A sunday in Ville-d-Avray by Dominique Barberis
French fiction
Original title – Un Dimanche á Vile-d’Avray
Translator – John Cullen
Sources -Personal copy
This book is another holiday buy, but this time it was last year’s trip to Northumberland I brought this book. I think I may have seen Jacqui mention it 9feels like a book she would love to me ). So I got it. I have seen several excellent books in translation in the last couple of years from Daunt books. Dominique Barberis was born in Cameroon as her father was a diplomat. She studied at the Sorbonne, then went on to teach, had a job in insurance and then became a professor of foreign languages. She has published several Literary studies books as well as eight novels. This was her latest novel and focused on the relationship between two sisters.
I believe my sister stayed under the spell of that literary love affair for a long time, while I, younger but clearly more practical-minded, developed a crush on my first-year Latin teacher, Monsieur Jumeau (Bernard Jumeau). My grades climbed up to the heights. I knew my declensions by heart. I worked hard to dazzle him. Things went so far that predictions for my future employment shifted from cashier to Latinist or archivist-palaeographer – which had been Monsieur lumeau’s first vocation and fondest dream; he told us about it in the course of a gathering in the faculty room. Blushing and modest, I stood between my parents the whole time. I was twelve.He suggested the same future for me, a suggestion I took as a declaration of reciprocal love and a discreet way of making our engagement official.
Her sister feel in loove with books when they were younger.
The book is about two sisters who, as kids, were close, but as often happens when we grow, the distance comes between us, and time flies, so we meet Jane. She tells us about her other half, Luc, and how he hates going to the sister who is married to a doctor, and they live in Ville-d -avary one of these posh commuter towns on the very edge of Pasris as she says it seems hard to get there, but it isn’t it is just fact the two sisters now live in different worlds than they once did. So when Jane heads out one Sunday to meet her sister, Claire Marie, she hasn’t; let her know she is turning up as she feels her sister knows how to press her buttons. (doesn’t every sibling know this !!) So when they talk, and an odd comment about Jane is happy in her life leaves her wondering and then she finds out about a connection her sister has made to a mysterious man she has just told her about many years earlier that offered her a lift one day. Marc Herman, he is a man of mystery and the two connect, and she meets him again and again. But also, the area is seeing things happen at the same time odd men hanging around, crime. Added to this her sister as a child was obsessed with Rochester from Jane Eyre as a child for a really long time. Who is Marc? He said he knew her from her husband, but does he?
Then may I drop you off?
They went back to his car, chatting as they walked, and after a detour found themselves pleasantly strolling the streets in the vicinity of the Chaville train station.’Let’s just say goodbye here,’ my sister said, all of a sudden. ‘It’s much simpler. You needn’t trouble yourself. It’s late, and mine is the very next stop. I’ll take the train.’
But Marc Hermann didn’t look like a man in a hurry. He protested: ‘But why? Don’t go yet.’ She stayed. She wondered how she’d be able to get away from him. Would she have to thrust out her hand?
When she meet the mystreious Marc Hreman he is almost a Modiano character
This is a book that captures that commuter life well but also how it can have a dark underbelly and that shimmering tension that there can be between sisters. I was reminded of Simenon or Modiano, both of which do tension. Both also show that often there is darkness and other things just under the surface no matter how perfect the streets are, and this is that sort of town perfection but with a little crack little piece of darkness and this shows a little of them but also the sibling connection it is a modern sibling story were sisters are more distant than they used to be. Desire and jealousy are here just below the surface, also lost loves. Have you read any of the recent books from Daunt books which one shall I try next?
Winston’s score – B – just below the surfaces simmer a lot between the sisters but also where she lives
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