Ms. Hen reviews THE BASTARD

THE BASTARD

Violette Leduc

Dalkey Editions

2003 Original publication 1964

Translated by Derek Coltman

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she saw the film VIOLETTE, and was intrigued by the story of Violette Leduc and her tumultuous life. Ms. Hen read a collection of short stories by Simone De Beauviour recently for the same reason.

THE BASTARD is about Violette Leduc and her experience growing up as a bastard, an illegitimate child of a servant and the master’s son. Leduc was born in 1907. Her mother is marked because she had a child out of wedlock. She takes her child to live with her mother, and the grandmother dotes on the child and spoils her until she dies. Leduc said that her grandmother’s death frees her, since she could not hide in her apron ever again.

Ms. Hen was enthralled by THE BASTARD.  It’s not because there are dozens of chickens and hens scattered all throughout the pages. It’s because the writing has a dense beauty to it; the writing is heavy with words, and the descriptions of things are so unique and desperate that Ms. Hen has never read anything quite like it recently.

When she meets her stepfather, Violettte greets him, and he brushes her aside, and she writes, “I turned to ice for thirty years.” Her mother works hard when she marries the stepfather; she wanted to prove to him that she could be a good wife. Violette is sent to boarding school.

Ms. Hen thought THE BASTARD might be considered to be like Proust, but with some well written lesbian love scenes. She wrote, “A caress is to a shudder what twilight is to a lightening flash.” Violette has a love affair with her schoolmate Isabelle, and after that a teacher at the school, Hermine. A student reports them and Violette is expelled, and Hermine fired.

Violette has affairs with men as well. She has a long relationship with Hermine, until one day Hermine leaves. Violette had worked at a publishing company, but she quit, so she could stay at home. After Hermine leaves Violette gets a job as a secretary and meets Gabriel, her old friend again, and eventually marries him.

Throughout the book, Violette likes to pick flowers. She picks them illegally, from parks, and houses, and she picks them in the forests and the fields. Ms. Hen thinks this is because Violette is looking for her own flower, and since her name is Violette.

Violette leaves Paris during World War II with Maurice Sachs to go to the Normandy. This is when he encourages her to write, and she starts. He gives her an exercise book and tells her to sit under an apple tree. She becomes successful in the black market trade. She mails food from the country where it is plentiful to Paris where people are hungry. This amazed Ms. Hen. She didn’t think people could send food in the mail without it spoiling, But there are ways for everything when people are hungry, for food and money.

Ms. Hen was dazzled by THE BASTARD. The book is a dense read, Ms. Hen found that it took her a long time to finish it, since she had to take breaks and come up for air every now and then. It isn’t often that a novel gets under Ms. Hen’s skin and infects her, but this one did. She highly recommends this novel, but to the reader, be prepared to experience Violette Leduc’s heartbreak firsthand. THE BASTARD is not for the weak.