Every year, as part of Paris in July, I try to read a book by a French author. I should say, I try to read a book by a French author other than Antoine Laurain because I also read his books as a matter of course. I am not sure when this book crossed my path, but I have been saving it since I bought it to read for Paris in July. This book was a big hit in France and Italy, especially during the lockdown years.
This central character of this story is Violette Toussaint. When we meet Violette she is working as the cemetery keeper, which comes with a small house where she welcomes visitors, keeps records of all the burials, cares for the numerous cemetery cats and where she has her beautiful garden.
Through a series of flashbacks we learn more about Violette's past. She was abandoned by her mother at birth and raised in the foster system where she learned that "girls in care are happy with very little", a mantra she has carried into her adult life. She left school but had received very little in the way of education, teaching herself to read by reading The Cider House Rules by John Irving over and over and over.
She met handsome Philippe Toussaint when she was very young and working in a bar, and quickly moved in with him. Their relationship was very much built on physical attraction. Philippe was very lucky to have Violette. She worked incredibly hard while he spent his time going on rides on his motorcycle for hours at a time, picking up other women and playing computer games.
Before she become the cemetery keeper, Violette and Philippe were employed as crossing keepers in a small town. Their job was to ensure that the level crossing gates were closed before each and every train came through. Violette in effect lived her life between each train. Once she moved to the cemetery she was still opening and closing gates, but only in the mornings and evenings, and in the mean time she builds her world through her friendships with the gravediggers, one of who is named Elvis, with the local priest who has a conflicted mind about one particular issue and how it pertains to his calling.
One day her equilibrium is disturbed when a man called Julien Seul turns up at the cemetery. His mother Irene has given instructions for her ashes to be kept at the grave of a man called Gabriel Prudent, and he has no idea why. Violette helps Julien to put his mother's story together. In turn, he uses his role as a policeman to try and push Violette to making some changes in her life.
This was a very interesting book to read. Structurally, it is a bit all over the place. We get to hear Violette's story, but it is also interspersed with flashbacks. We then get Julien's story and his mothers story of her volatile love for the man whose grave she wishes to share. We also learn something of many of the people who are buried in the cemetery and occasionally we get Philippe's story as well.
When I watch French film I often think that one of the strengths is that there is a variety of elements in the film. For example, even if a film is a comedy it will still have a section of sadness or despair or mystery. This book is like that. It would be easy to look at Violette and think that she had a terrible life but in a way she is an apparently simple character with a very complex story to be told. She is also a woman who has learned how to find joy, even if it is by wearing a bright pink dress hidden under her grey coat. She is very content in her role and has built a close community around her and knows who she is.
There is also something of a mystery in the book. There is a major event which completely changes Violette's life. As I was reading I could feel the foreboding building, but I didn't know exactly why. And when it did happen, it was heartbreaking. Afterwards, both Violette and Philippe try to figure out what exactly happened, but separately, emphasising how much their relationship is flawed.
I loved that each chapter starts with a epitaph that might be left on someone's grave. Many of them are really lovely. There are so many examples throughout the book so here are just two.
If a flower grew every time I thought of you, the earth would be one massive garden
What do you expect will become of me if I no longer hear your step, it is your life or mine that's going. I don't know.
There are also some really beautiful passages throughout the book. For example, this passage which shows the pride Violette takes in her stewardship of the cemetery.
In April, I put ladybird larvae on my rosebushes, and on those of the deceased, to combat greenfly. I'm the one who places the ladybirds, one by one, with a little paintbrush, on the plants. It's as though I repainted my garden in the spring. As if I planted stairways between earth and sky. I don't believe in phantoms or ghosts, but I do believe in ladybirds.
If I think about how I would sum this book up I would say that it is probably overly long and a bit too complicated with many characters and storylines. Ultimately though, it is an unusual and beautiful book about hope and despair, life and death and love that is built around a really fascinating main character. I would read another book by this author in the future.
I am sharing this review with Paris In July hosted by Words and Peace and the Books in Translation challenge hosted at The Introverted Reader. At 483 pages, this book also counts as a Big Book of Summer
Rating 4/5
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