, so that when they are grown up, they may be the staff of their parents’ old age and a glory to their posterity’]. At the very end of Don Quiijote, we witness the recovery of Alonso Quijano’s sanity and his subsequent death. Cervantes presents a respectable old man who is putting his life in order and who makes amends for his life before he dies. From the point of view of the principles of the time, Don Quijote’s death is exemplary: En fin, llegó el ultimo día de Don Quijote, después de recibidos todos los sacramentos y después de haber abominado con muchas y eficaces razones de los libros de caballerías. Hallóse el escribano presente, y dijo que nunca había leído en ningún libro de caballerías que algún caballero andante hubiese muerto en su lecho tan sosegadamente y tan cristiano como Don Quijote. (II, 576-7) [At last Don Quixote’s end came, after he had received all the sacraments and expressed his horror of books of chivalry in strong and moving terms. The clerk, who happened to be present, said that he had never read in any book of chivalries of a knight errant dying in his bed in so clam and Christian manner as Don Quixote.]

 24

Bataillon, pp. 792-93.

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Respect or Ridicule?

Thus, we see that there are humane and respectful references to old age (although not completely devoid of some irony) in Don Quijote, more in line with what one would hope to find in ordinary life. In this respect one can see that Cervantes offers a more sympathetic view of old age than the one provided by humanists and courtiers of the time in their writings. I would like to turn now to another character in the Novelas ejemplares, who is also old, the protagonist of the short story ‘El celoso extremeño’, Felipo de Carrizales. He travelled to the New World at the age of fortyeight and one would expect him to have acquired experience and wisdom in the twenty years he was there: ‘La edad que tenía Felipo cuando pasó a las Indias sería de cuarenta y ocho años, y en veinte que en ellas estuvo […] alcanzó a tener más de ciento y cincuenta mil pesos ensayados’ (II, 177) [When he sailed to the Indies Felipo was forty-eight years of age, and in the twenty years that he spent there, […] he managed to amass a fortune worth more than one hundred and fifty thousand solid-gold pesos].

However, when he decides to marry a young girl, his jealousy transforms him into a ridiculous old man. In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, it was considered inappropriate for an old man to embark on a new venture: ‘The height of the ridiculous consisted in throwing oneself into long-drawn-out enterprises’.25 Besides, the idea of marrying a young woman was generally condemned and the Italian Commedia dell’Arte for example, exploited the tradition of the old lover in the characters of Pantaloon and Doctor.26 In a similar way to Don Quijote therefore, Carrizales can be seen as another inversion of the puer-senex topic who becomes a senex-puer: an old man who behaves like a child. It is wrong for the old man to act as a younger person. Carrizales thinks in his naivety that he can override his wife’s freedom by physically locking her up in a house. With his behaviour, Carrizales does not deserve the respect of his wife and others and he becomes an object of ridicule and an obstacle to be challenged. As a result, Loaysa, a young man in the area, decides to enter the house, determined to seduce Carrizales’s wife, Leonora: ‘Todo lo cual le encendió el deseo de ver si sería posible expugnar, por fuerza o por industria, fortaleza tan guardada’ (II, 185) [‘All of which served to inflame his desire to find out if it might be possible to take such a secure fortress either by force or by craft’]. Eventually, Loaysa manages to get into the

 25 26

Minois, p. 265. Minois, p. 252 and Thane, p. 131.

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house and whether or not he succeeds in seducing Leonora, Carrizales thinks that he has. Although Carrizales is an old fool, Cervantes’s presentation of the old man unexpectedly gives rise to some pathos at the very end. Carrizales is defeated but he is deeply hurt and does not react with anger. He recognises his mistake calmly and tries to rectify some of his wrongdoing: La venganza que pienso tomar de esta afrenta no es ni ha de ser de las que ordinariamente suelen tomarse, pues quiero que, así como yo fui extremado en lo que hice, así sea la venganza que tomaré, tomándola de mí mismo como del más culpado de este delito. (II, 218) [The vengeance which I intend to take for this affront neither is nor should be of the usual sort, for I want my vengeance to be out of the ordinary, just as my behaviour was, taking it on myself as the one principally to blame for this offence.]

He makes a generous will and asks Leonora to marry Loaysa when he dies. Thus, Carrizales gains some respect in the final moments of his life and once more, Cervantes offers a sympathetic view of an old man. There is another version of the story in the short play or entremés El viejo celoso. Urbina explains that two topics are dealt with in this story: the popular tradition of the jealous husband and also the issue of the old man marrying a young girl. The behaviour of the old man is judged more harshly in the play, as it comes close to being an incestuous relationship, but the comic nature of this genre still allows for a less serious treatment of the subject. 27 Cañizares in the entremés is a burlesque caricature of Carrizales: ‘The old man is a stereotype, with no developed sympathetic qualities, and so the audience feels no guilt despite laughing at what is a flagrant breach of social order’. 28 We see, in this case, a different treatment of old age as Cervantes adapts himself to the conventions of a particular genre. In both stories, though, Cervantes does not approve of the marriage between an old man and a young girl as was characteristic of the period. Up to now, we can see that although Cervantes uses the traditions of the time in his portrayal of old people, in some specific cases, he adds his personal touch, providing some understanding and respect towards his old characters. However, when dealing with women, it is harder to find a

 27

Eduardo Urbina, ‘Hacia El viejo celoso de Cervantes’, Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, 38 (1990), 733-42. 28 Michael and Jonathan Thacker et al. (eds.), Exemplary Novels, 4 vols (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1992), III, p. 1.

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respectful treatment of old age. This is not surprising as this was another feature of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, when old age had an earlier and more devastating effect on women. Indeed, after childbearing age, the once idealised and beautiful young woman became not only ugly, but often considered an agent of evil. This representation is commonly found in art and literature, explained by the theory of the four humours, which was still prevalent in those times: As they aged and dried, old women became harder and more ‘male’ in their physical selves. Consequently they were considered capable of more reason and level-headedness, and thus due more respect. On the other hand, they were thought to grow increasingly evil and dangerous as menopause set in.29

Spain was no exception to this view and there is therefore a strong tradition of viejas in Spanish literature: ‘The negative portrayal of the vieja has a long tradition in the literary corpus of the Iberian Peninsula from the thirteenth century cantigas d’escarnho, to the seventeenth-century satirical poetry and prose’.30 Many of Cervantes’s women characters are young, idealised heroines who are the protagonists of his love stories. Some are more developed in character than others, and they range from Dulcinea who is a figment of Don Quijote’s imagination, to the very down-to-earth Marcela, who embodies feminine freedom, the idealised and loyal Auristela (Persiles) and many others in the Novelas ejemplares. It is in the Novelas that we find a few examples of the stereotyped old woman of horrible appearance who is associated with vice and corruption; ‘At this conjuncture the world of women and witches combines, contributing to the rash of witch hunts and crazes’.31 In Rinconete y Cortadillo we encounter, among the dubious characters of the community of Monipodio, the pious old woman Pipota. She sells candles and asks for prayers while being an active member of the thieving brotherhood. In this short story the other members, who give her alms to pay for her candles and prayers, treat the old woman affectionately, but it is all part of the ironic presentation of the picaresque underworld of

 29

Thane, p. 127. Encarnación Juárez-Almendros, ‘Aging Women and Disability in Early Modern Spanish Literature’, in Joshua R. Eyler (ed.), Disability in the Middle Ages: Reconsiderations and Reverberations (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), pp. 197-208 (p. 198). 31 Thane, p. 127. 30

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Seville. The best example of this stereotype is the old witch in El coloquio de los perros. The first sight of the witch Cañizares is that of a caring old woman who is searching for the lost children of her friend Montiela. However, her own description shows the malice and deceit of her character from the beginning: Quisiera yo, hijo, apartarme de este pecado, y para ello he hecho mis diligencias: heme acogido a ser hospitalera; curo a los pobres, y algunos se mueren que me dan a mí la vida con lo que me mandan o con lo se les queda entre los remiendos, por el cuidado que yo tengo de espulgarlos los vestidos; rezo poco, y en público; murmuro mucho, y en secreto; vame mejor con ser hipócrita que con ser pecadora declarada. (III, 296) [Son, I should like to give up these sinful ways, and with this in mind I have done several things: I have become a hospitaler, and I look after the poor, whose death quite often provides a living for me either because of what they leave me or leave hidden amongst their ragged clothes which I make sure I pick clean; I say few prayers and in public; I gossip a great deal and in secret; I do better by being a hypocrite than a declared sinner.]

She is clever but she is only motivated by her own pleasure which determines her will to do evil, as she herself admits: ‘Todo lo veo y todo lo entiendo, y como el deleite me tiene echados grillos a la voluntad, siempre he sido y seré mala’ (III, 299) [‘I see and understand all this, but as pleasure has gripped my will, I am and will always be evil’]. Later in the story, Cañizares anoints herself in front of the dog Berganza who is the narrator and he gives a detailed description of her naked body: a revolting sight, which only inspires fear and disgust. There is no sign of respect or any feeling of sympathy towards her. Unlike with male characters, it is hard to find any redeeming features in the witch Cañizares: ‘¿Quién hizo a esta mala vieja tan discreta y tan mala? (III, 301) [‘Who made this old woman so discreet and so evil?’]. The other type of old female character than Cervantes adopts in his works is that of the dueña: The stigmatization and marginalization in literature of old women takes other variants. A fruitful one is the duenna, who is often described as a widow, with an empty social function, since she is not any more a mother, spouse, let alone, a maid.32

In ‘El celoso extremeño’, the Dueña Marialonso is wicked and she is responsible for the downfall of Leonora. She allows the rogue Loaysa to

 32

Juárez-Almendros, p. 202.

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come into the house and leaves the young wife Leonora alone with him. She is punished and condemned in the story for her actions, because she acts with a wicked intention. The stereotype is confirmed in the statement of the narrator: ‘Oh, dueñas, nacidas y usadas en el mundo para perdición de mil recatadas y buenas intenciones’ (II, 212) [‘Oh duennas, born and nurtured in this world to effect the ruin of a thousand virtuous and honest intentions!’]. In Don Quijote, we find some dueñas who are a great source of laughter and ridicule. The Dueña Dolorida is an invention of the Duke and Duchess to laugh at the expense of Don Quijote and it gives the opportunity to repeat the topoi of the period about dueñas as Sancho says: ‘Que donde interviniesen dueñas no podía suceder cosa buena’ (II, 308) [‘Where waiting-women meddled no good could come of it’]. The sight of the Dueña Dolorida (a male servant in disguise) and his companions with long beards is really farcical. However, there is an exception in the comical treatment of the dueñas in the case of Doña Rodríguez: ‘Cervantes creates in his novel Don Quixote the most famous portrait of the worthless higher class duenna in the figure of Donna Rodríguez’.33 She is foolish to the extent that she believes that Don Quijote is a knight and can actually help her and her daughter, who has been deceived by a young man. Nevertheless, we cannot find in her character the malice normally associated with dueñas. Doña Rodríguez tries to defend dueñas and states that they can be virtuous. She gets upset when she recounts her life, and inspires some pity. Don Quijote treats her with respect and affection too, although their dialogue is very humorous due to the incongruous situation: ‘Cervantes’s representation of Donna Rodríguez is the gentlest among the many found in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century works written by males’.34 In the end, though, Doña Rodríguez, despite some of the milder qualities she is given, is not spared the vice of gossiping, ‘La general costumbre que todas las dueñas tienen de ser chismosas’ (II, 400) [‘the waiting-woman’s custom of tale-bearing’]. This is the cause of her downfall as she reveals to Don Quijote some of the Duchess’s personal secrets and the Duchess therefore takes revenge by giving her a good beating. Doña Rodríguez behaves as if she were mad, like Don Quijote, believing in the world of chivalry. She dresses up like the Dueña Dolorida and asks Don Quijote for justice for her daughter: ‘No sabían en qué había de parar la sandez y desenvoltura de Doña Rodríguez’ (II, 420) [‘They could not imagine where the folly and presumption of Doña Rodriguez

 33 34

Juárez-Almendros, p. 202. Juárez-Almendros, p. 203.

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and her unfortunate daughter would stop’]. She is an unusual dueña because she has more complex character traits than the set features normally found in the stereotype: rather than wicked, Doña Rodríguez is naïve and there is an underlying goodness in her. Ultimately, however, she is also a source of laughter and she ends up happy with the likely marriage of her daughter, which is what she wished. It is a happy ending to the episode after all but not a particularly flattering reflection of Doña Rodríguez’s character, who is daft and ridiculous. We encounter a number of other older characters in Cervantes’s works that are not the main protagonists, for example, the parents of some of the heroes and heroines in love stories. They often appear because they have a role to play in the marriage of their children. In general, Cervantes defends freedom of choice in marriage but he does not openly defy the opinion of parents. This can be seen, for example, in Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda. Persiles and Sigismunda are actually running away from a marriage arranged by their parents. They will succeed in getting married by choice, but the brother Magsimino, who represents the will of the parents, will eventually accept the marriage just before he dies. There are many examples of the relationship between parents and children with regards to choosing a partner for marriage in the Novelas ejemplares, from ‘La gitanilla’ to even ‘El celoso extremeño’. Although Cervantes follows literary conventions of a particular genre, he normally appears reluctant to contradict authority and the will of parents or older relatives and guardians prevail in some way in all cases. 35 Having looked at a variety of characters from Cervantes’s works, one can see that the theme of old age provides material to explore its ambivalent nature and to see how Cervantes exploits it. On the one hand, Cervantes follows the traditions of his time and gives a negative view of old age, presenting characters who are ridiculous because of their age. In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, there was a generally negative and hostile representation of old age in art and literature and ‘“There’s no fool like an old fool” was axiomatic in the 17th century’.36 Thus, Cervantes can laugh at middle-aged Don Quijote setting out on adventures not fitting for his age, mock old Carrizales for his presumption in marrying young Leonora and present old women as wicked witches and silly dueñas.

 35

For more on this topic see Idoya Puig, ‘Relationships in Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda: parental authority and freedom of choice’, Anuario de Estudios Cervantinos, 7 (2011), 211-22. 36 Thane, p. 133.

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Nevertheless, Cervantes, as usual, goes beyond the stereotype and destroys some of the moulds. Cervantes presents some old characters, starting with Don Quijote, who inspire some respect. Cervantes introduces more nuances of character, a more realistic portrayal of people. This results in a deeper characterisation, which is a defining feature of the emerging modern novel: Don Quijote, despite his mad behaviour, unworthy of an older man, dies with dignity; we meet the well-respected Caballero del Verde Gabán; even old Carrizales inspires some sympathy when he recognises his mistake. This is not so clear, however, in the case of women. There are fewer examples of older women in Cervantes and they are treated harshly, no respect is shown towards them, following the prevalent trend of the time. They are mainly witches, ugly and dangerous. Doña Rodríguez is the only example where we see a less stereotypical and therefore, more human presentation of an old woman, and even then, she does not get much sympathy. Thus, we can conclude that Cervantes’s presentation of old age ranges from ridicule to respect, using the literary traditions of that period but going beyond them: Cervantes reworks some of the prevalent stereotypes providing a more human, sensitive and complex presentation of some older characters.



EXPLORING SEXUALITY



FUTURE AGE AND CHILDREN: A COMPENSATORY ‘TROPE OF VULNERABILITY’ IN LLORENÇ VILLALONGA’S FICTION? P. LOUISE JOHNSON

In a curious, little-known Catalan work of the 1970s, the mercurial, androgynous figure of Andrea Víctrix prostitutes her/himself in the name of Pleasure, as the figurehead of the eternally youthful resort of Turclub, a futuristic Palma de Mallorca. The novel’s author, Llorenç Villalonga (1897-1980), depicts a dystopian, consumer hell in which growing old is all but eradicated, euthanised death is the norm and being hit by a car constitutes a ‘natural’ death. Huxley’s ‘soma’ promotes the surface appearance of youth in Andrea, while s/he withers physiologically in parallel with the rapid social and economic decline of the society s/he represents. Andrea is a picture of Dorian Gray for a fictionalised twentyfirst century in which old age is anti-aesthetic and biological gender, as a guarantor of procreation, faces definitive erasure. Andrea Víctrix is an at once teasing and brutal engagement with the ageing process, and with a throw-away culture in which human beings are commodified. This essay seeks to highlight the perverse modernity of a text which, through a foreshortening lens on youth, consigns old age to be unseen, in a caricature of institutionalised ageism. It underlines the importance of ageing as a critical category in Villalonga’s work, and discusses the ironising of both the conservative attitudes which characterised a certain 1960s’ Spanish demographic (including a significant element of self-irony), and a nostalgic/eroticised response to youth from the perspective of the writer’s own old age. ‘Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth!’1

In an article discussing the problematic and uncritical attribution of a paedophilic nucleus to Llorenç Villalonga’s posthumous, unfinished

 1

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890).

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novel, La bruixa i l’infant orat [‘The Witch and the Wild Child’], 2 I concluded that Villalonga’s irreverent, ironic and sometimes melancholic reconstruction of childhood innocence from the perspective of later life seemed intentionally provocative.3 Noting that Carme Arnau saw the work as ‘first and foremost a product of age and infirmity’, I suggested that it might also be read as a ‘decline story’, allowing for Margaret Morganroth Gullette’s rather restrictive categorisation. 4 Certainly the nostalgic tenor and also the ludic mode, are narrative continuities that shape the corpus of one of the most important twentieth-century writers in Catalan. In this sense, La bruixa i l’infant orat elaborates on the subject of childhood innocence and purity explored in the earlier novel Les fures [‘The Ferrets’],5 and on the commodification of these qualities in the dystopian scenario of Andrea Víctrix.6 This multi-modal writing by turns projects an affinity with the young from a sympathetic subject position, and casts them, wryly, as the objects of hedonistic tableaux for the adult spectator and voyeur. If for many modernist writers, personal time corresponds to historical time as ‘[p]ersonal exhaustion and failing health [correspond] to the insufficiencies, dangers, threats and debasements of modernity’, Villalonga appears, in Andrea Víctrix, to cut the umbilical ‘traffic from the individual to the general’, shifting the ground of debate.7 Free from this particular bind, the writer is able not only to play with age categories from unexpected angles, but with the even more intimate question of homoerotic attraction, and by extension, homosexuality, which we return to below. Ageing as decline is inscribed powerfully into personal and historical discourses, reinforced by Spenglerian theories of history, yet age is rarely expressed as a (male) corporeal reality in Villalonga’s work; female characters, exemplified by the figure of Madame Dormand, are not so fortunate.

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La bruixa i l’infant orat (Valencia: Edicions 3 i 4, 1992). Subsequently referred to in the text as BIO. All translations from this text and from others are my own. 3 P. Louise Johnson, ‘“Unsuitable for Minors?” Eroticizing Childhood in La bruixa i l’infant orat’, Romance Quarterly, 48.2 (2001), 111-24 (p. 123). Arnau’s short article is ‘Un compendi de Llorenç Villalonga’, Serra d’Or, 401 (1993), p. 57. 4 Johnson, ‘“Unsuitable for Minors?”’, p. 113; Margaret Morganroth Gullette, ‘The Exile of Adulthood: Pedophilia in the Midlife Novel’, Novel, 17 (1984), 215-32. 5 Les fures (Barcelona: Pirene, 1994 [1967]). 6 Andrea Víctrix (Barcelona: Destino, 1974); awarded the Premi Josep Pla in 1973. Subsequently referred to in the text as AV. 7 Edward W. Said, ‘Adorno as Lateness Itself’, in Malcolm Bull (ed.), Apocalypse Theory and the End of the World (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), pp. 264-81 (p. 267).

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I will suggest in this essay that the ‘hedonistic tableaux’ of Andrea Víctrix and La bruixa i l’infant in particular – later-stage depictions of children – are the defiant, edgy and slightly scandalous final flourish of an ageing artist who is, more than ever, willing to ‘épater le lecteur’. Some might argue (and I might agree) that a sense of ‘lateness’ is what drives, in quite a profound way, Villalonga’s artistic endeavour.8 Juxtaposed with, or underpinning (depending on the case) these tableaux is a more orthodox recourse to nostalgia. The potential dangers of nostalgia for childhood (ambiguity intended) are of course most infamously explored in Nabokov’s Lolita. However, Villalonga’s homo- and autodiegetic narrators in Les fures and Andrea Víctrix raise problems not shared by Humbert, in that they identify themselves explicitly as the writer we know as ‘Llorenç Villalonga’, both through verifiable historical allusion, and intertextual reference to other characters and events from Villalonga’s fictional cosmos. Arnau’s attribution of La bruixa i l’infant orat – whose composition was broadly contemporaneous with the other two novels9 – to ‘age and infirmity’, adds a further level of complication: are we to infer that the writer’s judgement is unsound? That the lines of taste are blurred in dealing with certain subject matters? That ill-conceived narrative strategies create difficulties for some readers (and critics) who are accustomed to reading Villalonga biographically (even if through the lens of his self-mythifying)? Or is Arnau merely commenting that Villalonga was old and infirm when he began writing the novel? In which case, how does Arnau understand this to be relevant? The narrator of La bruixa is a more detached commentator than in Les fures and Andrea Víctrix, and thus perhaps less susceptible than either Humbert or Nabokov to accusations of being ‘monstrous’ (he is not directly perpetrating or staging questionable scenes). Nor does this or any other narrator see their

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There is an argument to be made on another occasion for reading Villalonga as Said reads Adorno: ‘With death and senescence before him, with a promising start years behind him, Adorno is, I think, prepared to endure ending in the form of lateness but for itself, its own sake, not as a preparation for or obliteration of something else. Lateness is being at the end, fully conscious, full of memory, and also very (even preternaturally) aware of the present. Adorno as lateness itself, not as Swiftian Struldbrugg but as scandalous, even catastrophic commentator on the present’ (Said, p. 273; my emphasis). 9 Jaume Pomar dates La bruixa’s composition to 1974-5 (Villalonga had been unwell for a number of years before his death in 1980). See ‘Pròleg’, in Llorenç Villalonga, La bruixa i l’infant orat (Valencia: Edicions 3 i 4, 1992), pp. 7-27 (p. 15). Work on the novel eventually published as Andrea Víctrix had begun during the 1960s, and Les fures explicitly prefigures scientific and technological developments in the later novel.

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own re-creating or re-telling as ‘monstrous’; at most, they reflect on the subject in a knowing or ironic way, and see no fault accruing to themselves for their role as messengers. Nevertheless, the aesthetic exculpation of Villalonga attempted by Pere Gimferrer in his epilogue to La bruixa i l’infant orat recalls similar, and in context, more historically urgent explications of Nabokov (by John Hollander and Lionel Trilling in particular, as Whiting describes).10 Villalonga’s characters do not have sex with children. Characters do, however, demonstrate an obsession with childhood exposure (partial or complete nudity), both in natural contexts such as the rural idyll of Les fures, and choreographed, as in Madame Dormand’s proposed spectacle for the re-opening of the Paris Casino in La bruixa i l’infant orat. Andrea Víctrix, too, is populated by lascivious, foul-mouthed, seven-year-old cupids.11 Dormand’s plan is to mount a conventionally ‘crude’ music-hall number starring fifty barely-clad young women – an exemplum of Evil – alongside an ‘angelic’ scene featuring fifty naked children, aged five or six, wearing little angels’ wings and riding bicycles, and whose stage presence, it is intended, will have a morally redemptive effect on the audience. 12 The commonplace, and not for that less compelling explanation for a nostalgic ‘centring’ of childhood in Villalonga (as a lost paradise rather than an eye-opening stage show), 13 has to do with Villalonga’s at times mordant criticism of the aesthetic and moral values of a scientific, post-industrial age, or in other words, with his status as a ‘modern’, in Stephen Spender’s terms. Adopting Spender’s distinction between ‘moderns’ and ‘contemporaries’, Jordi Larios writes that unlike the ‘contemporaries’,

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See Frederick Whiting, ‘“The Strange Particularity of the Lover’s Preference”: Pedophilia, Pornography, and the Anatomy of Monstrosity in Lolita’, American Literature, 70.4 (1998), 833-62. 11 See Owain Jones, ‘Melting Geography: Purity, Disorder, Childhood and Space’, in Sarah L. Holloway and Gill Valentine (eds.), Children’s Geographies: Playing, Living, Learning (Abingdon: Routledge, 2000), pp. 29-47 for a wider discussion and bibliography on the construction of rural space as pure: ‘Innocence is perhaps the key element of Apollonian constructures of childhood which dominate in many modern cultures. Childhood is seen as “idyllic, carefree, happy” (Gittens 1998: 7). This legacy of romantic sensibilities also associates children with the natural and valorises children and nature as wellsprings for (re)purifying and invigorating the tarnished soul of modern (industrialised, urban) society’ (p. 34). 12 Johnson, ‘“Unsuitable for Minors?”’, pp. 116-17. 13 The idyll of childhood is always under threat, or already tainted, but a sense of nostalgia nevertheless pervades, and with more agency vertebrates Villalonga’s novels. This is not, however, to say that nostalgia is in any way a conclusive mode.

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[t]he ‘moderns’ […] ‘distrust, or even detest, the idea of progress, and view the results of science as a catastrophe to the values of past civilisation’. They feel cut off from the past and do not accept the forces and values of today, although they are very much aware that there is no point in trying to live in the past by pretending that the present does not exist. Their reaction to being cut off from the past is nostalgia. This nostalgia for the past goes hand in hand with hatred of the present: ‘the nostalgic sees with double vision at one and the same time the passionately desired yesterday and the hated today. Nostalgia and hatred are two sides of the same medal.’ Such ‘double vision’ is so conspicuous in Villalonga’s fictions that he might well have provided the prototype for the ‘modern’ artist.14

Larios himself is here primarily taking issue with Joan Oleza’s contention that Villalonga is an ‘atypical’ writer, ‘un autor que escapa a les imatges convencionals de l’escriptor contemporani’ [‘an author who does not fit the conventional image of the contemporary writer’].15 Neither ascription is wholly satisfactory, and both are symptomatic of the dangers inherent in seeing Villalonga as prototypical of anything other than himself. Nevertheless, Larios is able to present Les fures as an expression of pastoral: ‘The art of pastoral is the art of the backward glance, and Arcadia from its creation the product of wistful and melancholy longing’. 16 According to Marinelli, the term pastoral [h]as come to mean any literature which deals with the complexities of human life against a background of simplicity. All that is necessary is that meaning and imagination should conspire to render a not too distant past of comparative innocence as more pleasurable than a harsh present, overwhelmed either by the growth of technology or the shadows of advancing age. (p. 142)

More than underlining Villalonga’s ‘modern’ credentials, the identification of pastoral and its close affinity with nostalgia sets up a framework in which several key characters are seen to allegorise – and implicitly, embody – aspects of both Nikolai Berdiaev and Oswald Spenger’s views

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Jordi Larios, ‘“The Centre Cannot Hold”: Llorenç Villalonga’s Version of Pastoral in Les Fures (1967)’, in David George and John London (eds.), Spanish Film, Theatre and Literature in the Twentieth Century: Essays in Honour of Derek Gagen (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2007), pp. 135-62 (p. 137). Larios cites Spender’s The Struggle of the Modern (London: Methuen, 1965), pp. x, 209. 15 Oleza in Larios, p. 137 16 Peter V. Marinelli in Larios, p. 142

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of Western civilisation.17 It will be important to understand, however, that Villalonga is not unproblematically ‘modern’, and that his complex manipulation of the very category of ‘age’ reveals a much more porous ethics than has thus far been suggested. Moreover, the meta-critical discourses on Villalonga that see his own (old) age as a necessary contextual and/or interpretative factor in engaging with difficult aspects of his work, must be borne in mind: my own approach too understands the novels explored as the product of the author’s frustrated engagement with social mores over time, a frustration more than often expressed in critical terms, from the point of view of one excluded from possibilities: by age, amongst other things. In his article on Lolita, Frederick Whiting does not so much seek to exculpate Nabokov than, in his own words, ‘reverse the terms through which we understand Lolita to be both aberrant and exemplary for its period’: Rather than read the novel as the paramount case of artistic and literary critical indifference to moral concerns and sexual politics, I urge that we treat it as exemplary precisely because of its engagement with the period’s (our period’s) anxieties about pedophilia and pornography. Considered in this light, the novel becomes aberrant (visionary, postmodern) in its interrogation of the formalisms – legal, sexual, literary critical – in the ascendant during the Cold War.18

Whiting emphasises, as I did in my own, earlier exploration of La bruixa i l’infant orat, that this is no mere question of inverting positions, but of providing a second observation point, ‘enabling a parallax view of the novel’s complex consideration of prevailing postwar binaries’ (p. 835). These same binaries structure Villalonga’s fiction, although the Cold War is less evident a frame than the military-industrial-scientific complex it feeds: as in Nabokov, the family, or family roles, are a focal point; anxieties concerning normal, heterosexual, male subjectivity are dramatised and the ‘innocence of children [is] elevated to the premier trope of […] vulnerability’ (p. 834).19 While Villalonga is publishing at a later date (in

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Villalonga did not know Russian, and is likely to have read Berdiaev in French translation. The key text is Le nouveau moyen âge (The End of Our Time in English; original Russian 1924). Berdiaev and Spengler, together with Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset, are frequent reference points for the Mallorcan writer. 18 Whiting, p. 835. 19 The word omitted is ‘national’.

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the case of the novels cited), his fundamentally reactionary stance was already defined by the late 1950s. If we ask whether Villalonga’s nostalgia – the mode that centres childhood – is predominantly personal (reading with Gullette and others), or whether it is more compellingly socio-political (‘modern’), we reinforce a binary mode of thinking that, in fact, is problematised by Villalonga even as he enthrones it in the course of his writing. First of all, the personal, aesthetic and socio-political overlap, as Larios’s recourse to Spengler suggests: the German philosopher of history ‘saw cultures as living organisms going through the successive phases of infancy, youth, maturity and senility like any other living organism’. 20 Civilisation is already the decadent phase of culture, and so Western culture from Villalonga’s critical vantage point is decaying, his exile from the present driven home, or from home, to invoke the etymology of nostalgia:21 his perspective is sharpened by first-hand experience of Mallorca’s rapid transformation in the twentieth century from a predominantly rural and socially stratified society, to an increasingly urban, tourism-oriented economy which foments a much-lamented levelling of social hierarchies. Physical age – the advancing years of which the writer is acutely aware – ill-equips him for adaptation in this new, youthful environment. What more suggestive and poignant ‘trope of vulnerability’ could there be therefore, for an ageing man in a culturally senile civilisation, than childhood, appreciated both for its unsullied potential, and its ability to ground and centre the writer?22 In this latter sense, childhood is recognised not merely as a comforting point of origin, but as a past created and transformed by memory into a kind of bridging narrative, an ataraxic comfort blanket or coping strategy. Vicent Simbor Roig evokes Villalonga’s now clichéd ‘painful yearning for home’ (nostalgia), articulated by Josep Maria Llompart as far back as

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Larios, p. 141. For a more in-depth analysis of Villalonga’s relationship with Spengler’s The Decline of the West (in Manuel García Morente’s Spanish translation, La decadencia de Occidente), see P. Louise Johnson, La tafanera posteritat: assaigs sobre Llorenç Villalonga (Barcelona: Fundació Casa Museu Llorenç Villalonga / Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 2002), especially Chapter 2. 21 The OED etymology gives the Greek ȞȩıIJȠȢ (‘nostos’: return home). 22 But see also Johnson, ‘“Unsuitable for Minors?”’ and James R. Kincaid, ChildLoving: The Erotic Child and Victorian Culture (London: Routledge, 1992).

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1964 in the phrase ‘voler i doldre’ (to want and to hurt; to yearn for),23 saying that ‘Villalonga no troba lloc en el present ni espera res del futur’ [‘Villalonga is out of place in the present and expects nothing of the future’].24 The apogee of such an apparently despairing attitude is to be found in Andrea Víctrix, ‘la recreació ficcional dels fantasmes ideològics antiprogressistes de l’autor’ [‘the fictional recreation of the author's antiprogressive, ideological ghost’].25 Underpinning this dystopian re-creation of Palma, Mallorca in the year 2050, are many of the conventions of the anti-utopian genre, not least amongst them ‘the ageism implicit in the equation of age and loss’.26 In some respects, Andrea Víctrix conforms to the Tithonus myth, which according to Teresa Mangum, ‘hyperbolically insists the only real life is young life since loss is not merely death but imprisonment in old age’ (p. 70). However, it could also be seen to critique the myth, and constitute what Mangum calls a ‘rejuvenescence narrative’: Rejuvenescence novels bargain with rather than conquer time. The narrative drive is a desire built on Western conceptions of a mind/body split which would allow one to rejuvenate the ‘body’ while keeping the ‘mind’, equated with memory, intact. […] Representing imagined societies that so overestimate the worth of youth that the only reasonable response to aging is a desperate attempt to reverse time and rejuvenate the body, these novels question the fundamental nature of loss. (pp. 70-71)

The narrator of Andrea Víctrix undergoes live cryogenic preservation in 1965 at the age of sixty-seven (his date of birth is given as 1898; Villalonga was born in 1897). When he emerges from eighty-five years of ‘rest’ in the year 2050, he has a notional age of twenty-eight and a half years, ‘segons les taules de Salky, ja que per cada dotze mesos de dormir, en tornes quatre de jove…’ (AV 35) [‘according to the Salky tables, because for every twelve months you sleep, you become four months younger…’]. The calculations are approximate however, and as the old psychiatrist Dr Orlando explains when the narrator consults him about his

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See Josep Maria Llompart, ‘Dues tragèdies de Llorenç Villalonga’, in Llorenç Villalonga, Aquil·les o l’impossible [i] Alta i benemèrita senyora (Palma: Moll, 1964), pp. 7-15. 24 Vicent Simbor Roig, Llorenç Villalonga a la recerca de la novel·la inefable (Barcelona: Institut Interuniversitari de Filologia Valenciana/Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 1999), p. 269. 25 Simbor Roig, p. 269. 26 Teresa Mangum, ‘Longing for Life Extension: Science Fiction and Late Life’, Journal of Ageing and Identity, 7.2 (2002), 69-82 (p. 69).

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apparently unchanged mental state, they refer exclusively to the ‘aspecte somàtic’, to his physique. Morally, says Orlando, ‘vostè no s’hi deu sentir, tan jove’: Vostè es troba vell perquè ho és. Conec els efectes de la cura de son, a la qual sempre m’he oposat. També jo hauria pogut tornar jove i em vaig estimar més ser un vell natural que no un tros de carn congelada. Vostè ja anirà observant, si abans no el mata un auto, que més de la meitat de la gent és boja. La constitució física de vostè és excel·lent; només té uns vinti-nou anys, però són vint-i-nou anys de 1965. Molts, per a la nostra època. (AV 35) [You, Sir, feel old because you are old. I’m familiar with the effects of the sleeping cure, and I’ve always opposed it. I could have turned the clock back too, become younger, and I decided I’d rather be a natural old man than a lump of frozen flesh. You’ll start to notice, if you’re not killed by a car first, that more than half of the population are mad. Your physical constitution is excellent; you’re only twenty-nine years old, but that’s twenty-nine years in 1965 terms. A lot, in these times.]

Thus the so-called sleeping cure has rejuvenated the narrator physically, but he retains the psychological and emotional maturity – and an even keener sense of hastío or ennui – that motivated his decision to undergo the cure in the first place. That the mind is out of synchrony with the body is more a narrative strategy than an engagement with the possibilities of biomedical engineering, however, and betrays a concern with common vices and morality rather than with science. In the United States of Europe to which the narrator awakens, Turclub (Palma) is the premier tourist metropolis and beach resort. Society is postFordian, with Huxley’s Brave New World at its heart, as sacred text and foundational blueprint. Like Arry Person’s resentful, adolescent fantasy novel in Manuel de Pedrolo’s La creació de la realitat, punt i seguit (1987), and the London cabbie’s rantings in Will Self’s The Book of Dave (2006), Brave New World is understood as a visionary text and adopted uncritically, as all connections to the work’s originary context are erased. Society is governed, from behind the magician’s curtain, by big business, while the public interface is delegated to figureheads such as the camp ‘Supreme Hermaphrodite Monsieur-Dame de Pompignac la Fleur’ in Paris, and in Palma, to Andrea Víctrix, androgynous God/dess of Pleasure, and state whore. The notion of origins is reduced to in vitro reproductive science, and Original Sin is to have been born to a mother and father. Technological progress seeks to eliminate gender difference in new-borns, although without yet, it seems, having succeeded. Spirituality and romantic love are banned, and sex – or ‘amorous acrobatics’ – is often

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violent or sado-masochistic: the regime’s ‘Orgies Collectives’ presented, via Bloomian misprision, as a stage towards the noosphere of Teilhard de Chardin.27 A limited number of viviporous citizens – the ‘thawed’ – are tolerated, provided they abide by the regime’s diktats. ‘Natural’ death is death by car accident, and drivers are rewarded for killing pedestrians (and presumably other drivers) in this way: En vista de tot i que a la gent no li agradava morir destrossada ni cremada, obligaren tots els cotxes a dur ampolles d’àcid cianhídric, que es romprien en el moment del xoc i exterminarien instantàniament els seus ocupants. Va ésser a partir d’aquella fatalitat que la mort d’auto, pel fet d’esser inevitable, començà a designar-se ‘mort natural’. (AV 50) [And so, given that people didn’t like being crushed to death or burnt to a crisp, it was decreed that all cars should carry vials of Prussic acid that would shatter on impact and kill the car’s occupants instantaneously. From that fatality onwards, because it was inevitable, death by car came to be designated ‘death by natural causes’.]

Citizens who avoid the murderous traffic remain young until they suddenly become old: ‘Aleshores els apliquen una injecció de Parquidina’ (AV 37) [‘Then they injected them with “Parquidina”’], and unmediated death from old age is therefore considered unnatural. Both eugenics and euthanasia are thus foregrounded, and the sanctity of life is reduced to the ability of an individual to contribute to the success of industry and the accumulated wealth of white goods manufacturers. Social mores determine that everyone is free to do what they like with their body, but their spirit belongs to the collective, and to major manufacturing industry (the equivalent, perhaps, of today’s hedge funds). More than a satire on Huxley and contemporaneous social, technological and cultural trends, the novel is an account of the process of socialisation of the young/old

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Dr Orlando explains to the narrator that ‘[a] l’època materialista de la teva joventut, parlàveu de Biosfera (la vida animal damunt l’esfera terrestre; a l’espiritual en què hem entrat, és lícit parlar d’una Noosfera (vida de l’esperit). No cal divinitzar una sola persona, sinó tota la Humanitat: el proïsme, com deien els cristians. Per això aconsellem el plaer, la débauche, sense pensar en un ésser determinat i sense distinció de sexes; un plaer compartit entre tots…’ (AV 129) [‘in the materialist era of your youth, you used to talk about the Biosphere (animal life on the terrestrial sphere); in today’s new spiritual era, we can talk about a Noosphere (life of the spirit). It’s important not to deify an individual person, but all of Humanity: love thy neighbour, as the Christians used to say. This is why we counsel pleasure, débauche, not focused on a single person, and without distinguishing between sexes; a pleasure shared amongst everyone…’].

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narrator into the last days of an ailing civilisation, guided by the improbable figure of the adolescent Andrea Víctrix. And it is the narrator’s age-ambiguous relationship with Andrea, as a hybrid of putative lover and moral father figure (Andrea sees only the former), an injection of forbidden intimacy both paternal and romantic, that enables the unveiling of the tragic Andrea, as an almost Unamunian martyr. The bond that grows between the narrator and Andrea is born of truculent resistance to the regime’s brain-washing and beliefs on the narrator’s part, and on Andrea’s, a professional desire to bring over the narrator to the regime’s ways of thinking. Their volatile sentimental attachment is catalysed by the narrator’s physical attractiveness, and Andrea’s enigmatic, androgynous beauty. But the narrator is never sure whether Andrea is (what he understands to be conventionally) male or female, because the category of gender has been all but eliminated and criminalised (in language, where the new Romance variant does not inflect for gender, as well as in and on the body): physical consummation of their relationship is thus perpetually deferred. The dilemma in the narrator’s mind, staged self-consciously and ironically by Villalonga, is whether he is attached homoerotically to Andrea, and whether, in fact, he really wishes to find out. This dramatising of the crisis of normative heterosexual masculine subjectivity, also marks what is perhaps the least coy expression of Villalonga’s obsession with the subject of homosexuality in his work: Vicent Simbor, Pere Rosselló and others, have remarked on the ‘silenci rigorós’ maintained by Villalonga in his autobiographical and semiautobiographical texts, and also in his journalism, regarding his life during the 1930s, and on qualsevol aspecte de la concepció i opcions sexuals en un jove esnob integrat en aquella oberta, transgressora i minoritària societat elitista, en aquella mena de turisme divin de la Mallorca de Preguerra. [any aspect of the conception of sex and sexual choices of a young snob assimilated into that open, transgressive, minoritarian and elitist society, in that ‘divine’ tourism of pre-War Mallorca].28



28 Simbor (p. 116) cites Pere Rosselló, ‘Llorenç Villalonga o la seducció de la intel·ligència’, Lluc, 792 (1996), p. 48. See also Johnson, La tafanera posteritat: assaigs sobre Llorenç Villalonga (Binissalem and Barcelona: Fundació CasaMuseu Llorenç Villalonga/Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 2002). Villalonga’s admiration for the gay enfant terrible of Catalan and later Spanish letters, Terenci Moix, might – and I speculate – have led to more openness and a greater degree of risk-taking in Villalonga’s later writing.

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Along similar lines, Llompart refers to Villalonga’s ‘asèpsia’, tantalisingly preceded by the adversative ‘in spite of his…’.29 This is of note precisely because in later years homosexuality became ‘una autèntica obsessió en la seua obra ficcional’ [‘a veritable obsession in his fictional work’], 30 although until relatively recently it was underplayed by scholars.31 Simbor suggests that this silence cannot be adequately explained by the operation of Franco’s censors, and must in large part be the work of self-censorship: Sens dubte la problemàtica sexual ha patit les conseqüències d’una molt forta autocensura, amb l’objectiu de deixar soterrat en el subsòl més íntim tot allò que pot clivellar la persona que ara és el Villalonga actual, el de la vellesa des de la qual escriu les obres autobiogràfiques, catòlic, monàrquic i assenyat, molt diferent del jove esnob, rupturista, sense prejudicis socials, dels anys vint i trenta.32 [There’s no doubt that the sexual problematic has suffered the consequences of a powerful self-censorship, with the aim of burying in the most intimate subsoil everything that might undermine the persona that is the Villalonga of now, the writer of autobiographical works from old age; Catholic, Monarchist and assenyat, very different from the young snob, non-conformist, free from social prejudice, of the 1920s and 30s.]

I would like to suggest that for all their ageist coding, old age and advancing years are capable of emancipating desire, if not quite realising

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Llompart, p. 9. Simbor, Llorenç Villalonga a la recerca de la novel·la inefable, p. 116. An anecdote told by the narrator towards the end of Andrea Víctrix is both revealing and clarifies little. He recalls how Andrea’s ‘androgynous voice’ would remind him of his student days in Madrid, when he would call Velasco ‘per anar a nedar a la piscina coberta, més aviat tèbia, mentre per la claraboia de vidre vèiem caure damunt nostre la neu del Madrid invernal. Nedaríem plegats uns sis-cents metres, respiraríem compassadament i desplegaríem tota la nostra potència juvenil plena de desigs confusos emperò canalitzats ja cap a fites nobles per la moral o per l’esport’ (p. 224; my emphasis) [‘to go for a swim in the tepid, covered pool, while through the glass skylight we’d watch the winter snows of Madrid falling. We’d swim six hundred metres or so together, breathe rhythmically and unleash all our youthful potency, full of confused desires but channelled now towards noble moral or sporting ends’]. Villalonga was at University in Madrid briefly; the account, if it has any basis in reality, seems to be more representative of his time as a student in Zaragoza. See Jaume Pomar, La raó i el meu dret: biografia de Llorenç Villalonga (Palma: Moll, 1995), especially Chapter 4. 31 See for example Johnson, La tafanera posteritat: assaigs sobre Llorenç Villalonga. 32 Simbor, p. 117. 30

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selfhood, for the writer of Andrea Víctrix and La bruixa i l’infant orat. Simbor reminds us, above, how careful Villalonga characteristically was in obscuring the ‘person’ behind the name, and in fact, Villalonga’s entire corpus is structured as a dance of the seven veils, as he plays Salomé (to the reader’s Herod? In the absence of a John candidate, perhaps we can take the analogy only so far). References to a work known as El vel d’Isis in Andrea Víctrix (and also in the earlier Bearn o la sala de les nines) – a banned publication known to Andrea that lifts the veil on the society’s most holy sacrament and baptismal liquid, Hola-Hola (Coca Cola, of course) – indicate an intensely ludic awareness of both the creative process and the role of the reader in that process. For behind the veil, as Andrea discovers, there is nothing and Hola-Hola is coloured water. Andrea’s loss of faith, experienced more acutely because of the narrator’s scepticism about the regime, is nevertheless concealed from all but the narrator himself. Andrea dies, reduced to a hideous, skeletal figure, aged prematurely by the atrophying side-effects of the drug soma, and the ferocity of his/her professional sexual encounters. The lack of continuity between the maturity of the ‘assenyat’ as mentioned by Simbor (which suggests prudence, tact, common sense, and good judgement), and the writer’s supposed ‘age and infirmity’,33 is not adequately explained, let us say, by the onset of dementia (which occurred in the early to mid 1970s):34 Villalonga’s tonally ‘excruciating’ fictional moments 35 involving young children are not confined to the late, unfinished La bruixa i l’infant orat. In Andrea Víctrix, for example, the presence of children and childhood is limited by fictional context, but children are always and readily available: on the one hand, we are told that children under the age of ten years are confined to puericulture centres ‘entre pedagogs que els inculquen, per mètodes reiteratius i subconscients, els principis de la nova societat’ (AV 58) [‘among pedagogues who inculcate the principles of the new society, via reiterative, subconscious methods’], and on the other, a small number of children fulfil a spectacular service to society, as the exception that proves the rule of a ‘stateprotected childhood’. These children fall into two broad categories: participants in theatrical and circus-like shows, and individual entertainers for hire. We learn that

 33

Arnau, p. 57. See Pomar, La raó i el meu dret: biografia de Llorenç Villalonga, Chapter 20. 35 The term is Susan Sontag’s; see ‘Notes on “Camp”’, in Against Interpretation and Other Essays (New York: Octagon, 1986 [1966]), pp.275-92 (p. 287). 34

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Future Age and Children [a] les sales d’espectacles treballaven bones atraccions, ballets excitants i números acrobàtics, generalment a càrrec d’infants. Aquests números eren summament arriscats. A mi m’esgarrifava veure com dos pelotaris es tiraven minyons de set anys d’un costat a l’altre de la pista amb perill de fracturar-los les vèrtebres del coll si no els encertaven amb la cesta. De tant en tant, succeïen desgràcies, però eren pocs els qui es preocupaven per la sort d’aquells petits herois designats en argot circense ‘minyons-bala’. Un vespre en caigué un de mort als meus peus. Ningú no es bellugà fora de dos fotògrafs que es llançaren damunt el cadàver per fer-ne alguns retrats. ‘L’empresari no perd res’ em digué un veí de butaca. ‘El nen era molt bo, però el tenia assegurat per una quantitat exorbitant.’ Em féu notar que la majoria de ‘bales’ volaven encollits i fets un cabdell amb el cap entre els braços, mentre que aquell efectuava l’exercici rígid, amb els braços al llarg de les cuixes, i els pelotaris se’ll llançaven pegant alternativament als peus i al cap. ‘Els crien per a això’, em deien si intentava protestar. ‘L’Estat protegeix la infantesa; els destinats a aquests jocs no passen del 0.01 per cent.’ (AV 28-29) [The Show Halls put on fantastic spectacles, exciting ballets and acrobatic numbers, usually featuring young children. The acrobatics in particular were incredibly dangerous. I was petrified watching two pelota players launch little seven-year-olds from one end of the court to the other, risking breaking their necks if they didn’t catch them. From time to time, there were disasters, but few people concerned themselves with the fate of those who, in circus argot, were referred to as ‘ballistic kids’. One evening, a child fell dead at my feet. No one blinked except the two photographers who threw themselves at the body to take pictures. ‘The promoter won’t lose out’ said someone sitting close by. ‘The kid was very good, but he was insured for a fortune.’ I was informed that the majority of the children would fly through the air curled up in a ball, head between their arms, while a few held themselves rigid, arms pinned to the side of their legs, and were hurled between the players first head and then feet-first. ‘They’re bred for it’, I was told if I tried to protest. ‘The State protects childhood. Fewer than 0.01 percent are destined for the Games’.]

Written literally into this account of seven-year-old child projectiles, is a quite macabre, scopophilic lens (via the two photographers who record the young body for posterity), and this stands in direct contrast to the nostalgic, soft focus of the narrator’s flashbacks to his own (constructed) childhood in rural Mallorca. The second category comprises young child acrobats and ‘hospitality staff’ (‘cambrerets’), tagged as ‘libidinous’ and ‘blaspheming’, such as the two seven-year-olds whom Andrea sends to the narrator as a gift, and whose summer uniform is a gold seashell that covers the genitals. Following their death in an acrobatic fall from the top of the wardrobe, they are revealed as having been ‘prettily operated on’, since

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the process for producing sexually undifferentiated human beings has yet to be perfected, and the makeshift cod-pieces become detached easily. There is no suggestion that such children have an explicitly sexual role; Andrea alone is referred to as having been destined for a ‘libertine life’ since infancy (AV 130). Andrea Víctrix caricatures a pharmacological obsession, familiar to us today, with rejuvenation and chemical existence: ‘El panem et circenses de la decadència romana s’havia convertit en medicamenta et circenses’ (AV 160) [‘The panem et circenses of decadent Rome had become medicamenta et circenses’]. The disposability of children and the corralling/brain-washing of the under-tens, effectively removes the category of childhood from the social frame. The distorsion of what childhood might conventionally mean in liberal, Western societies, together with the use of the drug soma, and a genderless form of recommended dress (togas and tunics) leads to a flattening of age distinctions, and ultimately, we could say, to the redundancy of age as a useful concept. However, both the secret police and a dissident element of the population that becomes increasingly influential as the novel progresses, contribute to maintaining both age and gender categories at least superficially, as their disguises take the form of excessively masculine men and feminine women, bad transvestites, and old age pensioners heavily made-up to accentuate their wrinkles. The repositioning of out-dated (and forbidden) identity categories onto the material surface of the regime’s subjects is in itself indicative of a nostalgic mode (a return of the repressed longing for a past the citizens never knew, but which they glimpse through the fissures of prohibition). Without seriously engaging with the politics or technical detail of reproductive technology and rejuvenation therapy, Andrea Víctrix nevertheless presents its children (or ‘incubabies’), as well as other characters, as ‘liminal’, in Susan Merill Squier’s term: I use the term to refer to those beings marginal to human life who hold rich potential for our ongoing biomedical negotiations with, and interventions in, the paradigmatic life crises: birth, growth, aging, and death. […] I view human beings living in the era of these biomedical interventions as liminal ourselves, as we move between the old notion that the form and trajectory of any human life have certain inherent biological limits, and the new notion that both the form and the trajectory of our lives can be reshaped at will – whether our own or another’s, whether for good or ill.36

 36

Susan Merrill Squier, Liminal Lives: Imagining the Human at the Frontiers of Biomedicine (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004), p. 9.

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By extending ‘liminality’ from the sphere of biomedicine (although not away from ageing) to morality, we can also talk about the children in Madame Dormand’s putative spectacle as ‘liminal’, in that they represent the purification therapy for a time of moral crisis. They also have a rejuvenating role in the context of spiritual and behavioural degeneracy, and from the perspective of physical decrepitude: the narrator of La bruixa directs misogynist barbs at Dormand, mocking her use of vitamin potions and lotions to stay looking young.37 Frönes and his coauthors38 seem to understand children as liminal in a related direction to that suggested by Squier, ripe for the harvesting of their transformative potential, and this is particularly important in the context of Villalonga’s utopian and antiutopian constructs: [A]lthough adults themselves have to be constrained into the social order, much as Durkheim argued, children offer living exemplars of the margins of that order, its potential disruption and, in fact, its fragility. Children, on a momentary basis, exercise anarchistic tendencies. […] They are dedicatedly unstable, systematically subversive and uncontained, and all of these manifestations are managed, barely, under the rubric of creativity, self-expression, primitiveness, simplicity or even ignorance.

The unspeakable, excruciating experience of conjuring to mind the Paris show is not adequately explained simply by echoing Dormand’s own rationale. How else, then, might we make sense of the witch’s plans? As a twisted (and dry-land) variant of Billy Rose’s Aquacade, or the MGM aqua musicals of the 1940s and 1950s? An intertextual parody of modernity (in the form of the bicycle) coming up in a fairly cold and hard way against pastoral (in the form of the children)? Larios, for example, explicitly identifies the narrator’s cycling accident in Les fures as a hellish intrusion of technology and modernity into the eclogue: ‘Suddenly and prematurely aged (the fact that he is only nineteen is made irrelevant by the physical and psychological effects of the accident), he can only express his sexuality through encounters with prostitutes’. 39 Larios reads the bicycle as machine (‘[t]he bicycle may be a humble machine, but it is a machine all the same’ p. 153), and following Berdiaev, the machine is instrumental in the Fall (the end of the Renaissance).40

 37

Johnson, ‘“Unsuitable for Minors?”’, pp. 118-19. Frönes et al. (p. 260) cited in Jones, p. 30. 39 Larios, p. 144. 40 Larios’s reading works only so far, however: while there is nothing to be done about the physical damage to the narrator, his old friend, the village priest, begins 38

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Is it more productive, or at least aesthetically satisfying, to acknowledge that Villalonga is simply – a word that belies its potential for mischief – refusing to play by the rules? The rules may be those that supposedly align him with modernism (pace Larios), but they are certainly those that govern the critical and interpretative approaches adopted by his readers. Conscious of his own, well-practised ludic slipperiness, and therefore, too, of the compelling need to read between or behind the lines of his writing, Villalonga – of a certain age – changes the game plan, and having positioned his readers as voyeurs, gives us more than we bargain for, because he can: he may indeed be, after Adorno, a ‘scandalous, even catastrophic commentator on the present’.41 The ludic becomes lewd, the reader’s deference subverted, exploited. Is it all about shock value, then? The move from childhood as idyll to something else entirely, might actually allow us to talk about childhood as a dystopia, precisely because (in Dormand’s vision) it is manufactured to service adult anxieties and needs. We remember that Whiting had referred to childhood as a ‘trope of […] vulnerability’ at the time Nabokov wrote Lolita: might La bruixa and Andrea Víctrix also be ‘aberrant (visionary, postmodern)’ in their brazen, compromising re-presentation of the trope? Do they stage a loss of innocence to comfort adults in their own extended state of loss (of youth and innocence)? As the narrator observes of the child-projectiles in 2050: A una època tan racionalista, la seva ingenuïtat i la seva puresa interessaven el públic per allò que sempre ha interessat la puresa: pel plaer de fer que el qui la posseeix la perdi vertiginosament’ (AV 29). [In such a rationalist era, their ingenuousness and purity appealed to the audience for the same reason that purity has always appealed: for the pleasure derived from making whoever possesses it, lose it, vertiginously.]

Pomar’s biography of Villalonga, particularly in its account of his last years and increasingly rare moments of lucidity, reveals an adult geography overwhelmingly concerned with moral, socio-political and global decline, from which personal decline (and explicit awareness of this) is largely absent. Yet the biographer, consciously or otherwise, juxtaposes Villalonga’s habitual critique of sexual liberalisation with a late (1976) comment from an interview with Joan Pla, in which the writer states ‘[m]e gustaría vivir en una sociedad con plena libertad, no sólo política, sino en ideas, en costumbres, etc. Lo encuentro un poco difícil’

 to undo the crippling moral and emotional hurt caused by the accident. Villalonga is rarely clear-cut. 41 Said, p. 273.

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[‘I’d like to live in a society that is completely free, not only in terms of politics, but ideas, customs, etc. I find it a bit difficult’].42 We may (or may not) choose to find corroborating evidence in this remark for a reflectiveness about Villalonga’s own lifestyle choices, as intimated earlier. For while it is a critical commonplace that Villalonga’s lost paradises never existed, it might equally be said – again, pace Larios – that the most poignant nostalgia in Villalonga’s fiction is not for any kind of lived past, but for a past that was not, or could not be lived. The yearning for freedom, ‘plena libertad’, calls up, by analogy, or in parallel, the verbal construct of a golden age of childhood inevitably constrained into adult social order,43 and worse, reduced to an improbably redemptive distraction for fallen elders. In Les fures, the process of constraint occurs over time and is accelerated by happenstance (a less dramatic and also less ‘tidy’ reading of the cycling accident), while in the futuristic and absurd scenarios of Andrea Víctrix and La bruixa i l’infant orat, it is distilled and exhibited on the pelota court and on stage respectively. In all instances, the process seems to confirm children’s, and childhood’s, instrumentalist function as a narrative and personal crutch for a profoundly unsatisfactory later-life reality. At the same time, however, any compensatory role is only partially successful, since the new beginnings that might traditionally be symbolised by childhood and innocence are denied. What we have instead, is a narrative ‘quick fix’ for a present without remedy, in the face of an end with no visible renewal.

 42 43

Pomar, La raó i el meu dret: biografia de Llorenç Villalonga, p. 407. See Frönes et al in Jones.



AGEING, MASCULINITY AND SEXUALITY IN SERGE DOUBROVSKY’S L’APRÈS-VIVRE AND UN HOMME DE PASSAGE PATRICK SAVEAU

Serge Doubrovsky, first open practitioner of autofiction – a word he coined – in France, has fictionalised his life since La Dispersion [‘Dispersion’], his first novel (1969) and any reader familiar with his work has since been able to follow the ageing process throughout his writing. The attention the narrator pays to the ageing of his body started with La Dispersion, but has gained momentum and importance as the years have gone by, and this essay focuses specifically on L’Après-vivre (1994) [‘Living Afterwards’]. This novel tells the story of a man who, after the death of his wife, meets a young woman he cannot sexually satisfy; at the age of 61, he is up against the first signs of impotence, a condition he feels is degrading and which calls into question his masculinity. This chapter links his self-loathing to his feeling like an Untermensch as a Jew during World War II, an ineradicable feeling which resulted in his wanting to assert his masculinity in his sexual life. Because of his experiences during the War, the character Serge Doubrovsky was to live his love life according to a logic of performance, but once that stage came to an end, or rather showed its first signs of inertia, how was he going to deal with the first signs impotence? He rebels against the physiological symptoms of impotence, going first to see several psychoanalysts to no avail, before finally deciding to resort to the medicalisation of his sexual life. This chapter thus explores what a man’s sexuality or lack thereof, understood in terms of performativity, can tell us about the way old impotent men cope with ageing.

In the 1970s, Serge Doubrovsky contributed to the renewal of the autobiographical genre in France when he coined the word autofiction, which first appeared on the back cover of Fils [‘Son’] in 1977 to describe his writing practice. Literary critics such as Philippe Lejeune, Jacques and Eliane Lecarme, Vincent Colonna, Philippe Gasparini, Philippe Vilain have written substantial essays trying to define this new

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genre, with Doubrovsky as a point of reference and comparison. 1 Regarding Doubrovsky’s work, critics have gradually strayed away from the exegesis of the genre per se to focus instead on recurring themes that readers, familiar with his work, are exposed to. Among them, Keith Reader, Patrick Saveau and Mélikah Abdelmoumen, who respectively reflected on the abject, the Dark Years as trauma, and the dialogic and dialectic relation between the writer and his female readers.2 In addition to these themes, one that has symptomatically plagued the man and the author stands out: ageing. Indeed, this obsession with ageing did not start as a result of the symptoms a man of his age – he was born in 1928 – might be experiencing, but is noticeable in his very first books. In Fils, an autofiction he wrote while he was in his forties, Doubrovsky depicts his own self as a man who is already preoccupied with ageing, in particular with the gradual degradation of his body: ‘Tous les jours, à tous les points de vue, je me décompose, je me faisande. Je rouille.’3 [‘Every day, in every way I am rotting away. I am getting rusty’]. A few years later, when he published Le Livre brisé [‘The Broken Book’], his concern with ageing took on a morbid dimension. Reflecting on the man he used to be, the narrator is forced to realise he is only a pale copy of his former self: ‘je suis un cadavre décomposé qui pue […]. [Mes yeux] ne rencontrent, au lieu d’un beau mec, qu’un macchab.’4 [‘I am a decayed stinking corpse […]. Instead of a handsome guy, [my eyes] only see a stiff’]. As a writer of autofictions, whose main preoccupation is to recreate the past, his



1 See Philippe Lejeune, ‘Autobiographie, roman et nom propre’, in Moi aussi (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1986), pp. 37-72; Jacques Lecarme and Eliane LecarmeTabone, ‘Autofictions’, in L’autobiographie (Paris: Armand Colin, 1997), pp. 26783; Vincent Colonna, Autofiction & autres mythomanies littéraires (Auch: Editions Tristram, 2004); Philippe Gasparini, Autofiction. Une aventure du langage (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 2008); Philippe Vilain, L’Autofiction en théorie suivi de deux entretiens avec Philippe Sollers & Philippe Lejeune (Chatou: Editions de la Transparence, 2009). 2 See Keith Reader, ‘Abject phalluses, abject penises: Serge Doubrovsky and Michel Houellebecq’, in The Abject Object: Avatars of the Phallus in Contemporary French Theory, Literature and Film (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006), pp. 87-134; Patrick Saveau, Serge Doubrovsky ou l’écriture d’une survie (Dijon: Editions Universitaires de Dijon, 2011); Mélikah Abdelmoumen, L’Ecole des lectrices. Doubrovsky et la dialectique de l’écrivain (Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 2011) 3 Serge Doubrovsky, Fils (Paris: Editions Galilée, 1977), p. 32. The pagination is from the original edition. All translations here are mine. 4 Serge Doubrovsky, Le Livre brisé (Paris: Editions Grasset, 1989), p. 215. The pagination is from the original edition.

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character is up against the passing of time, leading him to observe its gradual ravages upon the self. However, at this point of his autofictional work, this awareness pertains more to what Freud would call an obsessional neurosis than to the physiological symptoms of the ageing process, let alone the decomposition of the body. This obsession notwithstanding, it is in his next books, L’Après-vivre [‘Living Afterwards’] and more recently Un homme de passage [‘A Man Just Passing Through’], that the real symptoms of ageing permeate the narrative in a tangible manner. The narrative goes from a character who fights these symptoms of old age with the energy of despair in L’Après-vivre, benefitting from a reprieve thanks to medical progress, to a character who, despite his insurmountable decline, comes to accept ageing as a fatality he can do nothing about in Un homme de passage. It is this passage of time and its corollaries that I would like to explore in this essay. It must be remembered that Serge Doubrovsky has built all his books around the women who shared his life: Eliska in La Dispersion, his mother in Fils, Rachel in Un amour de soi, Ilse in Le Livre brisé, Elle in L’Aprèsvivre and more recently, Elisabeth, the woman he married in 2004, in Un homme de passage. Up to Le Livre brisé, his autofictions are peppered with raunchy pieces about his sexual life, something that is about to change when he meets Elle, the woman who shares his life in L’Aprèsvivre. He is a sixty-year-old man, she is twenty-six years younger than him. She is in a bad marriage, and looking for a fresh start but when she first meets him, she has to repress what immediately crosses her mind: ‘“Comme il a l’air vieux!”’. 5 [‘He looks so old!’] His old age and its physiological symptoms are the focus of the last two chapters of the book, ‘Fin de parties’, and ‘L’amour piqué’. Through analepses, the narrator lets the reader know how, as a matter of fact, his sexual relationship with Elle

 5

Serge Doubrovsky, L’Après-vivre (Paris: Editions Grasset, 1994), p. 349. Subsequent references to this text will be given as AV followed by the page number. In the chapter ‘Comprendre’, the narrator explains how Elle never felt loved by her father and when she started dating, she systematically chose to be with older men, in search of paternal love: ‘je n’ai jamais pu aimer que des hommes en âge d’être mon père.’ (AV 328) [‘I have only ever been able to love men who were old enough to be my father’]. Eventually, when she got married to a man her own age, she soon realised he was a woman-hater, but decided to stay in her marriage nonetheless. When she begins her relationship with Serge, she is aware there is no future with him, but she finds him ‘chaud et tendre et aimant’ (AV 404) [‘warm, tender and loving’] and tells him, ‘quand je fais l’amour avec toi, j’ai l’impression de faire l’amour avec un père’ (AV 400) [‘when I make love to you, I feel like I am making love with a father’].

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was marred right from the start by his lack of sexual potency, something the narrative does not mention up to these last two chapters, insisting instead in previous chapters on the hot and intense sex the two protagonists had together. When the truth of his sexual life with Elle is revealed, the narrator tells us how his pathology started even before he was with her. Explaining how it slowly sneaked up on him, the narrator confesses that his sexual performances have been erratic for a couple of years, so much so that sex has become a source of anguish instead of pleasure, a pervasive question lingering in his mind before any sexual act: ‘VAIS-JE POUVOIR.’ (AV 352) [‘Will I be able to perform?’] In order to answer this question, the narrator decides to see different specialists, each one prescribing him different pills that will supposedly restore his sexuality to its former glory. The last specialist he consults not only gives him another prescription, but strongly advises him to be sexually active. When he meets Elle, several months after the first meeting with a specialist, his sexual potency is medication-dependent. In a relationship with a young woman for whom sex is essential, he quickly realises that he just does not have the stamina anymore. During a threeweek stay in Spain, he has to admit to himself that he cannot stretch his sexual limits any further, despite all the medicine he is taking. In a scene that is both tragic and comic, the young woman is in tears because she cannot extend her stay with him, while he is relieved because he just cannot meet her sexual expectations anymore. Upon his return to Paris, he decides to make an appointment with another specialist whose remedy to his lack of sexual potency sends the narrator spiralling down into the Dark Years of the German Occupation of France. As I demonstrate in my book, Doubrovsky’s masculinity is tied to history. During World War II, to be a man meant participating in the war6 and as a consequence of the Armistice signed in June 1940 between France and Germany, the only way to be an active soldier was to answer General de Gaulle’s Appeal of 18 June to join the Resistance against the German occupant. Unfortunately, Doubrovsky was eleven when the war broke out and sixteen when France was liberated in 1944. Nonetheless, his passivity during World War II, which peaked when he had to go into hiding in November 1943 when a plain clothes policeman warned his family of their imminent arrest, never left him in peace and is a recurring motif through all his autofictions, from La Dispersion to Un homme de

 6

Patrick Saveau, Serge Doubrovsky ou l’écriture d’une survie; André Rauch, L’identité masculine à l’ombre des femmes. De la Grande Guerre à la Gay Pride (Paris: Hachette Littératures, 2004).

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passage. His being unable to prove his masculinity during World War II is epitomised in this passage from L’Après-vivre: ‘Moi, la guerre, je ne l’ai jamais faite. Subie, comme un enfant, comme un vieillard, jamais un homme. Pour moi, depuis, sans cesse, c’est une obsession.’ (AV 364-65) [‘I have never waged war. I was subjected to it, like a child, an old man, never like a man. Since then, it has always been an obsession for me’]. What was left to Doubrovsky to express and assert his masculinity since he failed his war, as he often points out? Sex and the physical ability to honour a woman: Pour moi, mon sexe n’est pas un organe, c’est une dignité. La virilité est un point d’honneur. Si une femme me fait l’honneur de se donner à moi, il y va de mon honneur de la combler. Je ne suis pas malade, déficient, je suis déshonoré. Comme en 40, ça me revient, le haut-le-cœur de la débâcle, toute la France transformée en femelles fuyardes, perdues, éperdues, sur les routes. Ma déroute, je ne peux pas la supporter, elle est historique. Être mâle est une éthique. (AV 364) [My sex is not an organ, it is a dignity. Virility is a point of honour. If a woman does me the honour of giving herself to me, it is a question of honour for me to sexually satisfy her. I am not sick, deficient, I am dishonoured. Like in 1940, it comes back to me, the nauseous Debacle, France turned into runaway females, lost and distraught on the roads. My discomfiture is historical, I just can’t stand it. To be a male is an ethics.]

Resorting to sex to prove one’s own masculinity epitomises what Foucault demonstrated in The History of Sexuality, namely that sexuality is largely determined by socio-historical circumstances, an idea Merryn Gott and Sharron Hinchliff make theirs when they write that ‘sexuality, frequently described as “the most natural thing about us”, is not natural at all but is socially constructed in complex ways’. 7 The unnatural determination of Doubrovsky’s sexuality is reinforced when his doctor tells him that, from now on, he will need to give himself an injection in the penis if he wants to make love. His inability to have a non-medically-assisted erection, tantamount to a disability, signals his demasculinisation which can only trigger self-loathing: ‘le dégoût, la honte de moi m’envahissent […], je ne puis pas supporter un homme qui n’est plus un homme, un cul-de-jatte, un diminué, un minus, Untermensch, ça qu’on était pour les boches, un soushomme, ils ont gagné, j’en suis un.’ (AV 386) [‘I am overwhelmed with

 7

Merryn Gott and Sharron Hinchliff, ‘Sex and Ageing: A Gendered Issue’, in Sara Arber, Kate Davidson and Jay Ginn (eds.), Gender and Ageing: Changing Roles and Relationships (Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2003; rep. 2008), pp. 6378 (p. 63).

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disgust and shame […], I cannot stand a man who is not a man, a legless cripple, a wimp, Untermensch, that’s what we were for the Krauts, they’ve won, I am one of them’]. Lack of sexual potency in L’Après-vivre turns into sexual impotence in Un homme de passage. How does impotence challenge Doubrovsky’s masculinity and identity? Does the narrator come to terms with the ravages of ageing when it comes to his waning sexuality? Elle is dead when he meets the new woman who now shares his life. Her name is Elisabeth, she is of Armenian origin, and she is twenty-eight years younger than he is. She is an avid reader of his books and we learn that she maintained a steady correspondence with him for several months before their first meeting. Throughout the letters that are reproduced in Un homme de passage, terms of endearment become more frequent. She has read L’Après-vivre, ‘“un livre tabou”’ 8 [‘a taboo book’] according to her, which she is unable to reread. The narrator who considers this book as ‘le livre-tombeau de [son] corps décati’, (HP 462) [‘the tomb-like book of [his] decrepit body’] no doubt understands that Elisabeth knows about his erectile dysfunction. Their meeting nonetheless has different consequences for each character. When the narrator wants to recount what happened on this particular day, he is furious with himself as he cannot remember anything: ‘Une rencontre vitale, primordiale, essentielle pour moi. Déjà évanouie, évaporée. Pas possible, j’ai une maladie de la mémoire, c’est pathologique, pathétique.’ (HP 481) [Such a vital, primordial, essential meeting for me. Already vanished, evaporated. It is not possible, my memory is deficient, it is pathological, pathetic].

Why doesn’t he remember this first meeting with Elisabeth since, at the moment of writing, he confesses it was vital to him? What is being repressed? His only recourse is to turn to Elisabeth, who has become his wife in the meantime, to have a detailed account of their first day together. She arrived as scheduled, they went to his favourite restaurant, then for a walk, and finally returned to Serge’s home, where he pushed her into his bedroom: ‘“Sans dire un mot, tu m’as poussée jusqu’à la chambre à coucher vers le lit”’ (HP 482) [‘Without saying a word, you pushed me into your bedroom onto your bed’]. Is her choosing ‘pousser’ as a verb,

 8

Serge Doubrovsky, Un homme de passage (Paris: Editions Grasset, 2011), p. 461. Subsequent references to this text will be given as HP followed by the page number.

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symptomatic of her feeling victimised? The reader is left guessing what she must have felt at this particular moment because nothing else is said. It could be surmised that, following their correspondence, their meeting is a move from the romanesque to the real, from an epistolary exchange to a physical contact. Although she knows about Serge’s erectile problems, she is now in love with the man, not just the writer, and when he pushes her, nothing indicates she tried to resist him, although she certainly could have. The reader finally learns that, despite the Viagra pill Serge took several hours before, incidentally cancelling out the physiological effects it could have had on him, the sexual act does not and cannot take place. Elisabeth’s expectations, if she had any, are disappointed and the verb ‘pousser’ comes to denote the establishment of a power relation between the two characters. The male empowerment conveyed in Elisabeth’s sentence is however short-lived. Nonetheless, it will take another turn later on in the relationship, as the reader will soon learn. For the time being, if the narrator does not remember what happened in the bedroom, it is simply because the demasculinisation he feels is overwhelming: Vérité aveuglante dans l’obscurité de ma mémoire, cette première rencontre a été un fiasco total. J’ai dû avoir un zob de mollusque, le panais en panne. Mon corps vieillissant n’a pas été à la hauteur de notre roman. Je meurs de honte en y repensant […]. J’habite une carcasse déchue. Le secourisme médical a ses limites. Je les ai de toute évidence dépassées. (HP 484) [Blinding truth in the darkness of my memory, this first meeting was a complete fiasco. I must have had a flabby phallus, a prick out of order. My ageing body was not up to our romantic adventure. When I think of it, I am dying of shame […]. I inhabit a waning carcass. Medical help has its limits. Obviously, I have exhausted them all].

The incapacity to make love to Elisabeth mirrors an ageing body that resembles more a dead body than an able body. Despite all the advances of medicine, no pill, no injection can help the narrator get an erection, and more importantly, be a man. The repression of this particular episode stems from the shame and self-hate felt by Serge. The narrator, as he did in L’Après-vivre, goes back to the 1940s and explains anew why his masculinity cannot be detached from sexuality. Manhood was denied to him during World War II as it meant taking up arms, shooting and killing, actions he was never able to carry out: Un homme, il a les armes à la main, il tire, il tue. Moi, je crève de n’avoir pas descendu un seul Boche, buté un seul collaboche […]. A certains

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Unable to express his manhood during World War II, his only recourse turned out to be his sexual performances: ‘On est UN HOMME pas seulement sur un champ de bataille, en lice, mais AU LIT, avec une femme’ (HP 487) [‘One is A MAN not just on the battlefield, but IN BED, with a woman’]. But, at age seventy-two, when he first meets Elisabeth, this dimension of masculinity is taken away from him and becomes just something of the past, a memory. Interestingly enough, his impotency pertains to a male-centred sexual model: sex is meant to correspond to a norm that is defined as ‘penetrative sexual intercourse’, 9 and nothing else. The narrator describes how he caresses her to arouse her, but this has no effect on him. As his sex remains limp, he cannot penetrate her, and cannot consider what they do as sex. The socio-historical dimension of sex for Serge Doubrovsky silences how sex is also socio-culturally defined for her. The reader does not know what Elisabeth thinks of Doubrovsky’s impotence, how she deals with his obsession, and above all, how she envisages sex with men. At no time is she given the opportunity to voice her opinion. When, one year after their encounter, she wants to put a stop to their relationship, Serge does not understand why she wants to leave him. Elisabeth mentions his character, his habits, reminds him of their first date and ends her list of reproaches with their return to Serge’s apartment: ‘Et après tu m’as poussée vers ton lit…’ (HP 498) [‘And then you pushed me onto the bed…’] It is the second time the narrator places the verb ‘to push’ in Elisabeth’s mouth. The narrator assumes that the reason behind Elisabeth’s desire to leave him is what happens after Serge pushed her, namely that he was not able to make love to her. By not allowing her to explain what she felt at this precise moment, the narrator insinuates she did not object to his pushing her, but most of all, only gives his own reading of her words, ignoring his boorishness as he puts it earlier, if not the violence of his own act, so that he can engage in a reflection about his own failing. The body language of this scene is to be interpreted in different ways. Elisabeth is passive twice, when it happened and when it is being recounted, while Serge is active twice, when he pushed her and when he narrates the scene. As a writer, he

 9

Gott and Hinchliff, p. 64.

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can fight and ultimately defeat his impotence by writing about it; as a character, Elisabeth is denied any power, in particular the power of words. How does Doubrovsky remedy impotence as a sign of demasculinisation? As mentioned by the editors of Gender and Ageing, ‘Older men’s masculinity is reinforced and maintained by marriage or partnership’.10 It is this reinstating of masculinity I would like to examine now. Before doing so, it must be stated that Serge and Elisabeth’s marriage has a particular twist to it, as it can be likened to a Living Apart Together (LAT) relationship. Indeed, Elisabeth makes clear that marriage would have been impossible for her if he had asked her to move in with him. Instead, they see each other on Wednesdays and at weekends. What does this type of relationships allow? Intimacy when they are together, autonomy when they are apart. Elisabeth has a full-time job, shares a flat in the suburbs of Paris with her sister whom she is very close to. Serge is retired, and as mentioned before, has a way of living that Elisabeth finds hard to deal with: ‘C’est une chose de les lire et une autre de les vivre’ (HP 498) [‘It’s one thing to read about them, another to experience them’]. As the narrator states, marriage does not change anything about the relationship they had over the four previous years. However, from a narrative perspective, their getting married enables the narrator to temporarily move away from sex and broach the daily dimension of their life together. What the reader quickly notices when learning about their lives together is how the economy of their couple is clearly divided along traditional gender lines. When she is with him, she enquires about what he would like to eat and does the shopping accordingly; on Saturdays, she goes to the open-air market in Passy, an upscale neighbourhood of Paris; in the evening, as they eat at different times, she serves him ‘en souriant’ (HP 516) [‘with a smile’] before going to bed. The LAT relationship turns out to be a traditional marital one when they are together, Elisabeth taking on the role of housewife: ‘[Q] uand ma femme est là, je la laisse faire, je me laisse faire’ (HP 516) [‘[W]hen my wife is around, I let her handle everything, I just kick back’]. His being served with a smile is seen as something spontaneous on her part, which he associates with the feminine and the maternal.11 If their LAT relationship allows gender identity negotiations

 10

Sara Arber, Kate Davidson and Jay Ginn, ‘Changing Approaches to Gender and Later Life’, in Arber, Davidson and Ginn, pp. 1-14 (p. 6). 11 The importance of the maternal in Serge Doubrovsky’s work could be the topic of another essay. I nonetheless would like to stress here that his life with Elisabeth reminds him of his mother. Elisabeth goes to the market ‘comme [sa] mère’ (518) [‘as his mother used to do’], she checks out the stalls for the best vegetables and

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when they live apart, it allows none when they are together. This is confirmed in the domain of care, which, according to Borell and Karlsson, remains ‘to a disproportionate degree, the province of women, especially wives’.12 Indeed, a few weeks after their marriage, Serge wakes up feeling very dizzy, everything spinning around him. He manages to walk up to another room in order to call his sister so that she can warn Elisabeth of his condition. Elisabeth rushes to Serge’s flat, calls S.O.S-Médecins [Medical Emergency Service] which sends a doctor who diagnoses Ménière’s disease and advises him to go the hospital. As a result, Serge is confined to bed for some time, and Elisabeth shows an ‘incroyable dévouement’ (HP 524) [‘utmost devotion’] to her husband to help him get better. She moves in with him, gets up to prepare his breakfast that she leaves next to him in his bed, goes to work, comes back during her lunch break to prepare his meal, then rushes back to work to finally return to his flat to prepare his dinner and make sure he has taken all his medicines. As the narrator points out, ‘ce n’est plus le mariage à temps partiel, elle me soigne à temps plein. A éclater, je ne sais comment elle tient elle-même le coup’ (HP 525) [‘It is not a part-time marriage anymore, she takes care of me full-time. I do not even know how she hangs in there herself’]. Despite their choosing to live apart together, Elisabeth finds herself imprisoned in a traditional marital role that implies caring for her husband when he is sick as if they were living together. This caring takes humiliating proportions on one occasion when Serge has diarrhoea and Elisabeth has to empty his bedpan. Serge is disgusted with himself while Elisabeth has to brace herself to help him, saying, ‘“cette fois j’ai atteint mes limites”’ (HP 525) [‘this time, I have reached my limits’], explaining that it is the

 fruit ‘comme [sa] mère’ (518); when Elisabeth tells Serge lunch is ready, the narrator says, ‘J’ENTENDS MA MÈRE’ (544) [‘I hear my mother’]. Doubrovsky has written many times that his mother was the person he had loved the most. Through the women he loved, Serge has always looked for his mother, something which according to Rachel in Un amour de soi harmed their relationship. In The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), Nancy Chodorow demonstrates that boys must separate themselves from their mothers in order to develop an independent sense of self. As Doubrovsky was never really able to cut the umbilical cord with his mother, the model of the mother as primary care-giver has always been projected upon the different women who shared his life. In Un homme de passage, Elisabeth is no exception. 12 Klas Borell and Sofie Ghazanfareeon Karlsson, ‘Reconceptualizing Intimacy and Ageing: Living Apart Together’, in Arber, Davidson and Ginn, pp. 47-62 (p. 57).

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first time she has found herself dealing with excrement, not even a baby’s as she has no children. On top of showing how care falls on Elisabeth, this particular episode brings the narrator back to issues of masculinity and sexuality. After going to the hospital, Serge consults an ear-specialist who asks Elisabeth if Serge has experienced strong emotions lately. Elisabeth can only answer, ‘“la seule émotion forte qu’il a pu avoir, à ma connaissance, c’est voilà un mois notre mariage”’ (HP 527) [‘to my knowledge, the only strong emotion he experienced lately is our marriage one month ago’]. To Doubrovsky, this marriage should be synonymous with serenity, security and bliss: he found a young woman in his old age, he is not alone anymore, and his wife is totally devoted to him. So why did he experience such intense vertigo that he was bed-ridden? It is the painful realisation that, on their wedding night, he was unable to make love to his wife. The day of his marriage is the officialisation of his impotence, the death of his manhood, the end of his virility. This is experienced as castration but most of all as dehumanisation, something he experienced during World War II: ‘J’ai cessé d’être UN HOMME. Je suis devenu ce que les boches voulaient que je sois, EIN UNTERMENSCH, EIN UNMENSCH’ (HP 529) [‘I am not A MAN anymore. I have become what the Krauts wanted me to be, EIN UNTERMENSCH, EIN UNMENSCH’]. This disgrace is unbearable to Doubrovsky. Stripped of his manhood, the narrator blames ageing, but he does so through quoting lines from Corneille’s Le Cid: ‘“Ô rage! ô désespoir! ô vieillesse ennemie!| N’ai-je donc tant vécu que pour cette infamie?”’ (HP 529) [‘Rage and despair! O villainous old age!| Have I lived so long to suffer this disgrace?’] 13 shedding another hermeneutic light on his views on masculinity, sexuality and ageing. Indeed, this reference is not insignificant when one knows that, before becoming a writer, Doubrovsky was a critic whose Corneille et la dialectique du héros is still a must-read for Corneille’s scholars, more than forty years later. What was one of his main critical interests at the time when he wrote about Le Cid? The impossibility for don Diègue, the Cid’s father, to challenge don Gomès who has just slapped him, because of his physical decline. Doubrovsky writes that through this dishonour don Diègue is experiencing ‘la suprématie impitoyable du présent et l’annihilation de l’être par la durée’ 14 [‘the merciless supremacy of the present and the annihilation of being through time’]. These two themes sound very

 13

Pierre Corneille, The Cid, in Six Plays by Corneille and Racine, ed. by Paul Landis (New York: The Modern Library, 1931), I. 4. 237-38. 14 Serge Doubrovsky, Corneille et la dialectique du héros (Paris: Gallimard, 1963), p. 90.

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familiar to the reader when s/he learns how time has annihilated Serge’s masculinity and how the present reigns supreme over the past. The mirroring of the two texts does not stop here. Don Diègue has one means of being avenged, his son, or rather his son’s youthful body. Indeed, if don Diègue’s body is a ‘source tragique de décadence’ [‘a tragic source of decadence’], it is also, through Rodrigue’s body, a ‘source intarissable du salut’15 [‘a endless source of salvation’]. Through Rodrigue, the future is again a possibility. How can Elisabeth fulfill Rodrigue’s part? Can she take charge of Serge’s life? One cannot talk of bloody vengeance like in Le Cid, but Elisabeth can avenge Serge’s physical decline by sacrificing herself, her own body, her own sexuality. In order to do so, Elisabeth needs ‘CŒUR’ (HP 544) in the Cornelian sense of the word, namely courage. She willingly submits herself to a series of tests that are proof of her loyalty to Serge. Her self-abnegation allows Doubrovsky to accept the ravages of ageing and embrace ‘un bonheur paisible’ (HP 537) [‘a peaceful happiness’], but even more significantly enables him to maintain power in his old age. Having escaped the ‘ENDLÖSUNG’ [‘Final Solution’], he can wait for his ‘DISPARITION’ [‘death’], his ‘VERNICHTUNG’ (HP 545) [‘destruction’] in complete serenity, knowing that Elisabeth is there for him to cope with the difficulties that come with ageing, while symbolically reinstating his lost masculinity.

 15

Doubrovsky, Corneille et la dialectique du héros, p. 91.



CREATIVITY AND POSITIVITY IN OLD AGE



‘SILENT TRANSFORMATIONS’: AGEING AND THE WORK OF WRITING IN ROBERT PINGET’S THÉO OU LE TEMPS NEUF DEBRA KELLY

Robert Pinget placed an ageing narrator, often surrounded by other elderly and infirm characters, at the centre of several of his texts: Quelqu’un (1965), Monsieur Songe (1982), Le Harnais (1984), Du Nerf (1990) and Taches d’encre (1997). However, it is in Pinget’s penultimate text Théo ou le temps neuf (1991) [Théo or The New Era] that he offers his most poignant reflection on old age, and in which the old uncle and young nephew Theo interact until the old man sees the world again with the eyes of a child and, amongst the multiple voices of Pinget’s fiction, the voice of the child in the old man is heard again. In a fictional universe peopled by the ageing and their nephews and nieces, Théo offers the hope of consolation, serenity and a place where the tribulations of the everyday may result finally in harmony. Despite the debris of human existence which threatens to engulf various of Pinget’s fictional creations, this essay shows how the old man comes to be the opposite of Beauvoir’s notion of the old as fixed characters with no hope and nothing before them. Some kind of salvation can be achieved in which old age is given new hope and the ‘temps neuf’ can be established through the work of writing. ‘VIEILLESSE. N’apporte que rarement la sagesse, qui demande une ascèse volontaire, non une souffrance imposée’.1

Robert Pinget (born Geneva 1919, died Tours 1997) was a writer whose material is often the apparently insignificant, even banal details of everyday life viewed through the prism of an inward search to bring to the page the essential of what a ‘human existence’ may mean. Although he is usually classified as a ‘new novelist’, his novels and plays exceed any theory of a post-war French ‘new novel’, although he shares its attention

 1

Robert Pinget and Madeleine Renouard, Robert Pinget à la lettre. Entretiens avec Madeleine Renouard (Paris: Belfond, 1993), p. 194. [‘OLD AGE. Rarely brings wisdom, which demands willing ascesis, not enforced suffering’]. My translation.

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to the problems of cliché, over-used formulae in the novel genre, the use of ‘characters’, and the limits and excesses of language. The concept of a self-conscious, self-reflective narrative has become a commonplace statement on the status of the ‘new novel’, but what exactly is the nature of such self-consciousness?2 In Pinget’s work, fiction exhibits more than an attention to narrative construction and a reflection on the processes of language in literary production. Pinget’s narrators are above all conscious of writing as writing, and constantly struggle with how best (if they manage it at all) to construct a narrative when the same incident can be told so many different ways. They are also concerned with how to get to the truth of a life, giving equal attention to a significant event that may provoke change in the narrative, and to a trivial element or moment of everyday existence which nonetheless is essential to life. Within the dynamic that exists for the writer between lived existence and the written word, Pinget’s whole body of work is partly a questioning of what it is to write, to be a writer. The often impossible task of writing is constantly returned to and renewed, the quest constantly retaken up, despite the narrators repeatedly telling the reader that they are poorly equipped for it, deluded as they frequently claim to be by the foibles of language and of memory, diverted by multiplying possibilities, caught in the proliferation of potential narratives, and seduced by the production of contradictions rather than by resolutions. The reader is constantly reminded that s/he is reading yet another failed attempt. The novels sometimes take on a baroque form (Pinget played the cello and was fascinated by baroque music); they sometimes enter the realms of fantasy; at other times they are stripped down to a bare simplicity, even a banality of language and of incident; they are sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic. However, they always display a philosophical engagement with what it means to be human – and that often means in Pinget’s work to be dogged by poor memory, existential insecurity, an ailing body and mind – and, progressively, what it is to age, with Pinget placing an ageing narrator at the centre of several of his texts. There is a sustained reflection on ageing throughout his work (from the 1950s when he was first published, to previously unpublished texts which continue to appear posthumously), culminating as the author himself enters old age. On one level then, Pinget’s work displays what Oliver Davis has suggestively termed ‘senescent textuality’: ‘the reflexive phenomenon of texts which talk about old age while also performing some or all of the characteristics

 2

See Pierre Taminiaux, Robert Pinget (Paris: Seuil, 1994), pp. 13-16, 95-97 for a discussion of Pinget and the new novel.

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which they identify with that phase in life’. 3 While this can often be interpreted negatively, as constant ressassement, the repetition and rehearsal of petty incidents, conversations, anecdotes, and grievances, it will be suggested that finally his late text Théo ou le temps neuf [Théo or The New Era] allows a more positive engagement with the ageing process and a validation of a certain type of textual practice. This chapter provides a new reading of Pinget’s work through the use of the concept of ‘silent transformations’ in both ageing and writing which will be explored more fully in the final section here. The continuous transitions to old age, like transitions within the process of writing itself, are part of an evolving process. It will be argued that the enigmatic ‘New Era’ of Théo is one in which the apparent ‘irreversibility’ of old age is in fact a ‘state of becoming’. The old man in Théo seems finally not to be ‘ending’, but still ‘becoming’. The ageing writer appears finally to come to a more satisfactory way of being in the world despite the trials of old age and despite, or perhaps because of, the confrontation with the ‘truth’ of a life that old age demands. The chapter concludes with a reading of Pinget’s treatment of old age in his late texts set within a philosophical context at the crossroads of Western and Eastern thought on the subject. At the age of seventy-three in 1993, Robert Pinget offered this description of what was then his most recent text (published two years earlier) in terms that are both recapitulative and apparently redemptive, with the author very much still guiding his readers: THÉO Mon dernier petit livre. Il devrait m’apporter un soulagement, une grâce, un espoir… Théo ou le temps neuf contient des rappels de plusieurs de mes livres. Pourrait donc être une porte d’accès à mon œuvre. Le narrateur s’y montre volontairement plus sensible que dans les autres livres, plus tendre. Ce qui peut aussi aiguiller le lecteur vers une lecture plus attentive, plus



3 Oliver Davis, Age Rage and Going Gently. Stories of the Senescent Subject in Twentieth-Century French Writing (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2006), p. 192. Davis also draws out two examples which make interesting comparisons for Pinget’s work: ‘[F]or Beauvoir, the fact that writers do not “retire” but rather continue with their work is positive. Yet for Gide, the fact that ageing writers can do nothing but write is something of a curse: they are doomed to repeat and exhaust themselves in a desireless winding down, in the “concentric” gravitation of senescent ressassement’ (p. 90). Both the narrator of Quelqu’un and Monsieur Songe would recognise the latter problem. Yet Pinget himself continued to write into his late years, and Théo suggests a hope for renewal.

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‘Silent Transformations’ approfondie de mes écrits où l’humour peut sembler parfois prendre le pas sur la tendresse.4 [My most recent little book. It’s meant to bring me some relief, some grace, some hope… Théo or the New Era contains reminders of several of my books. It could therefore serve as an entry point into the whole of my work. The narrator willingly shows himself to be more sensitive than in the other books, more tender. This may also steer the reader towards a more attentive, deeper reading of my writing in which humour may sometimes seem to prevail over tenderness].

Théo ou le temps neuf, which will be the main focus here, does indeed contain echoes of previous texts – although it would take an attentive and experienced reader of Pinget’s work to recognise them all. This may also suggest that this late text is a testament of some sort, and while intratextual references are typical of Pinget’s work, it may be that the perhaps unconscious aim of producing some kind of ‘totality’ of his writing is made more explicit here. When the old narrator tells his young nephew Théo to read another book since the one that he is reading (that is being written?) is boring,5 there are intertextual references to phrases and scenes from, for example, Cette Voix, L’Inquisitoire, Le Fiston, Baga, L’Apocryphe, L’Ennemi6… and no doubt to several more; and there are many references to objects, events, characters from other previous texts. A

 4

Pinget and Renouard, Pinget à la lettre, pp. 181-82 (suspension points in original). My translation. 5 Robert Pinget, Théo ou le temps neuf (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1991), p. 39 (trans. by Barbara Wright, Théo or the New Era [New York: Red Dust, 1994]). See Jean Roudaut, Robert Pinget. Le Vieil Homme et l’enfant (Carouge-Geneva: Editions Zoé, 2001), pp. 183-84 for a useful summary of Théo; this text’s title, ‘The Old Man and The Child’, is a suggestive one for the concerns of this essay. See also Taminiaux, p. 153, for another reading of this passage. The abbreviation TOLTN will be used to reference quotations from this main source text within the body of the chapter. The first page number refers to the original French text, the second to the published English translation. 6 Robert Pinget, Cette Voix (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1975) (trans. by Barbara Wright, That Voice [New York: Red Dust, 1982]); L’Inquisitoire (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1962) (tr. by Barbara Wright, The Inquisitory [New York: Red Dust, 1982, 2003]); Le Fiston (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1959) (trans. by Richard Coe, No Answer [London: Calder, 1961]; Baga (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1958) (trans. by John Stevenson, Baga [London: Calder 1967]; L’Apocryphe (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1980) (trans. by Barbara Wright, The Apocrypha [New York: Red Dust 1987]); L’Ennemi (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1987) (trans. by Barbara Wright, The Enemy [New York: Red Dust, 1991]).

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young boy child appears in a number of texts – for example Fonfon (Gilles Fontaine) lives in the pension of Quelqu’un among its ageing inhabitants, and Théo himself appears as Théodore, most notably perhaps in Cette Voix.7 The meaning of Théodore’s name is ‘the gift of God’,8 and if there was any doubt concerning the name’s significance, in Un Testament bizarre Théodore, the nephew who has the task of sorting out his uncle’s papers, meets his double, whose name is ‘Dieudonné’ (literally ‘Godgiven’; ‘call me Dodo’, he tells Théodore).9 A concern with filiation (both social and artistic) and religion are evident here, and these will be returned to in the final section. On the meaning of the text’s title, Pinget adds: ‘Théo ou le temps neuf. Espoir d’un renouveau grâce à la présence de l’enfant’10 [‘Théo or the New Era. Hope for renewal thanks to the child’s presence’]. This is a text for which Pinget held great affection, and there is a sense of peace at the end of the text which is unusual in his work.11 Before considering more fully the specifics of Pinget’s texts and the reading of Théo here, his work will briefly be further contextualised within some broader reflections on what new meanings concerning the ageing process may be found in literary texts in order to situate Pinget’s own approach more clearly.

What does it mean to grow old? Recent critical enquiry suggests that literature has an uneasy relationship with ageing: One real problem in French literature in the latter half of the twentieth century, however, has not been exploitation, but literary and sociological indifference to old age. As old age has become a more common phenomenon in French life, far from becoming a widespread theme in literature, it has tended to receive an indifferent treatment, like the

 7

Robert Pinget, Quelqu’un (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1965) (trans. by Barbara Wright, Someone [New York: Red Dust, 1984]); Pinget, Cette Voix. 8 See also Jean Roudaut, Robert Pinget. Le Vieil Homme et l’enfant, p. 59, discussing the place of childhood in Pinget’s work. 9 Robert Pinget, Un Testament bizarre (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1986) (trans. by Barbara Wright, A Bizarre Will and other plays [New York: Red Dust, 1989]), p. 95; Roudaut, pp. 126 and 128, suggests that the reader inherits Théo’s task. 10 Pinget and Renouard, Pinget à la lettre, p. 184. My translation. 11 See also Roudaut, pp. 12, 14.

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‘Silent Transformations’ condition itself. Most people would really like to forget it or call it by another name.12

While Oliver Davis also notes that ‘Age has never been more than a secondary or incidental concern in Western attempts to theorize human subjectivity’. Modern literature has not fully engaged with it despite the rich pre-twentieth century history of thinking and writing about old age and, as Davis comments, In the late nineteenth century […] old age becomes the business of sociologists, psychologists, doctors, economists and demographers. In this process of discursive colonization, literary and philosophical reflection on old age is pushed to the margins, dwarfed by the increasingly large body of medical and social scientific data on the subject.13

One interesting collection of essays, however, takes as its title the question ‘What does it mean to grow old?’, and offers various perspectives on the question from the Humanities: The subjective meaning of ageing cannot be located by the methods used to understand phenomena objectively. Those methods only uncover the evidence of ageing […] It [the subjective] remains elusive, ineffable. It must be allowed to manifest its own forms, though they be – like ageing itself – at first unfamiliar and uncanny. Those forms of expression are especially compelling in literature, where subjectivity is elaborated with greater detail and force than is evident in ‘real’ life.14



12 Paul J. Archambault, ‘From Centrality to Expendability: The Aged in French Literature’, in Prisca Bagnell and Patricia Soper (eds.), Perceptions of Aging in Literature: A Cross-Cultural Study (New York: Greenwood, 1989), pp. 51-69; also quoted by Daniel F. Silva and Sandra I. Sousa, ‘Demarginalizing Portugal’s Elderly: Representations of Ageing in José Luis Peixoto’s Cal’, Forum for Modern Language Studies, 47.2 (April 2011), Special Issue, ‘Representations of Age in European Literatures’. 13 Davis, Age Rage, pp. 10-13. His main references here are: Georges Minois, Histoire de la vieillesse en Occident de l’Antiquité à la Renaissance (Paris: Fayard, 1987) and Peter Stearns, Old Age in European Society. The Case of France (London: Croom Helm, 1977). The variety of texts analysed in, for example, the 2011 Special Issue of Forum for Modern Language Studies (see note 12), suggests that more contemporary authors are now treating differing aspects of old age in their work, whether in fiction or autobiography, and that these have found some commercial success. 14 Sally Gadow, ‘Subjectivity: Literature, Imagination and Frailty’, in Thomas R. Cole and Sally Gadow (eds.), What Does It Mean to Grow Old? Reflections from the Humanities (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1986), pp. 131-33.

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As Joy Charnley has recently suggested: ‘[…] literature can provide a space of speaking differently about the elderly and in the process demarginalize them, bring them back into central discourse, make them truly visible, and at the same time help us […] to recognize ourselves as future old people.’15 Like all expressions of subjectivity, the ‘subjective meaning of ageing’ may indeed be ‘more compelling’ in literary forms, from fiction to lifewriting. Imaginative literature is important to an exploration of subjectivity in ageing for many reasons. In literature: ‘the correspondence between the act of imagination involved in the creation of metaphor and the act of sense-giving involved in the creation of personal meaning’ is manifested; and in addition ‘literature provides a vast phenomenology of the sometimes startling forms that ageing can take’.16 In What Does It Mean to Grow Old? it is suggested that there are four broad themes within gerontology that call for a ‘deeper reflection between the problem of meaning and old age’: the life-cycle; modernity (the relationship between modernity and the social meaning of old age); death; and time. 17 Joy Charnley also notes that while Kathleen Woodward, in one of the reference-points in the treatment of ageing in literature, may write: ‘[o]ur bodies are old, we are not’ (original emphasis), 18 such optimism is not usually found amongst the ageing, ‘[…] who cannot help wondering where the “Self” they knew (or thought they knew) has gone to and who on earth they can now identify themselves as.’19 The process of physical ageing has been commented on by writers and artists across cultures and periods: ‘The subject has fascinated and appalled, providing endless opportunities to reflect on one’s own mortality or another’s […] In such literary depictions ageing is rarely, if ever, seen as having any potentially positive aspects: ageing means loss of physical and mental faculties, the fading of beauty, and increasing dependency.’ 20 Pinget’s work would therefore seem to provide an interesting ‘case-study’ concerning the possibilities of literature to explore what Gadow calls the ‘elusive’ and



15 Joy Charnley, ‘Introduction: Representations of Age in European Literatures’, Forum for Modern Language Studies, 47.2 (2011), 121-25 (p.124). 16 David W. Plath, ‘The Wizard of Pilgrimage or What Color is our Brick Road?’ in Cole and Gadow, pp. 163-79 (p. 163). 17 H. R. Moody and T. R Cole, ‘Ageing and Meaning: A Bibliographical Essay’, in Cole and Gadow, pp. 247-53 (pp. 248, 250-53). 18 Kathleen Woodward, Ageing and its Discontents: Freud and Other Fictions (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), p. 62. 19 Charnley, p. 121. 20 Charnley, p. 122.

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‘ineffable’ subjective in the process of ageing. What meanings and new meanings does Pinget’s text share with the reader? As Alison Martin has written in an analysis of Simone de Beauvoir’s key text La Vieillesse: ‘Old age has to be assumed, not avoided, and it is acknowledged that to some extent the reluctance to assume old age is due to the tension and mismatch between the objective social determinants of what it is to be old and inner and inner subjectivity […] The other-within can thus be as varied and different as the otherness that both defines and misdefines one’s old age.’21 Pinget is a writer who has ceaselessly explored subjectivity in the relationship with the self, between the self and others, and with this ‘other in the self’, while at the same time reflecting explicitly on passing time and on death. The reflection on the social meanings of old age is perhaps more implicit (Pinget’s main characters all seem to be ‘retired’ from social responsibilities) – but there is certainly an interest in all aspects of social relations; and, progressively, on what is termed above the ‘life-cycle’.

Writing and Re-Writing: ‘combler un vide inexplicable. Le maître et l’enfant pour mémoire’22 Before turning more fully to Théo ou le temps neuf, it is useful to consider an example of these preoccupations in an earlier text in order to throw into relief the eventual ‘peace’ of Théo (as alluded to above), and to emphasise its distinctiveness from Pinget’s earlier treatment of old age and of ageing protagonists. In Quelqu’un, written when he himself was only forty-seven, the sixty-year-old narrator co-owns a rundown pension de famille inhabited by a range of ageing and solitary male and female characters bound together in the banality and misery of their everyday existence, within and against which he struggles to write and to put his papers into some sort of order and by analogy, his own life (an insistently recurrent occupation and preoccupation of Pinget’s narrators). The sprawling, unmanageable details of daily human life, the banalities of human social discourse, the myriad comforting and discomforting human activities, proliferate in all their glorious triviality in this narrative. 23 In the uncertainty of our relationship to the world and to others, the desire for precision continues to offer potential salvation to the writer, hence the



21 Alison Martin, ‘Old Age and the Other-Within: Beauvoir’s Representation of Ageing in La Vieillesse’, Forum for Modern Language Studies 47.2 (2011) 126-37 (pp. 132, 135). 22 [‘to fill an inexplicable void. The master and the child as before’] (TOLTN 7; 3). 23 Pinget considered this a very personal text; see Taminiaux, p. 43.

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desire for the narrative to be initiated and then controlled. Yet in this and other texts by Pinget, the more the narrator attempts to define his narrative, the more it exceeds him, adding only to the chaos without contributing to any understanding of it: Ça va faire comme les autres fois, il faudra tout recommencer plus tard. J’ai loupé encore une fois […] J’ai trop voulu être vrai, je me suis trop replongé dans notre vie, j’ai trop voulu faire, trop consciencieusement, et total c’est la mort qui entre. [It’s going to be like the other times, I’m going to have to start all over again. I’ve messed it up again […] I was trying too hard to be truthful, I plunged too deeply into our life, I wanted to do too much, too conscientiously, and the net result is that death has come on the scene].24

Yet the tiny details of the everyday may acquire, through a transposition into literary form, a mythical resonance. The mysteries of existence, not only a source of pain, are at the origins of a quest which may sometimes acquire extra-ordinary dimensions and take on mythical dimensions; the everyday may become, literally, fabulous. The pain of the narrative in Quelqu’un and in other texts is not only that of existential suffering, of an individual seeking his place in the world, but that of the writer seeking a mode of expression that would allow such a transposition. As Moody writes concerning our search for meaning in life as we grow older: At certain times in life, we tend to ask questions about the meaning of life as a whole […]. Any question about the meaning of life finally comes back to intuitions about wholeness: the unity or wholeness of an individual life, the unity of the human species, the unity of the universe as a whole. […] Totality may be metaphysically unattainable but the drive towards totality, the search for meaning appears at a point when the task of life is about to be completed.25

This search for meaning (and also for wholeness) manifested in Pinget’s case in the migration from text to text of a number of characters and events, was a compelling force in his work long before he reached old age

 24

Pinget, Quelqu’un, p. 222; (translation, p.133). H. R. Moody, ‘The Meaning of Life and the Meaning of Old Age’, in Cole and Gadow, pp. 9-40 (pp. 15-16). 25

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himself, and one which he shared with his long-time friend, Samuel Beckett, especially in the interplay between the tragic and the comic:26 The bankruptcy of privatism becomes all too evident in old age. But by that point individuals alone cannot invent meanings to save themselves from despair. The exercise itself invites the humour of Samuel Beckett and others who have seen the problem for what it is.27

In the later texts published in the 1980s, when Pinget himself entered his sixties, the eponymous Monsieur Songe (1982) occupies centre stage.28 Songe is introduced to the reader as a ‘retired man’, and in a doubling of author/narrator/protagonist which runs through the whole of Pinget’s work, he publishes his ‘Notebooks’, Le Harnais (1984; The Harness), Charrue (1985; Plough), and Du Nerf (1990; Be Brave, the title reiterating once again the mantra of several Pingetian narrators as they try to ‘pull themselves together’). Monsieur Songe (literally, ‘Monsieur Dreams’) offers his meditations on human existence, on writing, on memory, on old age, on death, on what he will be having for dinner, on keeping an eye on his maid, on having his niece to lunch, on planning a party for his old friends together with their many nephews (another recurrent element of his work, with Théo being only one amongst them, albeit one who will achieve prominence). Revealingly, Monsieur Songe is again given voice, for the last time, in the author’s final text Taches d’encre (1997; Traces of Ink) published in the year in which he died.29



26 For example, Kathleen Woodward, ‘Reminiscence and the Life Review: Prospects and Retrospects’, in Cole and Gadow, pp. 135-61: ‘Beckett’s vision of old age, so emblematic of the mid-twentieth century Western literary imagination, also refuses it’, p.159; the author analyses Krapp’s Last Tape. Taminiaux, pp. 18184, also explores the relationship to Beckett. 27 Moody, p. 13. 28 Robert Pinget, Monsieur Songe (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1982) (trans. Barbara Wright, Monsieur Songe [New York: Red Dust, 1989]). It should be noted, however, that this was a collection of short, previously published pieces, and so originally written when he was younger. 29 There is an interesting analogy to make with Annie Ernaux, a writer who has constantly worked and re-worked the self and its experiences in her texts. Shirley Jordan writes of Les Années, a text written by Ernaux at the age of sixty: ‘This autobiographical tour de force is a remarkable ontological exercise not so much in consolidating the self at the end of a successful life of writing, but in evacuating the self and consigning it to memory’, S. Jordan, ‘Writing Age: Annie Ernaux’s Les années’, Forum for Modern Language Studies 47.2 (2011), 138-49 (p. 147).

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However, it is in Pinget’s penultimate text Théo ou le temps neuf that he perhaps offers his most poignant reflection on old age, and in which the old uncle and young nephew Théo interact, until the old man sees the world again with the eyes of a child and, amongst the multiple voices of Pinget’s fiction, the voice of the child in the old man is again heard. But this child in the old man is far from the obsessive radotage that might be associated with the musings and ramblings of an elderly narrator. 30 Notably Théo does not share the often negative attitudes of younger generations to the old man with whom he shares his time. In a fictional universe often peopled by the ageing and by their nephews and nieces, does Théo offer hope of consolation and serenity, and a place where the tribulations of existence may result finally in harmony? As noted above, Pinget himself hoped that this text would bring him ‘some relief, some grace, some hope’. Despite the chaos and debris of human existence which threaten to engulf various of Pinget’s fictional creations, his ‘old man’ comes to be a counterpoint to (for example) Beauvoir’s reading of literature, in which the old are fixed characters with no hope and nothing before them.31 Some kind of salvation can be achieved (reminiscent of the Proustian quest but articulated in a very different way), in which old age is given new hope and the ‘temps neuf’ (the ‘new era’) can be established through the work of writing: N’y avait-il pas un enfant ici ou là. Vite le récrire. Le récrire. [Wasn’t there a child here or there. Quick. Write the child again. Write him again.] (TOLTN 7; 3)

The narrator needs to keep hold of the child (his ‘last chance’), and needs also to find something on which to peg his memories as the old man shares his existence and his thoughts with the child, together with his ideal of the ‘perfect’ narrative: Une autre histoire derrière ces bribes, parfaitement agencée, depuis toujours interdite au scribe maladif qui tend l’oreille pour en percevoir des échos improbables.



30 The word ‘radotage’ coming of course from ‘radoter’ meaning ‘tomber en enfance’ [‘to become a child once more’]. Again, see Oliver Davis’ suggestive reading, this time of Violette Leduc in Davis, Age Rage, pp. 90, 112-19, 142, 194. In her work, radotage is read here as heralding ‘a withdrawal, a gradual removal of the speaking subject from the world of mutual human understanding’ (Davis, p. 194). 31 See Simone de Beauvoir, La Vieillesse (Paris: Gallimard, 1970).

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‘Silent Transformations’ [Another story behind these fragments, one that is perfectly constructed but has always been denied to the sickly scribe who strains his ears to try to catch the improbable echoes of it.] (TOLTN 19; 7) C’était du temps immémorial où l’autre histoire derrière ces bribes n’inspirait ni doute ni crainte, confondue avec la grande lecture. Comment revivre ce temps là. [This dated from time immemorial, when the other story behind these fragments inspired neither doubt nor fear, when it was indistinguishable from a great text. How to relive those days.] (TOLTN 20; 7)

To bring that other story into being requires the founding of the ‘new era’, and will above all require an understanding of the relationship of the old man to the child.

Founding the New Era: ‘Combler ce vide pour dernière tâche. Fonder le temps neuf. Que le malheur n’y ait prise’32 Why is the child so important in Pinget’s text? 33 It is worth considering in full two textual extracts from Théo: L’enfant dit tonton pourquoi il faut mourir? Le vieux répond ce sont les autres qui nous font mourir. Pourquoi tonton? Parce qu’ils ne nous aiment plus. Alors moi je t’aime alors tu mouriras plus. Le vieux se rendort. L’enfant continue sa lecture. [The child says Uncle why do we have to die? The old man replies it’s other people who make us die. Why Uncle? Because they don’t love us anymore. Well I love you so you won’t be going to die anymore. The old man goes back to sleep. The child carries on with his reading.] (TOLTN 8; 3] Le temps neuf […] Dormir comme l’enfant. Se lever le matin et poursuivre la quête […] Joie retrouvable à ce seul prix […]

 32

[‘Fill this void as a final task. Found the new era. Don’t let misfortune take hold’]. (TOLTN 9; 3). 33 We may note here that Pinget himself had no children.

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Le beau livre est encore à faire. [The new era […] Sleep like a child. Get up in the morning and continue the quest […] Joy can only be regained at this price […] The beautiful book is still to be written.] (TOLTN 53; 19)

On the one hand children provide ‘evidence’ of continuation, regeneration, survival, or as Samama writes: ‘Les enfants sont une scansion palpable, et visible, du renouvellement impalpable, et invisible, des générations’ [‘Children are a palpable and visible scansion of the impalpable and invisible renewal of the generations’].34 Yet here the old man’s relationship to the child goes beyond this evidence. Many different philosophers and philosophies inform Pinget’s work.35 In Western thought, according to Moody: The Stoics were the first philosophers to offer a coherent response to the philosophical problem of ageing. The most influential account along these lines appeared in Cicero’s De Senectute, where old age acquires a meaning identified with the achievement of total self-possession, ego-integrity, and wisdom.36

Pinget’s narrator in Théo does not seem to achieve such a ‘total selfpossession’ and yet he succeeds more than previous narrators in finding a state of peace and of ‘joy’ (a word used several times in this text that is certainly not prevalent in his previous work). In Gadow’s view, it is the existentialist view of ‘frailty’ (as she terms ageing) that offers the ‘greater freedom to experience dignity and integrity through frailty’, while the rationalist view with its ‘combined alienation from both the body and the world would seem grounds for the most profound despair in ageing’.37 In her view, the ‘amused eyes’ of some old people are not those of the rationalist but of the existentialist.38 But Pinget’s old man is far removed



34 Guy Samama, ‘Du Vieillir’, Esprit, 366 (July 2010), 181-93 (p. 184). My translation. 35 Aristotle, Plato, Alain, Cioran, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Spinoza, Kierkegaard, Eliade (much annotated) were all to be found in Pinget’s library, amongst Freud, Jung and Marx. 36 Moody, p. 19. 37 Sally Gadow, ‘Frailty and Strength: the Dialectic of Ageing’, in Cole and Gadow, pp. 235-43 (pp. 238, 240). 38 Gadow, p. 240. Her reference is to the ‘amused eyes’ of the old as evoked by Ronald Blythe for whom, with dentures, lenses, sticks, ‘The body has become a

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from Beauvoir’s existential view of old age and her ideal of retaining existentialist ‘commitment’ if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life.39 A more fitting analogy may be with the position of Montaigne, who, for all his sense of self-knowledge and self-acceptance later in life, retains a ‘characteristic relativism and fluidity’ which make him seem ‘modern’.40 In the case of Pinget, Taminiaux also makes the analogy with Montaigne’s ‘pratique de la sagesse’ [‘practising of wisdom’] in writing and talking about the self that is not introverted, but results rather in attentive observation of the outside world. It is the experience of the everyday and of the small realities of human existence which is indispensable to both Montaigne and Pinget.41 Importantly, as Samama writes, Montaigne is one of the rare writers to have conceived of ‘irreversibility’ not as a fixed point of time, but as movement: ‘un irréversible en devenir’ [‘an “irreversible” that is in a state of becoming’].42 Is the enigmatic ‘new era’ of Pinget’s text one in which the ‘irreversibility’ of old age is in such movement, in such a ‘state of becoming’? The story of a life is not a single story, and it is both prospective and retrospective, prophecy and remembrance.43 The old man in Théo seems finally not to be ending, but indeed becoming. Furthermore, for Montaigne: ‘la vieillesse a quelque peu besoin d’être traitée plus tendrement’ [‘old age has some slight need of being treated more tenderly’]; 44 and ‘L’âme se fatigue à être continuellement tendue’ [‘keep it [the soul] continually tensed and you drive it mad’].45 At the end of Théo Pinget certainly treats old age more tenderly than ever before – indeed he speaks of the narrator as ‘tender’ in his own description of the text, used at the beginning of this chapter – and that tenderness is engendered by the child. The child here, then, is much more than the tangible evidence of generational renewal as previously discussed.



boneshaker which might just about get you there, if you are lucky’. Blythe, The View in Winter. Reflections on Old Age (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2005), p. 212. 39 See Beauvoir, La Vieillesse. 40 Moody, p. 26. Montaigne, again annotated, features in Pinget’s library. 41 Taminiaux, p. 188. Taminiaux also refers to Montaigne’s concern for the everyday, although he sees Pinget’s approach as different, and as being ‘the very object of his work’, p. 59. 42 Samama, p. 183. My translation. 43 Adapted from Woodward, ‘Reminiscence’, p. 161. 44 André Lanly (ed.), Montaigne. Les Essais en Français moderne (Paris: Gallimard, 2009), p. 1347 (trans. by M. A. Screech, Michel de Montaigne. The Complete Essays [London: Penguin, 2003], p. 1269); quoted by Samama, p. 183. 45 Montaigne, Essais, p. 1017; translation, as above, p. 948; quoted by Samama, p. 187.

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Telling the Truth: ‘Des choses pour les enfants, mon ange. Tu es écrit là tu vois sur mon carnet. Jamais personne ne pourra dire que je n’ai pas dit la vérité’46 In these closing lines of the text, the narrator is able to move from saying and writing ‘things that are not for children’, a repeated refrain, to ‘things for children’. What changes have taken place? In some ways Théo explores the ‘virtues and vices of old age’.47 Recalling Cicero’s enumeration of the virtues of old age, other commentators have also asked: what are the virtues that old age calls for? May suggests that ‘courage, public virtue, humility, patience, simplicity, benignity, integrity, wisdom and hilarity may take a special form in old age – offering instruction and inspiration to those not yet old’.48 Théo incarnates many of these ‘virtues’ as the writer appears finally to come to a more satisfactory way of being in the world. Old age is a moment of truth (as at the end of Théo); we are forced to confront what has escaped us, and there may be much pain and suffering to be borne. As Corine Pelluchon writes: ‘les deuils et les séparations ancrent ce sentiment [de déréliction et de solitude] dans le cœur de la personne, lui donnant la sensation d’être toujours en exil’ [‘deaths and separations anchor this feeling [of dereliction and solitude] in the person’s heart, giving him/her the sensation of always being in exile’], 49 or as Pinget’s old man says: ‘All these dead people around us. We shan’t be satisfied until we join them’. 50 Nonetheless, the unresolved chaos of existence as previously exemplified by the short reading of Quelqu’un above is finally transcended. Samama conceives of ‘old age’ as being ‘artificially constructed’; ageing is quite another thing; ageing is one of the ‘silent transformations’ described by François Jullien in his recent book of the same title.51 For Samama, following the thought of Jullien, old age is not an ‘event’, it is a succession of slow internal changes; we do not see ourselves grow old, not only because we are constantly ageing, but because everything about us is



46 [‘Things for children, my angel. You are written here you see in my notebook. No one will ever be able to say that I haven’t told the truth’]. 47 See William F. May, ‘The Virtues and Vices of the Elderly’, in Cole and Gadow, pp. 41-61. 48 Thomas R. Cole introducing May’s chapter, ‘The Virtues’, in Cole and Gadow, p. 42. 49 Corine Pelluchon, ‘La Vieillesse et l’amour du monde’, Esprit, 366 (July 2010) Special Issue, ‘La vie dans le grand âge’, pp. 171-80 (p. 175). My translation. 50 Pinget, Théo (translation), p. 11. 51 Samama, p. 182.

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ageing.52 Old age is not a state, but a stage, it is not determining, but an evolving process.53 Jullien discusses the process of ageing, showing that contrary to Western perception of the ‘subject-agent’ (linked to an action in the here and now), in Chinese thought, transformation is global, progressive and takes place over the course of time (LT 17); change is a slow transformation as in nature, while in Western thought transition creates a gap (LT 26). The analogy that Jullien takes is a telling one, and startlingly apt for Pinget’s work: that of writing itself. What, Jullien asks, is a literary transition, or how does one pass from one sentence to another, one paragraph to another? Is it not, he suggests, by at once breaking with what comes before and by pursuing across this rupture a thought that is prolonged so that it may be developed? The space in the text is not a void, but is on the contrary a fertile space where the thought that has seemingly come to an end finds, by being discontinued, the strength to continue (LT 34-5). This could be a fitting description of the whole of Pinget’s work and a particularly poignant one of Théo. Old age should be a time of rest, Jullien tells us, of a letting go of ‘the self’; but in order to do that, we need to be able to tell our story to ourself, as well as to others; to ‘renounce eternity’, to be with oneself, and to live in the present moment of each day (LT 187-91). Or as Samama writes: ‘Vieillir, c’est être contemporain d’un moi nouveau, avancer en sa compagnie en agissant le présent’ [‘To grow old is to be the contemporary of a new self, to go forward in its company, acting the present’].54 In Jean Roudaut’s reading, Théo’s gift is that of being in the present: ‘l’enfant est un être tout entier du présent, pour lui le passé et le futur sont dissous’ [‘the child is a being entirely of the present, for him the past and the future are dissolved’].55 Pinget’s narrator’s ‘new self’ finds and acts in ‘the new era’, a present that can be renewed in a life and world that are always in continuous transition and ‘silent transformation’ (LT 40). Western philosophy remains largely silent about ageing and is fixed rather on the end, death, with only passing references to advice and consolation (as in Cicero’s De Senectute, for example); the choices made by the Greeks, particularly concerning time, impact still on how we conceive life (LT 107, 128).. In fact, as he explains, the word that Jullien translates from Chinese as ‘to transform’, ‘transformation’ (‘hua’), etymologically means ‘to reverse’ (LT 99). Greek thought opposes time to eternity; Chinese

 52

François Jullien, Les Transformations silencieuses (Paris: Grasset, 2009), pp. 184, 10. Referred to subsequently in the text as LT followed by the page number. 53 Samama, p. 186. 54 Samama, p. 192. My translation. 55 Roudaut, p. 179. My translation.

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thought conceives not of the eternal, but of the ‘without end’, the ‘inexhaustible’ – ‘wu qiong’ (LT 129). Western culture is a culture of the ‘event’ – it structures the narrative and serves to dramatise it (LT 150). We are surprised by the brutality of the ‘event’ because we have not known how to perceive the silent transformation that has imperceptibly led to it (LT 158, 160). Indeed ‘events’, such as the murder of the young child that haunts several of Pinget’s texts in many different forms, disrupt and are never knowable.56 The concept of silent transformation frees us from the ‘théo-théologique’ and recomposes, in a non-metaphysical way, the link between the visible and the invisible (LT 174). Roudaut’s reading of Théo with intertextual reference to Saint Augustine and to Virgil was much influenced by Pinget’s own explanations and sources. 57 We will conclude, however, with a further reading concerning time, old age and a different philosophical possibility. Pinget acknowledges that his work is haunted by time and that the achronological time in which he writes is a way of ‘abolishing time’. His work is cyclical while ‘Christian’ time, founded on a historical event, is not; and while he recognises that his thinking concerning ‘truth, goodness and beauty’ is still that of Western thought (in its origins Greek and then re-thought by Christianity), it has been modified by what we learn from Eastern thought, making a reading with Chinese philosophy, as above, important.58 If we also look again to Montaigne, describing life from old age as just such a gradual transition (LT 76-7), ageing has always already begun (LT 67, 72), life is a transition, not a crossing to a point of arrival or ending – and such a position removes death as a fixed endpoint (LT 68, 73). As Roudaut has noted, a fundamental dialectic in Pinget’s work is that of order and chaos. 59 In Théo, the new era is one of order, and the aspiration of many of Pinget’s narrators to transform themselves by writing seems to be realised, for the way in which the writer may overcome chaos is to ‘se consacrer à l’ordre du langage’ [‘dedicate himself to the order of language’].60 The writer pursues his quest, even though it is repeatedly in vain; the pursuit itself, a ‘philosophical act’, is its own

 56

See Taminiaux p. 18 on the ‘event’ in Pinget’s work. Roudaut, pp. 187-205. 58 Interview at the end of Roudaut, pp. 235-39. Notably at the end of L’Apocryphe, the narrator’s wisdom which has come with age, makes him seem ‘oriental’. Pinget, L'Apocryphe, p. 418. 59 Roudaut, p. 38. 60 Roudaut, p. 42. My translation. 57

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recompense. 61 Théo dramatises that which was implicit in Pinget’s previous work: what can the hope of salvation by literature mean? The relationship between the old man and the child allows the text to develop, and there is a final transformation, as the old man rediscovers the child – the gift, towards which he has worked. The ‘new era’ exists in the book written by the old man, and by slow changes, through discrete permutations, by continual progression the new order is established:62 Qu’est-ce que c’est l’ordre, peux-tu me le dire? C’est les choses en place tonton avec point de poussière. Point de poussière. [What is order, can you tell me? It’s things where they’re supposed to be Uncle and no dust to be seen. No dust to be seen.] (TOLTN 16; 6)

The struggle with ageing and death pervades Pinget’s work, and is real – but ‘the book’ is always yet to come in a perpetual return, because it can always be progressively rewritten. 63 A preoccupation with the visible, physical signs of the ageing, decaying body and with the more invisible signs of ageing in the mind (manifested particularly by fluctuations in memory, and since memory lies at the core of what it means to be human, the poor memory of Pinget’s narrators also signals ageing and decay) is a constant in Pinget’s work, what has previously been referred to here (using Davis’s term) as ‘senescent textuality’. But the child is a survivor both in the process of ageing and of writing; he is a link to the reservoir of human emotions and the manifestation of a resilient self. Throughout Théo we are repeatedly told that what the narrator writes and says is ‘not for children’; Théo is, however, constantly urged to keep on reading. ‘What is for children?’ he asks:



61 Roudaut, p. 162. Taminiaux also conceives of Monsieur Songe and the notebooks as philosophical texts, making a comparison with the Moralists, La Rochefoucauld and La Bruyère in what he calls ‘a philosophy of the fragment’. Taminiaux, pp. 124-36. 62 See Roudaut, pp. 194, 199, 203. See also Roudaut on how Pinget’s texts ‘impose themselves’ progressively without the result being of any precise determination, p. 140. It is beyond the scope of this essay, but there are references throughout Pinget’s work to alchemy – a process of transformation; see also, for example, Roudaut, p. 197. 63 In Cette Voix, a writing slate (that can be incessantly wiped clean and written on again and again) owned in childhood becomes ‘the privileged symbol of the writer’s work’; see Taminiaux, p. 171.

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Ma foi chéri, ma foi il y a tout, oui tout. Qu’est-ce que c’est tout? [My goodness, darling, my goodness everything is, yes everything. What’s everything?] (TOLTN 29; 10)

What is ‘everything’? In Taches d’encre, Pinget’s final published text and Monsieur Songe’s final notebook, ‘RP’ ’s foreword warns us that Monsieur Songe should perhaps have kept these pages to himself, but the need to share his uncertainties prevailed: ‘Qu’on lui pardonne une dernière fois’ [‘May he be forgiven one last time’].64 In the final lines of this final published text, the reader ‘forgives’ the writer because some hope is given: ‘Un mot par-ci par-là qui nous fasse espérer… autre chose que la suite que tu lui donnes’ (T 93; 64) [‘A word here or there that makes us hope… for something different from the continuation you are giving it’]. The text can always be continued, differently. The final word that is never final goes to Pinget: ‘Tu me laisses finir comme ça’? (T 93; 64) [‘Are you going to let me end like that?’]. The reader might reply: ‘You are not ending, but continuing, changing’. In the continual processes of change and of ageing, we are all also in the processes of perpetual making, always on the way, never arriving, in silent transformation.

 64

Pinget, Taches d’encre (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1997), non-paginated foreword. Translated by Barbara Wright, Traces of Ink (New York: Red Dust, 2000). Further quotations given as T followed by page numbers in the original and the translation.



‘IN MY END / IS MY BEGINNING’: GIUSEPPE UNGARETTI’S LAST WORKS AND OLD-AGE CREATIVITY ELEANOR PARKER

This essay treats the Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti’s late collections from Un Grido e Paesaggi (1952) [‘A Shout and Landscapes’] to his last written poems in Nuove [‘New Poems’] immediately preceding the poet’s death in 1970. Within the framework of psychoanalytical criticism and ‘late style’ studies, it discusses the way in which the poet grapples with ageing, notions of ending, of death and its relationship to love, and shows what in psychoanalytical terms is seen as a return to the mother, the cyclical nature of time. In the proximity of death, the poet envisages an end that is simultaneously a beginning, old age bringing him in many ways full circle to his youth. Far from the disconnected ramblings of an ageing poet, Ungaretti’s undervalued last works exploit old-age creativity to its full potential, and demonstrate a constant struggle for a sense of balance between vitality and production on the one hand, and an awareness of transience and finitude, on the other. This discussion of Ungaretti’s final poems, aims to provide a tentative definition of his ‘late style’ considered here for the first time in relation to contemporary theories of artistic ‘lateness’. Formal experimentation, irony, the issue of fragmentation, the use of dialogue and the idea of rewriting are just some of the facets which typify this Ungarettian ‘late style’, which can be viewed as emblematic of late poetic style in twentieth-century Italian poetry. Old men ought to be explorers Here and there does not matter We must be still and still moving Into another intensity For a further union, a deeper communion Through the dark cold and empty desolation, The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.1

 1

T.S. Eliot, ‘East Coker’, Four Quartets, in Collected Poems 1909-1962 (London: Faber & Faber, 2002), p. 191.

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Giuseppe Ungaretti’s late poetic works are anything but the disjunctive musings of an ageing poet. An integral part of his poetic journey, Ungaretti’s undervalued last works exploit old-age creativity to its full potential, and demonstrate the ageing poet’s constant struggle for a sense of balance between vitality and production on the one hand, and an awareness of transience and finitude, on the other. In this discussion of Ungaretti’s final poems, I aim to provide a tentative definition of his ‘late style’, considered here for the first time in relation to contemporary theories of artistic ‘lateness’. Formal experimentation, irony, the issue of fragmentation, the use of dialogue and the idea of rewriting are just some of the facets which typify the ageing poet’s final collections, which can be viewed as emblematic of late poetic style in twentieth-century Italian poetry. This study will draw on Ungaretti’s final works from Un Grido e Paesaggi (1952) [‘A Shout and Landscapes’] to his last-written poems in Nuove (1969-70) [‘New Poems’], immediately preceding the poet’s death, where poetic expression has been transformed.2 In this striking late work, Ungaretti grapples with notions of ending, of death and its relationship to love, and shows, in what I view in psychoanalytical terms as a return to



2 Ungaretti’s poetic collections referred to in this study are published in Leone Piccioni (ed.), Vita d’un uomo: Tutte le poesie (Milan: Mondadori, 1992), hereafter abbreviated as TleP. SI stands for Ungaretti’s Saggi e interventi, ed. by Mario Diacono and Luciano Rebay (Milan: Mondadori, 2001). This study considers the poetic collections spanning from Un Grido e Paesaggi (1952) to Nuove (1970). As ever, the dates of publication can mislead the reader as to the actual periods of composition of these collections. Un Grido e Paesaggi, published in 1952, is a collection of poems composed between 1933 and 1952, thus some of the poems in the ‘Svaghi’ section from 1933 can be more closely linked to the poetics of Sentimento del tempo. Furthermore, the poem ‘Gridasti: soffoco’ has its roots in 1939-40 as it addresses Antonietto’s death, to be linked therefore with the commemorative poetics of Il Dolore. At the other end of the time spectrum lies ‘Monologhetto’, composed in 1951, and intended for broadcast by Rai at New Year. Il Taccuino del Vecchio, published in 1960, comprises poems written between 1952 and 1960, signalling a period of overlap between that collection and La Terra Promessa whose poems were composed between 1935 and 1953; the series of poems ‘Ultimi cori per la terra promessa’ certainly testify to the shared thematic concerns between the two collections. Two shorter series entitled ‘Apocalissi’ and ‘Proverbi’ date from 1961 and 1966-69 respectively. Dialogo, a collection of what could broadly be defined as ‘love poems’ was privately published in 1968 in a limited print run of fifty-nine copies. Ungaretti’s last poem ‘L’impietrito e il velluto’ was written and published in 1970, and is collected with a number of other poems from 1969-70 under the title Nuove. All English translations included here are my own, unless otherwise stated.

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the mother, the cyclical nature of time. In the proximity of death, the ageing poet envisages an end that is simultaneously a beginning, old age bringing him full circle to his youth. Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888-1970), one of the most significant Italian poetic voices of the twentieth century, was born in Alexandria, Egypt to Italian parents. His multicultural heritage (the poet also benefited from an early education in French) colours the poetry of his first collection L’Allegria, which was predominantly written during his time as a soldier fighting on the Italian Carso front in the First World War. Its pared-down syntax, lack of punctuation, use of analogy and typographical force owe much to the influence of contemporary French poets such as Mallarmé and Apollinaire. After spells in Paris and Milan, he moved to Rome in 1921. His second major collection Sentimento del tempo bears witness to these newly familiar Roman and Latium landscapes and, in contrast to L’Allegria, marks a move towards some of the traditional metrical and syntactical features of the Italian poetic tradition. A line of continuity is to be drawn between Sentimento del tempo and Ungaretti’s fourth collection entitled La Terra Promessa (1950), where the influence of Virgil’s Aeneid is particularly apparent, and themes of innocence and origin remain central in the poetic imagination. Il Dolore (1947), a collection the poet never expected to write, fractures this continuity, as it responds and bears witness to instances of personal and collective loss (the deaths of the poet’s son and brother, the poet’s return to Rome in 1942 and the horrors of the Second World War). Ungaretti’s later poetry, more thematically and formally diverse than the early work and a part of his career which has not hitherto received the critical attention it deserves, consists of Un Grido e Paesaggi (1952), Il Taccuino del Vecchio (1960), Dialogo (1968) and his final collection Nuove (1970). Following a discussion of Ungaretti and contemporary notions and theorisations of ‘lateness’, I look at pre-lapsarian tropes (particularly innocence and childhood) and the poetic figuration of the desert and youth in the late works. I suggest that this backwards gaze on the part of the ageing poet and his obsession with an unnameable loss may be linked, in a Kristevan and Lacanian sense, to a desire to return to the mother through the maternal Chose (a lost ‘object’ of the Real which is also in turn bound up with the death drive). In the final part of this essay, I consider the way in which the Freudian Eros-Thanatos dialectic comes into play in the final works, as I explore the nature of the Ungarettian old-age ‘love poetry’ from Il Taccuino del Vecchio (1960) to his last written poem ‘L’impietrito e il velluto’ in Nuove (1969-1970).

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The last work of Ungaretti has been largely overlooked critically. The large majority of studies have tended to focus on the figures of Jone and Dunja and the ageing poet’s experience of love.3 Others have taken a more fragmented approach, providing an analysis of isolated themes (for example the figure of the traveller and the theme of the journey as in Imberty and Martellini) or individual poems, such as ‘Monologhetto’ (Bigongiari) or ‘L’impietrito e il velluto’ (Gioanola).4 It is interesting to note the relative amount of critical space given to the post-La Terra Promessa poetry in a monograph such as Guglielmi’s, as this is often typical of the critical approach to the later poetry. He speeds through the late collections, drawing brief attention to the stylistic and formal innovation of Un Grido e Paesaggi with particular focus on the poem ‘Monologhetto’. 5 Throughout his analysis, Guglielmi hints at the

 3

Andrea Guastella, ‘Il nome ritrovato: la metamorfosi di Dunja’, in Il futuro della memoria: tre studi su Ungaretti (Catania: C.U.E.C.M., 2003), pp. 99-115. On Dunja, see also Nila Noto, La spazialità poetica nell’opera di Ungaretti (Trapani: Celebes, 1976), pp. 59-64. Piccioni is also interested in the love poetry of the later Ungaretti and looks at the experience of love in the Taccuino del Vecchio and Dialogo as part of a discussion of the significance of the religious conversion of 1928 and the ‘diaristic’ quality of his poetry (Leone Piccioni, ‘“Il peccato che importa, – se alla purezza non conduce più”’ in Atti del convegno internazionale su Giuseppe Ungaretti, Urbino 3-6 ottobre 1979 (Urbino: 4 Venti 1981), pp. 31521.). On Jone, see Luciano Rebay, ‘Ungaretti: Lettere a Jone, “Prima poesia per Jone”, “Canto a due voci per Jone”’, Revue des études italiennes, 49.1-2 (2003), 113-20. 4 Claude Imberty, ‘L’Odyssée d’Ungaretti: la méduse, le voyage, et l’aube’, Revue des études italiennes, 35 (1989), 120-28; Luigi Martellini, ‘La fenomenologia dell’Ulisside nel Taccuino del vecchio’ in Atti del convegno internazioanle su Giuseppe Ungaretti, Urbino 3-6 ottobre 1979 (Urbino: 4 Venti, 1981), pp. 1123-42 (p. 1123); Piero Bigongiari, ‘Sugli autografi del “Monologhetto”’, in TleP, pp. 465-93; Elio Gioanola, ‘L’impietrito e il velluto. Traccia per un’indagine psicanalitica’, in Atti del convegno internazionale, Urbino 3-6 ottobre 1979 (Urbino: 4 Venti, 1981), pp. 1039-45. 5 Guglielmi, Interpretazione di Ungaretti, pp. 111-22. See also two other largely descriptive studies by Bigongiari which focus on broad thematic concerns: Piero Bigongiari, ‘Penultimo Ungaretti ovvero dal silenzio aurorale al silenzio apocalittico’, Forum Italicum, 3 (1968), 185-93, on how silence is figured in the late works from La Terra Promessa to Il Taccuino del vecchio and Piero Bigongiari, ‘Ultimo Ungaretti ovvero il matto e l’indovina’, Books Abroad, 44 (1970), 576-83, on the dialectic between the ‘matto’ and ‘l’indovina’ in the last works including the final poems dedicated to Dunja. This 1970 special issue of Books Abroad, dedicated to Ungaretti offers a number of other articles on

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linguistic and thematic complexity of the late works, but does not give space to a more detailed discussion of the consequences of this for the poetics of the ‘ultimo Ungaretti’. Other more anecdotal and less textually based studies on the late work consist of personal reactions to the text by certain key poets or critics, written as homages to Ungaretti.6 Virginia Di Martino’s recent monograph, Da Didone a Dunja: sull’ultimo Ungaretti, has helped in some way to redress the critical balance regarding the late works, exploring Ungaretti’s poetry from La Terra Promessa to Nuove. 7 The book’s premise is that the two female figures, Dido and Dunja, constitute a synthesis of some of the major preoccupations of the poet’s later writing such as memory, the concept of the journey and the experience of love. The linguistic and thematic complexities of Ungaretti’s late work are often hinted at, but not fully explored, by critics. What is more, no study, as far as I am aware, has considered Ungaretti’s last phase of production in relation to definitions of ‘artistic late style’ and old-age creativity, the subject of a number of important recent studies.

‘Late Style’: some considerations In recent years, ‘lateness’ has been the subject of particular critical attention as a number of scholars have attempted to define what is characteristic about artistic ‘late style’. In so doing they have also debated the validity of dividing an artist’s work into distinct phases (including a ‘late’ or ‘mature’ manner) marked by clear caesurae. Two key texts, Edward’s Said’s On Late Style (2006) and Gordon McMullan’s Shakespeare and the Idea of Late Writing: Authorship in the Proximity of Death (2007) have brought to the fore this figuring of lateness.8 Last works might be



Ungaretti’s early and late work, personal homages and interviews from the late years. 6 See, for example Giorgio Caproni, ‘Il taccuino del vecchio’, Forum Italicum, 6 (1972), 244-46. 7 Virginia di Martino, Da Didone a Dunja: sull’ultimo Ungaretti (Naples: Dante & Descartes, 2006). 8 Edward Said, On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain (London: Bloomsbury, 2006); Gordon McMullan, Shakespeare and the Idea of Late Writing: Authorship in the Proximity of Death (Cambridge: CUP, 2007). See McMullan’s introduction (pp. 1-23) for further detailed bibliographic indications of other recent and influential studies on late style. Helen Vendler’s recent insightful study Last Looks, Last Books (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010) has also made a significant contribution to this field by examining the last poetry of Stevens, Plath,

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defined by a particular style united by certain common concerns and by the relationship between lateness and genius, but many critics, including McMullan, have problematised this notion of late style as a transhistorical, transcultural phenomenon. The questions that his study raises are numerous and the present essay does not permit us to address them all in relation to Ungaretti, something that a further more comprehensive study on Italian late style might hope to achieve. McMullan asks, for example, how helpful it is to define a number of caesurae between early, mature and late work. Can you indeed have ‘late style’ without it corresponding to the ‘last phase’ of an artist’s life and work? Helen Small’s The Long Life has also recently contributed to a related debate, that of the ‘examination of old age in Western philosophy and literature’.9 Combining philosophical and theoretical discussion (using, for example, Plato, Aristotle, Derek Parfit and Theodor Adorno, amongst others) with an analysis of literary texts (such as Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice and Balzac’s Le Père Goriot), Small aims to show how old age is a topic with ‘wider dimensions’ than the obvious import to each of us as mortal beings: It has repercussions for what we deem to be a good life, how we measure happiness, what we think a person is, when we think we are at our best, what we consider thinking can and cannot achieve.10

The polyvalent nature of the adjective ‘late’ makes for ambiguity in the use of the term, whether it means late as in ‘untimely’, or late in a sequence of events: ‘Lateness doesn’t name a single relation to time, but it always brings time in its wake. It is a way of remembering time, whether it is missed or met or gone’.11 Late style, as with narratives of Ending in Frank Kermode’s example, does not necessarily presuppose the presence



Lowell, Bishop and Merrill. Through a thorough and highly perceptive examination of these poets’ ‘binocular’ late style, Vendler asks, ‘how can the manner of a poem do justice to both the looming presence of death and the unabated vitality of spirit [?]’ (p. 1). 9 Helen Small, The Long Life (Oxford: OUP, 2007), p. vii. Small’s recent article on Tennyson’s late style is also a stimulating addition to the ‘lateness’ debate (‘Tennyson and Late Style’, The Tennyson Research Bulletin, 8.4 (November 2005), 226-50). In it, she offers a ‘description of Tennyson’s late writings as an effort to define a style in and of old age which embraced exactly that hope of transcendence repudiated by Adorno and Said, while also striving not to be defined exclusively or pre-emptively by it’ (p. 228). 10 Small, The Long Life, p. 272. 11 Michael Wood, in Introduction to Said, p. xi.

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or portrayal of death: ‘Late style’ – the term is Adorno’s – can’t be a direct result of aging or death, because style is not a mortal creature, and works of art have no organic life to lose. But the approaching death of the artist gets into the works all the same, and in many different ways; the privileged forms, as Said wrote, are ‘anachronism and anomaly.’12

One of the reasons that Ungaretti’s late work can seem difficult to define is that its formal, thematic and linguistic qualities are less easily characterised than the early collections; it can thus seem on the surface that age has had a discernable effect on Ungaretti’s poetic manner, rendering it ‘anachronistic’ or fragmented. In terms of form alone, Ungaretti’s late poetry is highly experimental, ranging from the closed form of ‘Esercizio di metrica’ and the prosaic long poem ‘Monologhetto’ in Un Grido e Paesaggi, to the compact and axiomatic nature of the ‘Proverbi’ and the dialogic forms of poetry present predominantly from Il Taccuino del Vecchio until Nuove. Variations in tone and style are also a distinct feature of the ageing poet Ungaretti’s late style, distinguishing it in part from the more discernable stylistic and tonal unity within each of the earlier collections. In contrast, in the later work, he frequently moves from the oral, ironic or conversational to the more elevated and reflective. In this respect, we see some similarities with another great twentieth-century Italian poet, Montale, whose ‘pluristylisme’, particularly in Satura, has been noted by critics as a defining characteristic of his late work. 13 Montale’s poetic works can indeed be broadly divided into two phases, the latter phase typified by a greater openness of manner, which we might again link to elements of Ungaretti’s late style. 14 As with Montale, Ungaretti’s late

 12

Wood, p. xiii. See also Frank Kermode, The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (New York: OUP, 1966). 13 Francesco de Rosa, ‘Introduction à “Satura”’, Chroniques Italiennes, 2 (2000), 55-77 (p. 76). Similarly, Small, in ‘Tennyson and Late Style’, also suggests that Tennyson’s last volumes contain a great ‘variety of styles’ which demonstrate the ‘range and flexibility of voice in old age’ (p. 233). 14 ‘It is generally agreed that Montale’s poetic work falls into two major periods: the first characterized by the use of intense, emblematic modes, containing hidden or transfigured meanings (the first three collections: Ossi, Occasioni and Bufera); and a later period, from Satura onwards, with an ostensibly more open and immediately communicative manner’ (Éanna Ó Ceallacháin, Eugenio Montale: The Poetry of the Later Years (Oxford: Legenda, 2001), p. 1). On the later Montale, see also John Butcher, Poetry and Intertextuality: Eugenio Montale’s

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poetic space is a site of riscrittura [re-writing]; in his advancing age, he uses certain poems to comment upon or rework notions, images or lexical choices from his earlier poems. 15 In contrast to Montale’s later poetry, however, Ungaretti’s poetry does not make the same sustained use of irony and does not display as great a mistrust as Montale in notions of progress and History.

‘Ancora mi rimane qualche infanzia’: the Question of Origins and the Return to the Maternal Chose We need used words to modify our youth tracing in us Adam’s intact desire. We need the old man’s remembering to bring us to our beginning eating his archaic dreams – […] We need the old man to beget in us an aurora shattering the secularity of repetition – originating dawn, apocalyptic dawn instressing Adam’s day, […] We need the old man to recover our antique rhythms –16

In this section, I look at how the Ungarettian obsession with origins is presented in the late poetry, 17 analysing figurations of the mother, both



Later Verse (Perugia: Volumnia, 2007), in which he argues that ‘literature first published in the Sixties […] stimulated and moulded to a large degree the poetry of Montale’s final two decades.’ (p. 10). 15 Once again, a link may be made here with Tennyson’s ‘late style’ according to Small’s theorisation: ‘Late Tennyson is […] a consciously heterogeneous thing, incorporating, and keeping in play, many “earlier” styles, and “Tiresias” is a particularly good example of that, weighted as it is with self-quotation, selfallusion and self-echo.’ (Small, ‘Tennyson and Late Style’, (pp. 246-47)). 16 Pellegrino D’Acierno. This is an extract from one of the poems written as a tribute to Ungaretti, which were published in 1970 (‘Tributes’, Books Abroad, 44 (1970), pp. 613-14). 17 For a more detailed theoretical discussion of Lacan’s view of the mother in his writings, see Shuli Barzilai, Lacan and the Matter of Origins (Stanford: California: Stanford University Press, 1999).

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explicit (through the use of her voice) and implicit, in the recourse to images connected with childhood and the desert space.18 What is more, the ageing poet often figures his poetic counterpart as a child, linking old age and childhood, asserting cyclical time’s potential precedence over linearity.19

‘Monologhetto’ and the Return to the Mother ‘Monologhetto’ (Un Grido e Paesaggi) is a long poem which was composed late in 1951 for the purposes of being transmitted on the radio by Italian broadcasters Rai at New Year. 20 In it, Ungaretti offers the listener ‘il racconto di tutti i viaggi della sua vita, in una luce quasi “postuma”, con una saggezza (auto) ironica’ [‘The tale of all of the journeys of his life, in an almost “posthumous” light, with a self-ironic knowledge’].21 I am particularly interested in considering this poem, which relies on a ‘filmic’ presentation of images, as a return to the mother, both in terms of its tropes of birth and origins, of the desert space (which transports the listener back to the legacy of the desert in the poetic world of L’Allegria) and in the actual presence of the mother’s voice in the poem.22 The Thing (Das Ding) is, in Lacanian terms, an unnameable lost object of the Real which has to be constantly re-found and yet one which was paradoxically never there to begin with.23 What I would like to bring to the fore here is the maternal nature of the Chose and the way in which this thus provides a framework in which we can consider Ungaretti’s poetry as a return to the mother, both actual and implied in images of childhood and pre-lapsarian modes of being. 24 Barzilai has appositely summarised the

 18

For Ungaretti, the desert space is bound up with the question of origins, both personal and poetic. See Ungaretti, ‘Ungaretti commenta Ungaretti’, in SI, pp. 815828 (p. 817). 19 As Ossola points out, Ungaretti’s last poetry dedicated to the figure of Dunja (for whom the desert space is also crucial) is inextricably linked to a backwards gaze towards childhood (Carlo Ossola, Giuseppe Ungaretti, 2nd edn (Milan: Mursia, 1982), p. 427). 20 It was subsequently published in ‘Paragone’ (no.26) and ‘Approdo’ (no.1). 21 Virginia Di Martino, Da Didone a Dunja: Sull’ultimo Ungaretti (Naples: Dante & Descartes, 2006), p. 10. 22 See Di Martino on the ‘cinematic’ technique employed in this poem (p. 58). 23 Jacques Lacan, Le Séminaire Livre VII: L’éthique de la psychanalyse (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1986), pp. 67, 72. 24 Cf. McMullan: ‘For Adorno, […], late work always has an “archaising tendency”, not only looking back to the writer’s own past but also introducing folk

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complex relationship between the mother and the Thing in the following way: Lacan himself does not posit an equivalence between the mother and das Ding. His formulation is: ‘[T]he whole development at the level of the mother/child interpsychology […] is nothing more than an immense development of the maternal thing, of the mother, insofar as she occupies the place of that thing, das Ding [la mère, en tant qu’elle occupe la place de cette chose, de das Ding]’ (Seminar VII, 82/67). The qualifying phrase here – ‘insofar as she occupies the place’ – is crucial to an understanding of the Lacanian concept. The mother is in a metaphoric or substitutive relation to the Thing. She is not the real Thing. The term das Ding is no more (but also no less) than a way of marking the place of an absence, of a void that invites but also eludes our discursive efforts to fill it with symbols.25

In ‘Monologhetto’, the idea of the journey links the long poem to the concerns of La Terra Promessa and to the opening sequence of poems in Il Taccuino del vecchio (‘Ultimi cori per la terra promessa’). However, in Un Grido e Paesaggi, as a feature of his ‘late style’, the poet focuses less on the mythical associations of this trope of the Odyssean voyage: ‘Monologhetto’ is, instead, an overtly autobiographical and ironic lyric which tends towards narrative. 26 The link between life and poetry, a constant Ungarettian preoccupation, is expressed in the slightly ironic tones of self-awareness: Poeti, poeti, ci siamo messi Tutte le maschere; Ma uno non è che la propria persona (TleP 261)27



motifs, atavistic elements, merging the youthful simplicity of both self and nation’ (p. 159). Whilst the Ungarettian focus on the ‘original’ does not perhaps extend as far into the contemplation of nationhood which Adorno’s theorisation would like, nevertheless, the identification of an ‘archaising tendency’ as a facet of late style seems appropriate for the Ungarettian model. 25 Barzilai, p. 162. 26 Cf. Piero Bigongiari, ‘Sugli autografi del “Monologhetto”’, in TleP 465-93 (p. 465). 27 [‘Poets, poets, we have put on all the masks; but one is no more than one’s own self’].

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This can surely be read against the mythological masks that Ungaretti adopted in the earlier collection La Terra Promessa, namely Palinurus and Dido. Ungaretti advocates here a ‘return to origins’, and suggests that poetry should take inspiration from the inner workings of the self. The ‘propria persona’ [‘one’s own self’] in these lines also has strong resonances of that early Ungarettian poetic credo in ‘Commiato’ (L’Allegria): poesia è il mondo l’umanità la propria vita (TleP 58)28

In ‘Monologhetto’, Ungaretti focuses on the month of February, with its traditional connotations of inconstancy and madness (‘lunatico’ [‘lunatic’]) as well as being associated with the ‘carnevale’ [‘carnival’]. Crucially for our purposes, it is also the month in which Ungaretti was born. The way in which the various ‘journeys’ or episodes are related is particularly striking and ties in with the importance Ungaretti has given to time, suspending it in the duration of narrative. 29 These journeys are related to the listener through the prism of memory: Il ricordare è di vecchiaia il segno, Ed oggi alcune soste ho ricordate Del mio lungo soggiorno sulla terra, Successe di Febbraio […] (TleP 260)30

These lines from the central section of the poem provide a kind of hiatus in the text with the axiomatic ‘Il ricordare è di vecchiaia il segno’ [‘Memory is the sign of ageing’] and its syntactic inversion placing old age centrally and memory at the forefront of the poetic thought. The poet draws attention to the narrative quality and almost ‘naturalness’ of the piece in the subsequent lines, ‘Ed oggi [‘and today’] […] | […] terra [‘earth’]’ where the simplicity of syntax and self-commentary are both evident. The fact that these journeys took place in February may seem to be a little too fortuitous, and surely we can read these events as having both an actual and symbolic relevance. The poet goes on to link the

 28

[‘Poetry | is the world humanity | one’s own life’]. Di Martino, p. 57. 30 [‘Memory is the sign of ageing, | And today I remembered some moments of respite | From my long stay on this earth | Which happened in February’] 29

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various episodes which have been related in the course of the poem to the fact that he was born in February. The stories of the ‘carnevale’ and of the ‘Maremma’ become stories of origins by association. There is a concentration of words pertaining to beginning and birth linked by their end position on the lines: ‘vita’, ‘nascita’, ‘nacqui’ [‘life’; ‘birth’; ‘I was born’]. It is interesting to note that ‘parlare’ [‘to speak’] also occurs at the end of a line in this section: ‘Ma di questo, non è momento di parlare’ [‘But of this, it is not the time to speak’]. In its entirety this line is a call to reticence, which we may link on the Kristevan model to the realm of the semiotic as a pre-symbolic modality associated with the chora and, in turn, the mother. 31 Ungaretti then carries on with the theme of beginning, relating the events of the night of his birth: A Alessandria d’Egitto in quella notte, […] Galoppa un bimbo sul cavallo bianco […] Adamo e Eva rammemorano Nella terrena sorte istupiditi (TleP 261)32

What strikes the reader in this section is the image of innocence, the ‘bimbo sul cavallo bianco’ [‘child on the white horse’] which has a fairytale quality to it.33 Subsequently, two tales of origins converge and conflate in the mention of ‘Adamo e Eva’ [‘Adam and Eve’]. In this stanza, we witness what appears to be a move from the personal



31 Julia Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language, trans. by Margaret Waller (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984): ‘Discrete quantities of energy move through the body of the subject who is not yet constituted as such and, in the course of his development, they are arranged according to the various constraints imposed on this body – always already involved in a semiotic process – by family and social structures. In this way the drives, which are “energy” charges as well as “psychical” marks, articulate what we call a chora: a nonexpressive totality formed by the drives and their stases in a motility that is as full of movement as it is regulated’ (p. 25); ‘the oral and anal drives, both of which are oriented and structured around the mother’s body, dominate this sensorimotor. The mother’s body is therefore what mediates the symbolic law organizing social relations and becomes the ordering principle of the semiotic chora, which is on the path of destruction, aggressivity, and death.’ (pp. 27-28). 32 [‘In Alexandria, Egypt that night | […] | A child gallops on a white horse | […] | Adam and Eve remember | stunned in the earthly destiny’] 33 Note also the image of the ‘bimbo’ in ‘Ultimi cori per la terra promessa’ (TleP 279).

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autobiographical tale of origins, to an image of innocence, one of the concepts of which Ungaretti’s desiring poetic subject is in constant need, related to the Chose which constantly drives his poetic narrative of loss and remembrance.34 In the final move outwards, Ungaretti broadens the scope to include the story of lost innocence par excellence, that of the Fall.35 Ungaretti includes elements of speech in italics throughout the poem; this ‘monologhetto’ is actually rather dialogic in nature as there are a number of other voices present and quoted in the poem. The recourse to dialogic modes of poetry here may be considered proleptic of the increased importance this feature will have in Ungaretti’s later work as a whole, particularly in the love poetry from Il Taccuino del Vecchio onwards. First is the speech of ‘una delle Arabe’ [‘one of the Arab women’], who is presented as an emblem of the more wild, irrational and unknowable elements of the desert culture of his birthplace. Then, as to be expected in this poetic tale of origins, follows the mother’s voice, as she cites a Tuscan proverb in the text. As in other poems such as ‘I fiumi’ (from the earlier collection L’Allegria), Ungaretti’s search for a homeland remains a constant in the ageing poet’s imaginary; the tensions between the two different cultures of the poet’s heritage (Italian and Arab) literally finds voice here in the female form. The final section of this poem brings together notions of the end, the idealisation of youth and a rather striking sense of the vanity of all things of which the ageing speaker is aware. Death is figured in the evocation of ‘Il giorno della Candelora’ [‘Candlemas’] where the religious funereal rites again of another voice are quoted: ‘Sei polvere e ritornerai in polvere’ [‘Thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return’] (TleP 262). Ungaretti then sets up an axiomatic vision of the old, including himself



34 ‘For Ungaretti, the desert means distance, light, freedom, sensuousness, the piercing melancholy of Bedouin songs and, above all, dreams, mirages – the dreams and mirages of the nomad who becomes for him the symbol of the poet in his perennial wanderings in search of innocence, happiness, love.’ (Luciano Rebay, ‘Encomium for Giuseppe Ungaretti’, Books Abroad, 44 (1970), 551-56 (p. 553). 35 Enrico points out that the light of the Promised Land is one of Ungaretti’s strongest motifs throughout his poetry, including into this late phase: ‘In his last major poem, “Monologhetto” (Brief Monologue), in Un Grido e Paesaggi […] Ungaretti rejects both visionary metaphor and oracular myth in the face of inevitable extinction, but the mirage of an Eden beyond time and memory still entices him. His desert wasteland has become a more terrifying place of death and decay, but his vision of that Eden remains as pure as it was at the beginning of his career.’ (Harold Enrico, ‘A Many-Mirrored Light’, Books Abroad, 44 (1970), 59196 (p. 592).

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within a collectivity of aged souls: Ognuno, e noi vecchi compresi Con i nostri rimpianti, […] […] illusione […] Impaziente, nel vuoto, ognuno smania, S’affanna, futile, A reincarnarsi in qualche fantasia Che anch’essa sarà vana. (TleP 262)36

Here Ungaretti establishes a universal connection between ‘rimpianto’ [‘regret’] and mankind, particularly the old. There is also a proliferation of other terms in this stanza which link to one of the key themes of this long poem, ‘apparenze’ [‘appearances’]: ‘illusione’ [‘illusion’] and ‘fantasia’ [‘dream’] and the adjectives which refer to them, ‘futile’ [‘futile’] and ‘vana’ [‘vain’]. This accumulation of a lexicon of disappointment and loss creates an almost Leopardian sense of the ‘caduta delle illusioni’ [‘fall of illusions’]. The effort and rejuvenating potential of living by ‘illusioni’ [‘illusions’] is brought into relief by ‘reincarnarsi’ [‘reincarnate’]. Ungaretti suggests that this dreaming optimism can reside somewhere: not in the old, as he has become painfully aware, but in the freshness of youth, often extolled in his poetry. Youth and vitality become diametrically opposed to the painful realisation with old age that one cannot live by illusions: Solo ai fanciulli i sogni s’addirebbero: […] Ma perché fanciullezza È subito ricordo? (TleP 262)37

In contrast to the lexicon of loss connected with old age and the reliance on ‘illusioni’, Ungaretti extols the virtues of youth, their uniqueness and potential for change emphasised by the use of ‘solo’ [‘only’] in thematic position. Youth is fleeting; it can barely be enjoyed



36 [‘Each one of us, and we aged people included | with our regrets | […] | […] illusion | which lives on regret alone | impatient, in the void, each one yearns, toils, futile, | to come alive once more in some dream | which even so will be vain’] 37 [‘Dreams are only destined for the young | […] | but why is youth immediately turned to memory?’]

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before it resides in the realm of memory, trapped there. Youth, then, here, as elsewhere in Ungaretti’s work, is perceived as lost and yet yearned for; the driving force of the desire to reclaim this lost Chose driving the ageing melancholy subject into this late work. In his ‘late style’ then, Ungaretti returns to the theme of childhood or youth, not with the ironic intensity of Montale’s late work, but in more reflective tones with the hindsight of old age, using poetry as a constructive means of rethinking the concerns of his earlier work. We may also view Ungaretti’s late poetry as a return to the mother, both in terms of reference to her and to the specific landscapes of his childhood as well as, more generally, to the maternal Chose, the desire for which fuels an enduring melancholy poetic subjectivity. Age has therefore turned the poet’s gaze not only forwards to his own death and more broadly, to the death of illusions, but backwards to the poetic situations of his past and his composite heritage.

‘Chi nasce per amare | D’amore morirà’:38 Eros and Thanatos from Il Taccuino del Vecchio to Nuove Alongside a contemplation of ‘what lies beyond’ for the ageing subject in this late period of Ungaretti’s work, is poetry with renewed life and force, which in many ways can be considered ‘love poetry’, a poetry which Ungaretti himself saw as possessing a vitality conversely linked with experience. 39 In this section I investigate the nature of this late poetry charged with the fire of Eros on the one hand, and pulled in another (and not necessarily mutually exclusive) direction of Thanatos, towards an endpoint of death. In my analysis, this is contextualised within a wider consideration of the nature of the ‘sense of an ending’ that continues to characterise the ageing poet’s gaze. What is more, the return to the mother (to origins) can be clearly connected in Ungaretti’s texts to the eponymous Eros-Thanatos binomial of Freudian memory. In Ungaretti’s final work, the quintessential Freudian dialectic of Eros and Thanatos comes into play in the poetic world of the senex where both

 38

[‘He who is born to love | Will die of love’]. ‘Observed Ungaretti in a recent interview, as reported by Leone Piccioni: “I believe that in the poems of old age the freshness and illusion of youth are gone; but I also believe that they encompass so much experience that if one succeeds in finding the right words, they represent the highest form of poetry one may leave.’ (‘Encomium for Giuseppe Ungaretti’ by Luciano Rebay’, Books Abroad, 44 (1970), 551-56 (p. 555).

39

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love and death preside. According to Freud in ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle’ there are a number of drives which direct our lives through the unconscious. A drive, in Freud’s view, is ‘a powerful tendency inherent in every living organism to restore a prior state’. 40 The death drive (Thanatos) is a return to this primordial state, since ‘the goal of all life is death […] (as) the inanimate existed before the animate’.41 In contrast to Jung’s monistic theory of the libido, a ‘single drive-energy’, Freud’s theory of drives at this point in his work revolves around the dualistic conception of the two drives Eros and Thanatos, a ‘life’ drive and a ‘death’ drive.42 The situation is further complicated as the two polarities are in fact interlinked, as in Freud’s theory of the death instinct, even the ‘apparently vital claims of Eros, of the cultural struggle against destructiveness, are in fact those of a long detour to death’.43 In his previous theories the pleasure principle and sexual instincts were both thought of as a ‘source of novelty, freshness’ and he ‘had juxtaposed these to the self-preservative or ego instincts’.44 The difference in ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle’ is that he now brings together the sexual and self-preservative instincts under the title of Eros and he ‘decided that these were in the service of death, hate, the individual ego, and repetition’.45 What is more, according to Freud’s text, the repetition compulsion, Eros and the ego are interwined in the following way: The compulsion to repeat, and the direct and pleasurable gratification of drives seem […] to interconnect with each other in an intimate mutuality […] the compulsion to repeat, which the therapy sought to divert to its own

 40

Sigmund Freud, ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle’, in The Penguin Freud Reader (London: Penguin, 2006), pp. 132-95 (p. 165). 41 Freud, p. 166. 42 Freud, p. 182; ‘[I]f we do not want to abandon the hypothesis of death drives, we have to see them as having been accompanied from the very beginning by life drives.’ (Freud, p.186). 43 Abraham Drassinower, Freud’s Theory of Culture: Eros, Loss and Politics (Lanham Md: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), p. 13. In the rest of his study, Drassinower tries to argue against the common perception of Freud’s theory of culture as inherently pessimistic and subjectively orientated and suggests instead that the centrality of the loss of loved ones and the endurance of loss and death ‘(are) a continuously renewed cultivation of living in the company of others’ (p. 13, my emphasis). 44 Peter Homans, The Ability to Mourn: Disillusionment and the Social Origins of Psychoanalysis (Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press, 1989), p. 200. 45 Homans.

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ends, is so to speak enlisted by the ego in its determination to hold fast to the pleasure principle.46

Ungaretti’s ‘ispiratrici’ [‘muses’] in the late work: Jone and Dunja There are a number of principal female figures who populate Ungaretti’s ‘late’ poetic universe: Jone Graziani, Dunja-Anna and Bruna Bianco but the constraints of this essay do not allow us to look at them all in detail. A selection of poems by Bruna Bianco, a young contemporary poet, is reproduced in the Repliche di Bruna section of Dialogo. In this essay, I will look at a small sample of the poems dedicated to or inspired by the other two female figures, Jone and Dunja, and will consider how they illustrate elements of Ungaretti’s ‘late style’ (principally the dialogue form) with a particular focus on the link between the thematic areas of love and death which concerns the ageing poet. Around three months after his wife’s death, on the 21st December 1958 in Cervia, Ungaretti met a 31-year-old woman named Jone Graziani, giving rise to a six-year correspondence comprising over three hundred letters. 47 According to Rebay’s account, Ungaretti was immediately attracted to the young woman and fell in love with her, writing to his secret lover in French and later in Italian.48 The correspondence reveals an intensity of feeling and sensuality, Eros still dominating in the world of the senex: Mon amour…Ta présence […] ne me quitte plus, en aucun moment…Tes yeux […] me regardent sans cesse […] J’embrasse le bout de mes doigts, il a la saveur de Toi, de ton obscurité qui me rend fou.49

 46

Freud, ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle’, p. 150. For more on the relationship between Jone and Ungaretti, their correspondence and the ensuing poems inspired by her (including some unpublished drafts of ‘Canto a due voci’), see Luciano Rebay, ‘Ungaretti: Lettere a Jone, “Prima poesia per Jone”, “Canto a due voci per Jone”, in Revue des études italiennes, 49.1-2 (2003), 113-20 and an almost identical article in Forum Italicum, 38.1 (2004), 4565, which has some additional photographs and reproductions of some of the correspondence. 48 Rebay, ‘Ungaretti: Lettere a Jone’, in Revue des études italiennes, p. 113. 49 Rebay, p. 114, letter dated 2nd January 1959. [‘My love […] Your presence […] will never leave me […] Your eyes […] look at me endlessly […] I kiss the ends of my fingers, they have the taste of You, of your darkness which drives me crazy.’] 47

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His correspondence with Jone not only allows the reader an insight into the relationship between the two figures, but also includes some more universal declarations (nevertheless inspired of course by the specific immanence of a late love experience) on what love is for Ungaretti, which act as a framework around which we may read his contemporary poems. In a letter to Jone dated the 29th March 1959, Ungaretti specifically refers to the link between ‘fine’ [‘end’] and ‘amore’ [‘love’]; love for him is an illusory method of postponing the end: L’amore è un portento. Non solo occupa, rinnova, guarisce, ma mette nell’essere uno spasimo che dà alla vita l’illusione di non avere mai più fine.50

I will now look in greater detail at one of the poems inspired by Jone, ‘Canto a due voci’ (Il Taccuino del Vecchio), written in 1959. In this poem, there is a clear tension between the painful aspects of love (the distance from the absent woman) and stimulus that the (imagined or remembered) presence of the woman can give. The poem actually externalises its thematic dialogic nature by the presence of two poetic voices that are typographically distinct. The first line from the ‘prima voce’ [‘first voice’] with its stark and simple syntax with ‘cuore’ in thematic position would appear to act as an indicator of the ensuing content: ‘Il cuore mi è crudele’ [‘The heart is cruel to me’]. As implied in some of the correspondence and from some of Ungaretti’s comments to Grazia Deledda related in Rebay’s article, images of fire are used to express the passion of love, a well-known stereotype in love poetry. 51 There is an extended metaphor of burning and light in the first voice: ‘fuoco’ [‘fire’], ‘brama’ [‘burns’], ‘luce’ [‘light’], ‘incendio’ [‘fire’], ‘guizzare’ [‘flicker’]. These are also linked with ‘occhi’ [‘eyes’], alluding to the stilnovistic trope of the eyes where sentiment is said to enter the body. In contrast, some of the lexical choices in this poem relate to a deeper undercurrent of loss and of quite a precarious relationship between experiencing any brief comforts that love may confer, and its disappointment or shortcomings. Love is thus not a solely comforting presence for the ageing poet, but evokes conflicting emotional reactions in the text, many of which stem from the fact that the object of affection is ‘lontano’ [‘distant’], another poetic legacy of stilnovism.

 50

Rebay, p. 115, letter dated 29th March 1959. [‘Love is a miracle. Not only does it occupy, renew, heal, but it instills in one’s being a pang which gives the impression of never-ending life.’] 51 Rebay, ‘Lettere a Jone’, in Revue des études italiennes, p. 114.

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The ‘altra voce’ [‘other voice’] seems to fulfil the function of an inner commentary on the poetic speech of the ‘prima voce’ and, as such, they could be considered as two parts of one voice rather than two distinct voices. The tone of the ‘altra voce’ seems more resigned, more overtly melancholy, expressing the pull of Thanatos. Its repetition by variation of ‘più nulla’ in its first two enunciations emphasises a sense of irreparable loss in the realm of the heart (‘Più nulla gli si può nel cuore smuovere’ [‘Nothing more can one rouse in the heart’]; ‘Più nel suo cuore nulla’ [‘Nothing more in his heart’]. There is a tension in the ‘Prima voce’ between an awareness of advancing age and the unknown beyond, and the fire and energy which the life-giving force of love brings. In the ‘altra voce’, the ‘acri sorprese del ricordo’ [‘bitter surprises of memory’], suggesting a bittersweet renewal of hope, contrast with the ‘carne logora’ [‘wasted flesh’] of the senex’s physical reality. Due to the typographical layout of this poem (in most editions the two voices are separated on two distinct pages), there is a way in which some lines can be read both horizontally and vertically; this visual aspect further contributes to the idea of the presence of two opposing and conversely convergent forces, Eros and Thanatos. Ungaretti’s unpublished dedication to Jone on one of the drafts of this poem sums up the paradoxical interdependence of love and death for Ungaretti present in this poem: ‘per Jone | amorino, | Queste parole sono ceneri d’amore, | rileggile, e l’amore rinascerà dalle sue ceneri’ [‘for Jone, | little darling | These words are ashes of love | re-read them, and love will live once more from their ashes’].52 This new amorous experience in the poet’s own life provides new and powerful poetic inspiration. Jone leads the ageing Ungaretti to ‘nuovi gridi’ [‘new cries’], not of the same grief or loss as in the commemorative poetry of Il Dolore or the mythical melancholy of Dido’s ‘grido’ in La Terra Promessa, but to ‘quelques nouveaux cris’ [‘some new cries’] of a love that is closely bound up with absence and an awareness of the end.53 The extensive use of dialogue in Ungaretti’s later work corresponds to a proliferation of dialogic elements in the poetry of the second half of the twentieth century in the Italian tradition.54 For Ungaretti, dialogue appears to be a means of restoring the lost ‘segreto’ [‘secret’] to the word and can

 52

Rebay, ‘Lettere a Jone’, p. 115. Rebay, p. 114, quotations from letter dated 6 January 1959. 54 The use of multiple voices within a poem and poems directed to a particular addressee is a feature of many poets of the secondo Novecento, including Montale, Sereni and Valduga. 53

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be seen to reignite poetry’s anthropological function. 55 In terms of the Italian tradition at large, the kind of dialogue in which the poet engages with an abstracted figure can be identified as the ‘dialogo con l’assente’ [‘dialogue with the absent other’] that has become the very heart of lyric poetry. Dialogo, ‘a love dialogue of dazzling verbal virtuosity and youthful confidence’ published in 1968, can be considered an unexpected book, though not in the same respect as Il Dolore.56 In the latter, life and poetry converged and the advent of familial and universal grief in the period around World War Two gave rise to a collection of commemorative poetry with a complex, textually constructed melancholy subject. Dialogo seems unexpected, as its contents could be considered surprising, perhaps even incongruous, for an ageing poet. In Dialogo, Ungaretti strongly affirms the possible coexistence of Eros and Thanatos; he views love and death as inextricably connected. The interdependence of life and death is not a novel theme in the Ungarettian corpus, but the vitality of style and content in Ungaretti’s old-age works is striking. We can read the Eros-Thanatos binary in Ungaretti’s own note to the collection: Dialogo (1968): ‘è composto di poesie mie, dove, con il rendermi conto dell’età, oso indicare che l’amore può non estinguersi che con la morte’ [‘it is composed of my poems, where, with the realisation of increasing age, I dare to indicate that love can only be extinguished by death’] (TleP 573). Dialogo may also be considered a surprise collection, as some critics maintain that the previous collections form a complete poetic opus. According to this view, it was not a ‘necessary’ collection, in that Ungaretti’s poetry could have ended with the Apocalissi of 1961.57 The poem ‘12 Settembre 1966’ (Dialogo) is indicative of the ageing poet’s concerns in this collection. Its narrative quality and creation of a stilnovistic female subject and the presentation of the interaction between loss and love also make it a noteworthy example of the tensions associated with age in Ungaretti’s late works. 58 The style of the poem is quite informal, in line with the move towards the more prosaic elements of Ungaretti’s ‘late style’. Pluri-stylistic features are indeed often a trait of this later work and, even within the space of one poem, we witness the conflation of different thematic and stylistic traits, as often occurs in

 55

See Giovanni Nencioni, ‘Antropologia poetica?’ in Tra grammatica e retorica (Turin: Einaudi, 1983), pp. 161-75, for an exploration of this anthropological function of poetry and its roots in ancient ritual. 56 Rebay, ‘Encomium for Giuseppe Ungaretti’, p. 555. 57 Glauco Cambon, La poesia di Ungaretti (Turin: Einaudi, 1976), p. 181. 58 Cf. Guglielmi, p. 115.

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Montale’s later poetry. Ungaretti’s poem has an inherently open narrative quality, marking a move away from the syntactically and lexically complex and dense poems of some of the other later poetry, such as ‘Canzone’ (La Terra Promessa) for example. The first stanza demonstrates this appositely. Immediately Ungaretti establishes a significant female other, one who is connected across the poem with the colour red. Even within an apparently syntactically simple narrative poem with sensual undertones, we cannot escape the presence of echoes of the Italian literary heritage. The appearance of the woman, and her particular association with the colour red, reminds the reader of three key episodes in the Vita Nuova where Beatrice appears: her first appearance in Dante’s life (2.3);59 second, in the prose narrative which some see as an anticipation of her death (3.4);60 and, third, when Beatrice appears in the lover’s imaginary when she is already in heaven (39.1).61 For Ungaretti, the return to a youthful vigour does not involve abandoning all connection to the world of experience.62 In these late love poems, the poet combines erotically charged images and lexicon with a hint of madness or senility; the images of sucking blood in ‘12 Settembre’ are particularly striking in this respect. In terms of style, these poems also appositely illustrate the interplay between traditional images and tropes and a new experimental vein that characterises the ageing poet’s final works.

‘Forse questa è la mia ultima poesia’:63 ‘L’impietrito e il velluto’ and the Final Vision Ungaretti handed Rebay a copy of his last-ever poem, ‘L’impietrito e il velluto’ (composed the night of the poet’s death) after receiving an international poetry prize at the University of Oklahoma in 1970. Rebay was struck and very moved by its unmistakeable images and visions of death. Ungaretti watched [him] as [he] read it; then he took a pen and slowly wrote along the margin a few words, which [he (Rebay)] translates: ‘A poem like this I may never be able to write again, perhaps this is my last

 59

Dante, Vita Nuova, ed. by Dino S. Cervigni and Edward Vasta (Notre Dame; London: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), p. 46. 60 Dante, p. 48. 61 Dante, p. 136. 62 Cf. Cambon, p. 181. 63 [Perhaps this is my last poem].

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‘In my end / is my beginning’ poem’ [‘The Italian reads: ‘Una poesia così non saprò più farla, forse questa è la mia ultima poesia’].64

This poem, the last one that Ungaretti wrote, is constructed around two gazes. Firstly, the gaze of the lyric I who perceives the ‘barche’ [boats] (‘Ho scoperto le barche che molleggiano | sole, e le osservo non so dove, solo.’ (TleP 326) [‘I discovered the boats that sway | alone, and I observe them I don’t know where, alone’]. From the opening lines the poem is immediately situated within non-specific temporal and physical coordinates. A second gaze is present in the poem, that of the female figure of Dunja whose ‘sguardo’ [‘look’] governs the final two strophes. Gioanola, in his short article on ‘L’impietrito e il velluto’, lays the foundations for our wider consideration of the presence of Eros and of the return to the maternal in Ungaretti’s final poem. Gioanola claims that there is not necessarily a specific object onto which Ungaretti projects his desire, but that, rather, ‘Eros è narcisisticamente diffuso, senza un determinato oggetto esterno’. [‘Eros is narcissistically diffused, without a particular external object’].65 In Gioanola’s view, in the poem Ungaretti also creates a frame of self-justification in which to situate this new erotic language and theme.66 In ‘L’impietrito e il velluto’, where the tension between Eros and Thanatos is keenly felt, there are a number of images of death and ending which contribute to the apocalyptic poetic narrative which has been constructed throughout Ungaretti’s later work. The initial ‘barche’ [‘boats’] of the opening line, poignantly ‘sole’ [‘alone’] echo the subject’s own solitariness ‘solo’ [‘alone’], and bring to the fore the idea of a journey, a quest which has been the driving force behind much of Ungaretti’s poetry. Having dispelled the quest for the ‘terra promessa’ [‘promised land’] as futile in his earlier sequence ‘Ultimi cori della terra promessa’, the quest for a ‘vita iniziale’ [‘initial life’] has nevertheless continued to dominate. The haunting presence of the auditory (‘La eco di strazio’ line 10 [‘the echo of torment’]) alongside the visual elements of the poem, is but a fleeting one, (‘durato appena un attimo’ line 11 [‘lasts barely a moment’]), emphasising the transience of all things. Towards the end of this first section of the poem (line 12), the addition

 64

Rebay, ‘Encomium for Giuseppe Ungaretti’, p. 556. Elio Gioanola, ‘L’impietrito e il velluto. Traccia per un’indagine psicanalitica’, in Atti del convegno internazionale, Urbino 3-6 ottobre 1979 (Urbino: 4 Venti, 1981), pp. 1039-45 (p. 1039). 66 Gioanola, ‘L’impietrito e il velluto. Traccia per un’indagine psicanalitica’, p. 1039. 65

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of the adjective ‘sinistre’ [‘sinister’] to qualify ‘barche’ [‘boats’] brings into relief the sense of foreboding which becomes all-pervading in the poem.67 Indeed, the ‘dito di macigno’ (line 4) [‘sandstone finger’], a stark and strong image of power, suggests the idea of an indicator, in turn linked with the ‘messi’ [‘messengers’] mentioned later. There is also a sense of mystery surrounding the ‘beyond’ that is figured in this poem, as the ‘messi’ emerge from the ‘abisso’ (line 6) [‘abyss’]. In what we define as the second half of the poem, the important gaze becomes that of the ‘other’, the embodiment of Eros with its lushness emphasised in ‘velluto’ [‘velvet’]. As the poet ‘rinascev [a] nel[lo] sguardo’ [‘was re-born in the gaze’] of his dead son Antonietto (‘Gridasti: soffoco’, Un Grido e Paesaggi), so too does Dunja’s gaze have a restorative power, the power to transport backwards (‘arretrarla di millenni’ line 19 [‘move her back millennia’]), , almost to an Edenic point of origin.68 Travelling metaphors also dominate in this poem. Dunja is Ungaretti’s final incarnation of the traveller: the image of the gyspy ‘zingara’ linked to two parallel verbs of wandering in the text, ‘aggirarsi’ [‘to roam’] ‘smarrirsi’ [‘to lose oneself’], thus returning the reader to one of Ungaretti’s most durable myths, that of the Bedouin in search of a country, in search of belonging, in Lacanian terms to that lost Chose which was perhaps never in fact present in the first place. The final two lines of the poem encapsulate the restorative power of the gaze of the other, where one can potentially recognise one’s self and which, however fleetingly, (‘fulmineo’ [‘lightning-swift’]) may possess the power to bestow solace and mercy on the ageing poet. This is not expressed in the absolute and finite future tense but in a present with a future implication: ‘Il velluto dello sguardo di Dunja | Fulmineo torna presente pietà’ (lines 24-5) [‘The velvet of Dunja’s gaze | Lightning-swift mercy will become present once again’]. Ungaretti’s final poetic words, a balanced novenario and endecasillabo (the cornerstones of Italian metrical patterning in the lyric tradition) have a certain calmness and unity about them (the quest for resolution and harmony has often been considered the aim of an artist’s late work). The rhythm is slowed by the alliteration between ‘presente’ [‘present’] and ‘pietà’ [‘mercy’] and Dunja, Ungaretti’s final muse, is formally aligned with the polyvalent ‘pietà’ [‘mercy, love,



67 In his images of the ‘barche’ in this poem, we may see an image of a funeral boat. Death and water are linked in many cultures, including that of Ancient Egypt, where funeral boats used to travel down the Nile. 68 Note the link between the gaze and notions of purity in ‘Soliloquio’ (1969, Nuove) (TleP 323).

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piety’] due to the end positions of the two words on the line.69 The references to the future in this poem, such as the implied future of the poem’s ending, affect the place of the subject within time, somehow delaying death and the End by placing it in an unknown temporal realm of the ‘world to come’. This delaying tactic is also reflected in the consistent use of syntactic inversion, such as anaphora, throughout the poem. This is a poetry that, in many respects, illustrates an awareness of the ‘ethos or dwelling place of humanity’ as ‘mortal time’ and is also consciously aware of its own particular lateness in a way that is quite different from the presentation of death in Ungaretti’s earlier work.70 It is also one, however, which, through its lexical, syntactic and temporal patterning, seems to resist the ‘becoming bone’ and the loss of humanity which the advent of death occasions; it acknowledges, and gives voice to the tensions inherent within the contemplation of the End, staging a dialogue between transcendence and finitude.

Conclusion: ‘A speaking of death full of love for life’? In this essay, I have considered how age impacts on Ungaretti’s thematics and stylistics, drawing out elements of what might be termed his ‘late style’. In answer to Said’s question, ‘Does one grow wiser with age, and are there unique qualities of perception and form that artists acquire as a result of age in the late phase of their career?’71 I propose that the poetic legacy of loss in the late works can be identified in Ungaretti’s recourse to ‘original’ tropes, to the focus on ‘innocenza’ [‘innocence’] and the youthful potential of love and the implied lost Chose, and, finally, the interplay between two drives which govern our existence, Eros and Thanatos. According to Adorno, late works are not well rounded, but wrinkled, even fissured. They are apt to lack sweetness, fending off with prickly tartness those interested merely in

 69

McMullan looks at certain binaries which often abound in accounts of artistic late style: ‘serene/irascible’, ‘childlike/difficult’ and ‘archaic/proleptic’ amongst others, are discussed on pp. 45-49. 70 Robert Pogue Harrison, The Dominion of the Dead (Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press, 2003), p. 2. Harrison’s fascinating study, which examines the relationship between the living and the dead in Western culture, has the main objective of uncovering ‘the humic foundations of our life worlds’ (p. x). In this book he looks at the ‘awareness of death that defines human nature’, and in particular, ‘our awareness that we follow in the footsteps of the dead’ (p. ix). 71 Said, p. 6.

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sampling them. They lack all that harmony which the classicist aesthetic is accustomed to demand from the work of art.72

While Ungaretti’s stylistic and formal variety in the late work points to the ‘fissured’ nature of his ‘late style’, there is not, as we have seen, a total lack of harmony, as Adorno would have. With regards to the ultimate ending, that of death (considered in both linguistic and subjective terms in this essay), Ungaretti’s secretary noted the following about the way in which Ungaretti perceived his own death: To the idea of his death I was accustomed, even if I did not want to think about it, even if he himself, with his immense vitality, did not let me think about it. And he did not speak willingly of it, even if in his last poems it is always subterraneously foreshadowed. I recall one evening two summers ago, and a long walk through the deserted city, in the middle of August, in the warm persistent twilight and until late, in the darkness of night, leaning on my arm, and his calm speaking of it, sober, even sweet, and the shivers I felt more than once on my back. A speaking of death full of love for life.73

Ungaretti’s final works, which are, in many ways, ‘a speaking of death full of love for life’, do not offer either an entirely consolatory or apocalyptic vision to the reader. The successful nature of these poems written by an ageing man lies in the tension they articulate between two opposing notions; between loss and its potential to be tempered by the forces of love and the memory of childhood. His final poems would appear to grapple with the ‘shadow of the gable’ and do not by any means ‘sever us from our losses’ or ‘seal off the long perspectives’.74



72 Theodor Adorno, Beethoven: The Philosophy of Music: Fragments and Texts, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann, trans. by Edmund Jephcott (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998; first published in German in 1993), p. 123. 73 Ariodante Marianni, ‘Remembering Giuseppe Ungaretti’, trans. by Italo Romano, Books Abroad, 44 (1970), 598-601 (p. 601). 74 ‘But fictions too easy we call “escapist”; we want them not only to console but to make discoveries of the hard truth here and now, in the middest. We do not feel they are doing this if we cannot see the shadow of the gable, or hear the discoveries of dissonance, the word set against the word. The books which seal off the long perspectives, which sever us from our losses, which represent the world of potency as a world of act, these are books which, when the drug wears off, go on the dump with the other empty bottles. Those that continue to interest us move through time to an end, an end which we must sense even if we cannot know it; they live in change, until, which is never, as and is are one.’ (Kermode, p. 179).

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‘In my end / is my beginning’ Nascendo non sai nulla, Vivendo impari poco, Ma forse nel morire ti parrà Che l’unica dottrina Sia quella che si affina Se in amore si segrega. (‘Cinque’, from ‘Proverbi’, TleP 293-4)75

As far back as the trenches of L’Allegria in Ungaretti’s earliest work, fraternity acted as a great consolation for the soldier-poet, death somehow tempered by an overwhelming sense of, and inextricable connection to, life and humanity. Over fifty years later, with the weight of experience incapable of altering the essential, Ungaretti’s remarkably vital final work reminds us once more that love, with its poignant proximity to death, ought to be considered one of the most important emotional forces of human existence if not the most important one. It is with love and the concomitant poetic creativity that has sustained him in old age that Ungaretti seems to have found the ‘segreto’ that eluded him throughout his life and work.

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[‘Born you know nothing | In living you learn little | But perhaps in dying it will seem to you | That the only doctrine | Is that which is refined | If in love it is isolated’].



TOWARDS A POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY OF AGEING:1 A DISCUSSION OF THE REPRESENTATION OF OLD AGE IN THE WRITINGS OF GABRIELLE ROY JULIE RODGERS

This essay argues that French-Canadian writer Gabrielle Roy manages to deconstruct many of the negative stereotypes associated with the ageing process and instead demonstrate how old age has the potential to be a positive and enriching period of one’s life. Of course, this does not mean that what we encounter in the Royan universe is an unrealistically optimistic portrait of old age. While her writing does not overlook the loneliness that is felt when one’s children have grown up and flown the nest, or ignore the physical decline that comes with ageing, what it does do is refuse to focus solely on the negative aspects of ageing as the only defining features of the experience. As a result, Roy provides a more balanced picture of old age by also considering the possibility of selfaffirmation in later life. Old people are people who have lived a certain number of years, and that is all [...]. Once an older person comes to be seen, not as old first and provisionally a person second, but as a person who happens to be old, and who is still as he or she always was, plus experience [...], only then will social gerontology have made its point.2

It is an unfortunate fact that much discussion of old age in literature depicts the phenomenon of ageing as either ‘une sorte de secret honteux

 1

This title is borrowed from an essay by Rob Ranzijn which highlights the importance of casting off our prejudices about old age and instead focusing on the positive experiences that can come with growing old. Rob Ranzijn, ‘Towards a Positive Psychology of Ageing’ in Ajaya Kumar Sahoo et al. (eds.), Sociology of Ageing (Jaipur: Rawat, 2009), pp. 382-97. 2 Alex Comfort, A Good Old Age (New York: Crown, 1976), pp. 13, 27.

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dont il est indécent de parler’3 [‘a kind of shameful secret that is unseemly to mention’] or as a process of such extreme physical and psychological degradation that the elderly person is cast outside of humanity while the world looks on with disgust.4 A search in any thesaurus for synonyms of ‘old’ produces telling results, with adjectives such as decrepit, worn, obsolete, old-fashioned and out-of-date featuring among the most frequently suggested alternatives. The state of being old, if we are to adhere to commonplace representation, is very much akin to Kristeva’s concept of the abject set out in Pouvoirs de l’horreur – it is an undesirable aspect of life that encroaches on the borders of the self; it is a position of ‘otherness’ that is to be feared and denounced; it is the ultimate threat to the ‘subject’. 5 The old person is thus a deject who does not belong anywhere and old age a messy space that is demarcated as separate from the space of the unified, coherent self.6 In their essay ‘Ageing, Abjection and Embodiment in the Fourth Age’, Gilleard and Higgs develop this association of old age with Kristeva’s theory of the abject by focusing on the decrease in corporeal agency that results from the ageing process which, to their mind, is the key factor in society’s horror of the aged body and its subsequent ostracising of the elderly.7 As if the ordeal of ageing alone were not bad enough, when you are of the female sex and approaching the latter stages of life, it would appear to be even worse. ‘The double standard of ageing’, according to Susan Sontag,8 creates a

 3

Simone de Beauvoir, La Vieillesse (Paris: Gallimard, 2009; [1970]), p. 7; Old Age, translated by Patrick O’Brien (Middlesex: Penguin, 1972), p. 9. Translations from this text come from O’Brien. 4 In a recently published special issue of Forum for Modern Language Studies dedicated to an examination of literary representations of ageing, Joy Charnley, editor of the volume, makes a similar point in the introduction: ‘In [...] literary depiction, ageing is rarely, if ever, seen as having any potentially positive aspects: age means loss of physical and mental faculties, the fading of beauty, an increasing dependency.’ ‘Introduction: Representations of Age in European Literatures’, Forum for Modern Language Studies, 47.2, (2011), 121-25 (p. 122). 5 Kristeva is not the first theorist to consider old age as a position of extreme otherness. Simone de Beauvoir makes a similar argument in La Vieillesse where she declares, ‘me penser vieille, c’est me penser autre’ (p. 11) [‘thinking of myself as an old person [...] means thinking of myself as another than myself’]. 6 See Julia Kristeva, Pouvoirs de l’horreur (Paris: Seuil, 1980) for further discussion of the connection between old age and the abject. 7 See Chris Gilleard and Paul Higgs, ‘Ageing, Abjection and Embodiment in the Fourth Age’, Journal of Ageing Studies, 25 (2011), 135-42. 8 Susan Sontag, ‘The Double Standard of Ageing’, Saturday Review of Literature, 39 (1972), pp. 29-38.



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panic among women in a society that values the beauty of youth, but does not affect men quite so acutely. For Sontag, society is much more permissive about ageing in men than in women, and women are deemed obsolete, particularly when it comes to sexual eligibility, at a much younger age than men.9 Naomi Wolf supports this observation when she remarks in The Beauty Myth that while ‘men have evidence of a generation above theirs of old, successful men, who look their age, contemporary women have few such role models’.10 Ours is undoubtedly, therefore, a society that fears ageing and the elderly: ‘Rather than venerate their years and listen to their wisdom, we segregate them [...]. The happy, productive elderly remain invisible in our midst’. 11 By presenting the positive approach to ageing evident in the novels of Gabrielle Roy, 12 this essay hopes to go some way towards



9 In the section entitled ‘De la maturité à la vieillesse’ of Le Deuxième sexe (1949), Beauvoir states that whereas a man grows old gradually, a woman is suddenly deprived of her femininity; she is still relatively young when she loses the erotic attractiveness and the fertility which, in her view and society’s, provide the justification of her existence and her opportunity for happiness. See Simone de Beauvoir, Le Deuxième sexe, 2 vols (Paris: Gallimard, 1973, [1949]). Fifty years later, Anne Fausto-Sterling makes a similar point with regard to menopause, suggesting that little progress has been made in the way we view women who are ageing. Fausto-Sterling demonstrates how, rather than being seen as releasing women from their monthly slavery to the sex hormones, menopause commonly involves them in a whole range of new, possibly more frightening horrors – the prospect of shrivelling vaginas, reduced sexual desire, infertility, baldness, increased facial hair, atrophied breasts, no longer a woman, not a man, an individual relegated to the world of intersex. See Anne Fausto-Sterling, ‘Menopause: The Storm before the Calm’, in Janet Price and Margrit Shildrick (eds.), Feminist Theory and the Body (Edinburgh: EUP, 1999), pp. 169-78 (p. 170). 10 Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth (London: Vintage, 1991) p. 55. 11 Fausto-Sterling, p. 170. 12 For those who are not familiar with Gabrielle Roy (1909-1983), she was a French-Canadian writer, born and raised in Saint-Boniface, Manitoba but who spent most of her adult life and literary career in Montreal, interspersed with travels in Europe, notably in France and England. Her first novel, Bonheur d’occasion, was published in 1945 and was instantly successful both at home and abroad (the novel has been translated into numerous different languages, including English, German, Chinese, Korean, Danish, Spanish, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Dutch, Norwegian, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Swedish, Czech and Ukrainian). Bonheur d’occasion was awarded the prestigious Prix Fémina in 1947 as well as the Governor General’s Prize for Literature in the same year. Gabrielle



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countering the array of negative stereotypes associated with ageing and the elderly that continue to penetrate depictions of old age in literature. In fact, as the Harris study13 illustrates, many of the ideas that we have concerning old age are simply our own prejudiced preconceptions rather than the actual lived experiences of the elderly.14 Evidence to the contrary of these pessimistic generalisations is beginning to emerge in the fields of psychology and gerontology and the possibility of approaching the study of ageing from a positive angle, for example, through identifying and focusing on areas of growth and potential among the elderly as opposed to concentrating on the usual loss and decline associated with ageing, is coming to the fore in a number of disciplines.15 It is the aim of this chapter to pursue such a trajectory by examining the positive subject experiences of ageing in a selection of works by Gabrielle Roy rather than depicting the passage into old age as one solely of decay and decrepitude.16 To quote Harris and Cole, Most research and writing about the elderly appears to concentrate on the negative aspects of aging, stressing mental and physical decline, with little or no attention being given to the positive side of growing old. In fact, having just read this sentence, you are probably asking yourself whether there are any positive aspects to aging. We need to change the popular,



Roy went on to publish a wide range of novels, short stories, autobiographical works and essays/articles right up until her death in 1983. A research group specifically dedicated to the writing of Gabrielle Roy, headed by Roy’s biographer Professor François Ricard, is based at McGill University in Montreal (http:gabrielle-roy.mcgill.ca). 13 ‘The Harris Study’ was carried out by Louis Harris in 1975. Results from the study are referred to by Diane Harris and William Cole in Sociology of Aging (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980), p. 14. 14 Substantial discrepancies between how old people are perceived by others and how old people perceive themselves are revealed by the Harris report. For example, less than one third of the public considered the elderly to be ‘bright, alert and adaptable’, whereas over two thirds of the elderly questioned claimed these attributes for themselves. 15 As indicated for example by Ranzijn, p. 382. 16 This does not mean that Roy presents an unrealistically optimistic portrait of old age. Her novels do not overlook the loneliness that is felt when one’s children have grown up and flown the nest, nor do they ignore the physical ailments that come with ageing. What Roy does do, however, is refuse to focus on the negative aspects of ageing as the only defining features of the experience. Instead, she provides a more balanced picture of old age by also considering the possibility of positive experiences in later life.



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negative concept of aging and achieve a more balanced view of both its positive and negative aspects.17

Given Gabrielle Roy’s reputation as literary innovator in a number of areas, it is perhaps not surprising that she should break the mould when it comes to an experience that is so often presented in literature as unfortunate, if not catastrophic. She was thus innovative in the field of the urban novel in the history of Quebec literature; was a feminist writer ahead of her times and also a migrant or transnational writer before the phenomenon had even begun to emerge in literature. 18 That said, until now, most studies of old age in the work of Gabrielle Roy have tended to concentrate mainly on the more negative aspects of the experience (in particular, solitude), rather than seeing the challenge to the stereotypes associated with ageing that can be detected through closer examination. Perhaps the most substantial examination of the representation of old age in the fiction of Gabrielle Roy that has been published so far is the chapter entitled ‘The Resignation of Old Age, Sickness and Death’ in Paula Gilbert Lewis’ The Literary Vision of Gabrielle Roy.19 The overall image of old age that emerges from Lewis’ discussion however, is one that is ‘pitifully sad’ (p.138). For Gilbert Lewis, Roy’s elderly characters are essentially dispossessed, robbed of their youth and, therefore, of their former sense of usefulness. Their lives are described as being filled with boredom, solitude, regrets, nostalgia, a lack of any more desires, and a fear of total abandonment by the children. (p.138)

Gilbert Lewis focuses on the shame that Roy’s ageing characters feel in the face of their increasing infirmities and the difficulties that they experience in relating to younger generations. Although Gilbert Lewis does admit that the older characters of the Royan universe remain ‘deeply

 17

Harris and Cole, p. 147; henceforth referred to as Harris and Cole. See André Brochu, Bonheur d’occasion: Une étude (Quebec: Boréal, 1998) for a discussion of Bonheur d’occasion (1945) as announcing the birth of the ‘roman de la ville’ in Quebec literature; Agnès Whitfield, ‘Relire Gabrielle Roy, écrivaine’ in Queen’s Quarterly, Spring 1990, 53-56 for an unveiling of the (until recently) overlooked feminist aspects of Roy’s writing; Rosemary Chapman, Between Languages and Cultures: Colonial and Postcolonial Readings of Gabrielle Roy (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s, 2009) for an analysis of the transnational nature of Roy’s literary output. 19 Paula Gilbert Lewis, The Literary Vision of Gabrielle Roy: An Analysis of her Works (Alabama: Summa, 1984). 18



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proud’ (p. 140) despite their wretched situations and indicates moments of warmth between the young and the old, for the most part, her analysis of old age in Roy’s fiction evokes familiar stereotypes20 of the elderly as cantankerous and burdensome.21 The approach that this essay will adopt concerning the representation of old age in the novels of Roy is more in line with the recent tendency of Royan scholars to reinterpret Roy’s work from alternative angles, highlighting the more subtle layers to the Royan narrative that risk being overlooked on a first reading. For example, seeing Roy as a writer with feminist leanings, which is now a firmly established reading of her texts but did not emerge until the 1980s and 1990s. Prior to this Roy was considered a ‘traditional’ writer in her representations of women, in that it was felt that she upheld the patriarchal norms of her time.22 It is my belief that the same attitude applies to her representation of ageing, which has until now, on the whole, focused on the experience as one that is ‘likened to a prison’.23 Following on from Lori Saint-Martin’s observation in La Voyageuse et la prisonnière of the creative capacities of the figure of the elderly woman in the Roy universe,24 this essay will attempt to go much further by demonstrating the extent to which Roy questions a whole range of negative stereotypes associated with old age and consequently, posits the experience of ageing as a potentially enriching one. At this stage in the argument it is important to begin gathering evidence to support the contention that the writings of Gabrielle Roy manage to challenge a substantial number of the negative stereotypes often associated with growing old. First of all, many of Gabrielle Roy’s elderly characters contradict the myth, as identified by Harris and Cole (pp. 3-4),

 20

As outlined by Harris and Cole, pp. 3-4. While there is indeed evidence to support a pessimistic interpretation of old age in Roy, the present essay intends to nuance the analysis by arguing that there are just as many occasions when being old in the Royan universe is presented in a positive light. 22 See Carol Harvey, ‘Gabrielle Roy: A Writer Ahead of her Time’ (pp. 97-109) and Lori Saint-Martin, ‘Une femme dans le siècle’ in Paul Socken (ed.), Gabrielle Roy aujourd’hui (Quebec: Université Laval, 2003), pp. 171-81. 23 Gilbert Lewis, p. 138. 24 Lori Saint-Martin, La Voyageuse et la prisonnière (Quebec: Boréal, 2002). In her study, Saint-Martin draws our attention to the figure of the grandmother in La Route d’Altamont who transforms herself, in the eyes of her granddaughter, into an artist and divine creator through the fabrication of a ragdoll (pp. 276-80). This point will be developed further later in this essay. 21



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that old age is a period of overwhelming fatigue, when one is no longer fit for activity of any kind. In the texts selected for analysis in this essay – Rue Deschambault (1955) [Street of Riches], La Route d’Altamont (1966) [The Road Past Altamont], Un jardin au bout du monde (1975) [Garden in the Wind], La détresse et l’enchantement (1984) [Enchantment and Sorrow] and De quoi t’ennuies-tu, Eveline? (1984) [‘What’s bothering you Evelyn?’]25 – many of the elderly men and women that we encounter are still eager for adventure and new discoveries despite their great age. For example, the journey to Lake Winnipeg in the second story of La Route d’Altamont and the long trips undertaken to visit one’s family in La détresse et l’enchantement and De quoi t’ennuies-tu, Eveline?26 Not only are these journeys evidence of a continued energy and enthusiasm for life when one is old, they also highlight one of the most positive consequences of old age which, according to Harris and Cole is undoubtedly [...] the increase in personal freedom. After retirement, a person’s time is no longer structured around an eight-hour working day. A person becomes his or her own boss. [...]. Although the elderly have lost many roles at this point in the life cycle, they have gained greater freedom and an opportunity to do as they please.27

Just like their determination to travel, when it comes to work, many of the elderly in the Royan universe have no intention of downing tools and ceasing all enterprise; the grandmother in the opening story of La Route d’Altamont continues to tend to her vegetable garden with pride and assiduity despite the fact that she no longer has a large family to feed, as does Martha with her flowers in Un jardin au bout du monde. This notion



25 Gabrielle Roy, Rue Deschambault (Quebec: Boreal, 1993; [1955]); La Route d’Altamont (Quebec: Boreal, 1993; [1966]); Un jardin au bout du monde (Quebec: Boreal, 1994; [1975]); La détresse et l’enchantement (Quebec: Boreal Express, 1984); De quoi t’ennuies-tu, Eveline? Ely, Ely, Ely! (Quebec: Boreal, 1988; [1984]). Henceforth, these texts will be referred to respectively as RD, RA, JBM, DE and DQEE. All translations into English of quotations from Roy are my own. 26 Of her own mother, Mélina Roy, Gabrielle Roy reveals that ‘vers la fin de ses jours terrestres, malade et vieillie’ [‘reaching the end of her time on earth, sick and old’] she remained ‘tout animée encore cependant des grands désirs de sa vie pour les sites et les beautés du monde’ [‘continually enthused nonetheless for the sights and beauties of the world, the great desires of her life’]. Gabrielle Roy, ‘Mon héritage du Manitoba’ in Fragiles Lumières de Terre (Quebec: Boreal, 1996; [1978]), p. 157. 27 Harris and Cole, p. 148.



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that all old people are ‘infirm’ and ‘inactive’28 and that they need to rest and take life at a slower pace is something, it would seem, that comes from the outside and not from the elderly themselves, who feel perfectly capable of physical exertion. Thus, it is the characters of the younger generation who are constantly dissuading the aged from any form of activity, out of worry for their health. In an ironic reversal of roles, the daughter in La détresse et l’enchantement (Roy herself, as this is her autobiography) expresses anger at the mother’s constant to-ing and froing: ‘C’était ridicule à la fin, une vieille femme de son âge passant son été à trimer chez l’oncle, ensuite, à peine de retour, déjà sur les chemins, comme une pauvresse’ (DE 190) [‘But was ridiculous, an old woman of her age, spending her summer slaving away at the uncle’s place, and then, when she was hardly back home, on the road again like a pauper’].29 In a similar tone, the daughter in ‘Ma grand-mère toute puissante’ (RA) is of the opinion that her mother should give up her independent lifestyle and the daily chores that it involves (which, one should add, the mother actually enjoys) and instead lead a life more suited to an elderly person, one of quiet and respite, by moving in with her: ‘Trouvez-vous que cela a du sens, une vieille femme seule cultiver assez de légumes pour nourrir tout un canton?’ (RA 24) [‘Do you think that is wise, an old woman on her own growing enough vegetables for a whole district?’] and ‘De l’ouvrage [...]. N’en avez-vous pas assez fait dans votre vie’ (RA 30) [‘Haven’t you done enough work in your life?’].30 It would appear that exhibitions of energy and a desire for autonomy on the part of the elderly give rise to disapproval from the outside and are quickly quelled. There is a mode of behaviour that is deemed appropriate for those who are young and a different set of rules for those who are old: ‘ou l’on est jeune, et c’est le temps de s’élancer en avant pour connaître le monde; ou l’on est vieux, et c’est le temps de se reposer’ (RA 123) [‘Either you are young and it is the moment to surge forward and discover the world; or you are old, and it is time to rest’]. It is not therefore, simply a case of being old inevitably equating with lethargy and a state of being worn-out and no longer useful,

 28

Harris and Cole, pp. 3-4. Roy reveals that she used to be the one on the receiving end of her mother’s complaints that she was constantly on the move: ‘Hier c’était elle qui me parlait ainsi’ [‘Yesterday, she was the one speaking to me like this’] (DE 190). 30 Interestingly, the grandmother retorts ‘Mes légumes, vous serez peut-être contents d’en avoir’ (RA 24) [‘My vegetables, you will perhaps be glad to have them’], a comment which reveals that her work is not necessarily in vain, that her produce could indeed be put to good use and does not merit being judged pointless. 29



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but, rather, that this is expected of them and, as a result, imposed on them from the outside. Closely linked to the myth that all old people need to slow down and are no longer fit for physical activity, is the equally negative belief that old age means an end to one’s intellectual capacities. However, as Harris and Cole point out, Among the plus factors of later maturity is, first of all, an increase in general knowledge. The longer a person lives, the more facts and information that person is likely to accumulate. [...] older people know more words and have a larger vocabulary when they get older.31

Thus, in ‘Le Vieillard et l’enfant’ (RA), we witness the elderly character Monsieur Saint-Hilaire teaching new words such as ‘superficie’ (RA 53) [‘surface area’] to his young companion and clarifying difficult expressions: ‘Et je demandai enfin: “Qu’est-ce que ça veut dire: la terre qui poudroie?”...et le vieillard m’expliqua’ (RA 43) [‘And finally I enquired: “What does that mean: land that turns into powder?”...and the old man explained it to me’]. However, where Gabrielle Roy is concerned, the story that perhaps best refutes this second negative stereotype relating to old age, that ‘with the aging process there is a marked decrease in intelligence’,32 is ‘Ma grand-mère toute puissante’ (RA). Having been sent to her grandmother’s home during the summer holidays, the young narrator is sure that she is going to be unhappy for the duration of her stay, in the presence of this ‘grande vieille qui me faisait peur’ (RA 9) [‘old woman who frightened me’]. At first, the image that is presented of the grandmother is one that corresponds perfectly to all the stereotypes: lonely, useless and deteriorating physically and mentally.33 However, as soon as the grandmother suggests making a ragdoll as a means of entertaining her young granddaughter (and we should note that the inspiration comes from the former and not the latter), a transformation of sorts seems to occur and the old woman goes from being pitiable to magical. ‘Cette pauvre chère vieille’ (RA 10) [‘this poor, dear old thing’]

 31

Harris and Cole, p. 147. Harris and Cole, p. 4 33 Again, we must bear in mind however, that this is the image of the grandmother imposed from the outside and not necessarily how she sees herself – it is only the daughter’s gaze that we have access to. In fact, we have reason to believe the opposite – the grandmother loves her home and still has plenty of activities with which to occupy herself (her vegetable garden for example). 32



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is suddenly imbued with all sorts of powers as the doll is pieced together by the grandmother ‘de la tête aux pieds ... et sans besoin d’aller aux magasins pour quoi que ce soit’ (RA 19) [‘from head to toe ... and without needing to go to the shops for anything whatsoever’]. The granddaughter, who at first felt sorry for her grandmother, now marvels at her ‘talent créateur’ (RA 15) [‘creative talent’], ‘la majesté de son cerveau’ (RA 17) [‘the majesty of her mind’] and ‘l’ingéniosité de ses mains’ (RA 17) [‘the genius of her hands’]. In fact, the granddaughter is in such awe of her grandmother that she goes so far as to compare her to ‘Dieu le Père’ (RA 19) [‘God the Father’] and states that following the afternoon where she witnessed her grandmother create a treasure from what seemed liked scraps, longtemps il me resta dans l’idée que ce ne pouvait être un homme sûrement qui eût fait le monde. Mais peut-être une vieille femme aux mains habiles. (RA 21) [for a long time, I believed that it surely couldn’t have been a man who created the universe, but, possibly, an old woman with agile hands].

A similar talent for creativity, this time in the realm of story-telling, is demonstrated by Eveline, the elderly mother of De quoi t’ennuies-tu, Eveline? During a long bus journey (with the purpose of visiting her brother), Eveline, a gifted raconteur, captures and holds the attention of all the other passengers in the same way that the grandmother of La Route d’Altamont enthralls her granddaughter with her prowess as a seamstress. C’était étrange ce qui se passait autour d’elle: à l’entendre, à la voir, elle qui était certainement très vieille, tous paraissaient rajeunis, égayés, et non seulement elle les rendait ainsi en restituant aux gens leurs propres souvenirs, mais c’était aussi elle, apparemment, qui leur faisait découvrir la beauté, l’intensité du présent. (DQE 35) [What was going on around her was strange: through listening to her and looking at this woman who was clearly very old, everyone seemed younger, happier, and not only did she render others so by restoring personal memories to them, she also, it would seem, enabled them to discover the beauty and intensity of the present].

Through the examples of these two formidable artists, Gabrielle Roy is showing us that old age does not necessarily bring about decreased intellectual ability. On the contrary, old age in the Royan world is synonymous with ‘better judgment [...] wisdom [...] greater deliberation



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and poise’. 34 We recall, therefore, the profound insights of the elderly Monsieur Saint-Hilaire on the meaning of life during his outings with his young friend throughout ‘Le vieillard et l’enfant’ (RA) and how the ageing mother informs her rebellious daughter in the closing story of La Route d’Altamont that knowledge is not the property of the young but rather, of life’s veterans: ‘T’imagines-tu donc que l’on comprend quand on est jeune? Comprendre, c’est l’affaire de expérience, de toute une vie ...’ (RA 148) [‘Do you think that one really understands when one is young? Understanding is the outcome of experience, of a whole lifetime’]. Given that Roy’s elderly characters, in opposition to common preconceptions about old age, are capable of both physical work and intellectual activity, it is not surprising that this should be reflected in their appearance. Monsieur Saint-Hilaire of ‘Le vieillard et l’enfant’ (RA) has by no means given up on himself just because he is old. On the contrary, he is always well turned-out, ‘soigné et propre’ [‘neat and clean’] as if ‘dans l’attente de quelque noble visite’ (RA 45) [‘waiting for some noble visitors’]. As Harris and Cole state, how one adapts to ageing depends on one’s personality, and many elderly people, as is the case for Roy’s Monsieur Saint-Hilaire, remain focused on living, continue to function well and have ‘feelings of high regard for themselves’.35 With respect to this point, it is also important to highlight the descriptions of the eyes of Roy’s elderly characters, which are far from extinguished, but rather, burning with life and curiosity. When the elderly mother is taken on a trip by her daughter in the final story of La Route d’Altamont, the daughter notes how she ‘se mit à regarder intensément autour d’elle’ (RA 119) [‘started to look intensely around her’] and remarks on her inquisitiveness and passion for her surroundings: ‘bien trop vivante encore, trop amoureuse de la vie, pour préférer le temps fixé dans la mémoire’ (RA 119) [‘still far too alive and too in love with life to prefer the static time of memory’]. Similarly, when Monsieur Saint-Hilaire has someone to talk to, ‘ses yeux pétillaient vif comme un feu qui prend bien’ (RA 43) [‘his eyes shone brightly like a well-lit fire’], which leads us to believe that Roy is suggesting that the lack of alertness commonly associated with old age is in fact largely due to the tendency for the elderly to be ignored, abandoned or relegated to a state of uselessness: ‘Plus bonne à rien [...] voudrais m’en aller’ (RA 32) [‘No longer fit for anything [...] I’d prefer to go’], laments the grandmother of ‘Ma grand-mère toute puissante’, the one who had

 34 35



Harris and Cole, p. 147. Harris and Cole, p. 143.

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previously made the ragdoll, when she is deprived of any purpose. This same character, however, is still capable of responding to stimulation when it is offered, even when she is on her death-bed at the end of the story. Having recently grown detached from everything around her, she enjoys a brief moment of respite from her suffering and emerges from a state of total disengagement when joined by her granddaughter who brings an old photo album for them both to look through: ‘Est-ce que ses yeux n’ont pas brillé un peu? Il me semble…’ (RA 35) [‘Did her eyes not shine a little? I think so…’]. The point that Roy would seem to be making therefore, is that old people are capable of being alert and motivated, but that opportunities for involvement in life must be provided for them. If the elderly are said to be cantankerous and grouchy,36 it is perhaps not so much that this behaviour is inherent to old age, but, rather, that it is due to the way that they are treated by society. When the grandmother in ‘Ma grand-mère toute puissante’ is more or less forced to leave her home to move in with her daughter ‘for her own good’, the granddaughter notes a complete change in the grandmother’s personality as a result of this quasi eviction: ‘Je n’étais donc encore qu’à moitié persuadée que ce fût vraiment elle qui vivait chez nous’ (RA 31) [‘I was still only half persuaded that it was really her who was living with us’]. At first the grandmother is defiant and snaps relentlessly at her daughter. For example, when shown which chair will be hers in her new abode, she snarls, ‘Pensez-vous que j’ai envie de passer ma vie assise maintenant?’ [‘Do you think I want to spend my life sitting down from now on’] and then warns her daughter, ‘Ne t’imagine pas que je vais m’éterniser ici’ (RA 29) [‘Don’t get it into your head that I am going to stay here until the end of my days’]. Over time however, she renounces the struggle and all the former aspects of her personality that her granddaughter so admired in her disintegrate: ‘le franc-parler, le courage, une vue perçante [...], où étaient-elles et comment avait-elle pu les laisser perdre’ (RA 32) [‘her honest way of speaking, her courage, her perceptiveness [...], where were they now and how could she have let them fade’]. As well as being critical of how old people are treated by others, Roy draws our attention to the patronising way that we speak about them: ‘pauvre vieille’ (RA 28) [‘poor old woman’], ‘pauvre âme’ (RA 32) [‘poor soul’] and ‘ce vieil enfant’ (RA 59) [‘this old child’]. Old people are unjustly deprived of the status of individual subject with their own personal history. Looking at her

 36



Harris and Cole, p. 4.

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grandmother in ‘Ma grand-mère toute puissante’, the little girl cannot imagine that this woman was once young and beautiful. Une grand-mère vieille et qui vieillirait peut-être encore un peu, cela je pouvais l’admettre, mais une grand-mère au pas alerte, aux yeux de feu et à l’épaisse chevelure noire, je ne le pouvais pas. Je suppose que je devais croire que ma grand-mère avait toujours été vieille. (RA 25) [An old grandmother who would get, perhaps, a bit older still, that I could admit. But a light-footed grandmother with shining eyes and thick black hair, that I couldn’t fathom. I suppose, in my mind, my grandmother had always been old].

The label of ‘old’, however, just like all the other stereotypes that accompany it, comes from the outside, Roy reveals.37 Hence, in Un jardin au bout du monde, husband and wife Stépan and Martha, refer not to themselves but to the other as old: for Stépan, Martha is ‘la vieille femme’ (JBM 145, 166) [‘the old woman’], but for Martha, it is Stépan who is the elderly one in the couple, labelling him ‘le vieux Stépan’ (JBM 125) [‘old Stépan’], ‘le pauvre vieil homme’ [‘the poor old man’], ‘le vieux’ [‘the old man’] and ‘vieil ours’ [‘old bear’] (JBM 167). Similarly, the reflection of the old woman that Eveline (DQEE) sees in the mirror is not recognised as her own: ‘Quelqu’un de [...] jeune encore en elle examinait le vieux visage avec étonnement, comme si c’était celui d’une inconnue’ (DQEE 32) [‘Someone else [...] younger in her examined this old face with surprise as if it belonged to someone she did not know’]. This refusal, on the part of Roy’s characters, to define and accept themselves as elderly highlights, I feel, the extent of the negative reputation associated with old age and the overriding stigmatisation of the process as one that is solely characterised by ‘decline, degeneration, and decrepitude’. 38 It is also due, as Alison Martin states, to ‘the tensions and mismatch between the objective social determinants of what it is to be old and inner subjectivity’.39 All of this, therefore, points to the need to develop an interpretation of old age that is much more embracing of plural experiences and which allows for the process to be envisaged as one that is positive and productive, normal and

 37

A similar point is made by Alison Martin in her essay ‘Old Age and the OtherWithin: Beauvoir’s Representation of Ageing in La Vieillesse’ in Forum for Modern Language Studies, 47.2, 126-37, where she writes that ‘[s]ociety determines who is old, and brutally obliterates their existence to an objecthood that is beyond even utility’ (p. 128). 38 Mary M. Gergen and Kenneth J. Gergen, ‘Positive Aging: New Images for a New Age’, Ageing International, 27.1, 3-23 (p. 3). 39 Martin, p. 132.



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healthy, rather than a stage of life which rouses feelings of terror, shame and denial.40 A further stereotype associated with the elderly, as identified by Harris and Cole and dismissed by Roy, is an increased anxiety of impending death. As Harris and Cole point out Many people assume that because older people have relatively little time left and death is more imminent for them, they are more fearful of death than younger persons are. Research suggests just the opposite is true. Death appears less frightening to the elderly than to those who are younger.41

In discussions about death between Monsieur Saint-Hilaire and the young narrator, it is the latter who is depicted as much more distressed about death than her elderly companion, whose attitude is one of peaceful acceptance of his approaching departure from this world. For Monsieur Saint-Hilaire, death is ‘tout ce qu’il y a de plus naturel. On a fait sa vie. On a comme le goût d’aller voir maintenant de l’autre côté’ (RA 84) [‘a most natural occurrence. One has lived one’s life and one would now like to go and see the other side’]. His young companion, on the other hand, reveals herself to be much more apprehensive about the normal progression of life and declares ‘Mais je ne voulais pas vieillir, je voulais tout savoir sans vieillir; mais surtout, j’imagine, je ne voulais pas voir vieillir autour de moi’ (RA 81) [‘But I didn’t want to grow old, I wanted to know everything without ageing; and I especially, I think, didn’t want to see anyone around me getting old’]. Like Monsieur Saint-Hilaire who accepts the fact of growing old and dying, when Martha’s final moment arrives in Un jardin au bout du monde, she quietly and composedly hands herself over to death: ‘Martha croisa les mains. Elle eut un soupir. A cette humble immortalité de l’air, du vent, des herbes, elle confia son âme’ (JBM 169) [‘Martha crossed her hands and let out a sigh, handing over her soul to the immortality of the air, the wind and the plants’]. Again, we are left with the impression that the elderly see death as a natural end as opposed to a terrifying and cruel snatching of life. Perhaps the most positive aspect relating to old age that emerges from Roy’s treatment of the theme, is its potential for new and enriching

 40

See Eric T. Juengst, ‘Can Aging Be Interpreted as a Healthy, Positive Process’ in May Wykle et al. (eds.), Successful Aging Through The Life Span (New York: Springer, 2004), pp. 3-19. 41 Harris and Cole, p. 395.



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relationships with members of the younger generations. Already we have seen a bond blossom between grandmother and granddaughter in our discussion of the ragdoll day in ‘Ma grand-mère toute puissante’ (RA)42 where the role of grandparent provides a sense of ‘emotional selffulfilment and the satisfaction of being a teacher and a resource person’.43 Other positive relationships that emerge between an elderly person and a young child occur in ‘Le vieillard et l’enfant’ (RA) and ‘Mon chapeau rose’ (RD) 44 where the elderly companion enjoys a playful relationship with the child and represents a source of fun and leisure.45 As opposed to being presented as generations so far apart that they cannot understand one another, the young and the old in the Royan universe are depicted as having a lot in common and much to offer each other: ‘Ne serait-il pas qu’il est naturel aux petites mains à peine formées, aux vieilles mains aménuisées, de se joindre’ (RA 43) [‘Is it not that it is natural for little hands, barely formed, to join with old and worn-out hands’]. The elderly are inspired by the energy and curiosity of their younger companions while the latter benefit from the wisdom and insight of the older generation. The young narrator of ‘Le vieillard et l’enfant’ describes herself and Monsieur Saint-Hiliare as ‘la meilleure paire’ (RA 86) [‘the best partnership’], two opposite but adjoining ends of ‘le cercle enfin uni des hommes’ [‘the circle of men, finally united’].46 To conclude, while Gabrielle Roy by no means portrays growing old as easy and without obstacles – indeed, the stereotype of solitude associated with old age does ring true in Roy’s writing with the sense that her elderly characters have all been abandoned by their now grown-up children47 –

 42

The positive relationship between grandmother and granddaughter in La Route d’Altamont is particularly interesting when one considers the fact that motherdaughter relations in Roy’s writing are, for the most part, highly conflictual, with the daughter shunning the mother’s example and determining to carve her own distinct and separate identity in a bid to succeed where the mother failed. See LoriSaint-Martin, Le nom de la mère: mères, filles et écriture dans la littérature québécoise au féminin (Quebec: Nota Bene, 1999), pp. 119-160 for further discussion of the mother-daughter relationship in the work of Gabrielle Roy. 43 Harris and Cole, p. 225. 44 In ‘Mon chapeau rose’ (RD), the young narrator escapes from her aunt’s back garden into the neighbouring garden of an elderly couple which is presented as a veritable paradise. She spends a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon in their company. 45 Harris and Cole, p. 225. 46 Gabrielle Roy, ‘Mon héritage du Manitoba’, Fragiles Lumières de la terre, p. 167. 47 See Gilbert Lewis, pp. 138-39.



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she does encourage us, I feel, to reflect on the overall negative manner in which we view this stage of life and, as has been illustrated here, challenge a number of misleading preconceptions relating to old age. Growing old, in the Royan universe, does not inevitably mean an end to all intellectual and creative ability, to the possibility of new friendships, new discoveries and further personal growth. On the contrary, for Roy, the appetite for life continues well into old age. However, it is perhaps the case that it is not until we are drawing close to old age ourselves that we finally realise this. Thus, the mother of La Route d’Altamont, who in the final story has reached an advanced age and who is tired of her daughter trying to curb her enthusiasm, declares Sais-tu que j’ai dit cette même chose cent fois à ma propre mère, quand il m’a semblé qu’elle devenait vieille: ‘Reposez-vous’, lui ai-je dit, et c’est maintenant seulement que je sais à quel point j’ai dû l’agacer. (RA 124) [Do you know that I said the same thing a hundred times to my mother, when it seemed to me that she was getting old: ‘Rest’, I said to her, and it is only now that I realise the extent to which I must have infuriated her.]

Similarly, in her autobiography, La Détresse et l’enchantement, Roy speaks of her own experience of growing old and how it caused her to reflect on her relationship with her mother when the latter was a similar age. She writes: ‘Il semblerait que l’on ne rejoint vraiment ses gens que lorsqu’on atteint l’âge qu’ils avaient’ (DE 143) [‘It would seem that we really only understand other people when we have reached the age that they were’]. What Roy calls upon us to do through her depiction of old age in both her fictional and autobiographical writings is to rethink our attitudes and work towards a better understanding of what it means to be old, casting off unhelpful prejudices and adopting a positive psychology to the experience of ageing, one which recognises the potential and not just the limitations of old people. It is time to consider the elderly as individuals in their own right rather than simply relegating them to the dehumanised status of ‘cadavres ambulants’ [‘walking corpses’].48 After all, in the words of an elderly gentleman himself, albeit a fictional one (Monsieur Saint-Hilaire), ‘on est pas tellement plus mal vieux que jeune’ (RA 81) [‘One is not that much worse off old than young’].

 48



Beauvoir, La Vieillesse, p. 13; p. 13 in the translation.



CONTRIBUTORS

Jean Anderson is Associate Professor of French at Victoria University of Wellington, where she founded the New Zealand Centre for Literary Translation in 2007. Her research interests range widely, from fin-desiècle and contemporary women’s writing, especially short fiction, to Francophone writing, particularly of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Her most recent publications are the co-edited books The Foreign in International Crime Writing: Transcultural Representations, with Carolina Miranda and Barbara Pezzotti (2012) and Écrire les hommes: Personnages masculins et masculinité dans les œuvres des écrivaines de la Belle Époque, with France Grenaudier-Klijn and Elisabeth-Christine Muelsch (2012). Nancy Arenberg is Associate Professor at the University of Arkansas and specialises in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century epistolary literature and theory, on which she has published widely. Her publications also include articles on Tunisian Jewish women authors such as Nine Moati and Colette Fellous and chapters on ageing, grieving and loss in the works of Tahar Ben Jelloun and Albert Bensoussan. Danielle Bishop is Programme Manager for the BA Modern Languages at the University of Plymouth, where she lectures in French. Her research interests focus on nineteenth-century French culture and society, specifically as they are reflected through the prism of Emile Zola’s Rougon-Macquart canon. She has recently been examining floral iconography in a selection of Zola’s novels, with particular emphasis on Le Rêve. Working within the School of Tourism and Hospitality, she also engages in departmental research initiatives and in 2011 she contributed an article on Zola’s Paris to a volume entitled Narrative and the Built Heritage: Papers in Tourism Research. Barbara Burns is Reader in German at the University of Glasgow. She has published books and articles on a number of nineteenth-century German writers, including Theodor Storm, Detlev von Liliencron, Louise von François, Adolf Müllner and Wilhelm Meinhold, and also has an interest in Swiss Studies, in particular the work of Eveline Hasler and Laure Wyss on which she has recently been publishing.

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Marzia Caporale is Associate Professor of French and Italian at the University of Scranton and specialises in French and Francophone Women’s literature and cinema. She is currently working on a chapter for an edited book on women and autobiography entitled ‘Exorcising Obscenity: Narrating Sex, Illness, and the Female Self in Annie Ernaux’s L’usage de la photo.’ Hans-Joachim Hahn is Emeritus Professor at Oxford Brookes University. His publications include German Thought and Culture (1995), German Education and Society (1998), The 1848 Revolutions in German-Speaking Europe (2001), and numerous essays on German literature from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially Novalis, Eichendorff, Goethe, Heine, Freytag, Keller, Benn Hofmannsthal and Hesse. He is currently working on Dadaism. Louise Johnson is Senior Lecturer in Catalan and Spanish at the University of Sheffield. She has published extensively on modern Catalan literature, with a particular focus on Llorenç Villalonga, and on modern Spanish and Catalan cultural history and cultural studies, focusing on the interaction of intellectuals, physical culture and sport, and on visual culture. Debra Kelly is Professor of French and Francophone Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Westminster, London. She has particular research interests in text and image studies, war and culture studies, the relationship between literature and cultural memory and Franco-British cultural relations. Her major publications are Pierre AlbertBirot. A Poetics in Movement, A Poetics of Movement (1997) and Autobiography and Independence. Selfhood and Creativity in North African Postcolonial Writing in French (2005). In addition, she has published on writers including Guillaume Apollinaire, Philippe Soupault, Jean Tardieu, Robert Pinget, Albert Camus and Assia Djebar. She is currently coordinating a collective research project on the History of the French in London from the Huguenots to the Present Day, and a co-edited volume entitled The French in London. Liberty, Equality, Opportunity will appear in 2013. Eleanor Parker is currently Lecturer in Italian at St Anne’s College, University of Oxford. She has published on Ungaretti’s ‘Il Dolore’ and on pedagogical theory, with forthcoming publications on Patrizia Valduga’s ‘Requiem’, and Margherita Guidacci and the visual arts. In addition to



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modern European poetry, her other research interests include trauma theory, psychoanalytical criticism and the relationship between Italian Renaissance art and modern poetry. She is an Associate of the Higher Education Academy and has a keen interest in outreach and access work. Juliet Perkins was formerly Senior Lecturer in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at King’s College London, where her teaching covered Portuguese Literature and Drama from the Middle Ages to the present century. Her monograph, The Feminine in the Poetry of Herberto Helder, was the first full-length study in English of Portugal’s most influential contemporary poet. In the field of theatre, she has published A Critical Study and Translation of António José da Silva’s ‘Cretan Labyrinth’ as well articles on Gil Vicente, the folk theatre of São Tomé, and eighteenth-century musical theatre. She has also written on Portuguese Modernism, Socialist Realist fiction, and on various literary adaptations of the Inês de Castro episode. She is currently part of a UK-USA team translating the fifteenthcentury chronicles of Fernão Lopes and other post-retirement projects include a group of essays on the novelist José Cardoso Pires and a survey of Portuguese travel literature in translation. Idoya Puig has taught Spanish at Manchester Metropolitan University since 1994. She has published a number of articles on Cervantes and the portrayal of relationships in his works and in 2009 edited a collection of articles exploring the influence of Cervantes on some Spanish contemporary authors entitled Tradition and Modernity: Cervantes’s Presence in Spanish Contemporary Literature. Her research interests continue to focus on the works of Cervantes, the novel and some cultural aspects of Golden Age Spain. Maureen Ramsden gained her PhD at Harvard, and taught at the universities of Saint Andrews, King’s College London, Rouen and Athens Georgia, before taking up her present post at the University of Hull. She works on the novel, both in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her published articles include work on Proust’s manuscripts and on the structure of A la recherche du temps perdu. She has also published on the interrelation of fact and fiction in modern French documentary works and expects to publish a monograph, entitled The Evolution of Proust’s ‘Combray’: A Genetic Study, in the near future.



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Contributors

Julie Rodgers has been Lecturer in the French Department of the National University of Ireland Maynooth since 2007. Her research interests lie in the domains of Francophone Women’s Writing, Quebec Literature and Migrant Writing and she has published articles on Francine Noël, Simone de Beauvoir, Gabrielle Roy, Ying Chen and Marie Darrieussecq. She was recently awarded a Faculty Enrichment Award by the Canadian Government which will allow her to spend a substantial period of time researching in Quebec. Patrick Saveau is Professor at Franklin College, Switzerland where he teaches in the Departments of French Studies and Literature and Culture. He has written extensively on Serge Doubrovsky and autofiction as a genre and in 2011 published Serge Doubrovsky ou l’écriture d’une survie. He is presently working on the representations of immigration in Francophone literature and film. Barbara M. Stone teaches French language and culture at the University of Otago, Dunedin. Her research concerns systems in Emile Zola’s Les Rougon-Macquart, and she has published articles on the education system in Zola’s rural and provincial novels and on aspects of the legal system, including the ideological exploitation of trials and Zola’s presentation of family law as seen through guardianship arrangements. The essay in this collection stems from work in progress on Zola’s provincial notaries. Juliet Wigmore was Senior Lecturer in German at the University of Salford until her recent retirement and her research focuses on women’s writing in Germany and Austria since 1970. She has published articles on Elfriede Jelinek, Elisabeth Reichart and Marlen Haushofer, as well as an edition of Peter Handke’s Wunschloses Unglück, which presents a biography of the author’s mother against the background of events of the twentieth century and her decline into old age. She also edited (with Ian Foster) Neighbours and Strangers. Literary and Cultural Relations in Germany, Austria and Central Europe since 1989 (2004).