La réparation by Colombe Schneck (review)

Schmitt, Chloé. Les affreux. Paris: Albin Michel, 2012. ISBN 978-2-226-24299-0. Pp. 189. 16 a. Schmitt portrays in her first novel a world replete with repulsive lowlifes, including the first-person protagonist, Alfonse Maubard, a forty-year-old man rendered paraplegic by a stroke. Apart from Annabelle, one of Maubard’s caretakers, the characters in this short novel are all driven by self-interest and money. Their personal and professional failures parallel the failures of social institutions like healthcare, family, and marriage and highlight important issues surrounding the rights and protections of the disabled. With the exception of Annabelle, the rest of the cast revels in coarse language and louche behavior. The author successfully deploys a choppy syntax that underscores their rough and oppressive milieu and presents the dialogues and the protagonist’s stream of thought in terse, unembellished argot strung together by ellipses. But this uncensored vernacular, recognizable as contemporary speech from a low-income urban environment or banlieue, contradicts Schmitt’s explicit statement in the“avertissement”at the beginning of the novel that the protagonist is“né quelque part dans un siècle mou” (8). In addition to such inconsistencies, there are some disappointments regarding character development. The protagonist, whose stroke opens the pages of the book, systematically reaffirms thoughts that he had acknowledged before becoming incapacitated: that he should have left his wife; that he loved his mistress; that he hated his horrible brother. It is not clear how his disabling stroke changed Maubard or his relationships, or what significance it had for him besides rendering him weak and dependent on the very people whom he despised. Schmitt’s forte is painting a gritty and violent world that stands in stark contrast to the helpless and physically motionless protagonist. Maubard, who is mentally still part of that world but no longer able to physically participate in it, highlights the precariousness of human existence. Also making up for a less developed psychological perspective is Schmitt’s brisk narrative style, which propels the plot and produces at times an animated page-turner, suggesting a promising career for the twenty-one-year-old author. Annabelle, whose decency and humanity wins the affections of the mute protagonist , is also one of the novel’s highlights. Finding solace in her art and in caring for Maubard, she redeems the book from an excessively pessimistic view of humanity based on an array of stereotypical characters. East Carolina University Marylaura Papalas Schneck, Colombe. La réparation. Paris: Grasset, 2012. ISBN 978-2-246-78894-2. Pp. 218. 17 a. Qu’écrire quand la mémoire a été niée, les souvenirs recouverts par soixante ans de silences, quand le secret, dit dans une langue inconnue, n’a pas été transmis? 282 FRENCH REVIEW 87.1 Reviews 283 Comment écrire sur la Shoah quand on a grandi dans l’atmosphère privilégiée racontée dans Val de Grâce (FR 83.3), qu’on affectionne les bains dans la Méditerranée, qu’on vit dans le seizième arrondissement de Paris? C’est pourtant ce qu’accomplit Colombe Schneck dans La réparation, roman vrai, recherche d’un passé perdu dans la nuit nazie et les brouillards de la Lituanie. Tout serait parti d’une phrase anodine de sa mère, Hélène, alors que Schneck attend son premier enfant: “Si tu as une fille, tu pourrais lui donner en deuxième prénom Salomé? C’était celui de ma cousine dont il ne reste rien”(11). Schneck nommera son deuxième enfant Salomé, nom-réparation; elle surnomme son fils Bubbi, comme Kalman le cousin dont il ne reste rien non plus. Les deux enfants sont morts gazés, avec leur grand-mère Mary. L’histoire débute en Lituanie où sont nés la grand-mère Ginda et ses sœurs Raya et Macha. Malgré les invasions, les pogroms au dix-neuvième siècle, la vie y est “bonne”, l’antisémitisme “discret” (24). En août 1941, la famille (sauf Ginda, installée en France) déménage dans le ghetto de Kovno (Kaunas), échappe à une première Aktion en 1941 o...