Le Triangle d'hiver by Julia Deck

Abstract

. . . who will greet me with cries of hate). Meursault will be executed, but Haroun will be condemned to wander. Meursault, contre-enquête was awarded the Prix François Mauriac. It is a fine examination of the relationship between independent Algeria and France and has received much critical praise. Adele King Paris Julia Deck. Le Triangle d’hiver. Paris. Minuit. 2014. isbn 9782707323996 Second novels are often where literary careers are made or, on the contrary, where they founder. Julia Deck’s second novel for Éditions de Minuit amply fulfills the rich promise of her first book, Viviane Élisabeth Fauville (2014), and puts on display an impressive lightness of touch and a narrative confidence that is certain to please. That latter quality serves Deck particularly well, for the story she tells here contains more than a few twists. The first person we meet is a young woman identified only as “Mademoiselle.” Having no real achievements to her credit, and still less ambition, she finds herself in constricted circumstances and decides that she must make a change: henceforth, she will present herself to the world as the novelist “Bérénice Beaurivage.” It is an identity that demands more and more upkeep the longer she maintains it. Sooner or later, one expects a novelist to write something, whether good, bad, or indifferent; and “Mademoiselle” will grapple unequally with that problem. When she meets and seduces the “Inspecteur,” one might imagine that her circumstances will improve. And indeed they do for a moment, until the journalist Blandine Lenoir imposes her troubling—and triangulating—presence. Quirky and pleasing geometries of various kinds animate this novel, in which things are constantly in flux and appearances are in some ways more reliable than realities. The action moves from Le Havre to Saint-Nazaire, to Marseille, to Paris, and back again to Le Havre. One follows the characters in their peripatetics with assurance , until it becomes clear that they are not the people one understood them to be. The correspondences and personal reciprocities that prevail among them are highly contingent , and the terms upon which they rest can be recast in the blink of an eye. Even the most attentive of readers is likely to be nonplussed at some point in this novel. But that sort of narrative sleight of hand is part of the fun, of course; and like any successful feat of prestidigitation, it relies on our willingness to be fooled. Warren Motte University of Colorado Dominique Eddé. Kamal Jann. Ros Schwartz, tr. London. Seagull Books (University of Chicago Press, distr.). 2014. isbn 9780857421647 The only fully functioning police state I have had personal experience with is Syria, which I visited twice in the 1980s, when Bashar al-Assad’s father was in charge. I was told before I went by someone in a position to know that the minimum penalty in Syria for even a mild political transgression would be a good beating at the hands of what the translator of Eddé’s gripping novel, first published in Paris in 2012, renders as “the Mukhabarat” (i.e., the General Intelligence Department), “the most feared intelligence service in the Arab world,” as the wife of Sayf Eddine Jann, its director, refers to it. Much has happened in Syria and the Middle East since the eighties. But from Kamal Jann’s opening paragraphs we are aware that great brutality, deceit, and constant jockeying for power remain the warp and woof of the Syria, and the wider world, depicted in its pages. A vigorously Syl Cheney-Coker Sacred River Ohio University Press Syl Cheny-Coker’s beautifully written book explores life in a fictional West African country in all its pain, spirituality, and glory. The poetic lilt of the sentences combined with intertwining stories of suffering, hope, and historical allusions make for a breathtaking and thought-provoking read. Paul Celan Breathturn into Timestead Pierre Joris, tr. Farrar, Straus and Giroux Those who contend that Paul Celan’s reinvention of poetry is untranslatable will be pleasantly surprised by Pierre Joris’s extensive translations of and commentary on his work. This hefty bilingual edition showcases a sophisticated writing style possible only after the poet’s turn from traditional...