La guerre amoureuse par Jean-Marie Rouart (review)

ROUART, JEAN-MARIE. La guerre amoureuse. Paris: Gallimard, 2011. ISBN 978-2-07013104 -4. Pp. 244. 18 a. A literary and art critic delivers a presentation at a college near Helsinki. His conference is met with polite defiance with the exception of a one half-Russian student by the name of Helena. Jean-Marie Rouart immediately establishes an atmosphere of absolute purity, clarity, and tranquility which bores the protagonist to the brink of death. Helena will be the narrator’s “pathetic fallacy”: “La vie revenait comme la sève qui fait reverdir un bois mort. J’étais réconcilié avec moim ême. J’étais amoureux” (40). The protagonist’s meeting with a marabout from Tchad—or is it an apparition?—enhances his desire to fulfill his destiny with Helena, even though warned of the catastrophic outcome. Nearly every image utilized by Rouart involves water, its power and its ambiguity. His writing flows like poetry, and the writers and artists he draws inspiration from reflect sentiments in his character’s own life, from Constant to Fromentin, for, as we learn, the tragic flaw of the narrator is not being able to write creatively himself. Thus, he feels himself denied of genuine love, the love of oneself for whom one really is. While entering the relationship with Helena, the narrator is unaware of the maelstrom he is sucked into. He muses on the decency and virtue of this young lady, so very different from the lustful and lascivious Finnish blonds he sees around him. After their one-night-stand however, he cannot forget her torrid passion, and he revisits his memory of her in the torrential Paris summer rain: Le souvenir d’Helena me revenait d’une manière indirecte. D’abord dans l’appétit que je retrouvais pour la vie. Elle m’avait réveillé d’une sorte de somnolence [...] Elle me redonnait de l’intérêt pour les choses, du goût pour les saveurs, le désir d’en humer les parfums. (73) His obsession begins, and with it, his fall, as he tries to reconnect with her, to no avail. The elusive Helena suddenly arrives in Paris. She and the narrator pick up where they left off, but in his attempt to spice things up with erotic objects and enhancements, he finds her repelled. Her reference to their difference in age does not help either. However, because of the age issue, he feels safe taking her to a dinner celebrating Molnar, a satyr-like elderly artist from her motherland, who will be featured in the next issue of the magazine he directs. This dinner becomes the catalyst of events leading to the protagonist’s jealousy, lack of confidence, paranoia, and more. Helena is not what she seems. The narrator, Helena, her fiancé, and Molnar are caught in a web of intrigue from which the narrator may not exit in one piece. He is warned on three occasions that Helena is not his destiny : “Bizarrement, je n’étais pas satisfait: je souffrais de ne plus souffrir. J’avais mal de ne plus avoir mal. Une sorte de vide” (210). When such an ardent passion dies, the world can seem without a pulse, colorless and dry. The narrator can only achieve happiness and peace with Helena in the death of one of them. In this short tempestuous novel by Rouart, all of the emotions of love pass fleetingly. Is love masochism? Is it hurt? Is it exaltation? Is it substance? Is love a war we are all doomed to lose? Is it flying to the heights and then descending precipitously with no net? Obviously, love is all of the above. Rouart’s novel is fluid, visual, and exquisitely written. Each word and reference counts. It is the tale of how most of us rather ordinary individuals have no idea how to hold on to someone/ 796 FRENCH REVIEW 85.4 something wonderful, and how we often sabotage the happiness we have: no matter. We are here for but a small stay, so how does any of it actually impact us? Millburn H.S. (NJ), emerita Davida Brautman VÉDRINES, JEAN. La belle étoile. Paris: Fayard, 2010. ISBN 978...