The Living by Pascale Kramer (review)

Book Reviews181 nigger, ratonnade is transformed into the epithet rat (reflecting its origin, raton). The translators have made a fine novel fully accessible to readers ofEnglish. Brian ThompsonUniversity of Massachusetts Boston Kramer, Pascale. The Living. Trans. Tamsin Black. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2007. Pp 136. ISBN 978-0-8032-7823-3. $19.95 (Paper). Colleagues interested in analyzing and teaching texts that foreground the problems involved in the coping with and the narration of trauma will welcome the English translation ofthis novel by Swiss author Pascale Kramer. The Living (first published in French in 2000) is an apparently simple, yet deeply emotive novel whose terse, straightforward yet thought-provoking style of narration is well-rendered in English by translator Tamsin Black. When bored teenager Benoît's elder sister Louise arrives with her husband and children for a stay in their country house near the city of S., the reader gains insight into the young protagonist's fascination with his sister and the impenetrable psyche that allows her to live an incomprehensibly blissful family life. However, the nature ofthe family dynamic soon changes when Benoît has a hand in the accidental death of Louise's children. Unable to cope with their richer family from the south of the unnamed country in which this novel is based, Louise and her husband Vincent form a new, profoundly-troubled family unit with Benoît and his (and Louise's) mother. The narration oftheir dull, guiltridden , uncommunicative life after the death of the children constitutes the storyline of this novel, which is recounted from the viewpoint of the increasingly confused yet highly observant Benoît. Reflecting the inability of this unhappy new family unit to communicate with one another, the text contains no dialogue until its surprising ending, and the reportage of the few conversations that do take place between characters also lacks the drama that all seek to suppress at all costs. As Louise and Vincent struggle to cope with their loss, Benoît is confronted with a series ofpsychological issues. The challenge of empathy is perhaps the most poignant one that Benoît must face. Feeling guilty for having ruined his sister's life, Benoît is nevertheless condemned to carry on living with himself and with those most affected by the children's death: his increasingly depressed sister, her angry, frustrated and sometimes frightening husband, and their increasingly distant mother. In seeking to suppress his guilt, as well as the collective suppression of the memory of the incident, seventeenyear -old Benoît also suppresses his libidinal desires, the recurrence of which cause him greater frustration and isolation as the story progresses. Benoît's bildung is thus seriously affected by this trauma and repressive silence. The interactions between this work's characters are striking in that they provoke adjectives that could provide a glossary for terms associated with psychoanalysis. All characters are ironically united in an irreversible fear of 1 82Women in French Studies intimacy. Benoit's lack of a father figure is highlighted especially in his ambiguous relationship with his brother-in-law, who inspires both fear and admiration. His confused feelings of loathing and longing for Vincent are given a sensual, almost homo-erotic dimension by his voyeuristic witnessing of his brother-in-law having sex with his sister and then their Dutch neighbor, both of whom are objects of his erotic fascination. As the novel develops, Benoît wavers between his blood loyalty to his sibling and the loyalty brought about through his homosocial bonding with Vincent. By the end, it becomes possible that an unconscious sibling rivalry has been at play, as Benoît escapes the isolated, oppressive house with Vincent, stealing away with his sister's husband as he already has done with her children. Kramer's subtle style is conveyed in English most effectively by Tamsin Black. The use of prolepsis and the foreboding nature of Kramer's descriptive language remain intact in this translation. The Camus-like correlation between nature and human action (to which Kramer adds a third element in the mechanical) is reflected in the slow-motion descriptions ofthe long summer this family endures, and the monotonous lifestyle...