Personally
I can’t think of a better way to kick off Women In Translation Month than
having a look at a “lost” winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
(“IFFP”). Earlier this year it was discovered that the IFFP had “forgotten” the
2001 winner, the award was in abeyance from 1996-2000 inclusive and with a
resurgent interest in translated literature the profile of the prize has seemed
to increase over the years. However you will still find numerous references to
Jenny Erpenbeck being the first female winner of the award (this year for her
novel “The End Of Days” translated by Susan Bernofsky), and articles written
prior to this year mentioning no female winners in the history. This
“omission”, or slip, was corrected at the BookTrust site earlier this year, and
I personally updated Wikipedia to give Marta Morazzoni and translator Emma Rose
some kudos, how little that may be. As a side note, although the profile may
have increased the award itself is no longer, having “merged” with the Man
Booker International Prize, that award itself changing the rules to appear more
relevant, but in fact just replicating the IFFP award itself, the same award a
new name, and let’s hope an even greater profile.
Back
to the 2001 Award winner though. to actually think that an award winner only
fourteen years ago could go missing flabbergasted myself, however when I think
that translated fiction is only the fringe of the massive publishing industry
and add to that the winner being a woman and I suppose it is not that
surprising.
But I’m
not here to debate the missing, the award, the place of literature in
translation so onto the book itself, “The Alphonse Courrier Affair”. It opens
during 1917, towards the end of World War One, in a small village of Auvergne,
where we are introduced to the measured and calculating man Alphonse Courrier,
the successful local ironmonger:
He was
peerless at his trade. Not even the most expert Parisian ironmonger could have
equalled him. His skill consisted in giving the impression he cared nothing for
sales and still less for money, which he would place almost absentmindedly in
the till. He never counted it in front of his customers, but you could see he
enjoyed his work and that his satisfaction lay in being able to provide
anything you could possibly ask for. He had conceived of the business many
years before, when nothing of the sort existed in the village, and the locals
didn’t even believe it was needed.
However
it is not only in business where Alphonse is canny, he takes the same
calculated approach to all things in his life, selecting a bride, raising
children, his relationships whilst still a bachelor, even his extra-marital
affairs, our novel is an in-depth character development of Alphonse, one that
slides back in time to the year 1900 and the events leading up to his “success”
With
the language and style of an oral tale, one being told deep into the night in a
village inn, our anonymous narrator puts forward all the facts, as though
observed, whilst obviously not being present. There are examples of our
narrator digressing, repeating parts and saying “but I’ve explained that
before” or saying “but that is all irrelevant to our tale” or words to that
effect. This tool draws you in as a “listener” not simply a reader, a wonderful
skill to use when presenting the story of village gossip and innuendo; you are
implicit in the tale itself. Not only using these techniques there are also
allusions to the craft of writing, storytelling:
In
literature, everything has already been written. There is no situation which
has not been dealt with, read and filed away. Quotations abound; stories recur.
The same goes for History itself. The lives of, if not the first man, certainly
the first hundred, would be enough to contain nearly every existence which,
over the centuries, individuals have believed they were living out for the very
first time. Luckily historical memory is barely sufficient to cover the great
events, and ignores the small ones altogether, leaving the illusion, each time
something happens, that nobody has ever experienced such a thing – good or bad
– before. Not like this, anyway. And in those two words: like this, the whole
of human life is written.
Our
protagonist Alphonse Courrier, marries and with village gossip focusing on his
mother with locals pushing her for information about impending grandchildren,
she dies; the three days leading up to her funeral a hive of village activity
where the circle of players interactions are observed:
His wife
was behaving with an ease, a naturalness which could only be envied and
admired. When – in an early afternoon break from visitors, just after the
kitchen table had been cleared of lunch – Alphonse heard, or thought he heard,
his wife humming a tune (a melancholy tune, to be sure, but a tune
nevertheless), he lost all doubt that, not only was Agnès feeling no sorrow
(which was fair enough), but she was actually brimming with a quiet joy. Women
like her do not go in for loud outbursts or extreme shows of emotion. They
manage their internal lives as they would the Marquis of Jocelyn’s castle, if
asked to: in an ordered and efficient manner. They polish their minds like the
family silver. Now that the power was passing into her hands, Madame Alphonse
Courrier was preparing herself with moderation and discipline for her
forthcoming enthronement.
The
village scandal involves a range of symbolic and one would think insignificant
events, a red dress, a wedding ring falling onto the stone floor of the church,
and throughout we have Alphonse calculating the impact, musing with his close
friend the vet from a nearby village as well as carrying on an illicit meeting
with the ugliest girl in the village.
We
know very early on that this novel contains a scandal of some sort; in fact the
opening sentence “In the year 1917 the Courrier affair erupted quite without
warning into the consciousness of a village in the Auvergne.”, so as a reader
we are piling up all the facts and simply wondering which of the threads is
going to be the explosive wick?
A
wonderfully deft novel, capturing both the time, the restrictions of a small
village, the scandal, this is a very enjoyable work of character development
balanced with tension and reality. It is a pity it had been moved to the
dustbin of history and deserves to be acknowledged for the craft it is, and as
the first female winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. I purchased
my copy on-line through the Book Depository, and although an edition published
in 2001 it is still available. Whilst not deluding myself as to the influence
of my blog, there are a few others who will be looking at Morazzoni’s work this
month so, maybe resurgence in Marta Morazzoni is a worthwhile outcome, and from
this novel alone, I can suggest she is a writer who should be explored further.
1 comment:
It sounds a good one :) I actually tried to get this on an inter-library loan, but the lending library service wouldn't give it me (not the first time this has happened...).
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