Fresh Water for Flowers
by Valérie Perrin
translated from the French by Hildegarde Serle
A review
Violette Toussaint is the caretaker of the cemetery
at Brancion-en-Chalon. She lives alone
in a small house on the cemetery grounds, a haven for visitors often racked by
grief, to whom Violette offers warmth, solace… and tea. Violette’s family are the pets she keeps and
her regular colleagues-of-sort – the three gravediggers, Nono, Gaston, and
Elvis; the three undertakers, Pierre,
Paul, and Jacques (also known as the Lucchini brothers) and Father Cédric Duras,
who officiates at most of the funerals in this largely Catholic area.
Violette is elegant, suave, sophisticated. But just as her dark “winter” coats often cover
colourful “summer” clothing, Violette has a hidden history which has led her, via
several winding roads, to this little village in Bourgogne. We learn that Violette has reinvented
herself, setting off from a childhood in fostering and surviving a painful marriage
before settling down as the lady of the cemetery.
The narration, largely in the likeable voice of
Violette, alternates between her present experiences and her past life. But then matters start becoming complicated. One
day, a police officer named Julien Seul, turns up at Violette’s door. His
mother has left instructions that her ashes be laid on the tomb of a
distinguished lawyer in the cemetery, revealing, after her death, a passionate clandestine
affair. Violette helps Julien to come to
terms with this discovery. But Julien’s arrival
on the scene also rakes up a tragic mystery – the grief-shaped core of Violette’s
past.
Antonio D’Orrico, writing in Il Corriere
della Sera described Fresh Water for Flowers as the “most beautiful
novel in the world”. I am generally
loath to heap such unreserved praise on any book, because I’m aware how much
depends on the reader’s taste. But I
came across a particular passage in this book which sums up what I felt when I finished
the novel:
I close Irène’s journal with a heavy heart. The
way one closes a novel one has fallen in love with. A novel that’s a friend
from whom it’s hard to part, because one wants it close by, in arm’s reach.
To me, Fresh Water for Flowers is one of
those novels. It’s too early to say whether it will prove to be a memorable one
and it might soon be replaced in my fickle affections. But, at least for its
duration, it made me want to return to its fictional world and ensconce myself
between its pages. The various narrative strands, including the
rather unexpected introduction of a “mystery story” element around half the way
through, engaged my interest. But
what I possibly found more engaging is the style, the surprisingly effective mix
of pathos and humour, tragedy and hope, laced with more than a dose of romance. The titles of each of the short chapters, evidently
inspired by funerary epigraphs, more often than not provide an oblique
commentary on the content of the chapter.
Perrin is a screenwriter and I can easily
imagine the novel and its witty dialogue being turned into a quintessentially
French movie, with a central character played by Juliette Binoche or Audrey Tautou,
and a supporting cast of bantering, quirky characters. The book
even suggests its own soundtrack, with various references to French songs and
occasional snatches of Bach and Chopin.
It is, in fact, a very “sensual” novel, not just in the sense of being about
passion, but because of its assault on the senses – its passages are rich in
colours, sounds, flavours, fragrances.
This marks Valérie Perrin’s English debut.
Hildegarde Serle deserves praise for her translation, which reads effortlessly
and musically, and makes one forget that the novel was originally in a very different
language.
Kindle Edition, 400 pages
Expected publication: July 7th 2020 by Europa Editions
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