Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Ma chère Lise by Vincent Almendros

2013; American Association of Teachers of French; Volume: 86; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/tfr.2013.0456

2329-7131

Nathalie Degroult, Warren Motte,

French Historical and Cultural Studies

establishment French intellectuals to work openly in collaboration with the Nazis” (160). As director of the BN, Faÿ “did whatever he could to achieve his personal and political aims without alienating the Nazi authorities” (162), up to and including allowing the removal of a number of pieces that are still in Germany. Will explains in meticulous detail that the members of the French right, including Faÿ, believed that the “decadence” of the Third Republic originated in “a transposable constellation of global adversaries: Freemasons, Jews, communists, liberals, Anglo-Saxons and foreigners in general (with the possible exception of Germans)” (84). In order to deflect criticism from Stein (who might otherwise be included among the aforementioned “global adversaries”) but especially to remain in her orbit, Faÿ declared his friend one of a “handful of ‘exceptional’ writers shoring up American culture in the face of its corrupt democratic ‘standardization,’ whose ‘imperial, genial, and sovereign’ style ‘might one day conquer the nation ’” (77). A fascinating study of the French elite during l’Entre-deux-guerres, Unlikely Collaboration reads at once as the anatomy of a friendship and as a cautionary tale showing “how deeply fascist and pro-fascist politics divided and severed human beings from one another, creating invidious, dehumanizing racial, national, and religious distinctions that would eventually result in the ‘death world’ of World War II” (191). University of Arkansas Kathy Comfort Creative Works edited by Nathalie Degroult ALMENDROS, VINCENT. Ma chère Lise. Paris: Minuit, 2011. ISBN 978-2-7073-2194-7. Pp. 157. 13,50 a. The appearance of a new author in the Minuit catalogue is always something to celebrate, and with this novel, his first, Almendros provides a convincing debut. The story he tells is one whose general outline many readers will recognize . The narrator, a twenty-five-year-old man, is a tutor. His tutee is Lise, a schoolgirl ten years his junior. The former falls in love with the latter, and vice versa, eventually. But she is no Lolita, and he no Humbert Humbert—and therein lies much of the narrative interest. Many things separate these individuals, initially at least, quite apart from their age difference. The narrator comes from a modest milieu; his parents live quite literally on the other side of the tracks, in Orange. Lise’s element is that of the haute bourgeoisie, and she enjoys all of the perks provided thereby: a chauffeur, houses in both town and country, vacations in exotic places (Zanzibar! Corumbau!), and, well, a private tutor. He broods, mostly about death, being of an age and of a natural disposition where such brooding gives significant pleasure to the brooder. Lise’s preoccupations are far less dark, however, and she is clearly more devoted to shopping than to questions of existence and non-existence. The narrator recognizes the attraction of taboo in his fascination for his charge: “Lise n’avait que quinze ans. Qu’elle fût mon élève ajoutait à l’interdit, augmentait ma honte et développait en moi la crainte d’un châtiment” (31). 592 FRENCH REVIEW 86.3 Readers may be astonished that no such punishment lurks here—or at least not of the ilk one might have suspected. For one thing, Lise’s parents, hip, mediasavvy businessman Jean Delabaere and his wife, Florence, are impossibly complaisants with regard to their daughter and her tutor, shooing them off to dirty weekends in the country with nary a raised eyebrow. Jean fancies himself an accomplished amateur etymologist, and he dares the narrator to equal him in deriving words, under the jaded glance of his daughter. Florence knows that the narrator has untutorly feelings for Lise, and she is absolutely, preternaturally okay with that. Even the grandmother is cool, for heaven’s sake. Is it any wonder that the narrator falls in love with all of them? It may strike us as inevitable nonetheless when he warns us, halfway through his tale, “La suite de l’histoire serait compliquée” (80), because by that time something has got to give. This narrator knows how to tell a story—that is beyond doubt. Yet in other undertakings he often finds himself unequal to the task before him. People...