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and mud, the wind and farm animals. She is “tu,” nameless, and in search of inner peace: “Tu écris pour ne pas hurler de solitude, tu écris pour ne pas devenir folle à force de tourner dans la ville sans personne avec qui entrer dans les tavernes tapageuses” (24). She camps out in barns and fields, forests, and along canals. Her images are of the ugly, and are often self-punishing. Her narrative resembles a series of diary entries, and yet, at the same time, is somewhat poetic. Her descriptions include the odors of rancid oil, manure and diesel fuel; her encounters include the old, the weary, and the downtrodden. In two of the villages where she stops, she copies the entire lists of the war veterans of World War I. Her diet consists of sausage and beer, and the occasional coffee. Her vocabulary involves words of darkness, humidity, death, and despair: “Dorée comme une mirabelle, tu aimes la tristesse mélancolique de la pluie. Ta tente pue le lait de vache”(46). Her shoes (and feet) are in ruins. She mentions countless bars, small places where the name would be easily forgettable; she talks of all those who fill her water canteen, and just how hard it is to set up her tent, and bear up under the myriad insects on her path. She is often asked if she fears being alone at night. Her writing appears choppy and disconnected. She relishes in sentence fragments: “Pluie, cèpes et girolles, la mousse commande. Une tique, des framboises, des chevreuils”(60). The stories she hears are often sadder than her own. But just what is her tale? What pushes her to wander? Finally, in the third part of her book, written two years after the first two, we see the narrator as a pilgrim on El Camino, made famous in Emilio Estevez’s film The Way (2010). This part is the most revelatory: she hikes to move past the loss of a loved one.She makes contact with other pilgrims,trying to acclimate to her sorrow:“Faut-il parvenir à se perdre pour retrouver son chemin?” (79). It would seem she is unable to accept this death. Cheryl Strayed’s recent Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (novel and film), parallels Mazabrard’s experience, but Wild is more vivid and more potent. Although there are some images worthy of retention, on the whole Mazabrard’s effort is more of an attempt at resolution of her personal pain than as a general reference, and her narration is cut into too many fragments to be read smoothly. Santa Rosa Alliance Française (CA) Davida Brautman Mingarelli, Hubert. La route de Beit Zera. Paris: Stock, 2015. ISBN 978-2-23407810 -0. Pp. 157. 16 a. Sans repères temporels spécifiques mais situé, doit-on le comprendre, à l’époque contemporaine et à proximité du lac Tibériade en Israël, ce récit dominé par le thème de la réconciliation se déroule dans un territoire où maintes divisions séparent les communautés. Pourtant de cela il n’est pas explicitement question. Un certain Stépan, homme solitaire, vit de peu de choses dans ce milieu rural. Père sans âge précis mais certainement vieillissant, il fait face à un dilemme: doit-il abattre sa chienne malade 274 FRENCH REVIEW 89.3 Reviews 275 et faible? Elle souffre plus qu’elle ne vit. Mais, surtout, Stépan doit-il la supprimer avant l’arrivée d’Amghar, le garçon taciturne qui semble s’être épris d’amitié pour la bête? Le narrateur fait face à ce dilemme aux deux extrémités d’un récit construit autour d’un grand retour en arrière. Ces deux moments dans le présent de la narration encadrent la plupart du récit qui consiste en la reconstruction en analepse de la manière dont Stépan est parvenu à cette décision de vie et de mort, et surtout à cette grande solitude de toute évidence douloureuse. Sur cinquante-sept chapitres nonnum érotés se déroule le passé de Stépan: il a eu autrefois un fils chéri...

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